GAME MODDING AND TES: NEW WAY TO DESIGN VIRTUAL WORLDS Instr. Barbaros Bostan Informatics Systems and Technologies Department, Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey bbostan@yeditepe.edu.tr Introduction: Computer games are not a new phenomenon but the concept of a game is difficult to describe. A dictionary defines a "game" as ‘a contest with rules to determine a winner’ 1 and the term ‘computer game’, is used to cover all types of digital games. There are various computer systems, which provide digital games, such as PC, Playstation, Xbox, Mac, GameBoy, and the like. A computer system has three roles in a game 2 . It coordinates the game process, illustrates the situation and participates as a player. Computer games are classified according to their genres. There are five basic genres taken into account: action games, adventure games, role playing games (RPG’s), simulation games and strategy games. All genres aim to provide the user an interactive experience coupled with the freedom to think and act. Two important criteria referring to the freedom of the player in the virtual world are interactivity and openness. Interactivity refers to the frequency of the player’s interactions with this world and openness refers to the range of different interactions offered by the game 3 . Supported by the story, settings and combat systems of tabletop role-playing games, RPG’s provide interesting interactivity and openness opportunities to players. One of the most distinctive attribute of role playing games is the character creation process. This process offers the player the chance to play a customized character in an interactive virtual world. The player selects his race, gender, age, class and defines his attributes and skills. The attributes often refer to the physical and mental properties of humankind such as strength, intelligence, charisma, dexterity, constitution and wisdom. The skills are necessary for realistic interactions with the virtual world. Some of these skills are thieving, bargaining, persuasion, swordmastery and etc. The player explores the virtual world, goes on quests, fights enemies, buys and sells equipment, and develops his skills and attributes. Most games now come with toolsets or construction sets, which allow users to create new gaming environments that may be added to the original game and shared amongst gamers. These custom modifications, or mods, customize the gaming environment in different ways. Mods increase the lifespan of a game title and marketing of some games relies heavily on gamer created content 4 . These tools are either included with each copy of the game or downloadable from the developer’s website. There is an increasing popularity of mod-creation tools in the RPG genre 5 , indicating the importance of fan participation in videogame production. Games such as The Elder Scrolls III Morrowind 6 and Neverwinter Nights 7 provide mod creation software to their players. An interesting toolset is the TES Construction Set provided with the role playing game, Morrowind. There are thousands of mods created by the fans of the game, which can be downloaded from the Internet. According to Aarseth 8 , there are three ways to acquire knowledge about any game. Firstly, the researcher can get information from the designers of the game. Secondly, the researcher can observe others while they play the game. And finally, the researcher can play the game himself. The best way to acquire information about a game is to experience the game personally. I have played and finished the games, Neverwinter Nights and Morrowind. Both games offer a mod creation tool. I have used these tools to create my own virtual worlds. I have played and tested many user created mods created by the fans of these games. From my point of view I think, the mod creation tool of Morrowind, TES, offers a more professional and user-friendly way to create a virtual world by yourself.