The Elder Scrolls Online

The award winning, massively multiplayer online role-playing game

The Elder Scrolls Online is a AAA quality MMORPG available on Mac, PC, PlayStation and Xbox that has welcomed over 20 million players ever since its initial, world-wide launch on April 4th, 2014.

For the latest chapter in my 20+ year career as a Software Engineer, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to join Zenimax Online Studios and Microsoft XBOX to help develop the ever expanding world of The Elder Scrolls Online.

As a Senior UI Engineer and a member of the User Interface engineering team, I helped deliver new gameplay systems, built revenue generating store fronts and season passes, and created dozens of the traditional and diegetic elements of the game's user interface - all of which was built upon a custom framework written using a combination of C++ and Lua.

Below are a few examples of some of the projects that I worked on at Zenimax Online Studios...

Home Tours

The Player Housing system in The Elder Scrolls Online offers players an enormous library of furnishings, high precision design tools and the option to purchase hundreds of different houses. When the Player Housing system was introduced the options for sharing your homes with other players were quite limited. Without that social aspect, players had little incentive to engage with the system.

Before joining Zenimax Online Studios, I was an avid ESO player and a mod author. The most notable of these mods, Essential Housing Tools, is arguably the most popular Player Housing mod for The Elder Scrolls Online. Included in that mod is a feature that I called the Housing Hub - a central place where all ESO players can publish their own homes, find and visit other players' homes, and give feedback to those creators. In short, I wanted to address the missing incentives for players to engage with Player Housing in ESO.

After joining Zenimax, I was able to partner with Game Director Rich Lambert, Senior System Designer Cullen Lee and a truly fantastic team of developers to help bring a version of my Housing Hub to The Elder Scrolls Online through the introduction of a new system that we called Home Tours.

Technologies

C++
Lua
MySQL
RabbitMQ
Redis
XML

Architecture

Distinct, clustered gameplay and data access layers communicating through RabbitMQ.
Redis caching for improved search and authorization query performance.

Product Development

After joining Zenimax, I prototyped several new product lines in my spare time that were based on features that I had previously developed for my mods for The Elder Scrolls Online. These included furnishings for Player Housing that allow players to control the time of day, the weather and even the day or night sky itself. Working with Associate Lead System Designer Lci Iarocci and Senior System Designer Cullen Lee, we secured stakeholder approval and ultimately launched all three product lines for the players.

Technologies

3D Graphics
C++
DirectX
GLSL
HLSL
Linear Algebra
Vulkan

Architecture

Refactored disparate time of day, weather and sky box code into a new, unified Environment State Manager system with a priority-based queue for environment override requests.
Added flexible override controls to the animation and lighting systems to allow for smooth interpolation between times of day and weather conditions.
Revised the GLSL and HLSL shaders for sky box elements to support real-time furniture preview functionality.

Deck Builder Card Game

Working alongside other UI and Gameplay team members, I was part of the team that developed Tales of Tribute, a fully featured deck builder card game within the world of The Elder Scrolls Online. This "back of the box" feature was the primary selling point for the annual update the year that it was released.

Technologies

3D Graphics
C++
GLSL
HLSL
Linear Algebra
Lua
MySQL
RabbitMQ
Redis

Architecture

3D mesh-based table top card game combined with diegetic, 3D UI elements for the card faces and custom effects.
Client-server based messaging with server-authoritative game state that supports both Player-vs-NPC and Player-vs-Player gameplay.

Precision Editing

Starting as another passion project of mine that I worked on during weekends, Precision Editing was formally introduced into Player Housing for The Elder Scrolls Online after obtaining stakeholder approval. This new editing mode addressed a number of challenges presented by the original housing editor tools by decoupling the position and orientation of the furnishing from the player's camera, adding support for fine translation and rotation using the keyboard or controller and implementing a new gizmo tool that allows for the furnishing to be translated and rotated using the mouse.

Technologies

3D Graphics
C++
DirectX
Linear Algebra
Lua
Physics

Architecture

Developed new C++ logic for translating, rotating and straightening furniture as well as aligning furniture with the terrain and other surfaces.
Implemented new Lua user interface elements for performing both smoothly interpolated and fine precision stepped translation and rotation of furniture.
Built new, 3D diegetic user interface elements for translating and rotating furniture with in-world gizmos that visualize the axes of translation and rotation.

Item Set Collection

Working alongside Lead UI Engineer Dan Batson, we developed a gameplay system that served as a "sticker book" for tracking which item set pieces the player had collected. Collected item pieces could be reconstructed later using an in-game currency earned through various aspects of the game. The gameplay loop provided by this system - collecting item set pieces and earning and spending reconstruction currency - promoted more broad engagement with all of the systems offered in The Elder Scrolls Online.

Technologies

C++
Lua
MySQL
RabbitMQ
Redis
XML

Architecture

Client-server communication brokered by RabbitMQ.
Redis caching for improved search and authorization query performance.
Bit array-based schema in MySQL for minimizing database storage requirements.

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