New Elder Scrolls Team Diary

There is a new Team Diary, called Map Making, on the official Elder Scrolls website. In it, Executive Producer Todd Howard goes over the history of maps in The Elder Scrolls games:

When we made Redguard, back in 1998, I decided we needed a map for the game. We had a nice island that could be done, and I knew this was something that would make players happy and feel more a part of the world. So we made this old looking heavy paper map that felt very authentic. But when it came back from the printers, it looked, well, new. Too new. So I set mine on fire. And kicked it around the parking lot. Now it looked authentic. Miraculously, I convinced our President to let me set them all on fire. Yup, we put all the folded maps on a few giant palettes, took a blow torch, and burned the facing edge of all the maps. I cannot claim total responsibility, since the company had used the same process on inserts for Arena a few years previously. Anyway, if you bought an early copy of Redguard, you have an official "burned by Bethesda" map. We did get a few complaints from boxes smelling like fire and the ashes from the map getting on the CDs.