Investing in stores in Oblivion

[Twinfalls]

What the fuck?

Excrement, get the fuck out here with the finance theory WOAH YOU'VE TOTALLY BLINDED US WITH SCIENCE MAN bullshit.

The shareholder comparison is totally spurious. This is not investing. You are giving a sum of money to a merchant. That money becomes MAGICALLY PERMANENTLY AVAILABLE to him, after he dishes it out once - he can keep dishing it out. It's the freaking magic pudding of Septims.

Did that actually happen in MW? Even when manipulating the system, I got bored long before I got a third stat to 100.

Ah yes, Morrowind's inbuilt system to protect against broken/dumbassed systems in the game - play for a little while and you get so bored you switch it off. SEE NO EVIL!

 

[Excrément]

What the fuck?

Excrement, get the fuck out here with the finance theory WOAH YOU'VE TOTALLY BLINDED US WITH SCIENCE MAN bullshit.

The shareholder comparison is totally spurious. This is not investing. You are giving a sum of money to a merchant. That money becomes MAGICALLY PERMANENTLY AVAILABLE to him, after he dishes it out once - he can keep dishing it out. It's the freaking magic pudding of Septims.

Did that actually happen in MW? Even when manipulating the system, I got bored long before I got a third stat to 100.

Ah yes, Morrowind's inbuilt system to protect against broken/dumbassed systems in the game - play for a little while and you get so bored you switch it off. SEE NO EVIL!

it's not because you don't understand the post (finance, and english typo) you have to be rude.
You mean by "magically" that there is no dynamic economy system, that's what I am saying in my post.
I think it is very hard to implement a dynamic economy system especially when it is not the main purpose of the game.

You give to the merchant 200 more golds, he has previously 200, and then he buy your item for 200 he has now 0 but he has an inventory valued at 200. So, (and that's what you call magic), the game supposed he reselled this inventory without profit (for 200). so the value never changed (it is 200) but instead of being inventory it's always cash.

To have a perfect dynamic economy system you need :
- a supply/demand dynamic system
- a salary system
- dynamic inventory, cash for all NPCs...
I think it is very hard to develop.
maybe in TES 5, but I doubt it because Oblivion is not an economy simulation.

 

[Data4]

And yet, it could have been so much better. With RAI, we presume that NPCs buy from merchants. By investing in a merchant and assuming partial ownership of the enterprise, the potential for a steady income is there. Or could have been.

I wonder how hard that would be to mod. With Morrowind, there was the problem that the player was the only person engaging in commerce, but I wonder if a crafty modder could leverage RAI to create a real working economy, that a player can exploit (the good kind) for profit.

EDIT: In a surprising turn of events, Excrement's post above mine is exactly what I'm talking about. Spooky, man... you ARE capable of a decent idea after all!

-D4

 

[Excrément]

And yet, it could have been so much better. With RAI, we presume that NPCs buy from merchants. By investing in a merchant and assuming partial ownership of the enterprise, the potential for a steady income is there. Or could have been.

I wonder how hard that would be to mod. With Morrowind, there was the problem that the player was the only person engaging in commerce, but I wonder if a crafty modder could leverage RAI to create a real working economy, that a player can exploit (the good kind) for profit.

EDIT: In a surprising turn of events, Excrement's post above mine is exactly what I'm talking about. Spooky, man... you ARE capable of a decent idea after all!

-D4

RAI is a good basis but not sufficient at all.
RAI enable NPCs to have needs (even if I think it is quite scripted), but we have to be sure RAI enables NPCs to have "dynamic" needs.
Next, NPCs should have a "value" awareness, so it's not because they want to buy something that they know how much they should spend.
Because when you buy something the inventory disapear from the store, the merchant needs to dynamically buy the item. So you need people crafting the items, people making the freight, you need miners to to get the raw materials...and all these people should work for money so you need a dynamic salary system...

I think it's quite impossible to mod that, you can maybe improve the system a little bit but to get a perfect dynamic economy system, it's quite impossbile.

Even Capitalism 2 had big flaws and that's was the best economy system we ever have in a video game.

 

[Lumpy]

one part of oblivion actually looks like a paradise dream world from what others with the strategy guide have said

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/inde ... &p=4726998
This is great news. So Oblivion will not be hell after all.

 

[Excrément]

one part of oblivion actually looks like a paradise dream world from what others with the strategy guide have said

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/inde ... &p=4726998
This is great news. So Oblivion will not be hell after all.

If it's true it is good news but are we sure it's not a fake?

 

[Excrément]

Still about the economy system one of the fighter guild perk when you arrive at the top of the guild it's that you get money and weapons monthly :
http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=264546&st=280

same remark than above : better than morrowind but very easy implementation.

 

[Twinfalls]

it's not because you don't understand the post (finance, and english typo) you have to be rude.

No, it's because it's in my nature to be rude. Don't take it personally.

You mean by "magically" that there is no dynamic economy system

No I do not. I mean by 'magically' that is defies all logic and common sense. There is no need for a dynamic economy for investing in stores to be implemented rationally.

ALL THAT WAS NEEDED was that you get a steady amount of money every month, once you invest. It could be a random amount depending on the 'quality' of the store, but made proportional to the amount you invested.

That would have been the simplest goddam thing in the world to do, and a hell of an improvement on the bizarre daftness they've gone with instead.

You give to the merchant 200 more golds, he has previously 200, and then he buy your item for 200 he has now 0 but he has an inventory valued at 200. So, (and that's what you call magic), the game supposed he reselled this inventory without profit (for 200). so the value never changed (it is 200) but instead of being inventory it's always cash.

Sorry, but that analogy makes no sense to me.

You give him 200 gold. From then on, he always has an extra 200 gold to give you, repeatedly. The 200 gold could become 200 BAJILLION by the time you've finished with the game. This has nothing whatsoever to do with inventory, or investment, or finance, or anything rational. It is perhaps only related to George Bush Senior's VOODOO ECONOMICS!

There is no need for a true dynamic economy for some basic, common sense design to be implemented. 'A dynamic economy is too hard!' is no excuse whatsoever for Beth.

 

[Data4]

And yet, it could have been so much better. With RAI, we presume that NPCs buy from merchants. By investing in a merchant and assuming partial ownership of the enterprise, the potential for a steady income is there. Or could have been.

I wonder how hard that would be to mod. With Morrowind, there was the problem that the player was the only person engaging in commerce, but I wonder if a crafty modder could leverage RAI to create a real working economy, that a player can exploit (the good kind) for profit.

EDIT: In a surprising turn of events, Excrement's post above mine is exactly what I'm talking about. Spooky, man... you ARE capable of a decent idea after all!

-D4

RAI is a good basis but not sufficient at all.
RAI enable NPCs to have needs (even if I think it is quite scripted), but we have to be sure RAI enables NPCs to have "dynamic" needs.
Next, NPCs should have a "value" awareness, so it's not because they want to buy something that they know how much they should spend.
Because when you buy something the inventory disapear from the store, the merchant needs to dynamically buy the item. So you need people crafting the items, people making the freight, you need miners to to get the raw materials...and all these people should work for money so you need a dynamic salary system...

I think it's quite impossible to mod that, you can maybe improve the system a little bit but to get a perfect dynamic economy system, it's quite impossbile.

Even Capitalism 2 had big flaws and that's was the best economy system we ever have in a video game.

I have a slight problem with declaring something "impossible to mod" so early. In the 4 years Morrowind has been out, there have been some tricks pulled off that, in 2002, would have probably been considered impossible. You never know what people can come up with. In MW it was said new animations cannot be done. Proven wrong (but with caveats, I should add). In MW, it was assumed that you had to deal with the scripting system's limitations. Then someone came up with a program that runs alongside MW that extends the scripting capabilities. That same person is now a Bethesda developer.

I'm going to give the modders the benefit of the doubt here and see what sort of modding revolutions come out of the community.

-D4

 

[Rendelius]

To my understanding, the investment thing in Oblivion works like this:

A shopkeeper has 100 gold in cash every day.
If your mercantile skill is high enough, you can give him 100 gold - from that day on, he will have 200 gold in cash every day, allowing him to buy more from you.

A one time investment for a continous benefit.

Exactly. In other words, a piece of shit.

In your words. Which are your opinion and nothing else.

 

[Excrément]

You mean by "magically" that there is no dynamic economy system

No I do not. I mean by 'magically' that is defies all logic and common sense. There is no need for a dynamic economy for investing in stores to be done rationally.

ALL THAT WAS NEEDED was that you get a steady amount of money every month, once you invest. It could be a random amount depending on the 'quality' of the store, but made proportional to the amount you invested.

That would have been the simplest goddam thing in the world to do, and a hell of an improvement on the bizarre daftness they've gone with instead.

I agree with you it is easy to do and for sure it is more funny than the Beth solution but it is not more logical than the Beth solution.
I was not talking about how great the system was but this system was quite logical even if you think the contrary.

You give to the merchant 200 more golds, he has previously 200, and then he buy your item for 200 he has now 0 but he has an inventory valued at 200. So, (and that's what you call magic), the game supposed he reselled this inventory without profit (for 200). so the value never changed (it is 200) but instead of being inventory it's always cash.

Sorry, but that analogy makes no sense to me.

You give him 200 gold. From then on, he always has an extra 200 gold to give you, repeatedly. The 200 gold could become 200 BAJILLION by the time you've finished with the game. This has nothing whatsoever to do with inventory, or investment, or finance, or anything rational. It is perhaps only related to George Bush Senior's VOODOO ECONOMICS!

There is no need for a true dynamic economy for some basic, common sense design to be implemented. 'A dynamic economy is too hard!' is no excuse whatsoever for Beth.

I won't reexplain it again, my English is too poor to explain it clearly.

 

[Rendelius]

A living, working economy - now that would be a thing. But it's, I fear, beyond the scope of game programmers (and the benefit for a player would be small).

Take the fact that a living economy would mean that in Oblivion, 1500 NPCs would buy, sell, harvest, store, break things. How far would you take it. Let's say there's bread. Would you require it to be made out of wheat? Would the wheat have to be grown and harvested? Would weather factor in this equation? How would you balance this system? How would you prevent it from becoming unbalanced by players actions?

While such a system sounds fascinating, I doubt it can be done nowadays.

 

[Rendelius]

"You give him 200 gold. From then on, he always has an extra 200 gold to give you, repeatedly. The 200 gold could become 200 BAJILLION by the time you've finished with the game. This has nothing whatsoever to do with inventory, or investment, or finance, or anything rational. It is perhaps only related to George Bush Senior's VOODOO ECONOMICS!"

The problem in Morrowind was that you were unable to sell the more precious stuff, not having not enough money. That was adressed. You may find it dumb or elegant - who cares.

Ultimately, we will see how the economy in Oblivion works out. The economy in Morrowind was out of balance when you reached level 10 or so.

 

[Excrément]

A living, working economy - now that would be a thing. But it's, I fear, beyond the scope of game programmers (and the benefit for a player would be small).

Take the fact that a living economy would mean that in Oblivion, 1500 NPCs would buy, sell, harvest, store, break things. How far would you take it. Let's say there's bread. Would you require it to be made out of wheat? Would the wheat have to be grown and harvested? Would weather factor in this equation? How would you balance this system? How would you prevent it from becoming unbalanced by players actions?

While such a system sounds fascinating, I doubt it can be done nowadays.

It can be done but by specialists.
Company did Havok, Speedtree, I only hope one day there will be a company who will develop a kind of external software simulating a dynamic economy system and will sell it to game developers or OCDE.

 

[Selenti]

Just analyze the game as a whole and admit when they are some improvements compared to the previous titles (from arena to morrowind)

There are none.

O RLY? Is that another mindless bashing argument, similar to the moronic "Oblivion will not be a game" one?

No. I'm just stating that I have not heard one good case for OB. That's all.

OK so I will do a list of what is better in Oblivion compared to Daggerfall andMorrowind (I didn't play Arena).

Better than Daggerfall & Morrowind:
RAI
Graphics
Skill Perks
Combat system
Stealth system
Misc Quests storyline and Dark Brotherhood quests storyline
Less bugs
NPCs animations
Armor restrictions (for stealth and magicka)

sometimes you have to admit there are improvements.

RAI -- You mean, like, shop-owners going home at night? Hmm... I seem to recall that being in Daggerfall. Okay, this feature MIGHT be cool admittedly... but it stinks of sophistry. Way too much potential for haywire, in my opinion, but the proof will be in the pudding.

Graphics -- No argument here. The TES series has always been about technologically superior engines and terrible art direction for anything other than architecture. (Nostalgia aside, the player faces in Daggerfall were almost as hideous as the ones in Morrowind and Oblivion.)

Combat System -- Hmm, let's see. Daggerfall let you use three different forms of melee attack. Oblivion has ONE, the very strange looking overhead hack. Since levitation (AND the spell Jump?) is out, we can probably assume we're no longer able to do rooftop jumping to aid ranged combat like in Daggerfall, short of a truly insane athletics skill. The intricate system of advantages and disadvantages from Daggerfall has been dumped completely in Morrowind and Oblivion. This affects combat, but on another subject, I'd much rather have Daggerfall's character creation back than half-assed skill perks.

Storyline/Quests -- It's clear to me you haven't played Daggerfall. There's countless quests in Daggerfall that were far more fascinating than anything in Morrowind short of a few segments of the main storyline. Here's an example that has to do with the Dark Brotherhood... there is one quest the Dark Brotherhood gives you to go kill a vampire in a dungeon. Okay, simple quest. You go kill him, he dies. But if you are biten by him, you become a vampire. If the same random quest comes up again, when you go to kill him you can speak to him, and accept quests from him.

Another example. One of the churches in Daggerfall asks you to investigate reports of a child who has been possessed by a daedric spirit. When you visit the child, there is a random chance of two different results:

1) The child is in fact possessed by a daedra, and you must exorcise and defeat the beast.

2) The child is actually *pretending* to be possessed to get care/money/et cetera.

Since the names of the persons involved in the quest are randomly generated, you never know when you take the quest how it's going to turn out. (In fact, until I played the game twice I never realized the quest had two separate endings.)

Less Bugs -- You could argue quite easily that Daggerfall was so buggy because they were so goddamn ambitious. To be honest, I wouldn't mind seeing a fatally buggy game that jampacks 5x as much gameplay in as a relatively stable game with little depth. Bugs can be patched after release. Gameplay never is, short of expansion packs, and then only superficially. The core never changes.

Armor Restrictions -- Daggerfall had no such problems.

 

[Excrément]

Just analyze the game as a whole and admit when they are some improvements compared to the previous titles (from arena to morrowind)

There are none.

O RLY? Is that another mindless bashing argument, similar to the moronic "Oblivion will not be a game" one?

No. I'm just stating that I have not heard one good case for OB. That's all.

OK so I will do a list of what is better in Oblivion compared to Daggerfall andMorrowind (I didn't play Arena).

Better than Daggerfall & Morrowind:
RAI
Graphics
Skill Perks
Combat system
Stealth system
Misc Quests storyline and Dark Brotherhood quests storyline
Less bugs
NPCs animations
Armor restrictions (for stealth and magicka)

sometimes you have to admit there are improvements.

RAI -- You mean, like, shop-owners going home at night? Hmm... I seem to recall that being in Daggerfall. Okay, this feature MIGHT be cool admittedly... but it stinks of sophistry. Way too much potential for haywire, in my opinion, but the proof will be in the pudding.

Graphics -- No argument here. The TES series has always been about technologically superior engines and terrible art direction for anything other than architecture. (Nostalgia aside, the player faces in Daggerfall were almost as hideous as the ones in Morrowind and Oblivion.)

Combat System -- Hmm, let's see. Daggerfall let you use three different forms of melee attack. Oblivion has ONE, the very strange looking overhead hack. Since levitation (AND the spell Jump?) is out, we can probably assume we're no longer able to do rooftop jumping to aid ranged combat like in Daggerfall, short of a truly insane athletics skill. The intricate system of advantages and disadvantages from Daggerfall has been dumped completely in Morrowind and Oblivion. This affects combat, but on another subject, I'd much rather have Daggerfall's character creation back than half-assed skill perks.

Storyline/Quests -- It's clear to me you haven't played Daggerfall. There's countless quests in Daggerfall that were far more fascinating than anything in Morrowind short of a few segments of the main storyline. Here's an example that has to do with the Dark Brotherhood... there is one quest the Dark Brotherhood gives you to go kill a vampire in a dungeon. Okay, simple quest. You go kill him, he dies. But if you are biten by him, you become a vampire. If the same random quest comes up again, when you go to kill him you can speak to him, and accept quests from him.

Another example. One of the churches in Daggerfall asks you to investigate reports of a child who has been possessed by a daedric spirit. When you visit the child, there is a random chance of two different results:

1) The child is in fact possessed by a daedra, and you must exorcise and defeat the beast.

2) The child is actually *pretending* to be possessed to get care/money/et cetera.

Since the names of the persons involved in the quest are randomly generated, you never know when you take the quest how it's going to turn out. (In fact, until I played the game twice I never realized the quest had two separate endings.)

Less Bugs -- You could argue quite easily that Daggerfall was so buggy because they were so goddamn ambitious. To be honest, I wouldn't mind seeing a fatally buggy game that jampacks 5x as much gameplay in as a relatively stable game with little depth. Bugs can be patched after release. Gameplay never is, short of expansion packs, and then only superficially. The core never changes.

Armor Restrictions -- Daggerfall had no such problems.

I played ten times more daggerfall than Morrowind. And I was talking about the misc quests and the dark brotherhood one not the main quest (which seems, for now, quite basic in Oblivion). Sorry, except some quests in Daggerfall I can't find one as good as the dark brotherhood quests we know (check the emil pags quote and the EGM monthly March issue.)
I think the RAI enables to make some quests quite more interesting.
The Daggerfall quests were very repetitive, fedex or hack/slash, they could be sometimes very interesting because of the lore surrounding them (the kynareth quests, the main quest were very good).

 

[Thrawn05]

I played ten times more daggerfall than Morrowind. And I was talking about the misc quests and the dark brotherhood one not the main quest (which seems, for now, quite basic in Oblivion). Sorry, except some quests in Daggerfall I can't find one as good as the dark brotherhood quests we know (check the emil pags quote and the EGM monthly March issue.)
I think the RAI enables to make some quests quite more interesting.
The Daggerfall quests were very repetitive, fedex or hack/slash, they could be sometimes very interesting because of the lore surrounding them (the kynareth quests, the main quest were very good).

How does RAI make things more interesting? The target NPC can walk to a different place? That doesn't matter because of the compass so RAI is not an issue. NPC can come up to you to start a quest? They did some of that in MW and it was annoying.

DF's and MW's guild quests were all rather simple (hack x number of creatures in y dungeon, steal this from that person, etc...), but don't tell me OB won't be the same as them? Oh sure they showcased ones like the DB one, but I'm sure they are going to be the same FedEx/hack and slash quests. When you are low on the totem pole in any faction, errand boy is the typical job. :D

Oh, and the reason I didn't bother to list arguments is because IT'S BEEN DONE A 1000 TIMES IN THIS FORUM!!!! Plus there is no point in trying to argue with you since you brush away any negative statement or review of OB (just like a few other here). I have pity for you.

 

[VenomByte]

A living, working economy - now that would be a thing. But it's, I fear, beyond the scope of game programmers (and the benefit for a player would be small).

Take the fact that a living economy would mean that in Oblivion, 1500 NPCs would buy, sell, harvest, store, break things. How far would you take it. Let's say there's bread. Would you require it to be made out of wheat? Would the wheat have to be grown and harvested? Would weather factor in this equation? How would you balance this system? How would you prevent it from becoming unbalanced by players actions?

While such a system sounds fascinating, I doubt it can be done nowadays.

X3 has a living economy. True, the entire game is largely based around it, but Oblivion's needn't have been anything like as complex.

If you gave each NPC a very small number of septims per day, and actually had them buy things like food (or occasionally weaponry if they saved up) from merchants, that would be a start. Merchants would then slowly gain more gold over time as they sold items (even if those items did magically restock) which is much more immersive than 'rest 24 hours and have maxed gold again'.

You could take it a step further and have the merchants stock resplenished by farmers and goods salesmen for cash.

Items could then be prices by supply & demand.

Then you could destroy some local farms and watch what happens as the local villages run out of food, and riot or steal from neighbours.

THAT's decisions with consequences. That's what playing an RPG should be about.

 

[Oarfish]

THAT's decisions with consequences. That's what playing an RPG should be about.

Agreed, but that kind of thing seems to be way down on the list of priorities. Even for Beth - who seem to be closer to attempting a "fantasy simulator" where that kind of behaviour could fit right in than the bioware/BI/troka narrative approach. Would having the whole population of Cyrodil killing each other and wheeling round 3 tonnes of septims to pay for bread be compatible with any pre-determined narrative though? I don't think you can easily have both.

 

[VenomByte]

I'm sure the console kiddies would find it funny if something like killing all the bakers in town caused a famine.

Perhaps if we suggested it to Beth that way?

 

[Thrawn05]

Okay, after thinking over a bit I’ve decided to do this, as it will help a lot of people here. I want everyone to make a bullet point list of pros and/or cons for Oblivion. What I’ll do is collect these and start a new thread listing all these and hopefully get one of the admins to sticky it for awhile.

But here are some rules for these pros/cons:

1: No “Oblivion is great/sucks” or “Quest Compass is great/sucks” stuff. That's not a reason.
2: The pros and cons must be about the game itself. Nothing about the people behind it NOR any other game (no comparisons to Arena, DF, MW, etc…)
3: Keep it brief. Try to keep it to just one sentence.

I’ll pop back later tonight (I’m GMT -5) and collect these and make a new thread. It should also be noted that the number of pros versus cons is not an issue. If there are 100 pros and just 1 con (or vice versa) then so be it. Also references are not needed but adding it won’t hurt either.

Good luck. :D

 

[Vault Dweller]

Okay, after thinking over a bit I’ve decided to do this, as it will help a lot of people here. I want everyone to make a bullet point list of pros and/or cons for Oblivion.

We've discussed everything to death already. Analyzing bits of known info makes sense 6 months before the release, but kinda stupid when the game is almost out. Let's wait a week, and while it would take me at least a month of playtime to write a review, you'll have my first impressions, summarizing basic elements and overall gameplay, in a week or less. By that time, we'd have impressions from other people as well.

How does that sound to you?

 

[Thrawn05]

Okay, after thinking over a bit I’ve decided to do this, as it will help a lot of people here. I want everyone to make a bullet point list of pros and/or cons for Oblivion.

We've discussed everything to death already. Analyzing bits of known info makes sense 6 months before the release, but kinda stupid when the game is almost out. Let's wait a week, and while it would take me at least a month of playtime to write a review, you'll have my first impressions, summarizing basic elements and overall gameplay, in a week or less. By that time, we'd have impressions from other people as well.

How does that sound to you?

Sounds good to me. My thought was just a simple index of reason for both sides since if you look at all these OB threads, it's always the same arguments and praises over and over and over and over again.

 

[Section8]

A living, working economy - now that would be a thing. But it's, I fear, beyond the scope of game programmers (and the benefit for a player would be small).

[...]

While such a system sounds fascinating, I doubt it can be done nowadays.

Really, there should not be anything that is considered "beyond the scope of game programmers," and I certainly don't think a decent economic model can't be done.

In fact, the Elder Scrolls games should be focused upon exactly that sort of thing. Surely a big freeform sandbox should be pushing for balanced dynamic systems in as many areas as possible. A robust economic model should be a cornerstone.

Take the fact that a living economy would mean that in Oblivion, 1500 NPCs would buy, sell, harvest, store, break things. How far would you take it. Let's say there's bread. Would you require it to be made out of wheat? Would the wheat have to be grown and harvested? Would weather factor in this equation?

Yes. Exactly. You doubt the actual benefit to the player? How's this:

Player talks to Baker. Baker reveals that he can't supply the demand, because he's not getting the wheat he requires.

Now, the player might simply decide to head to another nearby town and purchase wheat in bulk to sell.

Or they might try to find out why the supply of wheat is insufficient. They explore the possibilities, and wind up talking to a farmer. Farmer has an infestation of something destroying his crops. Player might simply kill the critters.

Or they might discover the critters have come to feast because the townsfolk are killing the next beast up on the food chain for furs.

Etc.

So basically, with enough effort dedicated to creating an autonomous world, the whole fucking game writes itself. Simply ensure that balance gets disrupted steadily, and there will always be problems for the player to solve, ie quests.

How would you balance this system?

Negative feedback. Everything should balance out over time, and the player serves to accelerate the process and possibly unwittingly upset homeostasis in another way. If something approaches what is deemed within the games script to be an extreme circumstance, then there's plenty of high fantasy friendly elements that can push something back to balance fairly swiftly.

Or fuck it, you could actually have some permanent consequences. The ore supply in a mining village dries up, then the village ineveitably dies.

How would you prevent it from becoming unbalanced by players actions?

Don't. Use negative feedback systems to keep minor upsets to the balance in check, but if the player decides to burn all the crops supporting a town, or kill all the wildlife, then they wear the consequences.

 

[Excrément]

Okay, after thinking over a bit I’ve decided to do this, as it will help a lot of people here. I want everyone to make a bullet point list of pros and/or cons for Oblivion.

We've discussed everything to death already. Analyzing bits of known info makes sense 6 months before the release, but kinda stupid when the game is almost out. Let's wait a week, and while it would take me at least a month of playtime to write a review, you'll have my first impressions, summarizing basic elements and overall gameplay, in a week or less. By that time, we'd have impressions from other people as well.

How does that sound to you?

Between the so-called fanboy reviews, the vault dweller review and all the codexers reviews, We will have something to read until the next TES game...