Which Oblivion Dev Lied The Most?

[psycojester]

Mayday wrote:
Well, sorry to break it to you: the majority of humans is stupid. Therefore it's worth more to make games for them. (I advise reading the "Technopriests", a weird comic book that is exactly about this problem).

Great suggestion there I'm currently reading the first collection the Technopriests just resonate Bethesda for me. I love this description of how their games are tested

"My boy, you see here a representative sample of the public like the Lambda consumers, with their neuroses and cherished complexes, who wish to be entertained without ever rising above their feeble mental capacity.

Fifty morons! The perfect cross section of average consumers, drawn from all planetary systems who will contribute their greed to your games. Any games which doesn't please them will have to be remade, until they consent to your creations. Which will be their creations more than your own, for they will be conceived specifically for their limited souls."

 

[cutterjohn]

I'm running with a top-of-the-line rig right now, so I don't know how it would look otherwise, but G3's LOD looks far better to me than Oblivion's out of the box. With modding (not just tweaking - I mean real modding, based on user-made textures that Bethesda never gave us), Oblivion's can look better, but that's not what we're talking about.

Just my opinion, of course. :wink:

Actually before I tweaked the hell out of the g3.ini looking out at the see and other areas where I could get a little heighth I could quite clearly see the demarkation line between high quality textures and 3d objects. The sea looked especially awful. [EDIT] Forgot to mention that they "appeared" to be very close to my characters location too... overly aggressive... [/EDIT]

After tweaking, it DOES look alot better, but I'm talking about the game as shipped, not after tweaking. The tweaking also got rid of almost all of the small amount of stuttering that I had been experiencing, and made the first person camera view bearable to use. (I like to play the gothics in 1st person view, but haven't found a way to lock Gothic 1 into a first person view yet... )

BTW: I too, run both games on their maximum settings, and actually beyond as I have tweaked both games setups. I still use Oblivion for testing out stability in a fairly Q&D fashion. :D

[EDIT] crap adding more junk just for the hell of it...

wow, i don't agree in the slightest. default g3's lod is FAR better than oblivion lod even with the best 4096x4096 textures and normal maps. and default oblivion lod is just plain laughable.

Thats because as I mentioned above I could clearly see with the default ini in G3 where landscape/items went straight from high detail to a horribly blurry mess.

What I don't understand is how they managed to get SpeedTree to work as badly as the rest of their game? Try any of the demos, the one I played were released years before Oblivion. Lots more trees. They fade almost imperceptibly through six or eight levels of detail, with no annoying pop-in grids. Even the grass works better. How they managed to fuck up a turn-key tree solution is beyond me.

All the trees looked the same to me in Oblivion, and you're right they didn't appear to use LOD for them, just let them pop in and out as the fade distance was hit. Alot of the other static objects were like that too IIRC.

The first problem you notice is that the ground textures start to repeat obviously when they are more then a few feet away:
http://www.rpgcodex.com/images/news/View%205.JPG
Check out the grass just to the left of the cursor. See how it looks like a patchwork quilt? There are plenty of techniques to blend textures will smaller and smaller ones as they get farther away. Morrowind had, I think, six levels of this. The "quilt effect" was much less noticeable there. Also using better made textures can reduce this.

Wow, never noticed that as open cities had already started by the time I would've seen that, and I installed them as they came out, so I always had the real "city" excepting IC. I quit playing not long after that, and DID notice the grass quilting, but hell that's still better than the default close in uber blurriness of G3. I think that the distant grass in Oblivion is probably just textures, which they did a poor job of producing, either that or they really are lower detail polygons and they did a crappy job on them. (Isn't the grass produced by speedtree as well?)

[/EDIT]

 

[HardCode]

After tweaking, it DOES look alot better, but I'm talking about the game as shipped, not after tweaking.

Now, now. Tweaking an .INI file still makes it "out of the box". So tweaking the G3 .INI still counts as "out of the box." Otherwise, you'd have to include the default position of the in-game sliders, too. And of course no one would. Just because it takes end-user computer using intelligence to tweak a complex .INI doesn't disqualify it from "out of the box". Oblivion, in your example, needs externally made user files to look better, so that is NOT "out of the box".

 

[dongle]

Fifty morons! The perfect cross section of average consumers, drawn from all planetary systems who will contribute their greed to your games. Any games which doesn't please them will have to be remade, until they consent to your creations. Which will be their creations more than your own, for they will be conceived specifically for their limited souls."

Sig worthy, that one!

 

[dongle]

What I don't understand is how they managed to get SpeedTree to work as badly as the rest of their game?

All the trees looked the same to me in Oblivion, and you're right they didn't appear to use LOD for them, just let them pop in and out as the fade distance was hit. Alot of the other static objects were like that too IIRC.

In Oblivion trees go from a 3D model, right to a 2D sprite, about 50 feet away. They bear little resemblance to one another, so the "pop" is very noticeable. In the stock SpeedTree demos they go through several levels of lower detail 3D models, until they get to a 2D one near the edge of the view distance. If you walk forwards and really pay attention you can see the blending, but it's barely noticeable. And here again, I've played with the SpeedTree editor, and making the lower detail models are just a matter of selecting some parameters before you export them. I guess Bethesda just couldn't be bothered.

Static objects, that aren't one of the major cities, just disappear entirely. No attempt at all at LoD, not even a shitty one.

The first problem you notice is that the ground textures start to repeat obviously when they are more then a few feet away:
http://www.rpgcodex.com/images/news/View%205.JPG
Check out the grass just to the left of the cursor. See how it looks like a patchwork quilt? There are plenty of techniques to blend textures will smaller and smaller ones as they get farther away. Morrowind had, I think, six levels of this. The "quilt effect" was much less noticeable there. Also using better made textures can reduce this.

Wow, never noticed that as open cities had already started by the time I would've seen that, and I installed them as they came out, so I always had the real "city" excepting IC.

Sorry? I only understood about every third word there.

You're using a mod that brings the cities out of their separate cells, and into the main wilderness cells? What the fuck does that have to do with repeating ground textures? Or poor blending of high- into low-detail? Unless this miracle mod fixes that, plus the grid loading system. If so why didn’t you just say you're using a mod that fixes the LoD? Not understanding something here?

In any case; If you've found a miracle mod that fixes all this, that doesn't change my argument that the released screenshots were carefully crafted to hide these defects. And that Kathode lied his way around that fact by focusing on a trivial technical detail. I was absolutely floored when I saw the first fan-made screenshots of the guar puke hills outside the IC. Even I thought they must be defective somehow, that Bethesda couldn't have been that deceptive to us. Little did I know. . . .

I think that the distant grass in Oblivion is probably just textures, which they did a poor job of producing, either that or they really are lower detail polygons and they did a crappy job on them. (Isn't the grass produced by speedtree as well?)

Yeah, sorry, I wasn't clear there. In discussing that screenshot I linked when I said "grass" I meant the flat texture applied to the ground mesh. Whether that's grass, or stone, or dirt, or whatever. Was grass in that particular shot.

Not the little wavey SpeedTree grass sprites you see sticking up from the ground. I thought those were a little annoying, and the pop-in was bad like everything else, but overall that part was done reasonably well.

 

[Mayday]

One of the pros of Gothic grass (the meshes) is that it blends nicely with the flat texture, whereas in Oblivion it contrasts greatly, making the moment of its disappearance clearly noticeable.

 

[cutterjohn]

The first problem you notice is that the ground textures start to repeat obviously when they are more then a few feet away:
http://www.rpgcodex.com/images/news/View%205.JPG
Check out the grass just to the left of the cursor. See how it looks like a patchwork quilt? There are plenty of techniques to blend textures will smaller and smaller ones as they get farther away. Morrowind had, I think, six levels of this. The "quilt effect" was much less noticeable there. Also using better made textures can reduce this.

Wow, never noticed that as open cities had already started by the time I would've seen that, and I installed them as they came out, so I always had the real "city" excepting IC.

Sorry? I only understood about every third word there.

Whoops. I think that I grabbed the wrong quote. It was supposed to be the one showing the original city of Anvil IIRC as viewed from a hilltop when using the default setup of cities in interior cells. I NEVER saw them in the game as the placeholders, because as I mentioned I used a mod that just overlayed the interior cell cities into the exterior cell which from what I recall they all fit perfectly. IOW I had assumed that all the house models were there, but not enterable, and lacking in the few outdoor NPCs in the scenes. It was also possible to escape the interior cell cities to the outdoor world without triggering the interior-exterior cell change, which also got you an empty world.

@hardcode
You're probably right, but I've got no idea at what resolution the various textures were produced for the various games other than there exist mods for both G3 & Oblivion to replace the default ones and some of the meshes. I haven't looked at either as I a) no longer play Oblivion, and b) am happy enough with G3 as I now have it tweaked.

(Of course G3 is going to look even better as I managed to find a gopy of G1 and have started playing that, as I had started a new game of G2 just before and decided to just play them all in order now that I have them all. I just wish I could get a lock the first person view mode in G1, although I'll admit that with G1 & G2 combat is a helluvalot easier in 3rd person...)

 

[dongle]

Whoops. I think that I grabbed the wrong quote. It was supposed to be the one showing the original city of Anvil IIRC as viewed from a hilltop when using the default setup of cities in interior cells.

So, those buildings in Anvil will disappear completely, the way the lighthouse did in the screen shot I linked, if you get far enough away? That doesn’t sound like a better solution to me. Whole walled cities popping in and out of view. . . .

 

[Monica21]

So, those buildings in Anvil will disappear completely, the way the lighthouse did in the screen shot I linked, if you get far enough away? That doesn’t sound like a better solution to me. Whole walled cities popping in and out of view. . . .

I can't remember Anvil itself, but I'm pretty sure city walls are visible as soon as you're in a line of sight. I remember specifically Bruma and the Imperial City walls visible from just about anywhere. The Anvil shot is a bit different because you're looking down on it. Maybe they've situated the exterior so it looks the same.

Here's a shot of my character leaving Cheydinhal (I think) and headed towards the IC:

 

[dongle]

Here's a shot of my character leaving Cheydinhal (I think) and headed towards the IC:

Yes, in the stock game all nine major cities have low detail models that get swapped in as you move a certain distance away. If you walk down the bridge from Weye to the Imperial City you can clearly see it happening to the gatehouse about halfway. Notice how you can stand on any random fort around Lake Rumere and see the IC? Yet, stand at the IC and look back at said fort, nada. This is because they only bothered to make low detail models for a few key things.

Truth be told, the IC is one of the better done ones. The low detail models still look OK. Part of this is because of the nature of the IC; You have to get really far away to see down inside the walls, and the houses and such inside are mostly part of the walls themselves anyway. Prolly also because so much of the promo materials showed the IC, they spent more time on it? Anvil is the worst example; You get to see down inside from fairly close (both from the lighthouse, and from the hill VD so heroically scaled in the screen shot I linked) and because the houses inside are separate structures which are represented in their low-detail forms by basic cubes.

For me having some structures have LoD models, and others not was very jarring and disorienting. Having whole forts and towns just disappear meant I never really knew where the heck I was. I wasn't expecting much of a deep game from Oblivion, but I was at the very least expecting a fun hiking simulator. The LoD "pop" killed it for me.

And, back on topic (briefly) I do remember lots of dev talk just prior to release about how wonderful the view distance, and how great the IC looked from miles and miles away. Again, similar to Kathode's comment the sent me off, this is literally true - yet they conveniently forget to tell us that that's one of the only things you can see from far away, and everything else will look like guar shit soup.

Then cutterjohn comes along and says he ran some miracle "open city" mod and so never noticed any of this. ? ? Admittedly I haven't played this mod, I un-installed Oblivion looong ago. I understand the mod's premise. His implication tho (and I admit to barely understanding what the hell he's on about) is that Anvil (the point of discussion) uses the real high-detail house models when you look down inside. So, what then? Did the modders carefully craft middle and low-detail models for each building, then figure out how to implement them into the LoD system? Or do the Anvil buildings just "pop out" like every other fort and town in the game? That was the source of my "Whole walled cities popping in and out of view" comment.

Now, Monica, what the heck is your screenshot supposed to reveal? Are you running this miracle mod too? Cutterjohn claims this mod doesn't even affect the IC. (prolly because it'd break the main quest scripting to do so) Or are you running some other even more miraculous mod that fixed the LoD models, and not telling us? Or just trying to point out that in the stock game the IC uses an LoD model, a fact that I pointed out on the last page?

Or are you just seizing on a tiny portion of my comment to "prove" me wrong?

(PS; Need some armor for the horse!)

 

[Monica21]

Now, Monica, what the heck is your screenshot supposed to reveal? Are you running this miracle mod too? Cutterjohn claims this mod doesn't even affect the IC. (prolly because it'd break the main quest scripting to do so) Or are you running some other even more miraculous mod that fixed the LoD models, and not telling us? Or just trying to point out that in the stock game the IC uses an LoD model, a fact that I pointed out on the last page?

Or are you just seizing on a tiny portion of my comment to "prove" me wrong?

Er, admittedly, I haven't really been paying much attention, so I'm not making an effort to do either. I just noticed your comment about whole cities popping in and out of view which I obviously took out of context. I thought it was a comment about the game and not a mod. I uninstalled Oblivion in April or thereabouts, and the only mods I bothered downloading were mods that changed the GUI. And honestly, one of the last things I would do is try and prove you wrong when it comes to a discussion of graphics or models.

(PS; Need some armor for the horse!)

Meh. Even more useless than the horse!

 

[dongle]

Er, admittedly, I haven't really been paying much attention

Ah, OK, makes sense. Sorry if I jumped on ya there.

No need to read all my ramblin' or nothing. :D Was goin' on there a bit. . . .

 

[Darkflame]

Here's another one for the record - from the recent FO "fan" interview:

Todd: I will say the feedback from the Oblivion map system was really good, and I think it struck a good balance of finding locations while wandering and quickly get back to ones you’ve been to already. Regarding the quest compass, you always need an easy way to tell the player where you want them to go, so we’ll use something similar. I don’t think it’s a question of the system, it’s a question of how often/specific you want the player pointed. Sometimes we want the location to be a mystery, sometimes we don’t.

Where is this "really good" feedback coming from? A poll on their own forum suggests that over 2/3rds hate the quest compass (and these are OB fans no less).

It doesn't make any sense. Why do they lie to their fans? Where is this so-called majority who actually thought the compass was a "really good" idea? How does ignoring their fan's preferences generate them business?

 

[Jaime Lannister]

Here's another one for the record - from the recent FO "fan" interview:

Todd: I will say the feedback from the Oblivion map system was really good, and I think it struck a good balance of finding locations while wandering and quickly get back to ones you’ve been to already. Regarding the quest compass, you always need an easy way to tell the player where you want them to go, so we’ll use something similar. I don’t think it’s a question of the system, it’s a question of how often/specific you want the player pointed. Sometimes we want the location to be a mystery, sometimes we don’t.

Where is this "really good" feedback coming from? A poll on their own forum suggests that over 2/3rds hate the quest compass (and these are OB fans no less).

It doesn't make any sense. Why do they lie to their fans? Where is this so-called majority who actually thought the compass was a "really good" idea? How does ignoring their fan's preferences generate them business?

49 forum posters is in no way a quorum. Probably they just had fewer complaints of not being able to find stuff.

And most of the "lies" in the OP are really just exaggerations and hype, with the exception of Radiant AI, which was dumbed down late in the design because apparently it was too frustrating when an NPC stole from you.

 

[cazsim83]

serves you right for liking Bethesda in the first place. Daggerfall was kind of groundbreaking, even if completely, utterly buggy. Morrowind was BLAND. Oblivion? You deserve everything you got.

 

[tardtastic]

And most of the "lies" in the OP are really just exaggerations and hype, with the exception of Radiant AI, which was dumbed down late in the design because apparently it was too frustrating when an NPC stole from you.

you retarded

 

[Darkflame]

49 forum posters is in no way a quorum. Probably they just had fewer complaints of not being able to find stuff.

And most of the "lies" in the OP are really just exaggerations and hype, with the exception of Radiant AI, which was dumbed down late in the design because apparently it was too frustrating when an NPC stole from you.

Well it's up to 66 and the proportion is exactly the same as when it was 10.

And by the way, do you have any actual proof that Radiant AI was toned down? I keep hearing this from you fanboys, but I've yet to see any actual dev quotes to the contrary of what I've posted. If what you claim were actually true, and if the devs really did in fact tone down the RAI for whatever reason, then one would imagine they'd host an honest depiction of that RAI on their homepage, inplace of their current showing of an E3 video where NPCs randomly invite you upstairs, drink potions to improve their marksman skill, react to their barking dogs, and tell you to leave when they feel tired.

 

[Nerve Gas]

Yes, Radiant AI was indeed toned down. The devs believed that NPCs doing stuff like using potions and items, actually having jobs, hunting for food, etc. were too smart, so they just removed them. But they were there. Trust me.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

Well NPCs can steal, just not from the player. But I've heard that decision was made late in the design process, so the dev probably said that when it was still part of the game.

http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index ... pic=741274

 

[Nerve Gas]

A NPC stealing from the player. Imagine that. Next you're going to ask for the player to be able to catch him with the appropriate skills. That's impossible with today's technology.

 

[cazsim83]

Trust me.

No. Proof or it didn't happen. It ought to be easy to google it, eh?

 

[Jaime Lannister]

And by the way, do you have any actual proof that Radiant AI was toned down?

No, I'm just not a conspiracy theorist.

 

[NiM82]

The Rai wasn't toned down, it simply never existed as advertised (as far as I can tell). You can replicate all the stuff they were boasting about at E3 in the editor. But, like so much of Beth's work, it appears the cool stuff was all *heavily* scripted and not really down to clever AI. Forgoth's Ring strikes again!

The whole 'it's so good, we had to tone it down' thing was marketing spin at it's best, it implied the AI would still be fantastic, whilst covering their backs on the end product not delivering on the hype. If Rai had as much potential as they said it had, in the time since Obliv shipped they would've no doubt sorted it out and made it work. Yet cometh the FO3 hype, the AI (which is apparently based off Rai) gets barely a passing mention.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

'it's so good, we had to tone it down

From my impression it was more like, "Wait a minute, casual gamers won't be able to handle NPCs stealing from them, better turn it down." The rest of it never existed, it was all scripted and was meant to be a demonstration of the CS (I think)

 

[aweigh]