Game News Pete Hines yaps about Oblivion E3 demo

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Bethesda Softworks; Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Our old pal <b>Pete Hines</b> has decided to post <a href=http://www.elderscrolls.com/codex/team_e32005.htm>something interesting</a> about <b>Oblivion</b>'s E3 demo. Sadly, he failed, but at least he tried, so let's be supportive here.
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<blockquote>So we've spent months talking about what the demo would include, and weeks and weeks working diligently at it. What parts of the game to show, what happens in those areas, different kinds of combat, magic, stealth, dialogue, our Radiant AI…everything. Most of that ends up being Todd's call. He figures out what parts of the game look the best, and work together, and tell the story of what this game is about and what lets you do.
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So we've got amazing forests, killer dark dungeons, and grand cities. We show interiors and exteriors, dialog, quests, fast travel, and more. We show them the new combat system, a taste of stealth gameplay, some of our magic system…you get the idea (and I'll bet it makes you salivate, eh?) It's a great cross-section of the game in about 25 minutes.</blockquote>
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Great story, Pete! I bet it's a blast at parties! Well, the good news is that MSFD would be able to talk about his magic system soon. Whenever you are ready, Steve. We are in the "eagerly anticipating" mode.
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[Volourn]

Type for yourself. I'm not. And, oh, you are the Newsboy today it seems. :D

 

[LlamaGod]

So we've got amazing forests, killer dark dungeons, and grand cities.

How unique.

We show interiors and exteriors ... fast travel, and more.

that stuff sucked in Morrowind, and its still there. Oh boy.

 

[corvax]

if you're gonna bash oblivion at least try to make some sense

 

[jiujitsu]

Right...

Anyway, I sure can't wait to see that video!

Will bethesda release it on the web? I hate watching stupid video taped E3 demos.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Damn right jiu. I hope they release the video. It'd be a real pisser if I had to watch someone's taped copy.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

*"bragging" without a hankerchief to dry up his own drooling*

My God, what a bunch of fucking crap!

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

We've got a roughly 25 minute "live" demo (as in Todd Howard will be playing through the demo on a PC) that we'll be showing at E3, and a 2 minute trailer. I'm sure that the trailer will be widely available for download some time in the next couple weeks, if not at elderscrolls.com then certainly at other gaming news sites. The trailer is roughly 90% gameplay footage, which I think is rather refreshing.

I don't know if there are any plans to release footage of the demo at this time. But it is a pretty cool demo, and shows a great deal of the game's features beyond just the pretty pictures that most every game has nowadays.

 

[Greatatlantic]

Yeah, I'm sort disturbed by the trend of showing off your game's CGI scenes instead of showing off your game. Any chance that more definitive release dates have been mentioned? And you can keep the pretty pictures for cubicle wall, I want to hear about gameplay! How big? How will dialogue work? Will I get to use a Hammer to beat giant squirells? Never hurts to ask, right? Oh, and how many playable races will it have?

 

[jiujitsu]

Two minute trailer... h-o-o-r-a-y-.-.-.

 

[Shagnak]

If the trailer is 90% gameplay, then I'm keen.
About time we saw something other than screenies and rendered wotsits MSFD! :D

 

[Rulion]

I'm really curious about the dialogue. To me it's the most important part of a game. I spent all day reading through the Oblivion site, and I'm really looking forward to it.

Since you guys know a lot more than me: Did I misinterpret what I read in believing that they're going to get rid of subject-heading speech and go for seeing your question/threat/compliment completely formed in sentence format? And making NPCs all more unique and not just mindless filler? If so, that would take care of my biggest gripe with MW. I simply got tired of it since it was all killing monsters and no refreshing chatter to change the mood.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Yeah, if you could squeeze a bit of the dialogue in that two minutes, that'd be sweet.

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

The demo gets into all that -- quests, dialogue, the user interface, map, journal, etc. I'm sure there'll be detailed writeups of it once the news sites see the demo. The trailer is more like a movie trailer, basically giving a synopsis of the game's story.

The dialogue is different from Morrowind -- no more hypertext. You have a list of topics to ask about and/or responses to what the NPCs say to you, and you can also attempt to modify their disposition towards you at any time. Control of what NPCs have which topics is much tighter, so you won't run into bunches of folks with the same dozen topics. And as I've mentioned before, you'll get information from simply listening in on NPC conversations -- if something quest related is mentioned, it's automatically added to your journal.

 

[Elwro]

And as I've mentioned before, you'll get information from simply listening in on NPC conversations -- if something quest related is mentioned, it's automatically added to your journal.

Is it possible that the player doesn't pay attention and suddenly discovers that his PC has overheard some conversations that the player doesn't know anything about? E.g. if you walk through a crowded market thinking about penguins and among the 5 audible conversations there's one that has 2 people 10 metres behind you talking about The Great Spoon of Doom, will the Spoon of Doom info be added to your journal?
This function, while certainly desirable, seems to be very hard to implement properly.

 

[Rulion]

The dialogue is different from Morrowind -- no more hypertext.

I love you. Anything that goes away from the dry, boring, oh-look-at-me--I'm-looking-for-quests rapid fire clicking of MW would be a step in the right direction. I really can't wait for this game to come out. Combat sounds cooler because of the timed, strategic 1 v 1 focus. Someone needs to develop a USB shield with force feedback!

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

And as I've mentioned before, you'll get information from simply listening in on NPC conversations -- if something quest related is mentioned, it's automatically added to your journal.

This sounds pretty good, at least in the context of being used in an emergent gameplay scenario (ie, no specifically scripted sequences to which the player will listen to at the same moments, but something like ocasional audio blurbs which the player may or may not listen to depending on where and when he is at a given place).

By chance, is this feature exclusive to NPC comments? What are the odds that there will be audio blurbs used to give the player awareness of creatures in the big outdoors?

Speaking of which, are these audio blurbs affected by distance? Would a PC walking around some feet away from a conversation between NPCs fail to listen to the conversation because of how distant he was from it, or is it being handled differently?

Oh and add lesbian romances ke ke ke

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

And as I've mentioned before, you'll get information from simply listening in on NPC conversations -- if something quest related is mentioned, it's automatically added to your journal.

Is it possible that the player doesn't pay attention and suddenly discovers that his PC has overheard some conversations that the player doesn't know anything about? E.g. if you walk through a crowded market thinking about penguins and among the 5 audible conversations there's one that has 2 people 10 metres behind you talking about The Great Spoon of Doom, will the Spoon of Doom info be added to your journal?
This function, while certainly desirable, seems to be very hard to implement properly.

Maybe this could be handled with subtitles refering to important dialogues occuring, plus a small pop up warning indicating that a bit of info was added to a journal. If you walk along a market you can hear dozens of voices, and overlapping, the voices of the NPCs having a convo, and only their speech would be subtitled. Plus proximity and all that.

 

[Rulion]

Oh and add lesbian romances ke ke ke

Or any type of sex scenes at all. I'm a strong supporter of this. I want these improved graphics to be put to work by animating busty, scantily clad females.

 

[Spazmo]

How does the game determine whether or not the player overheard a conversation for purposes of journals, quest scripts or other things? It's easy enough to just toss all these overheard convos at the player and leave it up to him to remember one or the other, but having the game work it out is trickier.

 

[Santera]

you'll get information from simply listening in on NPC conversations -- if something quest related is mentioned, it's automatically added to your journal.

Will these conversations be subtitled?
This is very important for all who is not fluent in English (as me for example ) . It'll be rather difficult to listen to a dozen different conversations at once and extract useful info.
If there won't be subtitles we can only check our journals hoping to see there smth interesting and useful . Of course, it is a solution also, but it's not so fun.

 

[Rulion]

I'm imagining the "important" conversations will be subtitled, while the more general chatter won't be. That's just my shot in the dark.

 

[jiujitsu]

I want to watch the demo. It would be nice if it wasn't some video taped piece of crap, but a two minute trailer just doesn't cut it for me. Hopefully someone will tape it and upload it. Watching is way better than just reading about it the next day in some opinionated article written by Vault Dwe.. err someone who was there and saw it first hand.

If the trailer is like a movie trailer, as MSFD said, it'll just be a bunch of 'cool looking' things with that 'movie voice' guy saying something like "In the darkest dungeons.. There are creatures of great evil... blah blah BLAH!" How does it all work. No bullshit. No fancy shmancy music. No 'movie voice' dude spewing forth retarded lines. Yes, only a true demo will do. /me sets mode: -bitching jiujitsu

Should be fun to see!

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Oh yeah, I demand the trailer have BUMPMAPPED NIPPLES. You guys WRONGLY left BUMPMAPPED NIPPLES out of Morrowind, and that was one of the big reasons the game sucked. Maybe if it had had the BUMPMAPPED NIPPLES, we could have overlooked the combat and dialogue.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

BUMPMAPPED NIPPLES.

The road to success indeed.

EDIT:

And as I've mentioned before, you'll get information from simply listening in on NPC conversations

Just how will this work? Will there be a bunch of scripted conversations going on in the game which the player character can happen to listen to sometime? Or is there something even more ingenious?