The Walkin' Dude said:
I understand this is off topic but Id really like to have an opinion from a dev. Can you tell us what Obsidian thinks about the messiah of RPGs, TES: Oblivion? What is Obsidian's reaction when something as shallow, generic, mediocre and completely devoid of anything thats supposed to be in an RPG gets 10/10 reviews with opening lines such as "Oblivion is, simply put, one of the best RPGs ever made"(quote from Gamespot's PC review).
When is Anthony going to get his special Obsidian logo avatar to mark his awesomeness over us?
I don't speak for Obsidian, but I can tell you what *I* thought of the game. I played the PC version of the game:
Graphics and Art Style: A
Music and Sound: A
RPG System: C-
Dialog System: D
Melee Combat: B
Ranged Combat: B-
Toolset and Customization: A+
Main Story: C
Overall Polish: A-
Size of World: A
Quantity of Content: A
Detailed Thoughts (some spoilers)
Positive:
Most memorable moments for include the Dark Brotherhood quest line, which I personally felt was one of the best things about the game and overshadowed the main storyline. The assassination quests were interesting, clever, and unique. I saw the twist coming near the end of the quest line but that did not lessen the enjoyment of it for me.
I do enjoy the sand boxy feel of the game and the game system and the open world nature of the game. I am really impressed by the sheer amount of content in the game. I was able to keep myself entertained for a while just by exploring and killing stuff and experimenting with their physics implementation.
The first time I went through one of the portals to the 'Oblivion' dimension I was kind of creeped out by it. I thought this was neat and different. Also, JUST when I was beginning to think it was kind of repetitive, they threw the 'timed' one at me which at least gave it a sense of urgency.
The game never crashed on me, not once.
I thought the combat was better balanced than from Morrowind. I played Daggerfall too long ago to remember it's combat very well. Melee combat in a FPS style game is not trivial to implement and I think they did a good job with it.
Neutral:
I know a lot of people complained about the level scaling and how the game became too easy, but I never really had this problem. It could be because of my character build was not... optimal, but I felt like I was always getting killed. I had no magic skills tagged, just security, stealth, light armor, blade, athletics, acrobatics, and something else, don't remember.
Negative:
I do not like their RPG rule/game system. I could go into a lot of detail about what I like and do not like about it, but I want to keep this kind of brief.
I do not like their 'wiki' style dialog system, but I can not offer a better solution for the sheer mind boggling amount of content they have. I would love to see more custom designed dialog and skill based dialog choices, but to do so in a game the scope of Oblivion would take YEARS.
The main story line failed to pull me in.
Final Thoughts:
I think I would have had much more fun playing a game like Oblivion multi-player. It just seems like a game where you can do a lot of neat things, but you can't really share it with anyone.
Then again, maybe I'm weird. After all, I beat BG, BG2, and IWD2 all by playing through multiplayer.
I have a true anecdote for you guys. Yesterday I was meeting with a friend, now this is a new friend and he only JUST found out that I worked in the game industry. First thing he asked me was if I had heard of Oblivion. I told him I had, duh. He told to me that normally it is not his type of game, but when he plays it, he just gets pulled in for hours at a time.
That is something to think about. This is a friend of mine who normally would NEVER play an RPG game and he gets pulled in for HOURS.
While it is easy to be disdainful about Oblivion and 'console' games and to be despondent over where you think the future of RPGs are going, I try to be more optimistic about it and view it as gaining more potential converts. Now that my friend has tried Oblivion, he might be more open to a more classically deep RPG game, something he NEVER would have tried on a first attempt.
Anthony Davis
Gameplay Programmer
Obsidian Entertainment
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