Oblivion

[sabishii]

The world is dead? Are you kidding me? There's shit everywhere, even if there are fewer guild quests, there's more places overall to get quests.

Oh yes, there are a lot of caves and ruins to explore. That's it. Like I said, if all you want to do is run around and kill a lot of evil creatures, then by all means play Oblivion. But that doesn't mean that Oblivion's combat is any better than a true intended action game, or that the world has more depth than a true sandbox game.

Secondly, what is your basis for comparison with Morrowind anyways? You've barely played Morrowind, and played it incorrectly (as I pointed out), but it's SOOO much worse than Oblivion, huh?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Also, I get the feeling he was playing on easy mode...

Nope, he wasn't.

... some of his combat scenarios just don't play out. I can BARELY beat ghosts/wraiths while he said they were just a couple hits.

I guess it depends on the weapon's magical bonuses. You hit where you aim, which means that you always hit. Your damage is tied to your weapon skill, which was supposed to balance out the "always hit" thing, but - and that's a big BUT - if you find a weapon with a nice magical damage packed in, the entire system falls apart.

Daedroth truly fuck you up until you learn how to fight them, and wil-o-the-wisps can kill you in about 10 seconds flat.

I didn't say the combat is easy. Some enemies were, some weren't. Some enemies forced me to reload a lot, like the three guys locked in some cave (the Azura quest?). The combat was certainly more enjoyable and more challenging than KOTOR 1-2's combat, for example.

He's right about a lot of the other flaws, but in the end they don't matter much. The game is fun to play, and that's what counts.

Fun is subjective. I think that Oblivion made Morrowind look like a masterpiece, enough ti make me consider replaying it again one day and enjoying all those things MW did right. I doubt I would ever replay Oblivion though. I couldn't even finish it.

The RadiantAI (as I said) could have been better, but to criticize it as not being revolutionary? He mentioned Gothic doing a better job, but was that an actual AI system or did the programmers have to script every blacksmith to do his job?

I don't believe I criticized RAI for not being revolutionary. I said that comparing to Gothic the system sucked ass. As far as I know, the Gothic did have an NPC AI system governing their behavior, but who cares? A programmer might be impressed with RAI's capabilities and potential, but as a player I care only about gameplay and that's where RAI failed to deliver.

From my Gothic 3 review:

A mandatory "Gothic 3 vs. Oblivion" chapter

Since I'm the author of the infamous Oblivion review, I might as well explain why I like Gothic 3 a lot, but strongly disliked Oblivion. So, despite many similarities and focus on the action aspects, the key differences are:

1. Gothic 3 offers you to take sides in several active conflicts whereas in Oblivion your side is predetermined and your choice is reduced to choosing a generic guild that doesn't affect anything in the game. You can't join the necromancers or the Mystic Dawn cult, etc.

2. These conflicts can easily change the entire playing field. You can liberate all towns from the orcs (and one from formerly human, currently undead guardians) and repopulate them with humans, or you can wipe out all the rebels, destroying all hope. In Oblivion everything is static and remains the same no matter what you do. The biggest decision you can ever make is whether or not to start the main quest.

3. Gothic 3's quests are more dynamic, allowing you to double-cross easily. In Oblivion, I was often asked not to tell something to other people, but I couldn't do it anyway, since a dialogue option wasn't provided. In Gothic 3, such options are plentiful – in fact, every bit of information that could be beneficial to several parties is immediately turned into 2-3 quests, allowing you to decide what to do with it.

The rebels asked me to find a local resistance guy in a nearby town. When I found the hidden rebel, I went to a mercenary leader and to the orc commander in that town, and was able to tell both of them about the rebel.

A hashashin merchant sells artefacts from far-away lands in an orc-controlled town. I found his brother in a cave nearby digging for artefacts. A quest to confront the merchant was added. I talked to the merchant who paid me to keep my mouth shut. A quest NOT to keep my mouth shut was added immediately. I talked to the orc commander and told him that the there are artefacts in that cave. And so on, and so on.

4. Consequences. I don't really need to explain this one, do I?

5. Gothic 3 is a non-linear game, Oblivion is extremely linear. We are talking about the main quest and the guilds here. Obviously, you can decide which guild's questLINE you will do first, but each guild's quests follow a linear sequence, whereas Gothic 3 lets you decide what quests to take and in what order.

6. Gothic 3 offers you a huge truly living and breathing, very atmospheric world that actually looks like a recently conquered world with ruined towns, crumbling fortresses, burning capital, and crucified paladins and rebels. People go about their daily chores, cutting wood, working fields, hammering anvils, cooking in large pots, mining ore, sitting near fire, cooking meat, and even smoking weed, effortlessly creating an atmosphere the overhyped RAI had failed to.

In comparison, Oblivion was your trip to Disneyland - a land completely oblivious (pun intended) to the death of the emperor, the upcoming demonic invasion, and rather pointless hell gates popping up all over the countryside - populated by people who like to stare at walls a lot.

 

[Lumpy]

Radiant AI is bullshit, it's not really radiant, it's a scripting system plain and simple. Just look in the editor, the NPCs are told exactly where to go, and what to do at what time.
Just like the player.

 

[Sarvis]

The world is dead? Are you kidding me? There's shit everywhere, even if there are fewer guild quests, there's more places overall to get quests.

Oh yes, there are a lot of caves and ruins to explore. That's it. Like I said, if all you want to do is run around and kill a lot of evil creatures, then by all means play Oblivion. But that doesn't mean that Oblivion's combat is any better than a true intended action game, or that the world has more depth than a true sandbox game.

Secondly, what is your basis for comparison with Morrowind anyways? You've barely played Morrowind, and played it incorrectly (as I pointed out), but it's SOOO much worse than Oblivion, huh?

I probably put 20-30 hours into Morrowind before getting completely sick of it, so I wouldn't say I barely played. If there'd been anything worthwhile there, I would have played longer.

<b>Vault Dweller</b>

I guess it depends on the weapon's magical bonuses. You hit where you aim, which means that you always hit. Your damage is tied to your weapon skill, which was supposed to balance out the "always hit" thing, but - and that's a big BUT - if you find a weapon with a nice magical damage packed in, the entire system falls apart.

There is that, but that's limited by the weapon charge... which is why my ebony longsword with a bonus 30 damage to health barely got me through my last goblin fight!

I didn't say the combat is easy.

You said "even with no skill [you] were a formidable opponent." Seems to imply easy combat to me...

don't believe I criticized RAI for not being revolutionary.

You sure about that?

Overall, 5-year old Gothic did a much better job creating an immersive world with seemingly alive people than what Bethesda did today, so sadly RAI is neither <b>revolutionary nor evolutionary.</b>

And yes, I understand that the player doesn't care... I even mentioned that in my post. However such things are cumulative, and the next Elder Scrolls game will likely have a much improved system.

 

[Vault Dweller]

There is that, but that's limited by the weapon charge... which is why my ebony longsword with a bonus 30 damage to health barely got me through my last goblin fight!

No comments. Like I said, I ran into a bunch of wraths, got my staff of something, but it was empty. I prepared to reload, but then I noticed that mace with lightning damage. I gave it a try and it worked like a charm. Maybe the wraths were vulnerable to lightning? Maybe the weapon had a lot of charges?

You said "even with no skill [you] were a formidable opponent." Seems to imply easy combat to me...

Well, without skills you are supposed to be dead, aren't you? You can't win every fight without skills in Oblivion, but on avarage you *are* a formidable opponent. Since you always hit, it's only a matter of time, damage output, and the number of health potions at your disposal.

Overall, 5-year old Gothic did a much better job creating an immersive world with seemingly alive people than what Bethesda did today, so sadly RAI is neither <b>revolutionary nor evolutionary.</b>

Reference to the hype. I didn't say it sucks because it failed to revolutionize the industry. I said it sucks because it created a bland world with bland NPCs.

 

[Raapys]

The world is dead? Are you kidding me?
You said "even with no skill [you] were a formidable opponent." Seems to imply easy combat to me...
.

Combat *was* easy. With some maneuvering skills and a healing spell you could easily win the entire Arena 'questline' at whatever level you wished( even at level 1 with starter skills ), without even turning down the difficulty. The difficulty slider was horrible at any rate, since turning it higher basically just gave the enemy 29385739185931 more hitpoints than they were supposed to have.

And like Lumpy says, Raident AI is really just a 'dialog-based scripting system'. But for the player it's the result, not the means, that matters, and the result of Oblivion's Raident AI was incredibly poor compared to, for instance, Gothic's hand-scripted NPCs.

 

[Bloodeyes]

I came to Oblivion with no knowledge of the series and little knowledge of the RPG genre. Like you I was initially blown away by it.

The graphics, the size of the world, the hair raising combat all made me fall in love with the game. After a while however I started to see things that could not be unseen. Most notably the level scaling of everything, uninspiring fetch and carry quests, and lack of unique items and locations.

Once I got over being wowed by the graphics, and the scope of the world, I started to get tired of the endless goddamn sameness of it all. All the dungeons are the same, all the NPCs are the same, all the quests are the same, all the items are the same.

The lack of an inspiring story, the pointlessness of levelling and the bland suburban sameness of the world all made me feel as though there was no point in continueing to play.

I don't hate it though, I got some fun out of it before I realised how broken it was, and I still pop the disc in now and then when I am too stoned to handle anything more complicated. At such times it seems positively profound. Orgasmic. I love pot...

 

[aries202]

I like Oblivion a lot. As a game. However, I still think Morrowind is a better game than Oblivion. It is clear to me that MW is one man's vision whereas Oblivion is too many men's vision.

The level scales annoys me, too. But not so much as the game is unplayable. I can understand the level scaling for the monsters, but don't understand the loot scaling at all. The whole looting thing in an rgp is to go into a cave and maybe find a valuable artefact of ancient that's worth a lot of Septims. What really annoys me in Oblivion is that the inhabitants in Cyrodill just stand around mentioning that a new (oblivion) gate has just opened outside the town. The guards don't seem to do nothing much about it either.

As VD mentions the c&c in Oblivion aren't as well crafted as in say Gothic 3. In Gothic 3, you have a real choice (of sorts). You can either side with the orcs or with the humans. The game then is affected in how you play the game. In Oblivion, you can do everything. (some say this is due to MS achievement points for the Xbox 360).

I pretty much agree with VD's assessment about Gothic 3's superiority when it comes to quests and the c&c in quests. In Oblivion, however, you can choose to do whatever you want. And some people like to polay this way. In Gothic 3 you need to do the main quest and a lot of site quests tied into the main quest. Some people like to play a game this way.

Even in Gothic 2, there were a much more living breathing world than in Oblivion. I was astonished when I saw people cutting wood, using a saw etc. in Gothic 2. In Gothic 3, this world has just been expanded and improved. I was amazed to find that the rebels already had begun rebuilding the starting town after I cleared out to the town from orcs and talked to the person near the beach.

The much hyped RAI is, as I see it, just giving NPCs script packages telling them what to do whereas Gothic 3's NPCs are created to give the game atmosphere by cooking meat, smoking weed, cutting woodt, tilling the fiield etc. And thankfully, the bloom is toned down a bit, ok, a lot in Gothic 3. In Oblivion, there doesn't seem to be any political unrest in the Cyrodilic provinces after the Emperor's death. You can't side with Ocato against all the Lords or side with the Lords against Ocato. And the one political quest in the game, Todd did cut, for reasons best known to himself.

Gothic 3's main quest is a lot more interesting than Oblivion's. G3's main quest deals with a real threat & conflict in the world (of Myrtana?) whereas Oblivion's main quest basically is a visit from Diablo to the world. And this has been done to death, or to Hell&Back(yes, pun intended) in previous games, like Baldur's Gate and other such games.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

I got some fun out of it before I realised how broken it was, and I still pop the disc in now and then when I am too stoned to handle anything more complicated. At such times it seems positively profound. Orgasmic. I love pot...

Bloodeyes: Youa re junkie scum.

 

[sabishii]

I probably put 20-30 hours into Morrowind before getting completely sick of it, so I wouldn't say I barely played. If there'd been anything worthwhile there, I would have played longer.

So, if you played 20-30 hours I'm sure you could say more than "The world is dead? Are you kidding me? There's shit everywhere, even if there are fewer guild quests, there's more places overall to get quests." Oh, and that Morrowind was "crappy."

It's rather hard to carry on a discussion when I have no idea what to elaborate on.

 

[MetalCraze]

Oddly enough, Baldur's Gate did exploration very well and was a much more fun "free-roaming" game than Oblivion was....and it wasn't even marketed as such, to the best of my knowledge. Unique areas and thought placed into encounters really does wonders for that type of stuff.

And BG also had an interesting hardcore combat. And even some dialogues with choices and still immediate but consequences (but only a few, a pity). And don't forget an outstanding art.
Baldur's Gate - a game of 1998 totally pwns Oblivion - a game of 2006.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Let's face it, Sarvis is a dumbfuck. Oblivion was made for people like him.

Personally, I got bored playing whack-block-whack with everything I ran into. Ultimately I think how much you enjoy Oblivion depends entirely on what you want out of a game. If you want mindless "I'm just killing shit", then Oblivion is for you. If you actually want an RPG though, then forget about it. You very quickly notice the similarity of everything you do, understand the pointlessness of it all and boredom ensues.

What, exactly, do you guys have against this game?

So the 17,000 threads we already have on Oblivion in here didn't give you a clue? I find that's some-what telling.

 

[Lingwe]

From my Gothic 3 review:

A mandatory "Gothic 3 vs. Oblivion" chapter

Since I'm the author of the infamous Oblivion review, I might as well explain why I like Gothic 3 a lot, but strongly disliked Oblivion. So, despite many similarities and focus on the action aspects, the key differences are:

1. Gothic 3 offers you to take sides in several active conflicts whereas in Oblivion your side is predetermined and your choice is reduced to choosing a generic guild that doesn't affect anything in the game. You can't join the necromancers or the Mystic Dawn cult, etc.

Which way do you think would be a better way of doing it, creating a questline for the opposing faction or allowing you to doublecross the guild you joined. e.g joining the fighters guild, would it have been better to have the ability to join the Blackwood Company and get a bunch of quests from them (some of which involved conflict with the Fighters Guild vs only being able to join the Fighters Guild but being able to sabotage some of the quests you are given and ultimately turning on the Fightes Guild and joining the Blackwood Company at the end.

2. These conflicts can easily change the entire playing field. You can liberate all towns from the orcs (and one from formerly human, currently undead guardians) and repopulate them with humans, or you can wipe out all the rebels, destroying all hope. In Oblivion everything is static and remains the same no matter what you do. The biggest decision you can ever make is whether or not to start the main quest.

Suppose if you helped out the Blackwood Company and destroyed the Fighters Guild (like the one man army you are in Oblivion) would you say repopulating the guildhalls with Blackwood Company members and changing the signs to say Blackwood Company would be a large enough consequence to your action?

3. Gothic 3's quests are more dynamic, allowing you to double-cross easily. In Oblivion, I was often asked not to tell something to other people, but I couldn't do it anyway, since a dialogue option wasn't provided. In Gothic 3, such options are plentiful – in fact, every bit of information that could be beneficial to several parties is immediately turned into 2-3 quests, allowing you to decide what to do with it.

The rebels asked me to find a local resistance guy in a nearby town. When I found the hidden rebel, I went to a mercenary leader and to the orc commander in that town, and was able to tell both of them about the rebel.

A hashashin merchant sells artefacts from far-away lands in an orc-controlled town. I found his brother in a cave nearby digging for artefacts. A quest to confront the merchant was added. I talked to the merchant who paid me to keep my mouth shut. A quest NOT to keep my mouth shut was added immediately. I talked to the orc commander and told him that the there are artefacts in that cave. And so on, and so on.

How do you think an appropriate way to turn a simple fetch quest into a dynamic quest could work? Is creating a seperate quest giver who asks you to acquire the same item for them appropriate? As far as the consequences is receiving a different reward based upon who you deliver the item to (or keep for yourself) a large enough consequence or should there be something more e.g the quest giver who you don't give it to tells their friend about how untrustworthy you are and so they don't ask for your help in a quest.

4. Consequences. I don't really need to explain this one, do I?

Again, how far does it need to go before it is no longer just a cosmetic consequence? Should the consequence actively affect gameplay or can it just be as simple as a different item reward and a change in disposition for better or worse?

6. Gothic 3 offers you a huge truly living and breathing, very atmospheric world that actually looks like a recently conquered world with ruined towns, crumbling fortresses, burning capital, and crucified paladins and rebels. People go about their daily chores, cutting wood, working fields, hammering anvils, cooking in large pots, mining ore, sitting near fire, cooking meat, and even smoking weed, effortlessly creating an atmosphere the overhyped RAI had failed to.

So for example Oblivion should have had a larger number of farms and villages that are fine before the daedra invasion, but then once you complete the main quest they should have been replaced with burnt out houses and rubble. Would that have been an appropriate consequence to the main quest?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Which way do you think would be a better way of doing it, creating a questline for the opposing faction or allowing you to doublecross the guild you joined...

Both. That's how we designed AoD. Each faction has a questline, each faction could be double-crossed.

Suppose if you helped out the Blackwood Company and destroyed the Fighters Guild (like the one man army you are in Oblivion) would you say repopulating the guildhalls with Blackwood Company members and changing the signs to say Blackwood Company would be a large enough consequence to your action?

I'll take something over nothing. Gothic 3 design is flawed. It could and should have been improved; there is no arguing about that. However, where Oblivion offers you nothing, it offers you something, and that's why it's a better RPG.

How do you think an appropriate way to turn a simple fetch quest into a dynamic quest could work? Is creating a seperate quest giver who asks you to acquire the same item for them appropriate? As far as the consequences is receiving a different reward based upon who you deliver the item to (or keep for yourself) a large enough consequence or should there be something more e.g the quest giver who you don't give it to tells their friend about how untrustworthy you are and so they don't ask for your help in a quest.

Here is an example of simple "deliver a letter" quest that could be done in a more interesting (in my opinion, of course) way.
http://www.rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=1664

Overall, it comes down to design. A simple "take item X from point A to point B" quest is just not interesting. It's boring, uneventful, and deserves no reward. So, ask yourself all the right questions: what am I transporting and why? what happens if I fail to deliver it? why was I asked to do it? why would my character agree to do it? what can my "evil bastard" character do with it? in what ways can he benefit himself? Once you have good answers to these questions, you'd have a good designed quest.

Again, how far does it need to go before it is no longer just a cosmetic consequence? Should the consequence actively affect gameplay or can it just be as simple as a different item reward and a change in disposition for better or worse?

Depends on a quest. Doing someone a small favor shouldn't change the world and make it a better place for everyone. Doing something big, like assassinating a faction leader should hopefully have bigger consequences than getting his items.

So for example Oblivion should have had a larger number of farms and villages that are fine before the daedra invasion, but then once you complete the main quest they should have been replaced with burnt out houses and rubble. Would that have been an appropriate consequence to the main quest?

Well, we have an invasion, right? Where is it? It starts nicely in Kvatch and then ... nothing. Just portals and a few demons guarding each. As for what should have been done, quite a lot actually. Burned down farms would have been a nice touch. Towns under siege, daedra's armies camped around (Gothic 2's castle under siege comes to mind), guards hiring new recruits and attacking daedra's camps. That kind of stuff. Like I said in my review, the invasion thing didn't fit the TES games "take your time, explore the world, join some factions, do some quests" concept, but since they decided to go with something different, they should have presented it in the game properly.

 

[Sarvis]

No comments. Like I said, I ran into a bunch of wraths, got my staff of something, but it was empty. I prepared to reload, but then I noticed that mace with lightning damage. I gave it a try and it worked like a charm. Maybe the wraths were vulnerable to lightning? Maybe the weapon had a lot of charges?

Only you would start a paragraph with "No Comments."

Maybe, my point with the weapon charges is that they run out... depend on them a lot and you won't have them when you really need it. (Like when you're getting attacked by 3 azkhan trolls and getting your ass kicked...)

Well, without skills you are supposed to be dead, aren't you? You can't win every fight without skills in Oblivion, but on avarage you *are* a formidable opponent. Since you always hit, it's only a matter of time, damage output, and the number of health potions at your disposal.

You always hit when they don't block, stagger you and hit you 6 times for your effort. Potions tend to run out, too. Your description of combat seems much more apt for Morrowind.

Reference to the hype. I didn't say it sucks because it failed to revolutionize the industry. I said it sucks because it created a bland world with bland NPCs.

That's not really what you said either, but ok. I'll just accept that Gothic 3 did a better job with it. I still like the concept of RAI and would like to see more advanced versions down the line, I think they have the potential to make games a lot more interactive and "realistic."


<b>DarkUnderlord</b>

Awww... how cute. See, this is what I'm talking about though. You have such unreasoned hatred of a game that anyone who enjoyed it must be stupid. It's a bit retarded, really... like fanboyism but in reverse. Impossible to just accept people have different tastes?

If you want mindless "I'm just killing shit", then Oblivion is for you. If you actually want an RPG though, then forget about it.

It's also pretty good for exploration, lots of places to wander around and lots of things to find. I never said it was an RPG though, I never even created this thread in the RPG forumn... I put it in General, so some Admin thinks it's more of an RPG than I do... *peer Vault Dweller*

. You very quickly notice the similarity of everything you do

Dude, it's a VIDEO GAME. When do video games NOT repeat tilesets/levels/actions? The original Diablo had a grand total of 4 tilesets, but the maps randomly generated and there was cool shit to find... which is exactly what you get in Oblivion, by the way.

So the 17,000 threads we already have on Oblivion in here didn't give you a clue? I find that's some-what telling.

I stopped reading them several months before the game was released, sorry. Speaking of the "similarity of everything..."



<b>sabishii</b>

I've actually mentioned several specific things I disliked, like the combat system and the emptiness of the world. As for "having a discussion" we're actually talking about Oblivion, so forgive me if I don't feel like elaborating at length about a different game which I didn't even like and don't remember particularly well.


<b>aries202</b>

The whole looting thing in an rgp is to go into a cave and maybe find a valuable artefact of ancient that's worth a lot of Septims.

I've found cool stuff every time I've gone into a cave/ruin/fort. The loot scaling handles what game designers would do in a more linear game: putting loot just higher than you in each dungeon.

Of course, the first Ayleid ruin I went into I found a stone worth 1000 septims... so not sure what you mean anyway, since that was a ton of money at the time.

What really annoys me in Oblivion is that the inhabitants in Cyrodill just stand around mentioning that a new (oblivion) gate has just opened outside the town.

Yeah, that's what made me start to realize oblivion gates weren't "special" or tied to the main quest or anything. Sometimes the people don't even comment, and you can see one from the city gate. It's a fairly minor quibble though, and most of the time the guards have excuses for not going in.

Hell, the one time they do it just makes things harder since you have to babysit the dumbass survivors...

<b>Bloodeyes</b>

Once I got over being wowed by the graphics,

Am I the only one not wowed by the graphics? The landscapes are nice and all, but all of the people look like crap...

<b>Rappys</b>

Doing quests at any level yo uwant is the point of level scaling. It allows for more freedom in exploration and nonlinearity, because you aren't going to go somewhere and just get hammered to death. In fact, leveling can make many things harder as more powerful enemies show up.

The arena isn't exactly the pinnacle of combat in the game, anyway. A single Daedroth is far harder to kill than anything I've seen in the arena, not to mention the various evil enemy pairings or groups you might come across.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

I should have just linked to this. It is what I wrote it for....

 

[Lingwe]

Overall, it comes down to design. A simple "take item X from point A to point B" quest is just not interesting. It's boring, uneventful, and deserves no reward. So, ask yourself all the right questions: what am I transporting and why? what happens if I fail to deliver it? why was I asked to do it? why would my character agree to do it? what can my "evil bastard" character do with it? in what ways can he benefit himself? Once you have good answers to these questions, you'd have a good designed quest.

I've looked at your deliver a letter quest before and it has influenced my thoughts on good vs evil design. But suppose you just have a simple fetch quest in which you are asked to get some potatoes. You need to go kill an ogre that has stolen some potatoes and then bring them back. Not exactly a whole lot of room for different options. You can basically do what the quest giver asks you and bring them back the potatoes, or for the "evil guy" you can eat the potatoes yourself.

Suppose you were trying to expand the options, apart from the above just about the only other thing I can think of is to sell the potatoes to someone else. Not a huge amount of options. Any advice or ideas about how you could expand this quest?

Well, we have an invasion, right? Where is it? It starts nicely in Kvatch and then ... nothing. Just portals and a few demons guarding each. As for what should have been done, quite a lot actually. Burned down farms would have been a nice touch. Towns under siege, daedra's armies camped around (Gothic 2's castle under siege comes to mind), guards hiring new recruits and attacking daedra's camps. That kind of stuff. Like I said in my review, the invasion thing didn't fit the TES games "take your time, explore the world, join some factions, do some quests" concept, but since they decided to go with something different, they should have presented it in the game properly.

It would have been much better if had you not completed the main quest by a certain number of days, like 100 or so, then a whole lot of daedra would have appeared inside the towns and buildings. So most people would have been killed by them (including a lot of quest givers). Then if you manage to finish the main quest all of the daedra disappear but a whole lot of people are left dead as a result of it and your choice not to stop it fast enough.

Of course as The braindead people from Qt3 demonstrate such an event would not go over well with the target audience.

My ultimate RPG would be one where the world moves on without me; if I just went and hunted goblins for sport, the evil bad guys would eventually conquer and enslave the whole world while I noodled; I suspect that this game would be something that Christoph and his ilk would hate.

I'm sure that if such a mythical game did exist then it would be at the top of a lot of people's lists.

Can't speak for Christoph, but I think I'd hate that game.

As would all the Xboys.

And it's funny you criticize the lack of choice in Oblivion, because your ideal RPG sounds like it would hound players to finish the main quest and punish them severely for taking too much time to, I dunno, practice their gardening or whatever. It sounds like you're just trading one lack of choice (the generic-ness of Oblivion) for a different lack of choice (being penalized for not dealing with the central threat).

So the supermu- I mean daedra invading and killing everyone wouldn't be a consequence of your choice to not deal with them, but instead it would just be penalising you for not doing the main quest. That is some epic and innovative thinking you have there.

 

[Xi]

Personally, I always viewed TES as graphical rogue games. They took this concept and expanded upon it with the exploration model and free-roam concept. I think this is why Daggerfall is regarded as the "Cream of the Crop" in the series. It does all of these things better then all of the rest. It, of course, had some weak aspects: sameness, rehashed quests, bad graphics, etc. This is outweighed by the sum of its parts though. The game handled almost every aspect of TES better then everything.

This takes us to Morrowind. I think Morrowind did a few things correctly. Namely the Alchemy system, expanded lore, and the hand placed world. It still failed to offer climbing, the infinite nature of randomness, and sheer scope. It had some cut backs from Daggerfall as well. Skills, World Size, Dungeon Size, and I believe magic, enemies, and even unique items. Still, Morrowind was pretty decent from my perspective. Though it was less of a game, it was at least the next iteration. Morrowind is the in-between in the series for good/bad at this point. It's still possible to immerse yourself in it as it's presentation is still good by today's standards, unlike Arena and Daggerfall.

Then came Oblivion. I don't even have to go into detail as those are all over this thread. Oblivion cuts back in almost every area reducing the Rogue-like qualities even further. I think the Level-Scaling was truly its worst feature as it completely removes any reason to grind gear/levels. Which is the epitome of the style it's trying to recreate. I guess something was just lost in translation. Graphics were the goal that Oblivion aimed to satisfy, and it shows. The game is phenomenal looking. Still, for all of its polish and shininess it lacks depth in comparison to the older games in its series. I think this is the reason a lot of the fans hated it. People who weren't fans simply pick up on the whole Level-Scaling and realize that all their exploration time is for nothing because the game scales to your level, thus ruining the entire rogue experience. The only real point to Oblivion is a direct linear Main Story from start to finish that will be somewhat difficult because you can never over power your enemies.

Anyway, it's weaknesses will become more apparent as you play. Maybe you don't demand as much from your games as some of us do, but as a fan of the series I don't think we should accept any less then improvements upon the series. I didn't like the areas of improvement in Oblivion, which are mainly technological and graphical. So, the game failed for me. That's my hasty interpretation of it all anyway. Hope that helps.

Edit: For what it's worth. Oblivion has better combat, graphics, and overall realism then the other games. It also has a very polished feel to it. I think it shows what Bethesda is capable of achieving if they have the right person running things. But that's just it! For all the talent in the world, they can't create a better game then Daggerfall because they simply do not have the proper leadership or design direction that DF had. So, like Fallout I believe TES is kind of on the same road. They are just completely different games then what they started off as. It's only real leap on Daggerfall and Morrowind is that it's easier to play. This is why picking up Daggerfall is so hard these days. You're used to higher standards of presentation so you find it hard to immerse yourself in the old graphics.

I just wish these morons would look at Blizzard entertainment. They understand how to make proper sequels that stay true to their roots. Their fan base is loyal for a reason. Bethesda will have a difficult time keeping their fans loyal. I don't think they care though because fans aren't worth much these days. All you need is proper marketing and you can recreate your fans with each new wave of games.

 

[Spectacle]

So the supermu- I mean daedra invading and killing everyone wouldn't be a consequence of your choice to not deal with them, but instead it would just be penalising you for not doing the main quest. That is some epic and innovative thinking you have there.

Penalties are consequences too. The thing is that when the consequences for a certain action are overwhelmingly negative, then it leaves no real choice but to do the opposite. This becomes a penalty for the player who thinks that exploring randomly and doing side quests is more interesting in the early game than heading straight into the main quest at once. The fact that the world being destroyed by demons in a natural consequence of choosing instant gratification over personal sacrifice isn't going to entice this player to buy your game.

Conversely, another player might enjoy the challenge of stopping the invasion before they cause too much damage, balancing figthing the demons with the need to spend time exploring dungeons in order to find the powerful weapons needed to defeat them.

Oblivion of course, tries to appeal to both players by creating the impression of an imminent threat but never actually following through. Both players lose interest in the game when they see through this retardedness.[/i]

 

[Xi]

The fact that the world being destroyed by demons in a natural consequence of choosing instant gratification over personal sacrifice isn't going to entice this player to buy your game.

I think you're generalizing far too much here. I don't think you can apply a direct science to something like this either. I would wager that most people didn't buy Oblivion because of Deadric "Demon Invasions" in the first place, so Bethesda could have spent more time to fully realize the invasion in game at no real expense to sales.

For instance, they could have started with Kvatch. Make it an entire city which is fully constructed and operational. It starts with an OB Gate and lets say it stays this way for 3 in-game months. Then it progresses to a damaged state where demons are roaming the streets. Then it could further progress to the state that the game currently offers. This would have provided a far deeper experience then the current system which only allows for a destroyed, worthless city. Make it happen over the course of say 6 months game time.

Then you could jump to other cities linearly based on the story. Hell, you could even leave the current system of random gates up and about with this dynamic invasion system. You could also have the Quest Compass point out that the the specific cities were under attack to add urgency. This would create an interesting choice/consequence scenario that could be further expanded upon too.

I think your railed thinking on this subject matter shows a deeper infection of current industry marketing and hype tactic then anything else. It seems like you have fallen for the "It was too difficult to implement so we didn't" kind of thinking. These games have multi-million dollar budgets with huge 50-100 person staffs. Nothing is too hard. They just need to hire the right people to design the game and cut-throat managers to make sure things are getting done on time. Anything is possible and nothing is too hard. The lack of actual invasion, in a game thats main story is centered around the concept, is a perfect example of failure to properly design your game from the ground up. I don't buy the "It's too difficult" BS that we so commonly hear these days. That's simply not true.

Conversely, another player might enjoy the challenge of stopping the invasion before they cause too much damage, balancing figthing the demons with the need to spend time exploring dungeons in order to find the powerful weapons needed to defeat them.

This is also a moot point because their is no reason to search for better loot or advance your character because level-scaling ruins that aspect of the game. You can go to any location at any time with a sameness in difficulty. So, not having an invasion based on this point is pointless do to the failure to properly implement a progression system that is meaningful and balanced in terms of the main story and potential time based invasion/destruction of towns/cities.


I think the lack of an actual invasion underscores the entire design of the game. It shows the lackluster methods and philosophy that they used throughout. Things like the Random depth-less chatter, ruined thievery options from lack of meaningful loot, bandits in deadric armor, linearity of almost everything but exploration, etc. The list just goes on and on. The game's bad points out weigh it's good points. As a "game" it's not that great, but as a Technological achievement it's pretty remarkable.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Awww... how cute. See, this is what I'm talking about though. You have such unreasoned hatred of a game that anyone who enjoyed it must be stupid. It's a bit retarded, really... like fanboyism but in reverse. Impossible to just accept people have different tastes?

Wait... Who asked us why we didn't like it? And now who's whinging about people not accepting different tastes?

Not I... Not I.

What's really hilarious about this though is that you answered your own question in your first post:

I understand that ... it doesn't do what the Codex wants from an RPG.

As a sandbox/brawler with stats though... it pretty much kicks ass.

Hmmm... Now does this look like the "sandbox/brawler with stats" Codex? I'd have thought you'd been around enough to figure that one out by now. As I said, if all you want to do is bash stuff over the head in a mundane whack-block-whack game, it's right up your ally.

 

[tardtastic]

. You very quickly notice the similarity of everything you do

Dude, it's a VIDEO GAME. When do video games NOT repeat tilesets/levels/actions? The original Diablo had a grand total of 4 tilesets, but the maps randomly generated and there was cool shit to find... which is exactly what you get in Oblivion, by the way.

The fact that you must use Diablo as a means to justify your support for Oblivion should speak volumes to you.
Fallout used a tile-based system, but the thing wasn't randomized -- the whole gameworld, apart from the random traveling encounters, was hand-placed, and the game much improved as a result. Is it too much to ask that game developers actually put effort into their games, instead of wasting time and resources making programs to handle the workload for them -- and produce sub-par results? With the kind of money, personnel and resources at BethesdaZenimax's disposal, there's no reason that they shouldn't've been able to hand-craft 100 or so dungeons/castles for Oblivion. As it is, there are only a handful...and of course the inside of everyone's home is almost exactly the same as everyone else's.

Anyway, Sarvis, you're banned.

 

[Jasede]

Morrowind homes look beautiful. I don't have the game anymore but I liked it. It's the best hiking simulation I know.

I liked how spoons and rice was placed lovingly... That reminded me of Ultima 7. Good memories, good memories.

 

[Spectacle]

For instance, they could have started with Kvatch. Make it an entire city which is fully constructed and operational. It starts with an OB Gate and lets say it stays this way for 3 in-game months. Then it progresses to a damaged state where demons are roaming the streets. Then it could further progress to the state that the game currently offers. This would have provided a far deeper experience then the current system which only allows for a destroyed, worthless city. Make it happen over the course of say 6 months game time.

Then you could jump to other cities linearly based on the story. Hell, you could even leave the current system of random gates up and about with this dynamic invasion system. You could also have the Quest Compass point out that the the specific cities were under attack to add urgency. This would create an interesting choice/consequence scenario that could be further expanded upon too.

Having to urgently defend a city from a demonic invasion isn't a very interesting choice unless there's another urgent task in the game competing for attention. Otherwise it becomes a purely metagame choice; Do I interrupt the quest I'm on now to do a boring daedric gate run( (less fun right now), or do ignore it with the consequence that an interesting city is lost (less fun in the future) This may be a choice with consequences, but the reasoning is completely out of game and the choice is thus meaningless from an RPG perspective.

Now, if there is some other urgent quest that cannot wait, the choice becomes interesting; do you keep hurrying to rescue the princess from the ogres before they eat her, or do you go to save the city? I don't think the current TES fans would be very happy having to make that choice though, they want to be able to do everything in whatever order they wish.

I think your railed thinking on this subject matter shows a deeper infection of current industry marketing and hype tactic then anything else. It seems like you have fallen for the "It was too difficult to implement so we didn't" kind of thinking. These games have multi-million dollar budgets with huge 50-100 person staffs. Nothing is too hard. They just need to hire the right people to design the game and cut-throat managers to make sure things are getting done on time. Anything is possible and nothing is too hard. The lack of actual invasion, in a game thats main story is centered around the concept, is a perfect example of failure to properly design your game from the ground up. I don't buy the "It's too difficult" BS that we so commonly hear these days. That's simply not true.

On the contrary, I think a game company would have no problem making a game featuring a gradually progressing invasion if they wanted to. The "wanting" part is the difficult bit though, especially in Bethesda's case, and making it sell would be a challenge for anyone.

This is also a moot point because their is no reason to search for better loot or advance your character because level-scaling ruins that aspect of the game. You can go to any location at any time with a sameness in difficulty. So, not having an invasion based on this point is pointless do to the failure to properly implement a progression system that is meaningful and balanced in terms of the main story and potential time based invasion/destruction of towns/cities.

I guess I wasn't clear, but I was talking about a hypothetical good "demon invasion rpg", not specifically oblivion, so it wouldn't have oblivion's other flaws either. I maintain that for such a game to be interesting from a C&C perspective, the player should be made to choose between several tasks where there isn't enough time to complete them all. Otherwise it's just a matter of how fast you can run through the main questline, which may be fun but isn't all that could be when it comes to roleplaying.

 

[Magistrator]

Since level-scaling of loot and monsters seem two of the bigger annoyances, aren't there any mods that deal with these issues? And if not, why not?