Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

[ima_nerd]

So far, the only mod I've gotten is the UI mod Zippyy was referring too. Which, by the way, is awesome. Thanks a lot. I never did many mods in Morrowind. The majority of them were new sets of armor and weapons which made me feel like I was cheating my way through. I had a few mods with ginormous dungeons and castles but about half of 'em were glitched and made the game crash. Hopefully, there will be some top quality mods released for OB. Perhaps someone could mod in some lycanthropy stuff ... :D

On a sidenote - has anyone become a vampire yet? A friend of mine is 50% through the transformation and is loving it so far with all the +stats and whatnot but he is unsure as to what happens next. If people will recognize him as a vampire, how often he'll be forced to feed, if there's ever a cure, etc.

[NiteFox]

So far, the only mod I've gotten is the UI mod Zippyy was referring too. Which, by the way, is awesome. Thanks a lot. I never did many mods in Morrowind. The majority of them were new sets of armor and weapons which made me feel like I was cheating my way through. I had a few mods with ginormous dungeons and castles but about half of 'em were glitched and made the game crash. Hopefully, there will be some top quality mods released for OB. Perhaps someone could mod in some lycanthropy stuff ... :D

On a sidenote - has anyone become a vampire yet? A friend of mine is 50% through the transformation and is loving it so far with all the +stats and whatnot but he is unsure as to what happens next. If people will recognize him as a vampire, how often he'll be forced to feed, if there's ever a cure, etc.
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Nope, not gonna become a vampire. If I'm going to kill someone, it'll be for monetary gain.

I'm now an official card-carrying thieving barsteward, with plans on getting into the Dark Brotherhood. By "plans" I mean "spotted the poor sucker who's going to wind up strangled by their own intestines". So this is how one becomes the saviour of the world?

[Rhydderch Hael]

...plans on getting into the Dark Brotherhood.  By "plans" I mean "spotted the poor sucker who's going to wind up strangled by their own intestines".  So this is how one becomes the saviour of the world?
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Let me guess: that hoidy-toidy better-than-thou blond fellow who lives in Skingrad? He literally asks for it, after all: "...press your suit at the point of sword."

[NiteFox]

Let me guess: that hoidy-toidy better-than-thou blond fellow who lives in Skingrad? He literally asks for it, after all: "...press your suit at the point of sword."
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... No, actually I was thinking of the human woman who helps run the stables outside of Imperial City, since she bolts when running low on health, and a guard is summoned almost immedietly when you open fire on 'er. It's a decent little challenge to kill her, steal one of the nearby horses, and run to safety before the guard clanks on over.

But that is a good suggestion. I'll keep that in mind for later.

For fun.

[pakman]

I killed the people practicing in the arena area. The boxing ones. I think it was a Kajhit and a human, but I'm not too sure. I totally made pincushions out of them from a safe distance away from the guards, and didn't get caught.

<***SEMISPOILER***>

I did have the chance to become a vampire, but I didn't take it. I should have made a separate save-state with that choice still possible.

</***SEMISPOILER>

I did make it past the thieve's guild quest by finding the #%)*! key that was hidden this morning. That was a tough one. I had to use an invisibility scroll to do it when I usually don't have to because I usually just rely on my sneak skill.

And I am still avoiding the main quest, just not enough time for it at the moment. I have a whole world to explore and collect nirnroots and flowers in. BTW, if you
re having trouble finding nirnroots, just pay attention to the areas where you DO find them.

Anyone encountered a Will-O-Wisp? I just can't seem to kill those things, nothing does any damage. Or at least any weapon that I currently have.

I won't be able to play much this weekend, though. I have a friend coming to visit and we're going to spend the weekend playing WH40K.

[Rhydderch Hael]

Anyone encountered a Will-O-Wisp? I just can't seem to kill those things, nothing does any damage. Or at least any weapon that I currently have.
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Iron and steel don't work on ghosts. You need a nuclear accelerator tied to a positron collider.

Just— don't cross the streams. Unless if you're aiming just inside of an Oblivion Gate. Then it's okay.

[pakman]

Then the only things that killed the only ghost I've encountered is the lightning enchantment from the bow I was using :( Now I feel useless against the ethereal. However, steel and iron work nicely against vampires and other forms of undead. :)

[Drasca]

I'd be doing myself a disservice by not playing this game on Ultra High settings.
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4xAA+Bloom and HDR are both very pretty on their own ways. The only necessity is large textures, which can also tax your card a lot.

However the game is still extremely impressive even on minimal settings. The graphics part can play at a reasonable rate if you eliminate grass and reduce viewable distance to minimum (less work for your graphic card).

Iron and steel don't work on ghosts. You need a nuclear accelerator tied to a positron collider.

A note on supernatural creatures: Some foes require silver or higher materials to affect. Magickal weapons, or plain magic (assuming they're not immune to that type) also work.

[Zippyy]

4xAA+Bloom and HDR are both very pretty on their own ways. The only necessity is large textures, which can also tax your card a lot.

However the game is still extremely impressive even on minimal settings. The graphics part can play at a reasonable rate if you eliminate grass and reduce viewable distance to minimum (less work for your graphic card).
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Reducing the shadow distance sliders can also have a big impact, especially outdoors.

It's interesting seeing the differences between Oblivion on my PC, my roommate's laptop, and my friend's desktop. The same game can just as smoothly on my X1800XT as it can on a Radeon 9600, albeit with drastically reduced eye candy. The gameplay, however, is identical. Half-Life 2 did a great job of scaling down for low end computers and I was happy to see that Oblivion caters to most hardware as well.

[Rhydderch Hael]

A note on supernatural creatures: Some foes require silver or higher materials to affect. Magickal weapons, or plain magic (assuming they're not immune to that type) also work.
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Which is why I specifically said "iron and steel". Didn't want to give the whole answer away.

[pakman]

Well, I'm at the point where I found me a full suit of mithril armor and a glass bow. No sneaking qualities unless I get them enchanted. I'll have to use my other armor for that ;)

[Drasca]

Which is why I specifically said "iron and steel". Didn't want to give the whole answer away.
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Ah. Since this info is given as a random load screen tip, I felt no such hinderance.

I finally got my new card working without texture corruption. Behold!



A free lockpick to the first person that identifies where my breton is.

[NiteFox]

I finally got my new card working without texture corruption. Behold!
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Sexy.

I have to admit, I feel like complaining about something. That something being "standard interface controls".

PC gamers are familiar with dialogue boxes, and how to confirm or close them with enter and esc respectively? Whelp, due to echoes of Oblivion's console-orientation that ain't happening. Every choice must be mouse clicked. As a thief, I actually dread selling all the stuff I have to sell, and that's a whole lotta stuff. I run to my fence, and proceed selling an entire backpack of loot.

The game asks me to confirm the sale of every single item I want to sell. If I have more than two of an item, a total slider pops up (confirm that), and then the confirmation for sale pops up. Oddly enough, if I have but two of an item, the game sells each one individually with seperate confirmations. Now, it wouldn't be so bad if I could lean my mousing thumb on the keypad enter and alternately hammer the mouse and keypad to sell and confirm, but no: I have click-drag-click-drag for everything I want to sell.

Another alternative would to treat selling like Morrowind: You put everything you want to sell on the table, take anything you want to buy, and confirm the sale once. I might be able to live with enter and esc not being bound to "okay" and "cancel" that way.

This is one of the greatest problems I see with cross-platform developments tied to a simultaneous release. Because the XBox 360 players wanted to have Oblivion, the PC players suffer for the console's interface restrictions. If Bethesda had taken about as much time to tweak the PC version's UI to make it intuitive (read: How we've been doing it for years) as I have taken complaining about it, then I wouldn't have to.

Also, not a gripe but rather an odd observation: Does anyone else find that when they take something off a table, everything on that table levitates an inch or so? Gravity must be entirely different on Cyrodiil as it is on Vvardenfell, since on that hunk of rock people could barely clear the height of their knees with a jump, yet Cyrodiilians can clear a horse with a single bound :w00t:

I'm now a fully-fledged member of the Dark Brotherhood. Best. Crime scene. Escape. Ever. I hacked that poor stablehand to death, told the approaching guard to swing on it, then leapt off the nearby hillock onto my waiting horse on the road while the guards were clanking and huffing their way around the corner. Moments like that make me feel alive, people. Unlike that poor girl I butchered. :shuriken:

[pakman]

I dare you to find the assassin in all that clumsy light mithril armor.

[ima_nerd]

Well, I unknowingly became a Vampire and then saved over all of my pre-Vampire saved games. Soooo, since the cure quest is a royal pain in the ass, I'll be remaking my character :( I was only level 12 but still, it sucks. Living as a Vampire seems more trouble then it's worth. The +stats and cool abilities are nice, but the cons are too much for me to deal with. This is a chance for me to switch over from a pure Thief to a more damage based character like a Mage. Even with stealth attacks, I ended up going toe to toe with foes and a Thief without good Block or high armor can't do much. My friends mage at level 6 was doing things my 12 Thief could only dream of :(

Spoilers/info on Vampirism if you're interested

[kandrathe]

So far, the only mod I've gotten is the UI mod Zippyy was referring too. Which, by the way, is awesome. Thanks a lot. I never did many mods in Morrowind. The majority of them were new sets of armor and weapons which made me feel like I was cheating my way through. I had a few mods with ginormous dungeons and castles but about half of 'em were glitched and made the game crash. Hopefully, there will be some top quality mods released for OB. Perhaps someone could mod in some lycanthropy stuff ... :D

On a sidenote - has anyone become a vampire yet? A friend of mine is 50% through the transformation and is loving it so far with all the +stats and whatnot but he is unsure as to what happens next. If people will recognize him as a vampire, how often he'll be forced to feed, if there's ever a cure, etc.
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In MW being a vampire had the adverse effects of needing to feed to repair health (sleeping and resting are for the living), you were attacked on site by town guards, and you could not go out in the sunlight. I could unlive with the first two, but having to return indoors during the day became a hassle. I do not know what Oblivion does with Vampirism, so I will probably pursue it with a different toon.

I also had one opportunity and avoided it at my low level. Perhaps at a higher level. I'm currently level 17, Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, and pursuing Mage and Fighters guild plot lines. Being a high level official in the Dark Brotherhood is very, very cool. The perks are great, but I have 18 infamy now so I'm not sure what that will do to my other game options.

[roguebanshee]

The +stats and cool abilities are nice, but the cons are too much for me to deal with.
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One thing to keep in mind is that the vampirism effects are tied to Resting/Waiting, feeding will reset you to stage 1 vampirism regardless of your current state. If you're at stage 1 vampirism then you can fast travel as much as you like, just remember to try to feed before you go outside after you level up. If you're part of either the Mages or Fighters Guild then you have a large selection of people to feed from

It may be cheesy and borderline exploit, but I find it acceptable since you can't feed on the recently killed and I've yet to find someone who can be seduced into letting you feed from him/her.

[[wcip]Angel]

Drasca, tell me, which graphics card provide such lush graphics?

Today I ordered the following items:

Graphics card:
Gainward GeForce 7800GT 512MB,1,4ns DDR3 ,PCI-Express 3.395,- ($520)

CPU:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 2.2GHz Socket 939 1MB 3.150,- ($480)

Ram:
Crucial PC3200 DDR-DIMM 2048MB 1.575,- ($240)

Motherboard:
ABIT KN8-Ultra, nForce4 Ultra,Socket-939 ATX 795,- ($120)

Power supply:
Hiper Power Supply ATX 480W 798,- ($120)

Total: 9.935,13NOK ($1516)

Hopefully, Oblivion will run somewhat smoothly on this.

[roguebanshee]

Hopefully, Oblivion will run somewhat smoothly on this.
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If it doesn't then you should check your drivers and don't forget to check the Motherboard drivers.

[Drasca]

Angel,Apr 1 2006, 08:37 AM]Drasca, tell me, which graphics card provide such lush graphics?
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Angel, about your order... I was wrong

More importantly, with the orders you've made, according to the PSU wattage calculator you might want to consider a higher wattage power supply. The one you chose is nice, and the new Nvidia cards use less power than ever, but you seem borderlining the approximate need.

Personally, I have a BFG Nvidia 7800GS AGP. Custom detail and .ini settings. Not as strong as what you're ordering, but obviously no slacker ;) Honestly, if my 6600GT didn't bork up, it would've played fine with medium settings. Now I have high, and I am CPU limited, not GPU limited. Oh yeah... believe it or not, that picture I have up is scaled down from 1280x1024... so :wub:

When you do get the card, use drivercleaner and then the nvidia beta drivers specifically tailored for Oblivion.

If you have any difficulties, you might also have to turn off write-combining in the Desktop-->Properties-->Settings-->advanced-->troubleshoot-->untick write combining. Since you will be getting a new motherboard, this won't likely be necessary, but Nvidia cards don't like write combining with Oblivion sometimes.

I have little doubt that Oblivion will run more than smoothly on the rig you're ordering, assuming you keep your nose (hard drive) clean from old conflicting drivers, and defragmented.