Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

[pakman]

This probably has beenmentioned before, but the long awaited game from Bethesda finally came out this week Monday.

Personally, I have been waiting for this game ever since it was annouced, and I finally got my pre-ordered copy today at EBGames. I have only gone through the "tutorial" first dungeon so far, but I had an incredible fun enjoying the world, I even started to feel a little claustrophobic in the caves...*shudder*. I will have to save my game playing for this weekend, though seeing as this pesky college thing and engineering homework gets in the way.

What are some of your guys' thoughts? Is it living up to the hype surrounding it, your preconceptions/expectations? I know it has for me so far since I have loved the series.

[Drasca]

because I'm too busy playing it

[SwissMercenary]

All I've heard about it, is that it is, well, Morrowind 2. Nothing revolutionary, or somesuch. Brick-dull personalityless NPCs, performance issues, and not overly engaging combat make a repeat appearance. Meh. Felt quite overhyped to me.

[Crusader]

I'm working on picking it up, loved Morrowind, am just hoping my PC can keep up.

[Raven Vale]

I have Morrowind , played it a while ago . Is it needed to play Oblivion or is Oblivion a standalone ? Cheers .

[NiteFox]

Oblivion is standalone.

I must admit, having struggled so hard to get Morrowind running only to be disappointed beyond all belief, the thought of repeating that again for Oblivion makes me want to steer clear of it.

[Rhydderch Hael]

Being the geek that I am, I opted for a mage class and am starting the game as a Breton.

The reason I haven't mentioned it so far is because the game has essentially tricked me into becoming a flower child.

I want a big, bad wizard who controls minds and shoots lightning from his hands. What I am is a robed nancy-boy prancing through sunlit fields in search of flowers.

This is a world of steel, blood, magic and mayhem, and my virtual career in the game is that of an amateur florist. :unsure:

[roguebanshee]

This is a world of steel, blood, magic and mayhem, and my virtual career in the game is that of an amateur florist.  :unsure:
[right][snapback]105362[/snapback][/right]

You won't feel so bad when you realise that those flowers can make you nearly invincible. Alchemy seems to be even more useful than in Morrowind (provided you didn't abuse mega potions).

[Zippyy]

Being the geek that I am, I opted for a mage class and am starting the game as a Breton.

The reason I haven't mentioned it so far is because the game has essentially tricked me into becoming a flower child.

I want a big, bad wizard who controls minds and shoots lightning from his hands. What I am is a robed nancy-boy prancing through sunlit fields in search of flowers.

This is a world of steel, blood, magic and mayhem, and my virtual career in the game is that of an amateur florist.  :unsure:
[right][snapback]105362[/snapback][/right]

Roguebanshee is right, Alchemy is extremely powerful. Try playing a fighter or thief class who doesn't have it. You'll be aching for potions.

*dives back into Tamriel*

[Zippyy]

All I've heard about it, is that it is, well, Morrowind 2. Nothing revolutionary, or somesuch. Brick-dull personalityless NPCs, performance issues, and not overly engaging combat make a repeat appearance. Meh. Felt quite overhyped to me.
[right][snapback]105329[/snapback][/right]

It depends on who you listen to. For me, the combat is extremely engaging, challenging, and fun. You'll get performance issues if you try to turn the settings up too high, which is true of any game. I've seen it running smoothly on a 9600 Pro, it's fine. There are some brick-dull NPCs, but there are also some fantastic and fantastically funny ones. You wouldn't believe the things I've seen.

Still, judging from the official forums, most people who are complaining just haven't played it enough to see some of the great AI antics.

My complaints:
- Dual development. The game was developed for the PC and Xbox 360 concurrently. Because of this, it does NOT feel like a PC game. The interface is bloated and clunky (you can only see 7 items or spells at a time) and is not customizable at all. In the interface, there are a total of 24 tabs, if memory serves. Obviously, painfully designed for a controller and not a keyboard/mouse.

- Bizarrely limited keymapping. For example, you cannot set M to bring up the map. What in the hell?

- You cannot fullscreen the map. Only a very small portion of the world map is viewable. What in the hell?

- You cannot name your saved games. What in the hell?

- When you speak to an NPC, the camera breaks first person view and zooms in on their face. This is extremely disconcerting to me. I would be much happier with the Valve philosophy if keeping you "in character" all the time.

[[wcip]Angel]

Zippyy:

To what extent do you believe these issues could be fixed through an official patch or a fan-created mod using the Construction Set?

I posted this on the TES-forums yesterday. Looking for feedback from more people:

Question for all:

I'm upgrading my PC for Oblivion, What should I buy?
I know I will require 4 essential items:
* A very good graphics card
* A powerful processor
* 2GB RAM
* A new motherboard

I'm not too knowledgable when it comes to hardware, so I'd appreciate any tips you can provide.

I'm looking to spend between $1000-$1500.

Do I need dual processors, more than one graphics card, etc in order to run Oblivion in all its glory?

Does Oblivion favour any kind of system in any way?

So far I'm considering:
* Geforce 7900GT 256MB Pcie graphics card
and
* AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ 2.2GHz Socket 939 2MB Dual core processor

What do you think? Are there better alternatives? What about motherboards? Someone recommended Asus A8N-E nForce4 Ultra. Will this do?

[Occhidiangela]

- You cannot name your saved games.  What in the hell?
[right][snapback]105381[/snapback][/right]

Could this be like Diablo, where they put the saved games into an odd folder with an innocuous name? Have you looked in the various game directories to find the save game files?

How do you know one from the other? Is it an autonaming convention?

Occhi

[[wcip]Angel]

edit: never mind.

[Drasca]

Dual core is not necessary. 1 gig of ram is absolutely necessary. 2's only for world editing.

Anyhow, I'm running off my 6600GT at low settings and decent FPS. I'm getting a vid card upgrade in a week though =)

I do NOT like the console interface and mindset. That's a groan that I'll never forgive bethesda for.

However, Oblivion has much of what Morrowind mods tried to add. Lots of AI flavor, horses. A number of basic things have been fixed. Magic regens like fatigue, and every action uses fatigue. The ability to character edit has been expanded greatly and in-game.

Alchemy is not overpowered due to limited # of potions you may drink within a given amount of time. For the flower pickers, remember, Raistlin was an herbalist. Much of the fire and brimstone, the summoning of daedra from oblivion, lightning from the fingertips and command fire and ice started from knowledge of the little rose petals.

TES will never be for some people. You can keep quiet. The rest of us will have fun with the combat system, the endless world expanse, the wild quests and in-game libraries of Elder scrolls lore... note to self, make mod to restore the real barenziah volume II... and the almost unlimited means to play the game and develop my character as I will.

Only reason I stopped playing Morrowind is because I've explored every dark shadow of that place.

[pakman]

I'm currently running it on an AMD 2700+ 2.3 GHz, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, 1GB RAM, and an nForce 2 Gigabyte mobo and it runs just fine. I don't have enerything turned up high, but it still looks beautiful and runs quite soothly.

[pakman]

I just discovered the awesomeness of alchemy. I made about 50 restore fatigure potions about 20 minutes ago because I have low skill and little money, but I will soon become a flower picking assassin with a membership card in the Dark Brotherhood.

[roguebanshee]

Zippyy:

To what extent do you believe these issues could be fixed through an official patch or a fan-created mod using the Construction Set?
[right][snapback]105387[/snapback][/right]

If the Morrowind CS was any indication: 0% chance through the CS. A dev patch could fix most of them.

As for save games, they are auto-named "Save (x)", their location isn't secret at all.

[Zippyy]

Could this be like Diablo, where they put the saved games into an odd folder with an innocuous name?  Have you looked in the various game directories to find the save game files?

How do you know one from the other?  Is it an autonaming convention?

Occhi
[right][snapback]105389[/snapback][/right]

The saves are stored in My Documents/My Games/Oblivion

They are named "Save 1 - Character Name.ess" or something like that. It's frusterating, but not overwhelmingly so.

[Zippyy]

Zippyy:

To what extent do you believe these issues could be fixed through an official patch or a fan-created mod using the Construction Set?

Watch and see!

Obviously, painfully designed for a controller and not a keyboard/mouse.

I started working on this, but a fantastic fellow named Beider beat me to it. First the BSA's were extracted, then edited with simple XML.

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.p...howtopic=295081
Enlarges inventory/magic windows and shrinks the text. 16 items now fit on a screen, rather than 7.

- You cannot fullscreen the map. Only a very small portion of the world map is viewable. What in the hell?

See previous mod. The map isn't fullscreened, but is very muchly enlarged.

- When you speak to an NPC, the camera breaks first person view and zooms in on their face. This is extremely disconcerting to me. I would be much happier with the Valve philosophy if keeping you "in character" all the time.

Go to My Documents/My Games/Oblivion and open Oblivion.ini in Notepad. Change the following

Before:
fDlgFocus=2.1000

After:
fDlgFocus=11.0000

This will keep the camera roughly in the area of your character's head instead of zooming in.

[Munkay]

I was an active Morrowind Player when it was released on the X-Box, and recently became enamored with it all over again when I picked up the GoTY edition. I have a few questions for Oblivion players, in reference to the changes made between the two:

• I recall reading an article claiming that the combat system - a sore spot for a lot of gamers - would be completely revamped for Oblivion. Has the combat system been revamped? And if so, is there much of a difference - are there still three randomly chosen slash/jab/etc actions? Does it still feel 'rough' and more mathematical than other RPG combat?
  <>
  
• Are there more indoor enviroments, more outdoor enviroments, or about the same ratio? In other words, is it still a 'trek far across the land to get to point X, then open door and load dungeon/interior' and perform task?
  <>
  
• The potion drinking limit been commented on in this thread, but what about potion creation? In Morrowind one of the 'cheapest' tricks to the game was buying massive quantities of herbs, making potions, and then selling them to the Creeper in Caldera. I'm guessing the references to being a flower picker means ingredients must be found more than bought, is that correct?
  <>
  
• Are any of the classes or skills radically different than they were in Morrowind?
  <>
  
• And finally - How are the load times?<>
  [st]
  I know its a rather long list, but if anyone wouldn't mind posting an answer here or there, it would be immensely appreciated :)
  
  Cheers,
  
  Munk