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God, how I missed Oblivion

Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
Joined
Feb 13, 2013
Messages
5,274
It's a perfect example of the decline of computer rpgs. It exemplifies it.

Again, the exemplification of decline is Fallout 2 -> Fallout 3, aka Oblivion with Gunz.

It is many orders of magnitude greater than shitty popamole -> even shittier popamole.
 

Krivol

Magister
Joined
Apr 21, 2012
Messages
1,951
Location
Potatoland aka Prussia
I think F3 after Olbivion wasn't that head crushing as Oblivion. Jurnalists gave 10/10 to Oblivion, there are still people who loves this game for some, masochistic, reason like this moron:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WS4ZecLhO_g

Oh god, you could jump on the water, like Jesus! :lol:

While downgrade from F2 to F3 is probably the biggest one, fall from TESIV to F3 is not that great.

NWN OC and TES4 brought decline to us IMO.

F3 was just like wiping Zenimax ass with hopes of naives.
 
Joined
Jan 11, 2013
Messages
288
Oblivion was an OK game. The soundtrack was fantastic, the graphics were good (except for character faces), and at the very least it was a better RPG than Skyrim.

The setting was bland on the surface, and most people didn't care to look deeper, e.g. by reading books and reading exposition in NPC dialogs. Can't blame them, though, there's only so many times you can learn that mudcrabs are nasty creatures before you vow to never listen to any NPC ever again.

I enjoyed the DLC much more than the original quest line. The Shivering Isles at least attempted to be weird and interesting. The Knights of the Nine was a good old fashioned gear hunt with some fun back story.

The worst part of the game by far were boring dungeons and level scaling. You could see how Bethesda attempted to fix this in Skyrim, with stuff like Blackreach for instance, and to some extent they succeeded. This means that Beth is sometimes able to learn from their mistakes, which is a rare quality in AAA gamedev. I mean just look at Bioware.
 
Joined
Jan 12, 2012
Messages
46
Location
Finland
However, if you look it not as a role-playing game, but an action game, then it's a decent one, I suppose (compared to the other action games available). Still repetitive with quite shallow game-world, though.

Sorry, but this is absolutely wrong. If Bethesda games were decent action games, then their other shortcomings could be somewhat forgiven. But they are not. An example of a good action game set in a large open world is the GTA series. There, the combat is fun, driving is fun, the world has a lot of neat stuff you can play around with, and heck, even the stories are and dialogue are usually better. In Oblivion/Skyrim, the combat is abysmal by action standards, there is not much else to do, and the worlds are bland and boring.

Well, I'd have to disagree with GTA's open world having "a lot of neat stuff you can play around with". For example, GTA V's game world is almost as dull as Skyrim/Oblivion's. The only difference is that GTA V has more "filler" objects, such as cars, people, moving around. Yet, there's only a little to do besides main quest, and some horribly repetitive side quests. The open roam mode is the worst, and it should be one of the best areas in the game. You can fucking rob the same, all similar markets, again and again for little cash, and have the same police chase over and over - it's pointless and not even fun after a few runs. The world seems more alive at first glance, but it's god damn static and empty in GTA V, at least. As an open world game, it's pretty bad imo. Skyrim/Oblivion's side quests are probably better than GTA V's (if you even can compare the two; not that it's a big achievement in any way). The "free roam", when you're not following any quests, in all those three games is pretty boring. Only my opinion, though.

As what comes to the soundtracks of both Oblivion and Skyrim; they both have many damn good tracks, although the quality suffers of a few dull filler songs per game, which are really sub par.
 
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Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
Joined
Feb 13, 2013
Messages
5,274
NWN OC and TES4 brought decline to us IMO.

Decline was b4 that: Throne of Bhaal was shit and Tribunal and Bloodmoon were shittier than shit. Also, BioWare showed signs of life with SoU and HotU which are an infinitely superior contribution to the genre than two expansions for a popamole.
 
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Krivol

Magister
Joined
Apr 21, 2012
Messages
1,951
Location
Potatoland aka Prussia
NWN OC and TES4 brought decline to us IMO.

Decline was b4 that: Throne of Bhaal was shit and Tribunal and Bloodmoon were shittier than shit. Also, BioWare showed signs of life with SoU and HotU which are an infinitely superior contribution to the genre than two expansions for a popamole.

True, SoU and HotU are much better than OC, also, NWN was mentioned as gaming platform, but OC was delivered by BG2 creators so we all expected something good...

Was Bloodmoon that bad? I played (a bit) Tribunal and didn't liked it (figh, after fight, after fight, all in sewers, I hate sewers, why all RPGs have sewers?) but my memories of Bloodmoon are not that bad (I finished both expansions about 13 years ago, don't remember much TBH).
 

octavius

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 4, 2007
Messages
19,182
Location
Bjørgvin
Was Bloodmoon that bad? I played (a bit) Tribunal and didn't liked it (figh, after fight, after fight, all in sewers, I hate sewers, why all RPGs have sewers?) but my memories of Bloodmoon are not that bad (I finished both expansions about 13 years ago, don't remember much TBH).

Bloodmoon was great, Tribunal was bad. I hated how in Tribunal you knew right away that Almalexia was a lying, scheming bitch, but the game never allowed you to act upon it either by dialogue or more violent action, instead forcing you along a railroaded, scripted story with token dialogue choices.
 
Self-Ejected

Lilura

RPG Codex Dragon Lady
Joined
Feb 13, 2013
Messages
5,274
Another problem with Tribunal is that it makes breaking the economy even easier (as if one needed a jumpstart...)
 

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,623
Morrowind's economy is so stupid it makes me cry. I'm one of those people who like to experience games vanilla, but it's difficult to me when the games are so boringly easy and simple. And that is the case with all Bethesda games, and New Vegas.

I started playing vanilla Morrowind (and gave up pretty quickly) because the economy doesn't make sense. I'm not talking about artifacts being worth an entire merchant's stock, because that is actually cool, but rather about how ingredients are barely worth two septims, when most of the time you have to kill creatures to obtain them. Armor progression is fucked up too: very early in the game, as early as Balmora, you obtain what is pretty much the best light armor in the game until you pack some serious Glass heat. And you don't even have to work for it.

I'm not even going to mention the myriad of other issues Morrowind has (being able to join any faction right from the start, being able to get services from factions you don't belong with, how Misc skills work, and more) because it is pointless. But BTB's Game Improvements, sans the "let's make the world less real by making it more gamey", and Service Requirements pretty much fixed most of Morrowind's balance issues.

Vanilla Morrowind, to me, is literally unplayable. Which is funny, because the one thing that was done badly is the balance and progression. Same with New Vegas.
 

Makabb

Arcane
Shitposter Bethestard
Joined
Sep 19, 2014
Messages
11,753
Bethesda engine at its best


63010-0-1489868134.jpg
 

Aenra

Guest
Brofisting OP for having some balls and speaking their mind.

As to Oblivion.. they do mention they play it with mods. And with mods, well; it's salvageable, given weeks and weeks of modding and spastic (i mean this literally), error by error TESEdit checking/editing. Nothing like Morrowind, but no way near as bad as most folks might think. Just takes time.
To be frank however, the amount of time it takes to "fix" it is so fucking long, i honestly doubt this is what the OP has managed. What they are probably playing right now is still shit for my standards, but again, props for speaking their mind.

For a fucking change.
 

CyberWhale

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 26, 2013
Messages
6,058
Location
Fortress of Solitude
I too miss Oblivion. I had some truly memorable experiences in that game. One time I ran into some bandits and since it was near a town, the guards ran over to help me. Then the guard shot the other guard in the back with an arrow, at which point the guards started fighting each other. Then I accidentally hit one of the guards while trying to hit a bandit, and that guard turned on me. I was too weak to fight him, so I ran from him into town. We were like a caravan, the first guard chasing me, the other guard chasing him, the bandits chasing the guards. All that was missing was circus music. Good times.


Can someone explain to me what's the problem with this video? I mean, the AI behavior obviously isn't perfect, but I don't really see anything outrageous about it...
 
Joined
Mar 3, 2010
Messages
8,816
Location
Italy
Main issues with Oblivion are stupid plot, stupid NPC's and level of writing. Oh, and filler dungeons. If tou have a mod to fix that, please be so kind and send me a link.

TBH - emperor is an idiot (I will give the most important amulet on the world to person I saw in my dreams because I am 87 years old grandpa with dementia), his guards are idiots (so, you got this amulet from 87 years old emperor with dementia because he saw you in his dreams? ok, this is fine) and whole main plot is just stupid.

And usual stuff for TES games - I just met you, but you looks so nice... I will tell you the biggest secret I have. You are looking for grey wolf? You just gave me 14 gp, so I think I can trust you enough.

WHY FUCKING GUARDS DID NOT TRY THIS? ASKING PEOPLE ON THE STREET?

Fuck! It took me 5 minutes to get to thieves guild. Imersiun my ass!

well, a real pope, a real one, during the middle ages got famous because he said he fought a farting dragon right out of town.
a farting dragon.
right out of town.

the emperor makes perfect sense.
 

Krivol

Magister
Joined
Apr 21, 2012
Messages
1,951
Location
Potatoland aka Prussia
Main issues with Oblivion are stupid plot, stupid NPC's and level of writing. Oh, and filler dungeons. If tou have a mod to fix that, please be so kind and send me a link.

TBH - emperor is an idiot (I will give the most important amulet on the world to person I saw in my dreams because I am 87 years old grandpa with dementia), his guards are idiots (so, you got this amulet from 87 years old emperor with dementia because he saw you in his dreams? ok, this is fine) and whole main plot is just stupid.

And usual stuff for TES games - I just met you, but you looks so nice... I will tell you the biggest secret I have. You are looking for grey wolf? You just gave me 14 gp, so I think I can trust you enough.

WHY FUCKING GUARDS DID NOT TRY THIS? ASKING PEOPLE ON THE STREET?

Fuck! It took me 5 minutes to get to thieves guild. Imersiun my ass!

well, a real pope, a real one, during the middle ages got famous because he said he fought a farting dragon right out of town.
a farting dragon.
right out of town.

the emperor makes perfect sense.

Yeah but in this case Guard could not to confront emperor: He sees a prisoner with that amulet and death body of the emperor on the ground and he asks:
- Why you dared to touch this amulet? Oh, he gave it to you? Really? it's fine then. You can search for his bastard as I have better things to do, like wondering along the streets or chatting with people, nothing bad happend, really. It's not like I am one of emperor's guard trained to sacrifice life for him.

Pope could say he burnt smurfs' village to the ground and people would believe.
 

Keye_

Educated
Joined
Dec 5, 2016
Messages
78
Can someone explain to me what's the problem with this video? I mean, the AI behavior obviously isn't perfect, but I don't really see anything outrageous about it...

I guess the problem is that the guards assist you, while you were the one commiting the crime. They help you because they saw the other guy hitting you first and didn't register you starting the fight. This is completely unrealistic. Shouldn't guards try to find out what happened/who started the fight before intervening? Why can you be arrested but NPC can't and get killed instantly? Who do the guards don't ask you or the npc's any questions, instead of killing without a thought?

I know these things can't be easy to implement, but a system this unrealistic can hardly be called 'smart'.
 

Falksi

Arcane
Joined
Feb 14, 2017
Messages
10,538
Location
Nottingham
Does anyone think that TES series would benefit greatly from more linearity? Not so much in how you quest, but from the consequences of each quest/choice eg. Joining the fighters guild means you can never join the mages guild, or joining the far brotherhood means you soon become outlawed and can never join the imperial legion etc)
It'd add to the depth & replayability if not e everything could be experienced in one play through.
 
Joined
Jan 12, 2012
Messages
46
Location
Finland
Does anyone think that TES series would benefit greatly from more linearity? Not so much in how you quest, but from the consequences of each quest/choice eg. Joining the fighters guild means you can never join the mages guild, or joining the far brotherhood means you soon become outlawed and can never join the imperial legion etc)
It'd add to the depth & replayability if not e everything could be experienced in one play through.

Maybe, if they didn't restrict those choices just for the sake of... restricting them. If they served a deeper purpose in means of a role-playing the character, in events, story etc., but that would mean that they had to add in some consequences for the choices, not just the choices without consequences. That wouldn't be very Bethesda, and would require some extra work.

Imo, typical lazy Bethesda way of doing this would be for example:
-Player who's in Fighters Guild asks to join Dark Brotherhood: "Oh, but we're not having too good relationship with Fighters Guild at the moment, seeing that you already have membership with them, we cannot let you join us."
> 1) Okay.
> 2) No way, I really want to join pls!
> 3) Leave.

- 1) On another thought, we do need more members, though. Welcome to the guild!
- 2) Oh, aren't you a stubborn one. Oh well, I guess we can let you in anyway, welcome to the guild!
- 3) -

(option number three - it's a trap!)

End of story.
 
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