Oblivion turns 10 years old

[Drog Black Tooth]

Is there a mod that turns Oblivion into something of a roguelike? That would be p awesome.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Overhaul mods exist for all 3 modern TES games. But to answer the question of why not play Skyrim instead, I answer with the question of "Why would I do that?". Oblivion is not Skyrim, nor is Skyrim Oblivion. Each of the 3 modern TES games have their own quirks, personality, feel, systems to play with, etc.. An overhaul in Skyrim (Requiem, which is cool, more time needed to play it, though) is going to be a totally different experience from Oblivion with OOO. Different worlds, different systems, different everything.

There are also total conversion mods that are worth playing for each game. Arktwend (more time needed, sorry) for Morrowind, Nehrim (one of the best RPGs in the last 10 years) for Oblivion and Enderal (only have 40 hours or so logged but also really good) for Skyrim. Then you have different mods that aren't overhauls that you can play with and further change each game with.

In short, each game is worth playing again, modded or unmodded. In Oblivion's case I know the level-scaling is a big issue for many, so download the overhaul and have fun playing what will feel like a much different game experience then you remember.

 

[DraQ]

I know that's hyperbole and all but come on, Oblivion has a bunch of good qualities. It's got a pleasant open-world

Umm, no? At best it has an open. Being built mostly of copypasted noncontent it hardly counts as world and what you describe as "pleasant" is better described as "generic" and "terminally bland".

beautiful soundtrack

Soundtrack is ok. "Beautiful" I reserve for stuff more along the lines of, say, Kirill Pokrovsky (RIP ), Alexander Brandon, or Michiel van den Bos.

and more charm than you can shake a wooden club at.

Umm... No?

It also still has pen-and-paper style rules with stats, etc.

Too bad it makes them pointless by making stats and skills being mutually redundant and abolishing to-hit.

and it's just a nice game to spend a few (hundred) hours in.

As a non-invasive alternative to lobotomy, perhaps.

Get yourself the OOO mod and you'll be playing an open-world RPG without level scaling.

Or I can get myself Requiem for Skyrim, or Morrowind even without mods, or Daggerfall, or even fucking Fallout 1-2.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

OOO does more than remove level-scaling. It also tweaks other things, such as adding hand-placed loot, hand-crafting enemy encounters/design in dungeons, rebalancing of stats and skills and more.

Oblivion's content isn't really copy/paste to me. Each dungeon has subtle differences, small stories here and there and unwritten quirks that build a story and atmosphere without saying a word.

And Oblivion is charming, come on. A bunch of people walking around talking about mudcrabs, silly quests about paranoid Wood Elves, etc.. It's hilarious.

Oblivion's soundtrack is also massive. Kirill was my guy, though. He should have won a lifetime achievement award for this song alone -


Just try OOO and see what you think. I enjoyed it and look forward to hitting it harder in a future LP.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Modding Oblivion is polishing a turd, though.
Game needs *some* redeeming qualities to be worth modding - Oblivion, at least without SI, has none.

As much as it pains me to say anything positive about Oblivion --- given its many, many failings --- Bethesda did improve the stealth game mechanic from what it had been earlier in the series, and they did a good job writing the quest lines for the Dark Brotherhood and the Thieves Guild. If someone made a stealth-based character, joined those two guilds (but not the Fighters Guild or Mages Guild), used OOO or another mod that removes the level-scaling from both enemies and items, used various other mods to address some other important issues such as the user interface, and ran through the more annoying parts of the main quest (e.g. exploiting invisibility to close Oblivion Gates as rapidly as possible), then it might be possible to have an enjoyable, if limited, experience.

 

[Dawkinsfan69]

I tried replaying Oblivion the last few days because I haven't touched it since release and holy shiiit I can't believe anyone here is saying it's a good game.

First, the story is garbage and dialogue is to be skipped but there's no contention regarding that.

The game play though? What the fuck were they thinking? Every single fight is like a 10 minute epic battle where it takes 30 fireballs or 25 sword swings to kill a scamp... Heaven forbid two enemies come at me at the same time; I'll be kiting around a room for hours. And this is on the default difficulty? Morrowind's combat was less tedious ugh..

Also the level scaling is so non-thought out it's insane. At least 75% of the skills are useless for damage output so if you level up because you gained some levels in restoration or sneak or whatever you're actually getting WEAKER compared to the scaled enemies? And you basically need to grind useless skills so you can +5 attribute boost on each level up if you ever want to progress. You're best off choosing major skills to be skills that you NEVER use and leveling up minor skills and staying level 1 the entire game.

I could go on but fuck it, this game's shit. Easily the worst in the series. No wonder they totally removed attributes in Skyrim.

 

[adddeed]

A couple mods fix most of the things. Make the game fun enough romp through Disneyland.

 

[Falksi]

Actually enjoyed it for a while, the Dark Brotherhood, Thieves Guild, and Shimmering Isle quest lines are all actually decent fun. Along with the odd random quest.
But yeah, it wasn't great. Having a game about the thrill & excitement of exploration give the locations of everything on your compass really was an awful decision, and it hurt Skyrim too. Think most of the criticism is justified.

 

[Orma]

 

[Vorark]

I remember trying to play Oblivion back when it was released but it wouldn't even run because my gfx card didn't have the necessary pixel shaders or some such. I was saved by Nvidia harware, of all things.

 

[octavius]

I remember trying to play Oblivion back when it was released but it wouldn't even run because my gfx card didn't have the necessary pixel shaders or some such. I was saved by Nvidia harware, of all things.

So Nvidia made you see the light?

 

[Vorark]

Thankfully not this one:

 

[pippin]

Oblivion's soundtrack is good because it fits with the world. There are some real nice atmospheres here and there, especially at nighttime. I've always felt Morrowind's music is more of a collection of random tracks.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I'll just leave this here.

 

[Aothan]

Seyda Need coast music combined with ambient sound (rain, thunder, chirping insects) was incredibly special. If anything Oblivion continued the tradition of the music attending to the atmosphere, in parts at least, I don't fully recall the music from the games

 

[Tom Selleck]

yooooooooooo

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

The game is charming, man. I actually wish they'd bring back the random conversation stuff from Oblivion. It's better than Skyrim's system, IMHO, they just need to improve it, add more lines of dialogue and randomness and it will be great. There is a level of silliness in the game that makes it fun, but a deeper convo system will also add more interest to the game. If you compare it to Skyrim where it's heavily scripted, NPCs repeat the same lines endlessly and there isn't as strong of a random element, Oblivion seems more alive in comparison. Skyrim had great guard dialogues, though, and they should expand that as well. And bring back Morrowind's greetings! :D

I know I've said this before but it bears repeating.

 

[Pablosdog]

I miss the character creator.

 

[buru5]

The game is charming, man. I actually wish they'd bring back the random conversation stuff from Oblivion. It's better than Skyrim's system, IMHO, they just need to improve it, add more lines of dialogue and randomness and it will be great. There is a level of silliness in the game that makes it fun, but a deeper convo system will also add more interest to the game. If you compare it to Skyrim where it's heavily scripted, NPCs repeat the same lines endlessly and there isn't as strong of a random element, Oblivion seems more alive in comparison. Skyrim had great guard dialogues, though, and they should expand that as well. And bring back Morrowind's greetings! :D

I know I've said this before but it bears repeating.

This is one of my main criticisms of Skyrim, among other things.

People hate on the conversations but at least you get a good laugh out of stuff like:

A: "It's awful! (someone) was found dead by the docks"
B: "STOP TALKING"
A: "Bye"

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

This is one of my main criticisms of Skyrim, among other things.

People hate on the conversations but at least you get a good laugh out of stuff like:

A: "It's awful! (someone) was found dead by the docks"
B: "STOP TALKING"
A: "Bye"

There are many, many silly and hilarious conversations that can be had in the Oblivion engine. That is partly what adds a lot of charm to the game.

But in terms of an actual system to be taken somewhat seriously, I still prefer it over Skyrim's in most ways. If they take Oblivion and greatly expand the number of voice actors like they did with Skyrim, add many more possible topics and responses and add some specific dialogue here and there to certain characters, it would be great. Expand the guard-speak from Skyrim and people commenting on your appearance/race/profession, add back in many of the wonderful disposition-specific greetings from Morrowind (heck, add disposition back into the game to begin with!), and you're on your way to the ultimate TES dialogue system, IMHO.

 

[buru5]

There are many, many silly and hilarious conversations that can be had in the Oblivion engine. That is partly what adds a lot of charm to the game.

But in terms of an actual system to be taken somewhat seriously, I still prefer it over Skyrim's in most ways. If they take Oblivion and greatly expand the number of voice actors like they did with Skyrim, add many more possible topics and responses and add some specific dialogue here and there to certain characters, it would be great. Expand the guard-speak from Skyrim and people commenting on your appearance/race/profession, add back in many of the wonderful disposition-specific greetings from Morrowind (heck, add disposition back into the game to begin with!), and you're on your way to the ultimate TES dialogue system, IMHO.

I think they had it right with Oblivion. They just needed to refine it. Skyrim was a big step backwards in the AI and dialogue department, since most everything was entirely scripted besides some greetings. A combination of Morrowind and Oblivion's dialogue system with tweaks would be great, like you were saying.

I'm replaying Oblivion now and one of the main things I've noticed is that sometimes guards and other npcs will continuously say their greeting over and over and over again to you, or continuously say the same thing to other NPCs over and over. Simply making it something like "NPCs only say their greeting once per load in" would have been a big improvement.

It's a shame they completely removed disposition in Skyrim. Hopefully they'll go back to that, but I doubt it since Skyrim was a "YUGE SUCCESS!" and a "PERFECT GAME!" according to many critics.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Do you mean in Skyrim they repeat themselves? Because yeah, that is a big problem with the dialogue. There should perhaps be one specific, unique greeting and then the NPC can draw from a bank of more generic ones after that.

Morrowind's disposition-based greetings were great. I love how some people hated your guts and for others you were flattering them with your attention, outlander.

 

[buru5]

Do you mean in Skyrim they repeat themselves? Because yeah, that is a big problem with the dialogue. There should perhaps be one specific, unique greeting and then the NPC can draw from a bank of more generic ones after that.

Morrowind's disposition-based greetings were great. I love how some people hated your guts and for others you were flattering them with your attention, outlander.

They repeat themselves in Skyrim yeah, but I was referring to Oblivion. It happens to a lesser extent in Skyrim.

Yesterday I was doing the quest where you have to get yourself thrown in jail to speak with a criminal who "stole" from his partner (forget their names). It was in Bruma. One of the guards walked up to the guard watching the prison and kept saying "I'm here to relieve you" over and over. It also happens with NPC greeting the MC or other NPCs, I guess when they're too close to each other for extended periods of time?

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

They repeat themselves less in Skyrim? That's odd. I remember each NPC having generally one or two scripted lines that they would repeat all the time, almost every time you passed them. The Cloud District guy as an obvious example, or the speech by the Stormcloak dude that would trigger literally every time you entered that building. I know there is plenty of repeating dialogue in Oblivion, but a lot of times it's not scripted or canned, i.e. they repeat the mudcrab story, but in Skyrim the NPCs generally repeat their single unique phrase over and over. I still think in the end Oblivion's system would be best with more topics of conversation.

 

[buru5]

I agree with you. Skyrim was a complete dumbing down of almost every aspect of the series, especially the NPCs and dialogue. Hopefully Bethesda will return to their roots with the next ES game but somehow I doubt it.