PCGamer says Oblivion wasn't perfect

[SimpleComplexity]

Hi Saxon, my name is Greg Vederman and I was the Editor-in-Chief of PC Gamer magazine when the Oblivion review was published back in the May 2006 issue.

In the nearly 10 years that I wrote for that magazine, PCG never took a dime in exchange for editorial coverage — be it previews or reviews or anything. And since I hired (and trust) both the current Editor-in-Chief of the magazine and his boss, I can assure you that remains unchanged to this day.

Remember, PC Gamer isn't a single, static voice — over the years it has been written by many people with many different opinions which is why, every once in a while, you'll read an article that doesn't exactly match up with something you may have read in the past.

Cheers,

-G

http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12220

So it's all a happy coincidence ? Bullshit.

 

[piydek]

It took me about an hour once I left the stupid opening dungeon to realise I hadn't been challenged a single time regardless of where I stumbled.

My experience was the same. It was obvious that the game was completely suited to TEh WIN!

 

[DraQ]

A whole hour? Really? My first suspicions started when Uriel VII showed up looking and behaving like a retard. Then Baurus failed to kill me for standing over the dead body of the emperor with bloodied sword in one hand, Holy Amulet of McGuffin in the other, after he turned his back on the one he had duty to protect for a moment. It didn't take much longer than exiting the sewers to confirm that the game was indeed shit.

 

[piydek]

A whole hour? Really? My first suspicions started when Uriel VII showed up looking and behaving like a retard. Then Baurus failed to kill me for standing over the dead body of the emperor with bloodied sword in one hand, Holy Amulet of McGuffin in the other, after he turned his back on the one he had duty to protect for a moment. It didn't take much longer than exiting the sewers to confirm that the game was indeed shit.

Of course, but i needed about an hour to confirm to myself that indeed all encounters are of the same difficulty, that all enemies are equally powerful and that i can beat the shit out of them all without even trying. That time i didn't even get to level whichever it is when things get more difficult although you're more powerful than before. Saw the game was pointless way before that and also it did its notorious soul-suck on me so i couldn't bear to play it further.

I got to higher character levels only when i played much later with OOO and other mods that fix some of the game's issues. And generally, i agree with the conclusion of another Oblivion thread here that that game is beyond repair even with thousands of mods. Basically it needs a complete re-write.

 

[JarlFrank]

I'm playing Nehrim again and that mod really makes me go "why is this so awesome compared to the utter fail that Oblivion was... why did Bethesda fail so horribly?" whenever I go through one of the better dungeons in that mod.

It boggles the mind how a small group of modders can deliver a quality product while people who get paid for it deliver derp.

 

[DraQ]

I got to higher character levels only when i played much later with OOO and other mods that fix some of the game's issues. And generally, i agree with the conclusion of another Oblivion thread here that that game is beyond repair even with thousands of mods. Basically it needs a complete re-write.

Pretty much this.

Killing the scaling and introducing new items, creatures and content through mods (OOO, Francesco's, etc.), plus revamping the combat system so it ceases being simplistic and mind-numbingly boring HP attrition (Deadly Reflex) may salvage the game to the point of actually providing positive net entertainment, but there is still little point to it. Unlike Daggerfall, oblivious doesn't awe us with sheer scale, scope and complexity, unlike Morrowind, it does not give you this stranger-in-the-strange-land feel, with alien landscapes, alien culture and promise of danger and discovery lurking behind every twist of every road. It's flat and familiar. Has anyone ever found anything interesting anywhere in oblivious, be it a sight, a piece of loot or unique location? Has anyone ever ran anywhere where he would be in over his head?

In Morrowind you started off by being dropped on the edge of alien, dangerous land.
In oblivious you're dropped in the dead center of familiar, boring everyland with no dark corners nor mysteries whatsoever.

SI alleviates this problem somewhat by basically attemtping to repat those elements of Morrowind that actually made it interesting, but vanilla oblivious, even with all the fixes has no point to it. There is no reason to play it.

 

[bloodlover]

Well look on the bright side : it only took them 6 years to see this shit. They will probably see the shit from TES 5 six years from now.

 

[SideSeer]

The graphics were good .That's all .

I expected a lot more from oblivion ,but the game was totally screwed .The mobs were screwed ,the races were screwed ( i mean ,come one man ,in morrowind ,the kajit and the argonians couldn't wear "pants" ,and here they can? how the hell ,are they mutants ?.Plus,they looked almost the same ,the bretons,the humans,the elves.The orcs didn't look so ...MASTERS OF CARNAGE ,they looked dumb,they'r voices were dumb ,and they were more civilized than the dark elves!!),the combat..i really hoped it would be something more special ,not just click and slash .Also ,they'r idea of a COOL ENDING didn't work so good .God smack my face if i got scared of Dagon ,it looked stupid,funny ,retarded.And when you see Dagon ,you can't actually atack him ,or fight with him, you just go past him ,kill some mobs ,and there you are ,the main quest is done .

 

[syllopsium]

Of course, but i needed about an hour to confirm to myself that indeed all encounters are of the same difficulty, that all enemies are equally powerful and that i can beat the shit out of them all without even trying. That time i didn't even get to level whichever it is when things get more difficult although you're more powerful than before. Saw the game was pointless way before that and also it did its notorious soul-suck on me so i couldn't bear to play it further.

I got to higher character levels only when i played much later with OOO and other mods that fix some of the game's issues. And generally, i agree with the conclusion of another Oblivion thread here that that game is beyond repair even with thousands of mods. Basically it needs a complete re-write.

Actually, I died plenty of times early on and still die in Oblivion even now. Solution : play as an altmer atronach mage.

I've very lightly modded my Oblivion installation because it tends to break things - maybe on the second run through. I agree that scaled difficulty sucks.

 

[7hm]

It also took me a while to see how shitty much in the game was.

To see the problem with the level scaling, I had to get to around level 9, when my character's performance became suddenly very underwhelming, and the world changed. With my generally very slow play style, it took me a while to get there.

Really?

It took me about an hour once I left the stupid opening dungeon to realise I hadn't been challenged a single time regardless of where I stumbled.

Not sure what that has to do with what I said. As unbalanced as the TES games are, the challenge you will experience directly after you emerge from the dungeon is very much dependent on your starting character choice. The borked level scaling gets apparent when your char suddenly gets incompetent after he reaches one of the levels where all NPCs and monsters get exchanged for the next tier without your character having level-appropriate attributes. There are troughs around levels 10 and 15 (roughly, I didn't look the exact numbers up).

You found the game to get hard at some point?

Errr... Maybe the Xbox version was easier than the PC version. That's more likely than you being fail at RPG's right?

 

[piydek]

Killing the scaling and introducing new items, creatures and content through mods (OOO, Francesco's, etc.), plus revamping the combat system so it ceases being simplistic and mind-numbingly boring HP attrition (Deadly Reflex) may salvage the game to the point of actually providing positive net entertainment, but there is still little point to it. Unlike Daggerfall, oblivious doesn't awe us with sheer scale, scope and complexity, unlike Morrowind, it does not give you this stranger-in-the-strange-land feel, with alien landscapes, alien culture and promise of danger and discovery lurking behind every twist of every road. It's flat and familiar. Has anyone ever found anything interesting anywhere in oblivious, be it a sight, a piece of loot or unique location? Has anyone ever ran anywhere where he would be in over his head?

In Morrowind you started off by being dropped on the edge of alien, dangerous land.
In oblivious you're dropped in the dead center of familiar, boring everyland with no dark corners nor mysteries whatsoever.

SI alleviates this problem somewhat by basically attemtping to repat those elements of Morrowind that actually made it interesting, but vanilla oblivious, even with all the fixes has no point to it. There is no reason to play it.

Very well put. This mirrors my experiences as well.

 

[Oesophagus]

[intelligence] So you're saying that reviewers get cash from developers for writing favourable reviews?

You can bet your ass that when the first preview of TES V comes out they'll point out all the improvements it'll have over F3

 

[Serus]

Yeah, right. Same deal as always: to pretend that the new mediocre game is better, you first need to say that the previous game, which was otherwise perfect, got a few problems that the new game improves on.

Spot on.

Exactly.

 

[DraQ]

I think they should rename their publication as 360 Gamer.

Or 180 Gamer.

 

[Turjan]

Not sure what that has to do with what I said. As unbalanced as the TES games are, the challenge you will experience directly after you emerge from the dungeon is very much dependent on your starting character choice. The borked level scaling gets apparent when your char suddenly gets incompetent after he reaches one of the levels where all NPCs and monsters get exchanged for the next tier without your character having level-appropriate attributes. There are troughs around levels 10 and 15 (roughly, I didn't look the exact numbers up).

You found the game to get hard at some point?

Errr... Maybe the Xbox version was easier than the PC version. That's more likely than you being fail at RPG's right?

Not sure about your precious Xbox version, but since when has finding flaws in Oblivion's level mechanics equalled failing at RPGs?

I mistakenly expected that the templates the game provided were any good this time. I picked something that seemed to fit my play style. The template leveled incredibly fast, but each time got only minimal attribute points connected to major skills. Then suddenly the world changed, and the game started spamming stuff like mountain lions and trolls at me. All these next tier creatures had level-appropriate attributes, unlike my char. That meant that my char's damage output did not match the new hitpoint level of opponents, and each of these "interesting" fights against random encounters became a long and drawn out affair. As Oblivion combat sucks, the whole game experience sucked at that point.

I just started over with a char that did not have fast level skills as majors and used mostly minor skills, which pretty much got rid of the problem. I think that char reached level 18 until I got finally bored with the game. The difficulty zig-zag was still notable, though. I recently tried (unsuccessfully) to see the end of the main quest, and I think reached level 23 or so, and the game becomes very easy at that point.

 

[Jasede]

What I fail to understand is why you lot played Oblivion in the first place. We knew it would be bad. We knew years before it came out it would be bad. When it came out, it looked even worse.

Why did you bother paying for or wasting time and bandwidth on something this awful? There are many other games you could have played. Was it morbid curiosity? The thing that drives people to stare at bloody car crashes?

 

[Turjan]

What I fail to understand is why you lot played Oblivion in the first place. We knew it would be bad. We knew years before it came out it would be bad. When it came out, it looked even worse.

Why did you bother paying for or wasting time and bandwidth on something this awful? There are many other games you could have played. Was it morbid curiosity? The thing that drives people to stare at bloody car crashes?

Meh. Morrowind was a pretty good game, despite its faults. There was still some chance they might have been able to pull off the magic again. That didn't happen. I'm not sure what other explanation you need.

 

[Oaken]

It's mediocre enough to be playable with 30gb of mods.

 

[DraQ]

I mistakenly expected that the templates the game provided were any good this time.

They are beyond atrocious.

In Daggerfall they were interesting, but pointless, as they meant you didn't get to use the awesome customization system. In Morrowind they sometimes offered questionable skill composition, but generally worked as advertised and each could be played effectively. In Oblivion not only did they offer questionable skillsets (Nightblade without stealth? Monk with security? allegedly honorable Knight and illusion, really?) but given that game was heavily scaled and over the half of all skills were useless...

As Oblivion combat sucks, the whole game experience sucked at that point.

One thing I can't understand is how everyone runs around claiming that combat in OB was improvement over Morrowind.

Yes, it made better first impression and yes MW combat was shoddy, but Morrowind, at least had infinitely better armour mechanics, knockdowns, more tactics and decency to not degenerate into retarded HP attrition over the span of several minutes. Paradoxically, the improved AI made OB even worse in this regard, as drawing enemies arbitrarily far from their hideouts became a legitimate tactics.

 

[Jaesun]

What I fail to understand is why you lot played Oblivion in the first place. We knew it would be bad. We knew years before it came out it would be bad. When it came out, it looked even worse.

Why did you bother paying for or wasting time and bandwidth on something this awful? There are many other games you could have played. Was it morbid curiosity? The thing that drives people to stare at bloody car crashes?

I still have not, nor ever will play Oblivion. Ironically, I ended up playing DX:Invisible War just out of sheer morbid curiosity a few years ago to see why people hated it so much. Nothing on earth would ever motivate me to play the shit banal turdfest that is Oblivion.

I perhaps am the only one codexer that is un-touched by the shit filth stain that is Oblivion. And it feels good man.

 

[treave]

What I fail to understand is why you lot played Oblivion in the first place. We knew it would be bad. We knew years before it came out it would be bad. When it came out, it looked even worse.

Why did you bother paying for or wasting time and bandwidth on something this awful? There are many other games you could have played. Was it morbid curiosity? The thing that drives people to stare at bloody car crashes?

I still have not, nor ever will play Oblivion. Ironically, I ended up playing DX:Invisible War just out of sheer morbid curiosity a few years ago to see why people hated it so much. Nothing on earth would ever motivate me to play the shit banal turdfest that is Oblivion.

I perhaps am the only one codexer that is un-touched by the shit filth stain that is Oblivion. And it feels good man.

You're not alone. I haven't played it either. Never even bothered torrenting it in the first place.

Sometimes I wonder how Codexers know all about all those great mods you need to improve your Oblivion experience.

 

[Black]

What was it called again? Rybicki Maneuver?
http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=37708

 

[Saxon1974]

Hi Saxon, my name is Greg Vederman and I was the Editor-in-Chief of PC Gamer magazine when the Oblivion review was published back in the May 2006 issue.

In the nearly 10 years that I wrote for that magazine, PCG never took a dime in exchange for editorial coverage — be it previews or reviews or anything. And since I hired (and trust) both the current Editor-in-Chief of the magazine and his boss, I can assure you that remains unchanged to this day.

Remember, PC Gamer isn't a single, static voice — over the years it has been written by many people with many different opinions which is why, every once in a while, you'll read an article that doesn't exactly match up with something you may have read in the past.

Cheers,

-G

http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12220

So it's all a happy coincidence ? Bullshit.

I didn't see this so I went over to RPGwatch and replied. This reminds me of saying well our company released that mag but it wasn't really reprsentative of PCGamer opinions...not really...um ok

There may have not been money but there is definitely sucking up and glowing reviews for preferential treatment I believe.

 

[Zeus]

Remember, PC Gamer isn't a single, static voice — over the years it has been written by many people with many different opinions which is why, every once in a while, you'll read an article that doesn't exactly match up with something you may have read in the past.

So it's all a happy coincidence ? Bullshit.

Magazines go through phases. In the early 90s, certain genres were treated like gold by EGM. Not necessarily the most popular or obvious genres of the time (it can't simply be explained as fading trends), but the types of games that were the personal favorites of the review crew. In the late 90s, a whole other crew took over. Crispin, Shoe, all these new guys with different taste in games. All of a sudden, the sort of titles that "EGM" would have raved over just five years ago were mostly ignored.

I also think claims of payola are crap. Does anyone really think ZeniMax bribed the Sydney Morning Herald? The A.V. Club? Cheat Code Central?

Yeah, that's right, they called up the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald and threatened to pull their ads unless they got a rave review. And then they got on the phone with the The New York Times, who caved and gave 'em a great review. That's exactly what happened.

 

[roll-a-die]

[intelligence] So you're saying that reviewers get cash from developers for writing favourable reviews?

You can bet your ass that when the first preview of TES V comes out tomorrow in game informer they'll point out all the improvements it'll have over F3

Shillings it up while givings you infos.

Seriously I wouldn't doubt that they won't be ranting upon the improvement on everything.

Also, you don't get bribed to write good reviews, you do get blackmailed to write favorable ones. There's nothing like a news system where the people you are attempting to write news on, feed you the approved stuff, and then ban you from their lists if you write about something unapproved.

Basically if you write a scathing review telling the truth about a blockbuster game, say good bye to your job, because your publishers and editors don't want to not get, anything from, early review copies, to interviews, to previews. You could get the entire magazine put on a blacklist. So fuck off and write PC shit about the big things, while picking on the littler shit and shilling for the corporate narms.

(One of my girlfriends works for a gaming magazine, not going to say which one though. This is basically one of her rants verbatim.)