Do you think Oblivion can be saved?

[Thrawn05]

As we already knew Pete Hines is a piece of shit. Oblivion is the sequel to Morrowind, it's not like some completely different game from a different company. 90% of Oblivion players will own Morrowind and he has no right to tell us what we can't do with stuff we own. And of the few TES4 players who don't own TES3, that's plain greedy hoping they can a couple more bucks out of a five year old game.

How can they expect to make money from modding when they then slap stupid restrictions on to it?

Actually you don't own either games. Read the EULA. As much an I am not a fan of Bethesda, they do have the right to restrict or prohibit content from one game to be in another, even if both games are from the same company and basically made by the same people.

 

[sheek]

No I don't own their company (obviously) but they're still faggots.

 

[Jim Kata]

Why redo it at all? The elois seem happy enough with it as it is. It is quite shiny.

 

[Thrawn05]

Why redo it at all? The elois seem happy enough with it as it is. It is quite shiny.

That's because you left the Bloom setting on.

 

[franc kaos]

I think you can really improve Oblivion as an adventure game, but its hard-coded limitations mean it'll never be a good RPG. E.g., dialogue is necessarily screwed, no way around it; the whole Persuasion minigame is probably impossible to circumvent, and the hard-coded character limit for dialogue is just unacceptable. Bottom line: you'll never be able to have complex branching dialogue with Oblivion.

The hard coded limit is 255 characters for an NPC response if you edit the CS INI, you can have as many response's as you want. Each NPC response can generate as many new topics and decision branches (ie 'please continue, yes, no, I don't know') as you desire and the PC's topics can be (I think) sixty characters.

I agree about the persuasion minigame (tho there is a mod that limits its usefullness and makes your personality skill much more important), and you can create NPC responses that won't work until they like you enough.

There is nothing you cannot do with this dialog system that wasn't in Ultima7 (bad sentence structure - does it make sense?).

The worst thing is that you can't specify leaving text on screen untill a certain amount of time, or mouseclick. You have to create a silent voice file for each and every response - a frigging nightmare!

If you're going for an action-RPG, tho, it should be possible to make Oblivion much more interesting just by inserting a lot of quests with multiple solutions (including non-violent solutions). May never be a really great RPG, but it could at least be a pretty good game. The problem is, I can't see it working without ripping out a lot of the current guts in the gameworld, radically redesigning a lot of the quests, etc., because there's already so much junk out there that it'll simply make a mess to paint some good stuff over it.

True - except, there's a lot of unused world space (just disable the artificial boundary in the CS), plenty of room to create huge new quest lines.

 

[suibhne]

As much an I am not a fan of Bethesda, they do have the right to restrict or prohibit content from one game to be in another, even if both games are from the same company and basically made by the same people.

Nobody's arguing that they don't have the right - it's just that they're being dicks about it. If there's a legal reason why they can't do this, they should make it clear; otherwise, all of the assets were produced by the same developer and published by the same publisher, so they should still have full control over their use.

 

[Durwyn]

Oblivion can't be saved, but many people can be saved from Oblivion if they read this : Don't touch it !!! EVAH!!

 

[Shagnak]

Thanks for your posts everyone!

VenomByte, here are the responses to your queries.

- Fix scaling, so that dangerous areas have dangerous creatures, and safe areas safe ones. More like Morrowind.

This is fixed in OOO.

- Levelled loot. Rich people should have STUFF WORTH STEALING. The game is currently pretty pointless as a thief because you are simply not able to get equipment and goods which are above your level. No daedric bandits either. Some caves should have better loot than others, and correspondingly tougher creatures. Essentially, I should not have the exact same experience in every cave/dungeon I go in.

This is fixed too.

Cool.
I played a stealth-based character, but gave up fairly early on due to the scaling fucking things up for me. I paid money for the game, so I intend to get back to it after I have selected the right mods n shit (umm...and when I actually have time). Did the same for Morrowind - I eventually got a game that I enjoyed.

A question about the OOOoooo... mod.
Can you enable/disable certain features of it, or do you have to have "all or nothing"?

- More varied and inmersive Oblivion gates. This includes imperial barricades outside them, trying to hold off the Daedric invasion, and perhaps cooperative incursions with imperial soldiers.

This sounds good.
In the game as it is, it seems a little silly how the gates keep popping up here and there and no-one reacts to them or gives a shit (other than Kvatch, of course). Having events in reaction to them would add a little more of that mostly-missing quality, immersion.

 

[Mr Happy]

Elhoim - use Daggerfall as a guide (seems like you're doing that, and more).

Also, check out some of these projects (for example, Daggerfall Oblivion mod): http://forums.dfworkshop.net/

Jeremy Soule

Personally, I much prefer Eric Heberlings style. But also, the music in Daggerfall was implemented much better.

 

[Deacdo]

I don't remember what they are called, but there are two mods that seem to be compatable that look very interesting. One changes the way you level up (makes it less munchkinish) and the other makes a bunch of tweaks, but most importantly, removes scaling in favour of standard RPG fair.

Oblivion may never be a great RPG, but I'm hoping those mods make it a decet action/adventure game.

 

[Frankie]

Do you think that mods can make the game more playable for RPG gamers?

Do you think that most of its flaws can be solved or not?

What else would you like a mod to do so to make Oblivion closer to being a RPG?

Any suggestions are welcome, as maybe we can implement them. I´m part of the OOO team and we are thinking about the next version of the mod. It would be nice to have some imput from real RPG gamers about what should be fixed in this game.

Thanks!

I don't think there is anything that can be done to make Oblivion an RPG. The flaws that are there are way too bad and nothing less than ripping the game apart by it's code will fix it.... not even a mod as good as the OOO mod.

 

[Data4]

My second greatets hope is the Tamriel rebuilt project. They appear to have some pretty decent work as far as models go for Vvardenfell, already having Redoran architecture/buildings, those ugly giant mushrooms, landmass laid out, etc. but no quests so far.

Last I heard they decided to keep making it with the Morrowind engine. Changed their minds?

I believe it's Silgrad Tower that has the Redoran stuff built for Oblivion. Their mod looks pretty good, but no matter what color paint you apply to shit, it's still shit. The paintjob isn't so bad, though.

-D4

 

[Elhoim]

A question about the OOOoooo... mod.
Can you enable/disable certain features of it, or do you have to have "all or nothing"?

Yes, you can. There are many options you can enable or disable according to your tastes.

And if you want to use a stealth character, I highly recommend you to download the "Stealth Overhaul" mod. It is fantastic! The type of armor you are wearing affects your sneak skill, and also there are different backstab multipliers according to the weapon you are using.

 

[Vipera]

If you need voice actors, try this: http://ovag.bravehost.com/

Why redo it at all? The elois seem happy enough with it as it is. It is quite shiny.

Nice Time Machine reference.