Sorry, but: why is it so hard to understand what I say just because my opinion differs from yours????
He's not saying that it is. Rather, he simply expected a different response from you given your previous role.
I fail to see why I should response in a way I consider wrong because of a "role". I am what I am, not what "role" I have.
I would rather complain about things that aren't possible in the game, not about possibilities that you don't like.
That
is what is being criticised.
Things that are not possible. You cannot make meaningful, serious decisions - ie decisions with
consequences. You cannot experience a game-world in which your actions actually
count for something. These ought to be essential elements of an RPG, especially in this day and age.
That's not what is being criticised, and most of all: to emphasize your point of view, you greatly try to put truth in the shades:
If you really believe that your actions will have no consequences in Oblivion because you can join all for guilds if you will, then I have to assume you know nothing about the game. Most of your actions will have consequences, and it is safe to say you know that - you just do not mention it because it would make your general critizism invalid.
Fact is: In oblivion you can join all four guilds. If you roleplay, you most probably won't do it. If you want to join all four guilds because you want to do all of the quests in one game, you can do it.
I simply don't get why people complain that something is possible. See, if the game would have a marker for your character which says that you can join one or two out of four guilds and the nobody else would accept you - would you be happy? If so - for gods sake, put the marker on yourself and period. There are much more important questions about the game, for example how well RAI will work, which compromises had to be made to keep the NPC system balanced within itself and so on. But complaining about an option (not a must!!!!!) you don't like - c'mon!
This is not because of the lazyness or the the lacking good will of the devs and designers, it's due to very real restrictions. As I said, you have only so and so much time and money to do the game
It was not a lack of resources. They've got soil erosion and Patrick Stewart, after all. It's a clear design decision. As Drakron put it, 'Little Timmy (who shouldn't be playing the game if his parents knew better) will get upset if he cannot become grandmaster of everything'.
As for that 'you're not making the game therefore you cannot criticise it' line, well - It's soooo easy for you to sit on a forum and say 'you are not allowed to criticise the design of the game', isn't it Rendelius?
What else in the world are design decisions but householding with the ressources? I don't think that having Patrick Steward was hurting their timeline. And I think that soil erosion (and having a landscape engine that took the load of designing the landscape all by hand) was a CLEVER design decision, leaving them more time for other things (I have heard the dungeons will be bigger than in Morrowind - which I personally like). The "Little Timmy"-thing is an assumption, and it really smells like simplification - but I have no proof or disproof for this.
What REALLY pisses me off in your reply is that - against your knowledge - you try to make it look like I said that if you are not making a game, you can't criticise it. This is so lame, so predictable and the last ressort if you haven't got any argument left. Now, here's the quote what I said, and I ask you to reconsider what you trying to do with this quote:
It's soooo easy to sit on a forum and complain about missing things and design decisions, but it's another thing to keep a game development within the limits that will be fitting. There are a LOT of design decisions in Oblivion I do not like, but I think I understand why they have been made.
All I wanted to say is that when you start to think, you will find more than one reason why a certain thing has been done in the way it has been done. Dumbing down the game for the masses is one possibility. A second one is that implementing a meaningful relationship between the guilds is a task that doesn't fit into the timeline. A third would be that "freedom" means leaving some decisions to the player, even giving him options that might be silly for your personal gaming style. Reason number four for beig able to join all guilds is Radiant AI makes it hard to implement real factional behaviour and you would have to go back to fully scripted NPCs. Well, if you think a little bit longer, you will be able to come up with reason 5 to 12.
It's very human to just pick the reason that will fit into the picture you have made yourself for the game. And the more pieces will not fit into your picture, the harder you will stick to it. What I wanted to say in my sentence I have quoted is nothing more or less than: be open minded. I personally have learned that changing my opinion due to facts I have learned has never hurt my personality - on the contrary.
Now, let me get back to Oblivion and let me tell you what I expect and WHY I expect it: I expect Oblivion to be - for the possibilities of today (considering not only technical, but also economical boundaries) - a step further towards the freeform CRPG I would like to see. The quota of doing things right vs. doing things wrong in Morrowind was a favorable one, at least for what _I_ expect from a game. Oblivion might well be the next evolution of the genre, despite some things I would like to see and I know to be missing.
It's a real pity that Bethsoft hasn't implemented crafting - since this is something that greatly adds to the playability of a game for me. I liked the crafting system in the old Ultimas and Ultima Online, I kinda like the crafting opportunities in Everquest II (although they are not exactly what I envision), and I would have loved to see crafting in Oblivion.
I have some doubts that RAI will work as advertised. I know that the AI examples that have been shown and told mostly came from a non balanced system, but I fear that getting the RAI balanced will make it rather unspectacular. At least I do not expect the unexpected
.
I do not like the intrusive compass thingie with markers, and I hope this will be an option that can be turned off.
I do not really like the invisible barriers that will engulf Cyrodiil, but actually, I have no clue how they could have been avoided.
Last, but not least: I would have preferred a longer main storyline, but as I do not have to follow it all the time, that's not the biggest concern to me.
And the "I can join all guilds"-problem? It's no problem for me. I will not join all guilds, so everything you said about factions not being dependend from each other - I will never encounter it. I would only encounter the lack of dependency if I would try to join all - and this I won't, so this really is a ZERO problem for me.
Am I still looking forward to the game, despite all my concerns? Hell, yes. Very much so.
Once again, I hope I was able to make my point. Could you just consider my thoughts and stop interpreting them in an way they weren't meant?
