Interview Oblivion tit for tat at GameCloud

[GhanBuriGhan]

Mage's Guild quests

Yeah, Ajira's quests were a nuisance.

Bet with Gebeldir was fun, and the Huleens hut quest was interesting in a way. Most others were run of the mill quests, though. although I kind of liked the "archeology" type quests for some reason, although they wer just FedEx at their core.

 

[Pr()ZaC]

I tell you, it never gets old when you paralyze a guard in midswing and watch him tumble down the stairs, still in his swing pose, with his limbs realistically bouncing off every surface. I love havok.

Now, this would be an interesting feature tactically if it was implemented with a high degree of physical simulation. Obviously there's the Stair Dismount factor, where a tumbling guard takes damage from such a fall, which introduces an interesting positional advantage to be toyed with. On top of that, paralysing a single guard could theoretically send a line of guards toppling like dominoes, or for that matter, so could environmental objects like barrels.

Of course, it's doubtful the implementation would extend beyond the usual "realistic death animation" feature.

It's a great feature indeed but I wonder how much control will be given to the end user (TESCS/HAVOK lite SDK?) to modify physics.

 

[kathode]

Man, how I wish that Beth would vary their PR coverage a bit. MSFD or Kathode, don't you guys get tired, if the gameplay and roleplayingness is so awesome as you say, of being constantly bashed in threads like these?

Not in the slightest! Reviled or not, Oblivion is the most popular subject around here. There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. If we fed you everything you wanted to know, you might start to ignore us

 

[Psilon]

OK, point for the Oscar Wilde reference. No doubt if we called you guys a streak of bat's piss, you'd say it's because you shine out like a shaft of gold when all around is dark.

Seriously, though, the Oblivion threads would become a lot more interesting if you just "leaked" something new. Aren't you tired by now of soil erosion jokes?

 

[Chefe]

Imho, the Tribunal Temple faction was worth playing in Morrowind.
It contained some quests other than just simple go&fetch and go&kill and was more difficult.

I'd like to add on the Imperial Cult quests which, in my humble opinion, were the greatest quests in the whole game. I actually had fun while doing them. The Temple would be my número dos, but still up there. The Temple contained both extremities in the world of Morrowind questing: some sucked ass completely and were boring beyond all reason, and others were pretty damn good.

What I find amusing, is the two guilds that were arguably the best in Morrowind (not to mention the religious quests were some of the best in Daggerfall) are being done with completely. Now we only have the typical shitty stereotypical Fighter, Mage, Thief guilds. The Arena and the Dark Brotherhood are the only two original guilds in the whole game.

 

[Pr()ZaC]

RPG Codex getting exclusive attention AND leaked infos? That would make console fanbois in the TES forums commit mass suicide...

 

[TheGreatGodPan]

It seems like we get more information than them anyways, because they don't care as much about the stuff we want to know.

 

[Chefe]

Not in the slightest! Reviled or not, Oblivion is the most popular subject around here. There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. If we fed you everything you wanted to know, you might start to ignore us

Well, granted, many of us are past TES fans. Not to mention that there aren't any other RPGs (or psuedo-RPGs for that matter) out or coming out soon besides DS2 and Fable. If everyone talked about how much of a step back your game is going to be, and how disappointing it is, and no one buys it... well, that's not good, right? You wouldn't rather have constructive criticism of what features your are implementing (real features, no more Patrick Stewart soil erosion bullshit, or how RAI is going to "revolushunize" without giving any gameplay examples) and have people go buy the game, but talk about it less because they are playing? Then giving more criticism which you can use to improve your next title?

In a game that's going to be released in a few months, we know absolutley SHIT about gameplay. You know, gameplay, that little thing that makes a game a... uh.... game... and more than just a giant landmass to explore and get bored in? And the only things we have heard about gameplay are things that are going to be removed. Beautiful, chico. Just beautiful.

We do know that there's not going to be any demo. Do you guys think you're the fucking Pentagon or something, with all your secrecy? Another forum I frequent, the AOE3 Heaven forum, the developers tell people about the game. They have fixed things that people complained about (like the UI being too obtrusive). You guys have been listening to your fans complaining for a year, and you've done nothing about it (even if they are a bunch of little bastards, a few of them do occasionally bring up good points). I've been occasinally following the ES forum for some time and ever since Oblivion was first announced last summer the topics haven't changed at all. You can't tell me that in an entire year you couldn't implement one of the following: Nine Divines, Crossbows, Throwing Stars, Mounted Combat, More Skills, Staff Weapons, Dual Wielding, Mercenaries (which really sucks for the priest I was going to make, thanks guys!), or Werewolves... ?

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

RPG Codex getting exclusive attention AND leaked infos? That would make console fanbois in the TES forums commit mass suicide...

If only.

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

You know a lot about combat -- that's a pretty important facet of gameplay.

 

[Vault Dweller]

As long as it's not the only one

 

[Chefe]

Combat doesn't make an RPG. And it's not even the whole enchilada, it's just hand combat. Nothing about magic other than we can cast while having a sword drawn.

Not to mention that it's really not that important for my priest and merchant prince characters.

Is there anything else other than combat that makes up the gameplay?

 

[Fodel]

Oblivion will be a TES game, so his gameplay and his roleplay options will be the lore and the world, as usual :D , if somebody want play with a crossbow, Dungeon Siege 2 has a lot of them.

The lack of a religion facction is very dissapointing for a TES game. :evil:

 

[Balor]

Yea, really.
No targets for wanton destruction and humiliation :twisted:.

 

[fnordcircle]

Seriously, though, the Oblivion threads would become a lot more interesting if you just "leaked" something new. Aren't you tired by now of soil erosion jokes?

There's a Bethesda employee on another board I frequent, different username but who knows if it is MSFD/Kathode. Anyways he or she did just that, and let a little something slide and apparently got in hot water over it to the point that he or she will never do that again.

Whoever narced that Bethesda employee out is a jackass if it was a forum-goer.

 

[Pr()ZaC]

Tell me about that "something".

 

[Sarvis]

I still think MSFD needs to let us know if dual wielding is in...

I mean, how can you roleplay a Drizzt clone without it!?!

Half kidding, I do like dual wielding...

 

[Chefe]

Teh fanboies revolt!

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=165340
http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=165335
http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=165297


Arghhh!

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

I still think MSFD needs to let us know if dual wielding is in...

I mean, how can you roleplay a Drizzt clone without it!?!

Half kidding, I do like dual wielding...

Dual wielding is out, that's been known for a while. That and a lot of the things we know about gameplay are found here:
http://www.waiting4oblivion.com/faq.html

While I agree that there is a certain lack of PR on the RPG side of Oblivion, I would argue that there are few games that have as much info out as this one. See above link and
http://www.waiting4oblivion.com/developer_quotes.html
and the team diaries.
Maybe come up with a more specific question than "we want to know about gameplay"...?
I for example would like to know what the average length of a typical guild or side quest is, how many of them are actually "branching" (have different endings, or divergent paths).
I would also like to know to what extent they have tried to make your actions have consequences in the game world beyond what we saw in Morrowind (which basically came down to your reputation being modified for dialogue, that was it).

 

[Chefe]

I want to know what they've done to address the issues of lifeless NPCs in Morrowind, and also how they made those forests look so purty.

 

[Tetragrammaton]

Oh, don't spoil yourselves. People like me stalk the Oblivion threads here in case of new info, and you guys have gotten plenty of details that guys at the TES forums don't know. When MSFD mentioned that Blunt was a skill, I passed it on to TES forums. There, people calculated that this meant that Spear was gone, causing a huge kerfuffle for a few days.

 

[triCritical]

St. had a perfect quote. I have not played Oblivion, obviously, however, in Morrowind, hits were anything but that. I think it would have been physically impossible for a tall character to even hit something like a mudcrab. Moreover, I have been hit by a mudcrab 5 feet away, slight exaggeration.

So what is a to hit? It would have been nice if Hines could have compared and constrasted the combat from MW to Oblivion, that way what he said would have been sooooo vague. Not to mention that completely disagree with Hines' logic. You countrol a mouse view and click a button, how does that equate to more realistic and natural fencing then a roll? Thats absurd!!! The reality is that its more natural to an XBOX gamer who thinks that action games are the only kind of game there is.

 

[Tintin]

You countrol a mouse view and click a button, how does that equate to more realistic and natural fencing then a roll?

So then I guess all games are equally unrealistic.

You aim properly and your sword will always hit if you are within distance and that sword would hit him in real life.

= more realistic than watching the sword go through your opponent.

 

[Chefe]

= more realistic than watching the sword go through your opponent.

I thought we already covered the "dodge" animation subject.

 

[Tintin]

= more realistic than watching the sword go through your opponent.

I thought we already covered the "dodge" animation subject.

Yeah...and? NPCs will dodge in Oblivion.