Why a game like Daggerfall can't be made today.

[Tintin]

What happens if you try? From the screenshot of that city (can't remember which one) the city walls don't seem too high, so what would happen if you tried to go over? Invisible wall?

Loading your last save...

Somehow I doubt it. Unless you were trying very hard to be your (non) clever little self.

detective dipshit on case.

How witty and clever. Bravo, you have really shown me. Pow!

 

[Proweler]

If you really want horses in the cities, mod it in. We decided to have stables outside and not allow them in. I honestly don't see why this is such a bone of contention, unless it's just complaining for the sake of complaining. If you want a lore explanation, maybe there's a directive from the offices of his Imperial Majesty saying that in order to foster a more civilized Cyrodiil, horses and other beasts are banned from the confines of the cities.

You ought to know better then to cover gameplay oddity's up whit Lore.

All these little complaints, they stack up. Makes you wonder what happend to freedom. It's like a golden coin where pepole chip the edges of. The coin still looks valuable but when push comes to shove, it's not. But that is just a matter of perception I geus, if you have never seen the real coin you'll never know.

 

[Proweler]

Not a big deal. But I guess I like to learn more about why certain things are the way they are - the would-be game designer in me is curious. Especially when a solution seems simple as in this case. Can you tell me why its not as simple as I think?

BTW, its cool that landscape shows - would large buildibgs show too, from the outside?
Nevermind you just answered that

It becomes problematic whit the RAI. They are moving around so any NPC comming through a see through load door will apear out of nothing. Same goes for when you try to enter by the walls. Apart from that there won't be much detail on the exterior terain when you are inside. So if you'f float 2k feet above town, the world would look rather dull.

Not quite sure if the city is an interior whit mock up landscape around it or a cell that replaces the mock up city in the exterior when you enter. The latter would be darn handy.

 

[voodoo1man]

I HIGHLY doubt that a software company keeps their nightly backups on-site, on one set of tape, that they can "lose".

Their software is backed up off-site nightly with one of the media backup companies, or they are retards. So, if they indeed said that, they are either retards or lying.

Well, remember that time when Micro Forte claimed they couldn't get at the original Fallout 3d models for the sprites because the tape archives were corrupt or they couldn't find the right tape drive or something?

PS - No riding horses in houses? Oh, how cruelly are my Braveheart fantasies dashed!

 

[Proweler]

PS - No riding horses in houses? Oh, how cruelly are my Braveheart fantasies dashed!

Don't bother you couldn't fight on the horse in the first place.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

If you really want horses in the cities, mod it in.

Ahh, Bethesda's new slogan: "Why Waste Time Working on Our Game when Our Customer can do it for Free?"

 

[Chefe]

All these little complaints, they stack up. Makes you wonder what happend to freedom. It's like a golden coin where pepole chip the edges of. The coin still looks valuable but when push comes to shove, it's not. But that is just a matter of perception I geus, if you have never seen the real coin you'll never know.

Exactly. Yea, it'd be stupid to complain about one little thing when that's all there was... but you have to look at the big picture. Alot of little things adds up, and pretty soon the freedom is gone.

Not to worry though, I'm sure days after it's released the zealous modders will fix things up. It's just a shame that Bethesda's too fucking stupid to realize these things, and instead its community has to apply fixes to bullshit decisions that should never have existed in the first place. If I ever buy Oblivion, the first mods I'm going to download are the "Remove Forced-Reload", "Horses Allowed in Cities", "Mounted Combat" (fuck, they put it in Morrowind, you know it's coming to Oblivion), "Nine Divines Guild", "Imperial Legion Guild", "Combat Staves", and, of course, the "Get Rid Of the Quest Compass" mod... it'll be the highlight of my collection.

 

[truekaiser]

If you really want horses in the cities, mod it in.

Ahh, Bethesda's new slogan: "Why Waste Time Working on Our Game when Our Customer can do it for Free?"

as i pointed out if the people runing the company was smarter they would fire these lazey devs and hire ones that will actualy do the work..

 

[Revasser]

Exactly. Yea, it'd be stupid to complain about one little thing when that's all there was... but you have to look at the big picture. Alot of little things adds up, and pretty soon the freedom is gone.

Not to worry though, I'm sure days after it's released the zealous modders will fix things up. It's just a shame that Bethesda's too fucking stupid to realize these things, and instead its community has to apply fixes to bullshit decisions that should never have existed in the first place. If I ever buy Oblivion, the first mods I'm going to download are the "Remove Forced-Reload", "Horses Allowed in Cities", "Mounted Combat" (fuck, they put it in Morrowind, you know it's coming to Oblivion), "Nine Divines Guild", "Imperial Legion Guild", "Combat Staves", and, of course, the "Get Rid Of the Quest Compass" mod... it'll be the highlight of my collection.

Don't forget "Spears, Lances and Halberds: Oh My! Polearms for the discerning roleplayer." That'll be one of the mods that I'll be hanging out for.

Though why we'll have to wait for modders to fix all the errors and add bleedingly obvious options is really beyond me. Including the CS with the game is great, since mods made Morrowind a MUCH more enjoyable game, but the CS shouldn't be seen as a panacea for bad decisions or a de facto cornucopia of things that should have been put in the game by the people getting paid to do it in the first place.

"Just mod it" is a cop out. Customers shouldn't have to make the product for them.

 

[Chefe]

Including the CS with the game is great, since mods made Morrowind a playable game

Fixed.

"Just mod it" is a cop out. Customers shouldn't have to make the product for them.

Welcome to teh future. For only 50 bucks you get to make your own fun.

 

[Revasser]

Including the CS with the game is great, since mods made Morrowind a playable game

Fixed.

Hah! That's exactly what I orginally typed, and it's basically true. I don't rightly know why I changed it when there's no moderators here to lock the thread and ban my IP for saying something seditious. Bad habit, I guess.

"Just mod it" is a cop out. Customers shouldn't have to make the product for them.

Welcome to teh future. For only 50 bucks you get to make your own fun.

Yeah. With some development models (ie. OSS) throwing the product out for others to improve is the way good software gets made. But that software is usally 'free as in beer' as well as 'free as in speech'. If I'm going to paying AUD$80-90 for a big, commerical game, I damn well want it to be a fully-fledged, complete game, not a half-assed console port that the customers have to construct the better half of.

 

[Section8]

If you want a lore explanation, maybe there's a directive from the offices of his Imperial Majesty saying that in order to foster a more civilized Cyrodiil, horses and other beasts are banned from the confines of the cities.

That would actually be really fucking cool, if the restriction was misinterpreted by some parts of society and its subcultures as excluding beast races too. Nothing like perverting an edict to suit your own right wing ideals. Where would the "right to bear arms" be without it!

Of course, like several people have already posed, "why shouldn't the player be able to break this law, like they would any other?"

I don't think prohibiting horses from entering cities is going to make or break the game, but once again, we're seeing symbolic arguments of principle. If you introduce the notion that "You can't do that because Patrick Stewart says no," then you're denying the same degree of freedom that is offered in other aspects of the game. Even though it's a trivial aspect of the game, the breach of "player rights" (hah) is now a precedent.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

The TES boards does have some witty chaps on it - check out these mock interface pics someone put up, before Gavin the Geeky Troll came along and closed down the thread:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v444/ ... rface2.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v444/ ... rface3.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v444/ ... rface4.gif

from: http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/inde ... pic=173124

HAH! I just fell out of my chair laughing at those.

It seems like a rather piccayune complaint, really.

Who really cares? Apparently and bafflingly lots of people seem to. I would worry more about gameplay...this is as silly as being pissed becuase you can't wear fedora hats in the game....

Gameplay. It's a fun thing to do. Busy city streets with horses and carriages going by. The opportunity to run inside a building, steal something and run out, hop on horseback and gallop off as you're being chased. Not letting horses into houses I can understand because they can't fit (the old wild west image of horses tied up outside the pub comes to mind) but whole cities just sounds like Bethesda took the cheap option (they blew their budget on the pretty trees perhaps?).

You could do that, Proweler, and then whenever you were close to a city, everything associated with the city would load and slow the game down -- even if you had no intention of entering the city itself. But be my guest.

Yeah, that's what happens when you focus on making things prettier, rather than on giving people a gameplay element they could've had some fun with.

You can't fly, climb or jump over the city walls

That is, as they say in France, Le Suck.

You can't fly, climb or jump over the city walls, Ghanburighan, so that's not an issue, but you can see landscape...

That is Bethesda's game design philosophy in a nutshell.

* Falls out of chair laughing again *

 

[Tintin]

Including the CS with the game is great, since mods made Morrowind a playable game

As the XBox sales have proven?

 

[Naked_Lunch]

Enter the Matrix was a bestselling game on every system, didn't make it playable.

 

[Chefe]

As the XBox sales have proven?

... that there was no alternative to even a remotely deep roleplaying game available on the system. Oblivion is going to have a monopoly on the 360 too. These things will continue to dumb down games until, before you know it, there's just one "Weapon" skill and one "Magic" Skill. Thieving got cut sometime around Xbox1080. Everyone accepts this, since the developers have weaned the crowd on it. Gaming declines and many of us turn into complete idiots that can't handle complexity.

What Bethesda really needs is some competition, because they're too fucking stupid (like many other companies are) to better a game on their own.

 

[Twinfalls]

How do you make the leap from

... that there was no alternative to even a remotely deep roleplaying game available on the system. Oblivion is going to have a monopoly on the 360 too.

To (in the next sentence):

These things will continue to dumb down games until, before you know it, there's just one "Weapon" skill and one "Magic" Skill.

?

May I suggest an alternative view? That perhaps, Oblivion, being closer to a traditional RPG than the likes of Fable and KOTOR, might just encourage people into RPGs? That it might draw the 'mainstream' into deeper stuff?

I think it is very important to make a distinction between Oblivion (and MW) dumbing down Daggerfall (arguably a legitimate criticism) and Oblivion simply 'dumbing down games'. I really do not think the latter can be the case when Oblivion is on the freaking 360, and you observe its 'peers' on that system - quite the contrary.

 

[Chefe]

How do you make the leap from

... that there was no alternative to even a remotely deep roleplaying game available on the system. Oblivion is going to have a monopoly on the 360 too.

To (in the next sentence):

These things will continue to dumb down games until, before you know it, there's just one "Weapon" skill and one "Magic" Skill.

?

They're setting standards; and with other developers wanting to follow suit, they'll continue to dumb down roleplaying games (I meant roleplaying games, not games in general).

May I suggest an alternative view? That perhaps, Oblivion, being closer to a traditional RPG than the likes of Fable and KOTOR, might just encourage people into RPGs? That it might draw the 'mainstream' into deeper stuff?

Deeper stuff? Like what, quest compasses and wiki dialogue? Sure, it's more RPG than Fable or Kotor are, but that doesn't give Bethesda any reason to deny freedom and dumb down their titles. I mean, there are only THREE weapon skills. Will the Elder Scrolls soon follow the path of the upcoming Dark Messiah?

And really, with Wiki dialogue, it's less deep in that *major* department than Kotor (which also had an alternate ending). Implementing this quest compass is also suicide. I couldn't think of a worse descision in an elder scrolls... no, in a roleplaying... game.

I think it is very important to make a distinction between Oblivion (and MW) dumbing down Daggerfall (arguably a legitimate criticism) and Oblivion simply 'dumbing down games'. I really do not think the latter can be the case when Oblivion is on the freaking 360, and you observe its 'peers' on that system - quite the contrary.

Like I just mentioned above, I meant roleplaying games. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[Twinfalls]

Same applies if you meant 'roleplaying games'.

Anyway, I agree that it will be dialogue quality and choices, above just about everything else, that will decide Oblivion's worth. There's supposed to be dialogue trees this time, since no-one at Bethesda seems to want to talk about them or show any real examples, we'll just have to wait and see.

 

[Atrokkus]

May I suggest an alternative view? That perhaps, Oblivion, being closer to a traditional RPG than the likes of Fable and KOTOR, might just encourage people into RPGs? That it might draw the 'mainstream' into deeper stuff?

WEll, MAYBE Oblivion will be more RPG'ish than KOTOR, but it's surely not the case with Morrowind, whcih is worse in all RP aspects, biggest of which being dialog system, and it's one of the core aspects of RPG. So, the more Oblivion inherits from its bastard predeccessor MW, the farther it sways from RPG purity.

 

[Drakron]

How do you make the leap from

May I suggest an alternative view? That perhaps, Oblivion, being closer to a traditional RPG than the likes of Fable and KOTOR, might just encourage people into RPGs? That it might draw the 'mainstream' into deeper stuff?

Timeline:

Morrowind-KotOR-Fable-Oblivion

You have to be blind to not see the patern, its clear that Xbox players (and the Xbox is the casual gamer console) dont want a tradictional RPG ... they want a interactive movie.

 

[Proweler]

I mean, there are only THREE weapon skills.

Quite an improvement. Some RPG's have two dozen weapon skills but in every case allocating skill points to two weapons is a waist of point per definition and the vendors provid all types of weapons making it all more or less redundant, a cosmetical opition if you will.

Whit active combat the weapon you use might actually be something more then X dmg/s and actually be more important then the exact skill.

 

[Micmu]

Quite an improvement. Some RPG's have two dozen weapon skills but in every case allocating skill points to two weapons is a waist of point per definition and the vendors provid all types of weapons making it all more or less redundant, a cosmetical opition if you will.

Yes, so by your logic it would be better to just implement one weapon skill: Daedric Dai-Katana!!! you know because it is teh best weapon and all others suck and noone really uses them, cosmetical option shit and that stupid role-playing when you can't efficiently (powergamingly) use all your precious skill points.

 

[Claw]

Dai-Katana my ass!

I only use Teh Claw, a mighty two-handed axe I mod in. It's conveniently placed near the start, so I can just grab it and start to rule.
Kidding of course, but really, once you start down that road, why have more than one combat skill?

Personally I believe the only real solution are skill trees that allow for a broad specialization in a skill branch like armed combat as well as individual skills.

That way, a warrior could really be able to pick up any weapon and kick ass - and I can see that being an advantage for many reasons, especially if the difference is more than cosmetic - while a mage would just need one weapon skill, just as backup for his magic, maybe to conservate energy against weaker enemies.

 

[Tintin]

... that there was no alternative to even a remotely deep roleplaying game available on the system.

Excuses, excuses. I think MFSD posted something about this commonly-stated excuse somewhere on this board, go read it.

Um, is that pic supposed to be a joke, or an attack, or a satire, what?