So, you're to cool for Oblivion? Why?

[OccupatedVoid]

Fuckface = Pete Hines?

 

[gc051360]

I only read the first post. I'll respond to that.

#1) the success of Oblivion means the success for future titles by Bethesda *and* other developers looking for publishers to take a risk on something expansive (which means expensive).

No. Oblivion was not a "risk" type of thing. There is no risk to developers to be focus heavy on graphics, and have the same old tried and true FPS combat.

#2) Where is the harm in letting a game that genuinely looks visually astounding, that seems to be trying new things AND comes from a decent pedigree of past history/lore have a bone or two?

What new things? Graphics? And "visual astonishing" runs it's course in about an hour. Than you start to notice the empty gameplay.

 

[Xi]

I was a part of the TES community for 6 years. I was a TES fanboy. My problem with Oblivion, all bitching aside, is that it gets depressingly boring after 20 minutes of play. It's like I see right through every aspect of the game the minute I start trying to get comfortable. This is about the time bordom sets in. Everything is bland and similar! There's no reason to progress! The MQ is utter shit! They raped every ounce of lore from the entire series! Less EVERYTHING. It just isn't TES anymore. This is an evaluation from a loyal fan of over 6 years.

Oblivion is shiny graphics. That's where it begins and ends. That was the only aspect of the game that is even worth liking! Hell, I even tried to convince myself that I liked it! With more then 10 years of built up nostalgia I was ready to blow my load, but no! Those fuckers decided to rape the series into absolute shit! I don't even have the urge to mod the son of a bitch. It just does not appeal to me at all.

Arena was good. Daggerfall was absolutely genius. Morrowind was a step in the wrong direction. Oblivion was a fucking heap of shit. This is my conclusion after having spent thousands of hours in TES.

 

[denizsi]

Hilarious comic.

 

[Romanian_Dude2005]

I think I've replayed Morrowind long enough to prove to myself that despite the repetative slow paced gameplay it had a jewel underneath it that made the playthrough worthwhile and gave me something to ponder and think about whenever I didn't play it. Same goes for PS:T.

If Oblivion at least had the jewel burried underneath it's 200 hours of shit, I might have actually enjoyed it instead of slandering Bethesda for their moronic design ideas. Fuck them!

 

[JarlFrank]

I think I've replayed Morrowind long enough to prove to myself that despite the repetative slow paced gameplay it had a jewel underneath it that made the playthrough worthwhile and gave me something to ponder and think about whenever I didn't play it. Same goes for PS:T.

If Oblivion at least had the jewel burried underneath it's 200 hours of shit, I might have actually enjoyed it instead of slandering Bethesda for their moronic design ideas. Fuck them!

Morrowind was fun. Flawed, but fun. I enjoyed it, even after the initial awe of GRAFFIX!! The expansions were a lot greater than the vanilla game, too, I even got stuck sometimes because I didn't find my quest goal. Exploration was darned fun. Finding a mighty enemy or a mighty weapon in some hard to find dungeon was amazing. And then there were the mods made by the dedicated player community, most of them really good.

And then there was Oblivion. At the first look, it looked like the best game ever. I was amazed. Not only the graphics, also the story was quite gripping in the beginning, a step forward from Morrowind. Exploring was also fun, in the first few dungeons. Quests were a lot more creative. But after a long time of playing, I noticed the fucked up level scaling. I visited dungeons near towns which were full of hard enemies after reaching a high level. I visited dungeons far off in the wilderness, just to find the same enemies as those of the near-town dungeons. The dungeons themselves were well designed. But everywhere were the same enemies, NOTHING special, nothing at all. And no worthwile loot at all. The only loot worthwile were the quest rewards. And they were level scaled too. Everything was level scaled and generic. The exploration was no fun at all anymore. Everything became dull and boring. Exploring was no fun, not only because of level scaling but because of the compass, too. Quests were interesting in theory - but stupid because the green arrow pointed you to the goal. The exploring fun from Morrowind was gone. Every dungeon is shown you by the compass. Idiocy. The game was so totally dumbed down so everyone can find everything. That's when I got tired with it and stopped playing. Now, with the expansion, I started again. The quests were fun, the setting is, too. But still: compass, level scaling. Bleh. And even worse: A summonable Mr Walkthrough to help you if the green arrow doesn't help enough. THis shows Bethesda's direction: Dumb it down so the idiots can play it and say it was a good game. Fuck Bethesda. They will rape every game series they make. Be it Elder Scrolls or Fallout, it will suck if made by them.

 

[xedoc gpr]

Has there been a practical level scaling fixing mod released yet? Meaning you could install it before actually starting a game and play with it installed?

 

[Monica21]

Has there been a practical level scaling fixing mod released yet? Meaning you could install it before actually starting a game and play with it installed?

Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul. Still doesn't fix the terrible dialogue, combat, quest compass, in-game walkthrough, and many things. You'll need a bunch of other mods for that.

As for Morrowind, it's fun. I still like playing it. (You can even refuse the main quest just by telling Caius that you won't work for him.) There's still a lot wrong with it, but overall I enjoy it.

 

[United Nations]

Since I was not around during the initial wave of Oblivion threads, I suppose I'll give my two cents:

When I first purchased Oblivion, I had never played another Elder Scrolls game before, so I had no idea what to expect. I found both the introductory movie of Cyrodiil and speech by Patrick Stewart to be very bland. Onto the character generation screen, I found Oblivion's much hyped character customization options to be convoluted and non-intuitive. There were a lot of options available in terms of micro customization, yet the game didn't feature any macro customizability. Instead of trying to configure a certain look from dozens of different sliders, I simply wanted to give my character a general look.

After customizing the appearance of my character and diving right into the gameplay, I was very impressed with the escape from the Imperial Prison sequence. This is undoubtedly where Bethesda allocated most of their budget in terms of game development, since after this Oblivion starts to spiral downward. The sequence was structured in such a way that when the player finally reaches the docks outside Imperial City, it leaves them with a feeling of relief and accomplishment. It was during the escape from prison, and subsequent thrust into open wilderness that I enjoyed the game most.

Upon entering the gates of the Imperial City, I got my first taste of how dull Oblivion would prove to be. The city was drab, lifeless, and most of all boring. Whereas lavish and robust capital cities were always one of my favorite parts of RPG's, the capital of all of Tamriel was small, ugly, and filled with some of the worst voice-acted NPC's that I have ever come across in a video game. Aside from the great work of Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean, the rest of the game's voice acting was so abysmal, that I clicked through all the dialogue sequences for the rest of the game (not that anyone had anything important to say, lol).

As the main quest continued to trudge along, I questioned my motives for continuing to pursure an epic conclusion that would make the game worthy of its stellar reviews. It never came. The game ended in such a non-dramatic fashion that it completely destroyed any chance to redeem itself. Not only does Bethesda mock its fanbase by not including any formidable foes anywhere in Cyrodiil, but furthermore, the only dragon in the entire game is shown in a half-assed animated ending.

---

Ending my review of Oblivion in such a way however, would make it indistinguishable from any other anti-Oblivion rant on the Codex. I did find redeeming qualities in the game, but certainly not during my first play through. After creating another character and taking on the Dark Brotherhood questline, I was pleasantly suprised. It was far more entertaining than the main quest, even if it was too short to make up for the main quest's faults.

Also, after installing a slew of graphical upgrades and other enhancements, the game world started to appeal to me strictly from an aesthetic point of view. Once I installed Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul and Martigen's Monster Mod, the combat aspect was actually somewhat challenging. In the end however, Oblivion fails at its core premise of providing an in-depth role-playing experience. Since the game was so successful, it most likely predicts a trend in the future of RPG's, and that's a real shame.

 

[taxacaria]

One thing I have to add to the endless list of flaws Oblivion has, is imo the Construction Set.
It has some more possibilities (scripting etc.), but it was designed to create Oblivion as quick as possible. Maybe it's a satisfying tool for developement, but I (correct me if I'm wrong) had more fun with the Morrowind CS.
The reason is, that Oblivion has only a few architecture tile sets, and many tiles are very big and complex, especially indoors.
So I found except for a single castle set no more single tiles, and indoor architecture is restricted because of complete house interiors.
To create a farmhouse interior you have only 3 choices - 3 models without any possibility to make modifications internally, and so Oblivion farmhouses look always the same.
Same in Imperial City - house interiors are different here : stage on right side or stage on left side, that's all. You can add some furniture, but nothing else.
You can import externally created models, but that's too much work for some casual modding.
So I had more fun with Morrowind CS, where I designed a lot of houses, palaces and castles with secret doors, moving wall segments and individual interior architecture in many different architecture styles.

 

[Rulion]

... but after reading a rash of Oblivion/Bethesda related bashing

Alot of very good discussion and criticism on Oblivion are here if you look.

You also have to understand the Codex. It is like a giant pile of Shit... in which is buried a single brillant gem.

If you wade through all the shit, you can find some very good gems of discussion.
:D

<a href="http://rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=11891&highlight=ate">Here's one of the better discussion threads. </a>The first poster really sums it up. He's quite handsome, too.


Okay, that was my post for the year. See you guys next April.

 

[United Nations]

... but after reading a rash of Oblivion/Bethesda related bashing

Alot of very good discussion and criticism on Oblivion are here if you look.

You also have to understand the Codex. It is like a giant pile of Shit... in which is buried a single brillant gem.

If you wade through all the shit, you can find some very good gems of discussion.
:D

<a href="http://rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=11891&highlight=ate">Here's one of the better discussion threads. </a>The first poster really sums it up. He's quite handsome, too.


Okay, that was my post for the year. See you guys next April.

Fucking incredible. I congratulate you for out doing the "Asshole Physics Meet Asshole A.I." article.

 

[cutterjohn]

I think I've replayed Morrowind long enough to prove to myself that despite the repetative slow paced gameplay it had a jewel underneath it that made the playthrough worthwhile and gave me something to ponder and think about whenever I didn't play it. Same goes for PS:T.

If Oblivion at least had the jewel burried underneath it's 200 hours of shit, I might have actually enjoyed it instead of slandering Bethesda for their moronic design ideas. Fuck them!

Yep, I have to admit to this as well. I HAD been playing Morrowind again from scratch with a pile of mods, mainly the Bethesda released ones, Timeslip's Morrowind Graphics Extender(does a distant view sort of like Oblivious' "distant" "lands"), a levelling mod, and a few other minor enhancements. Just prior to starting off on the epic I fired up Oblivious again to sample it's tediousness freshly, such that I could make a comparison, and well, while Morrowind isn't the greatest RPG(or any kind of game) ever, it's a helluvalot better than Oblivious.

That said, I picked up Arx Fatalis and am playing that ATM, but I do expect to complete an entire shot through of Morrowind + expansiosn + try a few mods(Snakes on a Plane anyone? (I want to "meet" the Roofler... }. Arx Fatalis is a nice game, but an even lighter RPG than Morrowind yet it has the distinction of being new to me...

Thread: Oh right, suck up to Bethesda and buy their crappy FPMs(first persion melee) or FPS(FO3) just because they're the only ones making "epic" "RPG"ish things?! WTF?! Bioware/Obsidian are making epicish RPGish things, why not suck up to them as well? Personally, I'd rather buy a few not-so-eyecandyish indie RPGs and replay some of the classics until I know them by heart(should take a few years at least), and then hang up gaming unless some new studio actually makes AAA RPGs for RPG players again.

Review: Note the reader rating of what I assume to be the game... 4/5 v. the review's drivelly 91/100. (I'd give Oblivious a 7-8 as a FPM personally...)

[EDIT]
Decided to add another parting shot, at least Bioware actually updates their crap while Bethesda just lets it rot unless it's something they're likely to be sued for, e.g. current Slobbering Idiots expansion bug. Obsidian is shaping up to follow suit wrt to patching AND adding content/features, and the fact that they're doing an expansion tells me that it sold well enough that at least Atari thinks they can haul in enough cash off of it to be worthwhile.
[/EDIT]

 

[Darkflame]

Has there been a practical level scaling fixing mod released yet? Meaning you could install it before actually starting a game and play with it installed?

Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul. Still doesn't fix the terrible dialogue, combat, quest compass, in-game walkthrough, and many things. You'll need a bunch of other mods for that.

Or as Frankie likes to say, you would need to slice apart the entire source code at it's seams, hacking off all scripts and variables and mudcrabs until there's no trace of Bethesda left.