Preview VE plays Oblivion

[Spazmo]

Tags: Bethesda Softworks; Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Just like everyone else in the world, <a href=http://www.http://ve3d.ign.com>Voodoo Extreme</a> got some hands on time with Oblivion and did a <a href=http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/691/691326p1.html>write up</a>. It turns out it's some kind of RPG where you play a guy with a sword named Swordguy.<blockquote>All the familiar races of The Elder Scrolls series are present and there are a ton of character customizations to be had. No two faces will be alike. I'm glad these options are in as I think about the 200-plus hours I could be spending playing Oblivion. While you choose your character stats, you don't pick your Birth Sign or Class until you are much farther along in the tutorial. This is a cool feature as you will have fought, cast spells and snuck around quite a bit before you need to make any final decisions.</blockquote>So you can really customize your face to an excruciating degree in a first person game where you'll never see your face anyhow. That's revolutionary game design right there.

 

[Lumpy]

Just like everyone else in the world, <a href=http://www.http://ve3d.ign.com>Voodoo Extreme</a> got some hands on time with Oblivion and did a <a href=http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/691/691326p1.html>write up</a>. It turns out it's some kind of RPG where you play a guy with a sword named Swordguy.<blockquote>All the familiar races of The Elder Scrolls series are present and there are a ton of character customizations to be had. No two faces will be alike. I'm glad these options are in as I think about the 200-plus hours I could be spending playing Oblivion. While you choose your character stats, you don't pick your Birth Sign or Class until you are much farther along in the tutorial. This is a cool feature as you will have fought, cast spells and snuck around quite a bit before you need to make any final decisions.</blockquote>So you can really customize your face to an excruciating degree in a first person game where you'll never see your face anyhow. That's revolutionary game design right there.

It's a first/third person game, Spazmo, and people often look at the character in Vanity mode (when you turn the camera around). And anyway, FaceGen is useful for NPCs, since all will be unique, and it will save some time.

 

[LlamaGod]

200+ hours?

Does he only walk 5 steps and then come back to the game later on?

 

[Nicolai]

Just like BG2 lasted for 400 hours. B)

 

[Kraszu]

200+ hours if you count loading time.

 

[Levski 1912]

Facegen could've been nice, but then again, it gave us quite a few retarded faces. It's a mixed bag.

 

[Spazmo]

The way I see it, any character creation choice that the game doesn't react to is pointless. Fallout had all of two avatars--male and female. But that didn't matter, since the game reacted so much to your scores in intelligence, charisma, perception, etc. and to a lesser extent reacted to your skills. If you're going to put in this extensive thing to customize your character and then it doesn't matter at all in the game, it's worthless.

 

[Claw]

200+ hours if you count loading time.

Spazmo, keep in mind that most TES fanboys are insufferable narcists. They'll be standing in front of ingame mirrors for hours.

 

[Spazmo]

I understand that TES fans are ugly as well as stupid and spend too much time reading posts on forums they shouldn't care about, but it's still a waste of time to let you put a little red patch of hair on your left ball.

 

[Gromnir]

So you can really customize your face to an excruciating degree in a first person game where you'll never see your face anyhow. That's revolutionary game design right there.

...

HA!

normally the triumvirate of tools that is vd, spaz and st. p, manages to makes Gromnir laugh only as we considers just how obtuse some folks can be, but that were kinda funny without it being exitum funny... retard funny.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[Lumpy]

The way I see it, any character creation choice that the game doesn't react to is pointless. Fallout had all of two avatars--male and female. But that didn't matter, since the game reacted so much to your scores in intelligence, charisma, perception, etc. and to a lesser extent reacted to your skills. If you're going to put in this extensive thing to customize your character and then it doesn't matter at all in the game, it's worthless.

Van Buren would have had character customization.

 

[LlamaGod]

The way I see it, any character creation choice that the game doesn't react to is pointless. Fallout had all of two avatars--male and female. But that didn't matter, since the game reacted so much to your scores in intelligence, charisma, perception, etc. and to a lesser extent reacted to your skills. If you're going to put in this extensive thing to customize your character and then it doesn't matter at all in the game, it's worthless.

Van Buren would have had character customization.

Who said Van Buren would've been good?

 

[Lumpy]

The way I see it, any character creation choice that the game doesn't react to is pointless. Fallout had all of two avatars--male and female. But that didn't matter, since the game reacted so much to your scores in intelligence, charisma, perception, etc. and to a lesser extent reacted to your skills. If you're going to put in this extensive thing to customize your character and then it doesn't matter at all in the game, it's worthless.

Van Buren would have had character customization.

Who said Van Buren would've been good?

Most people who hated Bethesda for obtaining the licence. Wasn't Troika a company founded by ex-BIS members?

 

[LlamaGod]

The way I see it, any character creation choice that the game doesn't react to is pointless. Fallout had all of two avatars--male and female. But that didn't matter, since the game reacted so much to your scores in intelligence, charisma, perception, etc. and to a lesser extent reacted to your skills. If you're going to put in this extensive thing to customize your character and then it doesn't matter at all in the game, it's worthless.

Van Buren would have had character customization.

Who said Van Buren would've been good?

Most people who hated Bethesda for obtaining the licence. Wasn't Troika a company founded by ex-BIS members?

Who said they worked on Van Buren?

Van Buren was shitty just like Bethesda's game is going to be. One was developed by J.E. 'One Gun Skill' Sawyer and the other is going to be by Pete 'One Ranged Skill' Hines.

Same shit, different pile.

 

[LlamaGod]

Oh yeah, I forgot the game god that is PUUK also.

 

[Lumpy]

So who would have made a good game?

 

[LlamaGod]

Do you really need to ask this?

 

[Antiphon]

The way I see it, any character creation choice that the game doesn't react to is pointless. Fallout had all of two avatars--male and female. But that didn't matter, since the game reacted so much to your scores in intelligence, charisma, perception, etc. and to a lesser extent reacted to your skills. If you're going to put in this extensive thing to customize your character and then it doesn't matter at all in the game, it's worthless.

It's just a tool they used to make NPCs and decided to give to the players. No big deal really, geez.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

The way I see it, any character creation choice that the game doesn't react to is pointless. Fallout had all of two avatars--male and female. But that didn't matter, since the game reacted so much to your scores in intelligence, charisma, perception, etc. and to a lesser extent reacted to your skills. If you're going to put in this extensive thing to customize your character and then it doesn't matter at all in the game, it's worthless.

Van Buren would have had character customization.

... and it would've been just as pointless in Van Buren as it is in Oblivion unless the developers actually made NPCs react to it.

Who said Van Buren would've been good?

Most people who hated Bethesda for obtaining the licence.

No. At the time Van Buren details started getting out in the Interplay forums, a lot of people (myself included) had started to "disagree vehemently" with the decisions being made. As has been said, a reduced number of skills rather than putting in the necassary effort to make the skills worthwhile, such as one gun skil instead of the standard three and merging throwing with melee.

Wasn't Troika a company founded by ex-BIS members?

Technically, no. Black Isle was founded in 1998. Troika Games was also founded in 1998. BIS didn't exist when Troika were created but a fair whack of people who joined Troika did work on Fallout 1, though under Interplay and not BIS specifically.

So who would have made a good game?

Most people say Troika. I think if their third game was a merger of ToEE's turn-based combat system combined with Arcanum's story and role-playing depth, it would've kicked arse. Instead of the lite-RPG FPS for goth-fans that was Bloodlines (though the Bloodlines story was quite well done).

 

[kris]

Face customisation should be obligatory in a game like this. Won't make me play it, but on this level I see no excuse for them to have sorry default faces...

 

[Jora]

... and it would've been just as pointless in Van Buren as it is in Oblivion unless the developers actually made NPCs react to it.

Character customization might have mattered in Van Buren. I remember Sawyer saying that in The Black Hound, NPC reacted even to different hair styles and that they worked really hard to ensure the choices aren't purely cosmetic.

 

[Rendelius]

... and it would've been just as pointless in Van Buren as it is in Oblivion unless the developers actually made NPCs react to it.

Character customization might have mattered in Van Buren. I remember Sawyer saying that in The Black Hound, NPC reacted even to different hair styles and that they worked really hard to ensure the choices aren't purely cosmetic.

Hm. As far as I can remember, the NPCs im Morrowind reated to your race, your outfit and if your sword was drawn or not. Especially the latter could change responses dramatically (ok, when you put it away and tried again, your sympathy rating was up again *g*).

Furthermore, I don't see much sense in NPCs reacting to your nose or your lips.

 

[Drakron]

No, dialogue had "check PC race" were they would simply made a slightly diferent reply if you were the same race as they were and only thing they would react is if the character had no clothing equipted but you could flash tits into their face and they would say nothing if you were wearing a glove.

 

[Rat Keeng]

Always a hoot when rowdy hardcore barbarians got offended by your quite rude display, of nice young nord-woman tits. "Mrs. Alba, please! No one wants to see those!"

 

[Gromnir]

"Most people say Troika. "

most people say that troika is dead. most people say that troika had some good ideas that never seemed to become part of a playable game. most people liked aspects of troika games.

MOST people says that troika never quite managed to makes a good game. maybe they came close a couple of times, but troika only ever really succeeded in one thing: failing to live up to expectations. nevertheless, 'cause some of the troika guys had fallout on their resume they got a free pass from "most people" at this site... if nowhere else.

most people...

*snort*

HA! Good Fun!