Interview Ted Peterson Talks Oblivion at 15 and Then Some

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Bethesda Softworks; Ted Peterson; The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

VG247 has an interview article with Ted Peterson, formerly of Bethesda Soft about the 15th Anniversary(Holy shit, it's been that long?!) of the fourth game in The Elder Scrolls, Oblivion. The discussion talks about voice acting, shades of grey, multiplayer thoughts, general mechanics, and this:

In terms of the first four games, Ted believes that each of the Elder Scrolls is a reaction to the last. Daggerfall was wilfully complex in response to complaints that Arena was too straightforward, and then it was decided Morrowind would have one ending instead of multiple, but if you read the lore, you get some added perspective that throws into question whether you were the real hero. Oblivion’s fairly cut-and-dry in that the Daedra are clearly evil and should be stopped, with a limited opposing view.​

That reaction must have been that the last game had too many skills, weapon types, character creation methods, and general game play.

Spotted over at Blue's News

 

[rusty_shackleford]

is oblivion old enough for codex to like it now?

 

[DraQ]

is oblivion old enough for codex to like it now?

Never.

 

[OSK]

I remember I was so excited for this game. I devoured all the information I could before it's release. I pre-ordered the game and picked it up the day it came out. I remember shaking with excitement as the game was installing on my machine. Then as I was playing the game, that excitement slowly wore off and was eventually replaced with the realization that the game fucking sucked. All the gaming reviews lied to me. Worse, on all the gaming forums I frequented, everyone was going on-and-on about how this was the greatest RPG of all time. On that day I lost my innocence, and it eventually led me to this site where I learned the truth: most gamers are fucking retarded.

 

[luj1]

is oblivion old enough for codex to like it now?

Good is always good, bad is always bad. Quality doesn't age.

Cucks who started in 2007 can't differentiate between good and bad, so they invent stuff to cope with their shit taste.

 

[luj1]

I remember I was so excited for this game. I devoured all the information I could before it's release. I pre-ordered the game and picked it up the day it came out. I remember shaking with excitement as the game was installing on my machine. Then as I was playing the game, that excitement slowly wore off and was eventually replaced with the realization that the game fucking sucked. All the gaming reviews lied to me. Worse, on all the gaming forums I frequented, everyone was going on-and-on about how this was the greatest RPG of all time. On that day I lost my innocence, and it eventually led me to this site where I learned the truth: most gamers are fucking retarded.

I died a little that day. Big fan of Morrowind, their last PC game. Still remember scouring the web for leaked screenshots. Oblivion was when I stopped getting hyped for new games.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

is oblivion old enough for codex to like it now?

Good is always good, bad is always bad. Quality doesn't age.

Cucks who started in 2007 can't differentiate between good and bad, so they invent stuff to cope with their shit taste.

setting a 5 year reminder to buy a 20 year anniversary oblivion cdkey and send it to you

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I remember I was so excited for this game. I devoured all the information I could before it's release. I pre-ordered the game and picked it up the day it came out. I remember shaking with excitement as the game was installing on my machine. Then as I was playing the game, that excitement slowly wore off and was eventually replaced with the realization that the game fucking sucked. All the gaming reviews lied to me. Worse, on all the gaming forums I frequented, everyone was going on-and-on about how this was the greatest RPG of all time. On that day I lost my innocence, and it eventually led me to this site where I learned the truth: most gamers are fucking retarded.

Getting excited, playing the game and slowly realizing that it's worse in every aspect compared with Morrowind, then being shocked at press reaction was exactly my experience.

 

[luj1]

setting a 5 year reminder to buy a 20 year anniversary oblivion cdkey and send it to you

You can set a 100 year reminder, it will never be good. Just like your taste and pedigree (lack thereof).

 

[rusty_shackleford]

setting a 5 year reminder to buy a 20 year anniversary oblivion cdkey and send it to you

You can set a 100 year reminder, it will never be good. Just like your taste and pedigree (lack thereof).

Expecting a good review from you then, will check back in 5 years.

 

[Tim the Bore]

I remember I was so excited for this game. I devoured all the information I could before it's release. I pre-ordered the game and picked it up the day it came out. I remember shaking with excitement as the game was installing on my machine. Then as I was playing the game, that excitement slowly wore off and was eventually replaced with the realization that the game fucking sucked. All the gaming reviews lied to me. Worse, on all the gaming forums I frequented, everyone was going on-and-on about how this was the greatest RPG of all time. On that day I lost my innocence, and it eventually led me to this site where I learned the truth: most gamers are fucking retarded.

Exactly the same for me. I was so naive back then, I was trying to convince myself that the game is fantastic and it's my fault for not "getting it". I still remember how one magazine claimed that Oblivion had "the greatest story ever told" - and here I was, running beneath Mehrunes' ballsack. There was just no way around how bad this game really was and how out of touch were the media.

Honestly though, in the hindsight, it was probably for the better. It really cured me from getting hyped and believing in that sort of crap.

But it also led me to the Codex...

 

[grimace]

Open thread

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Type in OnceLost

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[grimace]

He’s since started a new studio, Once Lost Games, with old Elder Scrolls teammates LeFay, and Vijay Lakshman, the directors of Daggerfall and Arena, respectively. In a sense, they’re starting fresh, with full creative freedom in their own company, but in another they’re getting back to unfinished business, to explore things they couldn’t in the nineties. Carrying a character from one game to the next, not unlike Commander Shepard in BioWare’s Mass Effect trilogy, is something Ted still wants to have a crack at.

It’s hard to understate the kind of success Oblivion brought for Bethesda – the game is a cultural ubiquity for the latter half of the noughties, the map of Cyrodiil that came in the case a staple of teenage bedrooms. Once Lost Games’ first project is Wayward Realms, and as Bethesda continues to garner a mainstream audience, they’re aiming for the people who remember when the imperial province was still a mystery, and what the Daedra were depended on what game you played.

“You can run into the problem where you’re trying to be a game for everybody, and we are not,” Ted says. “We’re basically saying ‘What if this was 1994, with all of the technology of today around, and we were also older and smarter?’”

“We’re making the game that we wish we had made.”

https://www.vg247.com/2021/03/20/the-elder-scrolls-iv-oblivion-at-15-ted-peterson-interview/

What if Bethsesda agrees to publish a Once Lost Games game?

What if . . .

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I tried playing it recently. It's a very odd game. It just feels dead to me, like it's a world on rails. Considering they were bragging about the Radiant AI throughout the whole development, it just comes off as flat. Go play Sims 3 sometime for a couple of hours, then fire up Oblivion. There's a shocking difference in the two in terms of living worlds and it's about as stark a contrast as you can get. Cyrodill doesn't feel like the city it's supposed to be at all. It barely even has the feeling of being a town. When you get to smaller towns, it's even worse. And yes, I know I'm comparing a 2009 game in terms of living world to a 2006 one, but Oblivion was very much hyped up to be a living world.

 

[grimace]

I keep harping on Teddy boy because this is what he's doing now:

https://twitter.com/OnceLostGames

He's got a company that publishes concept art of a "dream game" to Twitter.

Behold the fabric phobic race of Cambions in Wayward Realms!

What if Morrowind shipped with nudity?

 

[Ol' Willy]

Never played Oblivion, lol

Started Jewtesda games with Fagout 3

And ended playing Jewtesda games with it

 

[Delterius]

Cucks who started in 2007

Joined: 2016

 

[grimace]

Because the search function barely functions I'll cross post to this glorious thread.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...crolls-developers.129514/page-39#post-7171359

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I tried playing it recently. It's a very odd game. It just feels dead to me, like it's a world on rails. Considering they were bragging about the Radiant AI throughout the whole development, it just comes off as flat. Go play Sims 3 sometime for a couple of hours, then fire up Oblivion. There's a shocking difference in the two in terms of living worlds and it's about as stark a contrast as you can get. Cyrodill doesn't feel like the city it's supposed to be at all. It barely even has the feeling of being a town. When you get to smaller towns, it's even worse. And yes, I know I'm comparing a 2009 game in terms of living world to a 2006 one, but Oblivion was very much hyped up to be a living world.

Oblivion was horrendously disappointing upon its initial release in 2006 for numerous reasons, including its generic medieval fantasy setting that was poorly implemented even for what it was. Aside from the Imperial City itself, there are another seven cities scattered across Cyrodiil, but each one is effectively identical aside from the architecture, as each consists of a single general goods store, a single weapons/armor store, a tavern, a Mages Guild chapter, a Fighters Guild chapter, a cathedral, and a castle for the local count(ess), plus a few houses for the residents. Even the Imperial City, which is much larger and divided into several sections, just manages to reach the level of Balmora, Ald-ruhn, or Sadrith Mora from Morrowind, far from establishing even a plausible illusion of being the largest city in all Tamriel.

 

[luj1]

They will never outdo Morrowind. Oblivion marked the departure into algorithmic industrial garbage and consoles. Todd Howard should be flogged, with an Xbox 360 lodged deep inside his rectum.