Preview GameInformer's Oblivion info

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Bethesda Softworks; Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

I know that there are scans and FAQs everywhere, but I'm sure that many of you have waited for me to pick up the mag and present the unbiased opinion I'm famous for. Relax, it's sarcasm. Anyway, without further ado, <b>Oblivion</b> and the role-playing of tomorrow!
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<ul><li>The game is shorter. Why? First, because "the enhanced graphics will require more time" while the development time and budget remained the same. Second, because "statistically gamers prefer shorter games and often do not finish more involved titles". Now, that's what I call listening to customers. Two thumbs up for Bethesda!
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<li>One of the goals is "to produce the definitive role-playing game of the generation". How? "By making sure that every basic activity is entertaining. Success in activities like picking locks, mixing potions, and forging armor will no longer be determined by dice-roll, each of these activities will be a separate mini-game which will be completed through skill and luck...these games will be harder when your skill is low, and become easier as you increase your proficiencies" Wow, minigames! Teh role-playing!
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<li>"The combat will be every bit as exciting as it is in a first-person shooter. Contrary to the RPG convention, the outcome of combat will not be decided by virtual dice rolls. Your opponent will block and dodge, so taking down an enemy is entirely on the player's shoulders" Dice rolls suck! Go twitch combat!
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<li>Attenshun! Direct Quote ahead: ""Fantasy, for us, is a knight on horseback running around and killing things", says Howard excitedly". Hmm, I wonder what Todd thinks PA is?
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<li>"Interaction between the player and the virtual characters is yet another area in which Oblivion is pointing toward the future of gaming. Characters will converse in free-flowing, non-scripped discussions. ... A character that dislikes you will scowl, while someone who likes you will greet you with a smile". Sounds kinda retarded when you think about it, but I'm sure that many Bethesda's non-reading customers have requested that feature to help them figure out what's happening.
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<li>The article mentions that Todd is crazy about choices and sees them "as a huge part of the next generation of gaming". Since you can now "become the head of every faction all during the course of one game", most choices would revolve around your appearance and itamz.</ul>
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To be polite, I must mention that there is more info in the magazine, so go and pick up a copy.
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[Transcendent One]

Is it just me or are they trying to make it more like the Gothic games. Minigames for picking locks, removing combat rolls, adding in NPC schedules. If indeed they are borrowing from that and other similar games, good.

P.S. I doubt people leave Morrowind unfinished cause it's "more involving". People quit Morrowind cause it was boring to them. If it was actually involving, people wouldn't quit it.

 

[DemonKing]

Attenshun! Direct Quote ahead: ""Fantasy, for us, is a knight on horseback running around and killing things", says Howard excitedly".

P.Hines CRPG development checklist...

Dual-wielding?

Check.

Cloaks?

Check.

Z-Axis?

Check.

Mounts?

Check.

Hell - as far as I can tell the game will offer everything that all of us "real" CRPGers have been after for years...that is, until the next lame unimplemented CRPG "essential" comes up, that is.

Seriously though from the items posted this game looks like it really will suck. Good luck to the FO Freaks!

 

[Sol Invictus]

<ul><li>The game is shorter. Why? First, because "the enhanced graphics will require more time" while the development time and budget remained the same. Second, because "statistically gamers prefer shorter games and often do not finish more involved titles". Now, that's what I call listening to customers. Two thumbs up for Bethesda!

Morrowind's biggest problem was that the game was way too big and empty. I don't recall Fallout or Planescape Torment (two very good RPGs) ever having a world that big. What they had was a small game world, full of interesting locations, characters and things to do. What they didn't have was a big empty world full of nothing. You're saying that Bethesda is at fault now, for wanting to make their game world more focused, concise and most importantly *interesting*?

:shakes head:

<li>One of the goals is "to produce the definitive role-playing game of the generation". How? "By making sure that every basic activity is entertaining. Success in activities like picking locks, mixing potions, and forging armor will no longer be determined by dice-roll, each of these activities will be a separate mini-game which will be completed through skill and luck...these games will be harder when your skill is low, and become easier as you increase your proficiencies" Wow, minigames! Teh role-playing!

Since when did role-playing equate to rolling a die? It's still a role-playing game REGARDLESS of the execution. A bunch of 9-sided dice do not a role-playing game make.

<li>"The combat will be every bit as exciting as it is in a first-person shooter. Contrary to the RPG convention, the outcome of combat will not be decided by virtual dice rolls. Your opponent will block and dodge, so taking down an enemy is entirely on the player's shoulders" Dice rolls suck! Go twitch combat!

Again, I would much rather have a highly interactive combat system over some brainless combat system that relied solely on dice, like Morrowind did. In fact, that was one of the larger complaints people had about the game. Just ask Patrick what he thinks of Morrowind's combat system, sometime. You're saying now that shifting away from the boring 'dice-simulation' of the past is a bad thing? You're even more stupid than I imagined.

<li>Attenshun! Direct Quote ahead: ""Fantasy, for us, is a knight on horseback running around and killing things", says Howard excitedly". Hmm, I wonder what Todd thinks PA is?

Why mention PA? What the hell does PA have to do with fantasy? They're mutually exclusive settings that have got nothing to do with each other. I'm sure Todd thinks that PA is PA. Why would he regard PA as fantasy, and for that matter, why do you?

<li>"Interaction between the player and the virtual characters is yet another area in which Oblivion is pointing toward the future of gaming. Characters will converse in free-flowing, non-scripped discussions. ... A character that dislikes you will scowl, while someone who likes you will greet you with a smile". Sounds kinda retarded when you think about it, but I'm sure that many Bethesda's non-reading customers have requested that feature to help them figure out what's happening.

Go back to playing an ASCII MUD, jackass. Oh no! They put graphics in Oblivion! THE HORROR! AHH!!! Idiot.

<li>The article mentions that Todd is crazy about choices and sees them "as a huge part of the next generation of gaming". Since you can now "become the head of every faction all during the course of one game", most choices would revolve around your appearance and itamz.</ul>

Yes, because having a limited number of choices on everything is a good thing for RPGs, right? Since when, shit-for-brains? Maybe if you learned to read properly you would have noted that Todd was referring to choices made in-game pertaining to the game's storyline, character dialogue and decision making. Regardless, what is wrong with having a huge variety of appearance and equipment? Is that a bad thing? You might want to improve on your comprehension skills before you make another thoroughly idiotic news post like this one.

So, tell me - why are you shitting on Bethesda?

 

[z3r'0']

From the little info gleaned... it seems as is they are aiming for an action click-fest orgy, requiring little or no mental capacity just reflexes. Can you say lowest common denominator?

Why did this company have to buy the rights to Fallout? Why?

 

[Sol Invictus]

Oh yes, action clickfest orgy, eh, Zero? What would you call Morrowind? An excersize in sophistication?

Morrowind's combat was mind-numbing at best. All it consisted off were repeated dice rolls. Why don't you imbeciles come to terms with the fact that heightened interactivity is good? You sound like all the elitist bucketheads who slander Diablo II players.

 

[Volourn]

Volourn's FAQ on Bethesda:


Q. So, tell me - why are you shitting on Bethesda?

A. They make shitty games.


FAQ Complete.


Next.

 

[Sol Invictus]

That was a stupid response from a stupid individual. I wouldn't expect any more from you, Volourn.

 

[Volourn]

I always live up to expectations.

It's not stupid to call Bethesda games shitty when they *are* shitty. It's not my fault they shit out the ES games and try to pass them as immersive and deep when they are actually huge and shallow.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Attenshun! Direct Quote ahead: ""Fantasy, for us, is a knight on horseback running around and killing things", says Howard excitedly".

P.Hines CRPG development checklist...

Dual-wielding?

Check.

Cloaks?

Check.

Z-Axis?

Check.

Mounts?

Check.

Hell - as far as I can tell the game will offer everything that all of us "real" CRPGers have been after for years...that is, until the next lame unimplemented CRPG "essential" comes up, that is.

Seriously though from the items posted this game looks like it really will suck. Good luck to the FO Freaks!

Temple of Elemental Evil development checklist:
Dual-wielding - Check
Cloaks - Check
3d graffix - Check
Kewl partikul effekts - Check
Scary monsters - Check
Phat lewt - Check
Lacklustre storyline - Check

Fallout development checklist:
Desert eagle - Check
Leather jackets - Check
Whores - Check
Booze & Drugs - Check
Crude humor - Check
Over the top violence - Check
Guts & Gore - Check
Kewl monstars called DEATHCLAWS (ooh scary!) - Check

Oh look, I just made TOEE and Fallout both sound like a complete monstrosities. Anyone can do that. Aren't you proud of yourself?

 

[Volourn]

None of that makes any of the ES games as good as either TOEE or FO. Next.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Stop being a mental invalid, Volourn. It's unbecoming of you. I was talking about Oblivion and you damn well knew that. Feigning ignorance only works with 5 year olds and imbeciles.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Hey, Exit, I thought we've already discussed name-calling and such. No?

You're saying that Bethesda is at fault now, for wanting to make their game world more focused, concise and most importantly *interesting*?

Learn to fucking read. The article didn't say nothing about any of that. The two reasons they gave were 1) better graphics that takes a lot of time and 2) people like short, non-complicated games.

Since when did role-playing equate to rolling a die? It's still a role-playing game REGARDLESS of the execution. A bunch of 9-sided dice do not a role-playing game make.

You are a fucking idiot. Dice rolling means stats of your characters vs player's skills. Who do you think will be solving those mingames, you or your character?

You're even more stupid than I imagined.

Well, I couldn't even imagine that somebody could be as stupid as you are, Exit. You are the dumbest fuck of the month lately. Congrats!

Why mention PA? What the hell does PA have to do with fantasy? They're mutually exclusive settings that have got nothing to do with each other. I'm sure Todd thinks that PA is PA. Why would he regard PA as fantasy, and for that matter, why do you?

God, you are stupid. If a guy thinks that fantasy is just killing stuff while riding your house, then he thinks that PA is killing mutants while wearing your fucking goggles.

Go back to playing an ASCII MUD, jackass. Oh no! They put graphics in Oblivion! THE HORROR! AHH!!! Idiot.

Moron, it's facial graphics instead of meaningful dialogues

No reason to continue to reply to the rest of that stupid crap you wrote. Pathetic. No ability to think whatsoever.

 

[Spazmo]

Holy shit, Rex, don't tell me that having outcome of actions depend more on the player's ability than the character's skill is suddenly all teh RPG. For action RPGs, sure, but 'pure' RPGs should have things decided by dice rolls because you're not swinging the sword or picking the lock, your character is. Now you've stopped being reasonable and started exercising some sort of stupid vendetta against VD.

And saying you need FPS style combat to have interactive combat is brutally inane, as proven by the deep combat in games like ToEE or Silent Storm.

There's nothing inherently wrong with doing combat and various actions that way, but it is not the pure RPG way.

 

[Volourn]

"I was talking about Oblivion and you damn well knew that"

LMAO I was talking about it too. it's an ES right? All the ES games are shitty and Oblivion will not be any different. Period.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Hey who gives a shit if the outcome of your actions depends slightly more on the swing of your sword than some fucking dice roll, Spazmo? It isn't as if Turn Based role-playing games are based solely on dice rolls, are they, imbecile? The player still has to be the one to make the decision to shoot, use a called shot, move around, change his weapon, use a grenade, duck for cover or retreat. If everything was based on dice rolls there might as well not be a player around to interact with the game, because what's the point of having a high Intelligence score if your character makes a bunch of stupid decisions. Right?

Wrong. It's a game. Games are meant to be interactive or they might as well be screensavers. Morrowind was like a screensaver with the exception that you had to click the mouse every now and then to initiate the dice rolls in real time. Was the combat fun? No. Was it in any way remotely enjoyable? A big hell no.

Why don't you go back to playing Dungeon Siege? By the way, who determines what a 'pure RPG' is? Gary Gygax? Tim Cain? You? Don't make me laugh. Spazmo.

 

[Volourn]

" You? "

No. Me. Not shitty devs like Bethesda or their fanboys.

 

[z3r'0']

Like you said Exitium, Morrowind's combat was mind-numbing at best, but taking out dice-rolls et all isn't exactly an improvement is it? How will "FPS twitch gaming" be an improvement?
That said I'm not a Bethesda basher, I just opinionate on my observations. :wink:

What is it with all the name-calling anyway, Exitium?

 

[Sol Invictus]

You are a fucking idiot. Dice rolling means stats of your characters vs player's skills. Who do you think will be solving those mingames, you or your character?

On the contrary, it is you who are a fucking idiot. Who do you think makes all the tactical combat decisions and dialogue choices in Fallout regardless of the character's INT stat? You or your character?

Who gives a flying fuck if lockpicking and pickpocketting are done as minigames? They are completely trivial to the role-playing experience, because last time I checked rolling a fucking die had nothing to do with role-playing unless the character system SPECIFICALLY contained rules pertaining to the aforementioned skills. If the character system does not have rules pertaining to those skills there is absolutely no reason to suggest that the game is any less of a role-playing game than Dungeons & Dragons. There are some role-playing games which dictate your character's tactical ability in combat sequences with stats and dice rolls, which effectively remove your interaction as a player during combat. Other games, like Fallout and Dungeons & Dragons leave the tactical decisions up to the player. So just because Oblivion might not feature a stinking 'dice roll' for lockpicking doesn't make it any less of an RPG (depending on its other features).

Well, I couldn't even imagine that somebody could be as stupid as you are, Exit. You are the dumbest fuck of the month lately. Congrats!

I'm sure you consider yourself a witty individual, why, right after you paraphrased PeeWee Herman. *claps hands*

God, you are stupid. If a guy thinks that fantasy is just killing stuff while riding your house, then he thinks that PA is killing mutants while wearing your fucking goggles.

I don't see the relation. Unlike you, I'm not on drugs. I don't think that just because someone happens to like Japanese cars he must automatically like to watch anime and listen to J-Rock. I'm sure that's how your ignorant mind functions, though, as you've proven time and time again.

Moron, it's facial graphics instead of meaningful dialogues

Oh yes, because the implementation of facial graphics causes dialogues to automagically dissapear.

 

[Flarnet]

I will just say that anyone who thinks that you should be able to join every single faction in the game have clearly not understood what a faction is. This was one of the most retarded aspects of Morrowind and the very anti-thesis of "choice" as a concept in video games.

The thing with MW was not that the world itself was too big, it was the fact that some idiot felt the need to populate every 30x30 foot square with a dungeon. And when you have a world several miles wide and a finite amount of people working on the game you end up with a friggin generica-tron of bland dungeons. Plus it completely removed the fun out of finding a dungeon.

Fantasy, for us, is a knight on horseback running around and killing things

Yeah well that is truly a retarded mans quote and if he has half a brain left he should be grinding his teeth right now. The fact that he pretty much calls every other fantasy crpg a complete failure is not exactly sophisticated.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Like you said Exitium, Morrowind's combat was mind-numbing at best, but taking out dice-rolls et all isn't exactly an improvement is it? How will "FPS twitch gaming" be an improvement?
That said I'm not a Bethesda basher, I just opinionate on my observations. :wink:

What is it with all the name-calling anyway, Exitium?

That imbecile VD has me on edge with his constant mouth-stuffing and failure to even appear remotely intelligent.

As for your combat-related question: interactivity is always an improvement.

 

[Brillo]

Oh yes, action clickfest orgy, eh, Zero? What would you call Morrowind? An excersize in sophistication?

No shit people. As much as most of these changes turn me off personally, they're what the Morrowind players have spent the last few years whining about, and bitching about, and asking for. Hell, most of them have been added to Morrowind by various moders.

 

[merry andrew]

"Fantasy, for us, is a knight on horseback running around and killing things", says Howard excitedly".

I dunno, that seems like a pretty lame summary. Bad Todd!

"become the head of every faction all during the course of one game"

Bleh, that's the reason I never finished the main storyline of Morrowind. I became the head of two factions (which sorta made sense) and then felt overpowered and bored (even though I was a wuss and could only stab stuff and shoot stuff with a crossbow). Bad Bethesda!

Everything else seems pretty neat.

Wow, minigames! Teh role-playing!

Trying to imply that rolling dice repeatedly or when u have teh skillz (which you got from activity that's less involved than levelling an mmorpg character) involves more role-playing than rolling dice AND having some control over your character during that roll?

Just, how does having more control over your character equate to less of a role-playing experience?

I misunderstand. Forgive me

 

[Sol Invictus]

"Fantasy, for us, is a knight on horseback running around and killing things", says Howard excitedly".

I dunno, that seems like a pretty lame summary. Bad Todd!

You know, that was very weak. I agree. What the heck, Todd?

Everything else seems pretty neat.

Wow, minigames! Teh role-playing!

Trying to imply that rolling dice repeatedly or when u have teh skillz (which you got from activity that's less involved than levelling an mmorpg character) involves more role-playing than rolling dice AND having some control over your character during that roll?

Just, how does having more control over your character equate to less of a role-playing experience?

It just does. Dice rolling is the epitome of role-playing, ever since George Shit IV, bless his name, invented Dungeons & Bullshit in the year 1842. He deemed, with his godly words (flashes occured as they were spoken so it was obviously divine), that role-playing and dice-rolling are one and the same. In fact, role-playing was once referred to as dice-roll-playing, but it was shortened to roll-playing, and mispelled by an errant scribe.

Haha.

But seriously, I think that Vault Dweller is simply trying to state that role-playing games should all be roll-playing games. His stance is idiotic and thus I disagree with him.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Who do you think makes all the tactical combat decisions and dialogue choices in Fallout regardless of the character's INT stat? You or your character?

My character. You pick a dialogue option based on what your character is. The more advanced options are available based on your stats and skills. As for combat, you are not leading armies, 9 out of 10 you are deciding whom to attack/shoot at next.

Who gives a flying fuck if lockpicking and pickpocketting are done as minigames?

Hmm, I dunno, people who think that the success should be determined by the skills? You know, as in role-playing?

They are completely trivial to the role-playing experience, because last time I checked rolling a fucking die had nothing to do with role-playing unless the character system SPECIFICALLY contained rules pertaining to the aforementioned skills.

Very stupid. Don't focus on the word die, it doesn't represent an actual die and dnd dules, but the dependancy on skills and stats

So just because Oblivion might not feature a stinking 'dice roll' for lockpicking doesn't make it any less of an RPG (depending on its other features).

I don't know. What WOULD make it an RPG? Char system and inventory?

I don't see the relation. Unlike you, I'm not on drugs. I don't think that just because someone happens to like Japanese cars he must automatically like to watch anime and listen to J-Rock. I'm sure that's how your ignorant mind functions, though, as you've proven time and time again.

Rex, my retarded friend, if an RPG developer think that an RPG is about killing stuff THEN THAT'S WHAT HE THINKS ABOUT ALL RPGs. That's his design position. That's what DF and MW were. That's what Oblivion is all about. That's what FO3 will be like. Am I getting through here?

Oh yes, because the implementation of facial graphics causes dialogues to automagically dissapear.

The word "disappear" would imply that they were there in the first place. Once again, learn to read, and learn to think about what you read.