Game News Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion official

[Stark]

Far too early to say either way how its going to be, from what little info we know, the fact that its pc & console, its a bad omen... but see how it works out, i really want bethesda to deliver a great rpg, something better than morrowind and comparable to daggerfal. Technicaly, because this is a repeat of Morrowinds first screenshots and i have sense of deja vu, its not an in game screenshot with someone playing, its a screenshot of in game assets posed in a certain way. You can take that anyway you like, but the first 4 MW screenshots where alot different than what was in the final game, 1 gave the impression you could ride gondala's and another gave the impression pack animals would be in the game.

There are about 20 shots in the article that are really in game. If you have any doubt that that's what the game looks like, your fears will be set aside when you look at the inside shots. They're even better No gondola riders in these shots, that's for sure. For the cover a posed shot works better 99% of the time though.

Hi kathode, i'm too cheapskate to buy the mag, so if it's something you can reveal do enlighten us. The main question on all our mind is, is dialog tree implemented?

 

[z3r'0']

Hype 101

My guess is this new ES game will have new maps/lands etc and
"Graphics" but the core game and character system should stay the same. E.g : wandering around huge environment
jumping up and down like a nigger on crack just to "level".
Borewind Fans will probably cream themselves.




In English: Fallout is DEAD!


All systems are go...Flame On!
:kicks troll back under bridge:
:twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

 

[FrankHorrigan]

In some ways, the TES experience system works better than others. Why should blowing generic super mutant's #179 head of help you increase you speech skill? Implemented properly in a proper rpg the "use to improve" skill system is perfect. Of course morrowind isnt perfect so it doesnt work well for anything other than combat/magic skills.

 

[Seven]

Mein gott in himmel, it looks great! If Fallout 3 has gameplay as good as it's graphics, I'm totally sold.

I have shinny beads...

EDIT: so I can't spell.

 

[Ortchel]

This is amazing. The devs haven't posted on their official forums or released *any* information to anyone else, except here.

Curious, curious indeed.

 

[miserychick]

Implemented properly in a proper rpg the "use to improve" skill system is perfect.

The problem is, use-based skill progression is fundamentally flawed. Infrequently used skills don't get better on scale with ones that are constantly used, leading to high level thieves who can shoot the eyes off a fly, but can't pick pockets and can barely sneak, unless the player decides to tape down the sneak button and leave the game running for a couple hours. It may be realistic, but it's not fun. I know which I'd rather have in a game.

 

[Seven]

This is amazing. The devs haven't posted on their official forums or released *any* information to anyone else, except here.

Curious, curious indeed.

It's called community management. You see, FO3 will use this same engine, and given the response to FO3 it kinda helps to try and smooth things over in little ways like this. There's the stick and then there's the carrot; you can't really use the stick when you're a manufacturer dealing with clients, but what you can do effectively is use a bunch of little carrots.

 

[Stark]

It may be realistic, but it's not fun. I know which I'd rather have in a game.

aye. seconded. why shoot for realism if it's just not fun?

 

[voodoo1man]

Ok, the bump mapping on the pauldrons sure looks nice. Horsies are great too. But inquiring minds want to know: will the view distance in the new game actually be decently large? How about the area loading - is it going to happen every 20 steps? Detail is all well and good, but as a player I prefer that small-scale detail be traded off for large view distances and no loading. This is one of the things that I loved about Gothic, especially when compared to Morrowind.

 

[Araanor]

In some ways, the TES experience system works better than others. Why should blowing generic super mutant's #179 head of help you increase you speech skill?

Because it abstracts away the need to manually train skills. Sitting there clicking on locks until the numbers agree with you can be very boring compared to exploring the world and interacting with it, accomplishing stuff. As in the real-time vs turn-based discussions, we're dealing with abstractions in either case. Real-time is called realistic by many purely because it is real-time, even when this will mostly mean combatants standing and whacking at each other until one of them falls down. Turn-based combat, however, gives you much more choice and tactical options, at the expense of temporal believability. Adding skill points to skills you haven't used much or at all can be imagined as training the character does at the side, along with all the eating and sleeping I'm sure most wouldn't want to do manually. The need to perform trivial daily tasks is abstracted away in most games, does this make them less realistic? Who gives a fuck? What you want in the end is a system that makes it interesting to play.

Implemented properly in a proper rpg the "use to improve" skill system is perfect. Of course morrowind isnt perfect so it doesnt work well for anything other than combat/magic skills.

I'm sure if a cake was "implemented properly", we could both eat it and keep it.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Hi kathode, i'm too cheapskate to buy the mag, so if it's something you can reveal do enlighten us.

There was talk at a GameFAQs forum about the article. The following is a quote from a guy who made a post after reading the mag:

-Horses and "other" mounts are in.

-The game is set in Cryodill. You are a prisoner and the Emperor is escaping the Imperial Palace after an escape attempt. The escape tunnel runs through your cell. You witness the death of the Emperor and as he dies he hands you an amulet and tells you to find the one who can close the gates. With the death of the Emperor and no apparant heir, the gates to Oblivion open throughout the world of Tamriel.

-Winter 2005.

-Each NPC is completely different with unique and involved dialogue. NPC's follow schedules, go to work, to bed, have romances, families, lives, do chores, go for walks, go for adventures, visit family in other towns, Etc. For instance, a Farmer will go to his fields during the day to plow his grain, may take a lunch break, and go home at night to his wife where they go to sleep.

-The game will be smaller then Morrowind due to time constraints and because players like "a shorter game". It will be more expansive in terms of things to do however ::Boggles::

-In trying to make the game more "mainstream" friendly lockpicking, Armor forging, Potion making will be made into a sort of mini-game. I'm not excited about this.

-Over 40 completely different types of enemies. One of the screenshots, yes kids, is a Dragon.

-Stated by the magazine and everyone on the net who has seen the photos-The shots of Cryodill is the best looking shots of any game ever. Period. See Ya Doom 3. Bye Farcry. Oblivion-New standard. Which probably means YOU need to upgrade your system.

-It WILL come with the construction Set.

Not sure if these are true; again, quoted from a post. If anyone here read the magazine, feel free to comment.

 

[Sol Invictus]

The problem is, use-based skill progression is fundamentally flawed. Infrequently used skills don't get better on scale with ones that are constantly used, leading to high level thieves who can shoot the eyes off a fly, but can't pick pockets and can barely sneak, unless the player decides to tape down the sneak button and leave the game running for a couple hours. It may be realistic, but it's not fun. I know which I'd rather have in a game.

I'm with miserychick on this one.

Many games which utilize the use-based skill progression system definitely suffer from one fundamental issue: no fun. When you reach higher levels and some of your skills are lagging behind you'll constantly find yourself using them on low level, unrewarding monsters at every opportunity just to catch up with the rest of your skills. As a result you'll spend countless hours treadmilling, which is really no different from your average Everquest/World of Warcraft experience.

In those games, you might be level 50, but if your Professions are lagging behind you'll probably find yourself spending way too much time mining or crafting useless items just so the skill can catch up with your level and the rest of your abilities. Is it fun? No. Is it rewarding? Probably not - most crafted items will likely stink in comparison to whatever equipment you're already wearing. Is it worth it? No, and to top it off, it's downright boring.

My suggestion would be to simply get rid of them and implement something like a level-based alotted amount of skill points like Fallout or D&D 3.5E. Though, I wouldn't suggest changing Oblivion to a class-based game. I'd take a progression-based system in TES4 over a system which pigeonholes the player into playing a certain style.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

In some ways, the TES experience system works better than others. Why should blowing generic super mutant's #179 head of help you increase you speech skill? Implemented properly in a proper rpg the "use to improve" skill system is perfect. Of course morrowind isnt perfect so it doesnt work well for anything other than combat/magic skills.

If you haven't tried it, Prelude to Darkness actually does that type of system fairly well. Better than any other game I've seen that does it.

 

[Sol Invictus]

-In trying to make the game more "mainstream" friendly lockpicking, Armor forging, Potion making will be made into a sort of mini-game. I'm not excited about this.

I am however excited about that. There was nothing exciting or particularly fun about watching 'Lockpicking Suceeded - Your Lockpick Skill is now 2'.

Though, this begs my previous post - skills such as these shouldn't be progression-based. I don't think it would be particularly enjoyable to go through the minigame a thousand times just to level your skill up.

Besides, oh, what's wrong with minigames? Anachronox and System Shock 2 both had them, and they were pretty good.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

-In trying to make the game more "mainstream" friendly lockpicking, Armor forging, Potion making will be made into a sort of mini-game. I'm not excited about this.

I am however excited about that. There was nothing exciting or particularly fun about watching 'Lockpicking Suceeded - Your Lockpick Skill is now 2'.(...)

Besides, oh, what's wrong with minigames? Anachronox and System Shock 2 both had them, and they were pretty good.

Not sure if turning those into a minigame is the right way to improve them. And I'm definetely not sure that simply because Anachronox and SS2 did them right that Oblivion will as well. It depends on how its made.

 

[FrankHorrigan]

If you haven't tried it, Prelude to Darkness actually does that type of system fairly well. Better than any other game I've seen that does it.

Agreed it done it alot better. I think alot of people here have problems with basic english, i said a use to improve based system is better if done properly and i said morrowind did not do it properly.

 

[DamnElfGirl]

Not sure if turning those into a minigame is the right way to improve them. And I'm definetely not sure that simply because Anachronox and SS2 did them right that Oblivion will as well. It depends on how its made.

Perhaps they'll take a hint from Betrayal at Krondor, the only game in which I actually looked forward to having to unlock chests. I can always hope.

 

[Whipporowill]

While mini-games often are the spawn of Satan (or some really crappy game designer), I have to agree that done right, as mentioned Betrayal at Krondor, it can be great.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

I always liked Wizardy 8's lockpicking minigame, for instance. I think its a good way to entice players to achieving a goal while basically letting the character's skills be the determining factor in success or failure.

 

[Sol Invictus]

There's an issue that nobody has brought up so far:
Please make the combat in Oblivion fun! Make it interactive. It was horrible in Morrowind and all previous games.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

What would be interesting to see is opponents with the same options the PC will have in combat.

In Morrowind it was too easy to jump on top of a house, or get levitate spells and fire spells or arrows away until the enemy died. If enemies' AI can be adjusted so they use more skills and the environment, such situations could be reduced as enemies would also follow the NPCs to the best of their abilities.

 

[Mr. Teatime]

'mainstream' is not a word i like to hear from a company with access to the fallout license.

 

[Sol Invictus]

A lot of 'mainstream' games do happen to be good, and even better than games that are supposed to be 'hard-core'. Hardcore wargames are definitely not enjoyable. I wouldn't call Baldur's Gate or NWN 'hardcore' either, no matter what some people in the press dub them. Hardcore games don't sell millions of copies, for starters.

It's only when some horrible developers take it into their own decisions not to listen to the fans and instead dumb their games down to utter drivel to cater to some very nonexistent (meaning to say these people won't be buying the game either way) 'lowest common denominator' that the game turns out horribly bad. Case in point: Invisible War. The first one was a huge hit, a megaseller, and was most definitely mainstream. The sequel on the other hand was catered to the lowest common denominator, NOT the mainstream. Were the fans pissed? You bet they were. What about the gaming press? It was certainly nowhere as high as the first.

Just take a look at Dawn of War. That's definitely a mainstream title, and most of us here happen to like it. On the other hand, Warcraft 3 - a game catering to the 'hardcore RTS group' which tends to focus on crap like 'early game rush strategy' and 'mid-game counter strategy' consisting of nothing more than macroed build queues doesn't appeal to most of us here. For a prime example of a hardcore game, I present to you: Everquest. Does anyone here like it? Hell fucking no. Diablo II is so much more our style, and that's as mainstream as RPGs get.

 

[Mr. Teatime]

Fallout is not a mainstream title, it has 'hardcore' mechanics such as the turn based and nowadays, even the viewpoint.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Turn based is only hardcore to the moronic. Plenty of console gamers prefer turn-based games over real time. Case in point: The popularity of Final Fantasy Tactics.