I was wrong

[Screaming_Dude_In_Vegas]

It's what their advertising. Most of the hardcore CRPG fans will buy this game simply because there's nothing like it, at least till G3 is released. So what market is left? The casual gamers and FPS fans who picked up morrowind because it looked nifty, and lost interest because it was boring. It's called hype people.

I know it could be hype - that's what worries me! Do you even know the definition of the word? I'm curious because it means deception; to deliberately mislead. How is hype a good thing?!

Well thats one definition. I think the people they are "misleading" are the dumbasses who got lost in morrowind (and will prboably end up stuck in OB too).

Actually, the fact that certain people are protected leads me to belive that they are doing some complex interactions with a the AI. I mean bethsada would let you break the main quest (thought they would warn you), but I don't think they'd let you break the overall gameworld.

But the complex interactions will be fixed, scripted, events that have a low tolerance for freestyle gameplay.

How the hell do you know that?...do you have the game? It sounds like you don't like it, in that case, I'll be happy to take it off your hands

I can think of quite afew GAME WORLD (not purely MQ) operations that would revolve around a central NPC. Crime, trade, imperial legion comand, ect... are just afew of the things that would work this way.

I think (and this is pure speculation, but then again I am an insane fanboy who has read prettimuch everything there is to read on OB, so I am educated in the matter) this is more a case of "OK, are we going to fill half of the theives guild missions with 'fed-ex quests' and let you kill every NPC while keeping AI operations intact, or are we going to give the thieves guild it's full share of interesting quests?"

I personaly rather have the thieves guild quests fleshed out more and have afew random people be "off limets"

If they were built with a dynamic failover system I would be greatly heartened. Regardless, the point is that they will not allow you to break the main quest - and from the descriptions I have read so far maybe some of the guild/faction quests too.

Where did you get the faction quests from?

They have argued that this would break the gameworld. While I accept that the idea of invunerable NPCs or forced reloading is a quick and easy way to avoid the need for a fault tolerant system it does not make it a good alternative - it is simply settling for second best.

True, but second best in one area. The focus on other areas too.

And don't bring up "Shiny graphics over gameplay!!!!!" or somthing like that. Bethsoft has a large team. They have plenty of artists who make 3D modles, plenty of programmers to program, plenty of people to manage the voice actors, ect... No one is neglecting their area to work on another.

Anyways, all this will be changible in the CS, so the modders will probably end up being able to do some great stuff with the RAI that the dev's haven't even thought of. Also we might see quite afew AI modifications making the gameworld more flexible.

I'd prefer they released a finished game rather than a development kit that allows me to finish it for them or make my own. It is also worth noting that there are limits to what the CS can do.

Me too, but I don't think that it will be unfinished because afew NPC's will cause auto-reload upon death.

True, there are limets, but unchecking a box in an NPC menu is not one of them. The devs aren't going to hardcode the killable/non-killable npcs into the game. I am so sure of this that I will install Windows ME on my computer if I am wrong.

I will admit that I am a little not-so much with the caring thing because I intend on opening up the CS first thing and making everyone killable, see if the game works, and if it dose, yay. I probably would be on your side if I was using a 360...

Dose everything need a comfirmation to make you guys happy? ...

Yes. (Well me at least although I imagine that many others would feel similarly)

In fact this very thread is based on a mistaken Dev comment - without confirmation we'd have been under the impression that you could continue in Oblivion even after breaking the main quest...

I'll give you that. But I am sick of folks wanting confirmation on everything. It's complete bullcrap 99% of the time. I even heard somone saying that OB will have a diablo style inventory system because a weight system (what has been used from the beginning) has not been confirmed.

They mentioned in-game conversations as well as info being passed between NPCs.

Plot tweaking on the fly is impossible. No way to simulate human langauge, let alone voice, in a remotely non-sucky fashon.

This is why I expressed my concern that the focus on fully spoken game dialog would impose restrictions on what could be done with the so-called 'groundbreaking' AI. Such plot tweaking is possible - it just isn't easy (but then I never said it would be).

I do have to point out that they realy only have time to develope one new technology themselves. That would require alot of new stuff. Maby in the future. You got to remember, this is only a game. I got other things to do. And if you don't have other things to do, then you should be too disapointed with your life to notice that the game just isn't a godly program of life-replacement.

And as a point of fact synthetic voice creation is possible; the topic has even made an appearence on the Official TES:Oblivion bulletin board. There are two methods - pre-recording a range of actual spoken sound which are then assembled to create the sound of the word; the other is to model of the human vocal system. Both are processor intensive but both do work. I accept that such technology might not be usable (within a game) at present but it does not change the fact that the technology exists.

Exactly, can't work at the moment. I don't badmouth the original DOOM for not having havock physics.

I am guessing the 'sucky' fashion to which you refer is a product of sentences being formed from a dictionary of pre-recorded whole words. This is significantly less sophisticated and is a poor comparision.

[

quote]
Part of the goal was to remove "Filler" NPCs, aside from gaurds and bandits.

But if 'filler' NPCs were dynamic then they would, to a large extent, be more substancial - their history and relationship to the game world could be created depending on the environment (condition of the gameworld) they enter.

I guess we'll just have to disagree on this point as I think that 'filler' NPCs would contribute to the game - particularly the replayability factor.[/quote]

It's my opinion that the only way to get that fealing of personality is for the NPCs to be individually crafted by humans. You just can't do that with a computer, no matter how much fancy new tech you have.

Interesting idea. The one problem with all of your Ideas is that all of this requires this to be comunicated to the player. Now even if you were using text only, all personality of those characters would be lost based on the fact that generated dialouge wouldn't be able to take advantage of all the variations of human language that make for interesting dialouge. Now forget about doing this with voices...

The point is to create a sustainable system that 'passes on' the relevant history with the personality dynamically created by drawing on events, past and present, within the gameworld.

Well that can be done with RAI...

Again this highlights the imposed restrictions resulting from the insistance on fully-spoken dialog. This focus has dictated that the free-form nature of an RPG be dumbed down so much that it is no longer an RPG at all.

That's quite an acusation. Anyways I think your systems might work some day. But I don't think voice is the heart of the matter. Human voice acting, when properly done, provides quite a bit of character to the world. Sure there are some limetations, but as I said earlier, the goal is to create a fun experience with enough of a sence of freedom to be engaging, not to simulate life, the universe, and everything.

 

[lamaslany]

Well thats one definition. I think the people they are "misleading" are the dumbasses who got lost in morrowind (and will prboably end up stuck in OB too).

Hmm... Too little is known to reassure me that they are not up to no good...

As for the dumbasses in question: I agree. How anyone could have managed to get lost in Morrowind amazes me!

But the complex interactions will be fixed, scripted, events that have a low tolerance for freestyle gameplay.

How the hell do you know that?...do you have the game? It sounds like you don't like it, in that case, I'll be happy to take it off your hands

If they were not fixed, scripted, events then killing NPCs wouldn't be a problem!

:wink:

I can think of quite afew GAME WORLD (not purely MQ) operations that would revolve around a central NPC. Crime, trade, imperial legion comand, ect... are just afew of the things that would work this way.

I think (and this is pure speculation, but then again I am an insane fanboy who has read prettimuch everything there is to read on OB, so I am educated in the matter) this is more a case of "OK, are we going to fill half of the theives guild missions with 'fed-ex quests' and let you kill every NPC while keeping AI operations intact, or are we going to give the thieves guild it's full share of interesting quests?"

I personaly rather have the thieves guild quests fleshed out more and have afew random people be "off limets"

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you but what you are suggesting would greatly increase the number of non-killable NPCs?

The point is to create a method of offloading pre-defined quests to other NPCs so although the quest concept may remain the actors in that quest are changeable. Add to that emergent quests and you have a very fleshed out series of guild quests!

I admit that if you manage to kill enough NPCs then you may break a quest but then that would be the quest outcome - you chose to kill them all and you should accept the consequenses.

Where did you get the faction quests from?

While they have not told us the names of the factions we have had indication that they will be present in one form or another. With their push on complex quests it is a reasonable supposition that factions will have major quests and so they will include major quest critical NPCs.

If there are to be no factions or affiliations other than the main guilds then this would be a good example of how hype was being used to draw attention away from this quite horrific truth - can you imagine the TES:Oblivion forum?

And I note that you didn't comment on the fact that major quest critical guild NPCs will be seen as game-breakers...

True, but second best in one area. The focus on other areas too.

It is a pretty important area though!!

And don't bring up "Shiny graphics over gameplay!!!!!" or somthing like that. Bethsoft has a large team. They have plenty of artists who make 3D modles, plenty of programmers to program, plenty of people to manage the voice actors, ect... No one is neglecting their area to work on another.

I don't believe that I have ever said that - although I have pointed out that there is a finite budget and money spent on artists, vioce actors, etc... could have been spent on more programmers... Are you telling me that they have an infinite budget?

I'd prefer they released a finished game rather than a development kit that allows me to finish it for them or make my own. It is also worth noting that there are limits to what the CS can do.

Me too, but I don't think that it will be unfinished because afew NPC's will cause auto-reload upon death.

True, there are limets, but unchecking a box in an NPC menu is not one of them. The devs aren't going to hardcode the killable/non-killable npcs into the game. I am so sure of this that I will install Windows ME on my computer if I am wrong.

I will admit that I am a little not-so much with the caring thing because I intend on opening up the CS first thing and making everyone killable, see if the game works, and if it dose, yay. I probably would be on your side if I was using a 360...

But it is settling for second best rather than addressing the problem...

You mean clear a checkbox that they've put in as a stop-gap measure to prevent problems they expect to crop up? That desn't sound like a smart move to me... Neither does putting Windows ME on you system - there's some things you just shouldnt joke about!

I'm getting the PC version myself but I'd rather not need to manually disable their stop-gap measures before playing...

I'll give you that. But I am sick of folks wanting confirmation on everything. It's complete bullcrap 99% of the time. I even heard somone saying that OB will have a diablo style inventory system because a weight system (what has been used from the beginning) has not been confirmed.

That's very kind - thank you!

As for the inventory/weight system - I'm just annoyed gold doesn't weigh anything...

I do have to point out that they realy only have time to develope one new technology themselves. That would require alot of new stuff. Maby in the future. You got to remember, this is only a game. I got other things to do. And if you don't have other things to do, then you should be too disapointed with your life to notice that the game just isn't a godly program of life-replacement.

And I accepted that but if they were aware that there would be a limitation on spoken text, and lets face it they should be, then declaring a fully voiced game seems like a bad idea - maybe not for Oblivion as an action/adventure game but it is for the purposes of making a CRPG.

Exactly, can't work at the moment. I don't badmouth the original DOOM for not having havock physics.

The physics was good enough - there was a perceptable gravity that acted on objects - although there we not that may object for it to act on! And of course Doom had some pretty damn fine addictiveness that helped it's cause somewhat...

As for realistic for being a FPS then yes I can critisise it - it wasn't a good game for a number of reasons: lack of physics among them!

It's my opinion that the only way to get that fealing of personality is for the NPCs to be individually crafted by humans. You just can't do that with a computer, no matter how much fancy new tech you have.

Fair enough - but keep in mind that humans would be the ones to craft the tech. It is possible.

Well that can be done with RAI...

Noooooooooooooo!!!!!!

Unless they decide to put children in RadiantAI will not work in the context I was referring to.

I may be wrong of course as I'm only basing my understanding of RadientAI on the slew of info that has been released. So I'm just making educated guesses!

Again this highlights the imposed restrictions resulting from the insistance on fully-spoken dialog. This focus has dictated that the free-form nature of an RPG be dumbed down so much that it is no longer an RPG at all.

That's quite an acusation. Anyways I think your systems might work some day. But I don't think voice is the heart of the matter. Human voice acting, when properly done, provides quite a bit of character to the world. Sure there are some limetations, but as I said earlier, the goal is to create a fun experience with enough of a sence of freedom to be engaging, not to simulate life, the universe, and everything.

But sadly no less true.

 

[Vault Dweller]

And don't bring up "Shiny graphics over gameplay!!!!!" or somthing like that. Bethsoft has a large team. They have plenty of artists who make 3D modles, plenty of programmers to program, plenty of people to manage the voice actors, ect... No one is neglecting their area to work on another.

I'll let my buddy Todd comment on that:

...the enhanced graphics will require more time while the development time and budget remained the same

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

That's why we have a bigger team. Not all the programmers do graphics programming. Obviously all the artists focus on is the graphics. The world building team would have the same level of effort whether the graphics were state of the art or not. And the designers don't have anything to do with making graphics pretty at all, they just work on quests & dialog.

Yes -- it does take more time to create higher fidelity graphics. But that time and the work involved is divided up among more people, and nobody's sacrificing anything in the game just so we can have nice graphics.

 

[Vault Dweller]

WARNING! Credibility loss detected!

Yes -- it does take more time to create higher fidelity graphics. But that time and the work involved is divided up among more people, and nobody's sacrificing anything in the game just so we can have nice graphics.

Is that right?

So instead of doing many types of ranged combat, we decided to stick with bows and arrows -- but -- it's a grand implementation of bows and arrows.

Translation: we sacrificed xbow and throwing weapons so we can have nice bow graphics.

Just so you know, we're not terribly happy about not getting mounted combat in, either. We wanted it, but it just wasn't going to happen in the time we had...

And here I thought that fantasy for you guys was "a knight on horseback running around and killing things". Turned out that fantasy is a knight who can appreciate the value of soil erosion.

 

[lamaslany]

That's why we have a bigger team. Not all the programmers do graphics programming. Obviously all the artists focus on is the graphics. The world building team would have the same level of effort whether the graphics were state of the art or not. And the designers don't have anything to do with making graphics pretty at all, they just work on quests & dialog.

Yes -- it does take more time to create higher fidelity graphics. But that time and the work involved is divided up among more people, and nobody's sacrificing anything in the game just so we can have nice graphics.

And don't bring up "Shiny graphics over gameplay!!!!!" or somthing like that. Bethsoft has a large team. They have plenty of artists who make 3D modles, plenty of programmers to program, plenty of people to manage the voice actors, ect... No one is neglecting their area to work on another.

I'll let my buddy Todd comment on that:

...the enhanced graphics will require more time while the development time and budget remained the same

Well if both Todd Howard and MSFD are correct it can only mean that the staff are all being paid less than they were for making Morrowind!

That's why we have a bigger team. Not all the programmers do graphics programming. Obviously all the artists focus on is the graphics. The world building team would have the same level of effort whether the graphics were state of the art or not. And the designers don't have anything to do with making graphics pretty at all, they just work on quests & dialog.
...

But the time (and thus money) used to create graphics would freed up to be redistributed elsewhere (such as the world building team)...

Less graphics work requires less man-hours, requires less staff, costs less money, allows the money to be spent on different staff, increases the man-hours available to their team's work/project, increases the standard of their team's work/project.

In the case of the world builders it would result in (hopefully) a more complex game world. In the case of the designers it would result in more complex quests and dialog. In the case of (non-graphics) programmers it woudl result in a plethora of engine tweaks. They might even have time to work on a more complex framework that could then reduce the time and complexity of quest and dialog creation, etc...

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

Oh, come on Vault Dweller, you're smarter than that. If you honestly believe that Todd meant graphics aspects of archery, then I may have overestimated you.

 

[lamaslany]

Oh, come on Vault Dweller, you're smarter than that. If you honestly believe that Todd meant graphics aspects of archery, then I may have overestimated you.

No comment on paying them less I note...

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Oh, come on Vault Dweller, you're smarter than that. If you honestly believe that Todd meant graphics aspects of archery, then I may have overestimated you.

Okay, so what's better about the bow that rules out having crossbows?

 

[Vault Dweller]

Oh, come on Vault Dweller, you're smarter than that. If you honestly believe that Todd meant graphics aspects of archery, then I may have overestimated you.

lol. You can always tell an old intarnet warrior by his arguments. Instead of explaining the controversial comments, you went with OMG! I thought u r smart, but u r teh stupid!!!111lol

Well, I apologize for any inconvinience caused by your disappointment with me, but I want you to know that if I failed you it's only because of Todd's trickery who posted misleading comments like this one:

What!!?? No thrown items and crossbows? Hear me out here, because it will let you into our thought process. When we look at characters that like to do ranged combat, they mostly want to use bows and arrows. So instead of doing many types of ranged combat, we decided to stick with bows and arrows -- but -- it's a grand implementation of bows and arrows. You feel the string draw, arrows arc properly, bounce realistically, and stick deep into the right materials. You can see the quiver on your back and type of arrows you have and there are tons of different bows and arrow types. So we trade having several types of ranged combat done in an average way, and get bows done in a grand way.

Yeah, I see now. He definitely wasn't talking about graphics, my mistake.

It would be interesting to see how you would dig your way out of this one. No more "I cant balieve taht u thought he maent teh graphicz! U r such a noob!" comments, please.:wink:

 

[Human Shield]

Bows are a smaller issue. The world is more linear.

They said that programming in many options would take too much time, even thou they can't reach 1/2 of the number of options Fallout had 8 years ago. Less guilds, less balanced skills, less items, more graphics.

Of course things are being removed, or how they say it "focusing on doing one thing better", instead of improving all options they just take some out.

If Beth had the same time and budget but only needed to work with 2D sprites and had dungeons randomized, you think they would get away with removing things?

I'm not saying weather this is good or bad because it is a value judgement, but recognize where your values are in relation to scarce time and money. And these values are more in line with FPS games then RPGs.

The random people in the Privateer game had more personality then all of Morrowind put together, you know how people reacted to your faction standing and it was all dynamic: 12 YEARS AGO!

 

[Vault Dweller]

Speaking of old games, here is something funny from the Elder Scrolls forums. In one of the threads DF is mentioned favorably and...

Man I wish I would have been able to play Daggerfall. :sad: Its sounds so cool.

it sounds IMPOSSIBLE for a game that apeared in 1996

A time when Space Invaders and Pac Man where the most advanced games

I never played Daggerfall, but I am allwais anoyed when people say that:

"Daggerfall (a game from 1996) is better then Morrowind (a game from 2002)"

If Morrowind is more horible then a game from the Pac Man Era then how come so manny fans here are morrowind addicts

how manny good games did you hear about in 1996, the tech then was SUPER LIMITED

 

[Sarkile]

Pac Man era? The fucktard's off by about 16 years. He has to be joking right?
edit: Do you have a link to that thread?

 

[Vault Dweller]

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/inde ... pic=143507

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Besides, according to Moby games, there was no Pac Man game released in 1996.

Sorry, I lie. Ms Pac-Man was launched on the SNES.

 

[lamaslany]

...

What!!?? No thrown items and crossbows? Hear me out here, because it will let you into our thought process. When we look at characters that like to do ranged combat, they mostly want to use bows and arrows. So instead of doing many types of ranged combat, we decided to stick with bows and arrows -- but -- it's a grand implementation of bows and arrows. You feel the string draw, arrows arc properly, bounce realistically, and stick deep into the right materials. You can see the quiver on your back and type of arrows you have and there are tons of different bows and arrow types. So we trade having several types of ranged combat done in an average way, and get bows done in a grand way.

Yeah, I see now. He definitely wasn't talking about graphics, my mistake.
...

To be fair he could have been talking about the physics as well. Of course I would have thought that the physics engine was capable of working with both arrows and bolts - any differences in size, speed, weight, etc... should be easily inputable (is that even a prober word??) into the Havok engine and it is then that engine that determines trajectory, etc...

Maybe i'm wrong but once arrows have been implemented crossbow bolts should take far less work - just a few numbers get changed. So with the physics implementation out of the way the animation would be the biggest obsticle... wait a second - isn't that what Vault Dweller said?

 

[Atrokkus]

I actually find Morrowind fanbois most amusing.
I mean, I don't really have anything against them or their preference (like, i'm a fanboi of Fallout, who cares?), but it jsut kinda pisses me out that they're actually ignorant enough to call Morrowind a pure, real RPG. And then those posts that VD found on the forums... it's just LAWL.

Again, taste is a tricky matter. Tastes differ, so if he loves Morrowind - he's right and you can never prove him otherwise. It's just that.
But ignorance and disrespect for pure RPGs, and older games is just not acceptable.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

Oh, come on Vault Dweller, you're smarter than that. If you honestly believe that Todd meant graphics aspects of archery, then I may have overestimated you.

lol. You can always tell an old intarnet warrior by his arguments. Instead of explaining the controversial comments, you went with OMG! I thought u r smart, but u r teh stupid!!!111lol

Well, I apologize for any inconvinience caused by your disappointment with me, but I want you to know that if I failed you it's only because of Todd's trickery who posted misleading comments like this one:

What!!?? No thrown items and crossbows? Hear me out here, because it will let you into our thought process. When we look at characters that like to do ranged combat, they mostly want to use bows and arrows. So instead of doing many types of ranged combat, we decided to stick with bows and arrows -- but -- it's a grand implementation of bows and arrows. You feel the string draw, arrows arc properly, bounce realistically, and stick deep into the right materials. You can see the quiver on your back and type of arrows you have and there are tons of different bows and arrow types. So we trade having several types of ranged combat done in an average way, and get bows done in a grand way.

Yeah, I see now. He definitely wasn't talking about graphics, my mistake.

It would be interesting to see how you would dig your way out of this one. No more "I cant balieve taht u thought he maent teh graphicz! U r such a noob!" comments, please.:wink:

That comment is mostly about physics, which is indeed what I think they invested the most in. Which in turn affects gameplay - because arrows have realistic weight and force, you can most likely use them to set of traps, throw switches, topple items. We will of course have to wait and see if they made good use of it. Just as a side issue though: niether Xbows nor throwing weapons were in DF, and it didn't seem to have stopped you from likeing that game better than MW that had them.

 

[Vault Dweller]

To be fair he could have been talking about the physics as well.

Technically, yes, SOME of what Todd said refers to the physics, but overall, what do things like "feeling the string draw", realistic arrow arcs, and most importantly "arrows sticking deep inside materials" add to gameplay? At this point I'd say "nothing", and that's why I file all that crap under "graphics". We can try splitting some hair if someone wants, but what would be the point of that?

There are things that matter to gameplay and there are things that don't. Simple as that. I'd say that crossbows with unrealistic arcs and bolts that don't stick out of whatever crap you shoot them at matter much more than "grand implementation" of bows. My 2 cents.

That comment is mostly about physics, which is indeed what I think they invested the most in. Which in turn affects gameplay - because arrows have realistic weight and force, you can most likely use them to set of traps, throw switches, topple items.

Something that was already done years ago. Shooting at switches and buttons is not a novelty concept.

Just as a side issue though: niether Xbows nor throwing weapons were in DF, and it didn't seem to have stopped you from likeing that game better than MW that had them.

A game doesn't have to have xbows to be good, and I have never stated that Oblivion will suck because it doesn't have xbows. I was merely commenting on a design decision that traded variety for prettiness, and then pointed that out to MSFD who mistakenly believed that "nobody's sacrificing anything in the game just so we can have nice graphics"

 

[Sandelfron]

Pac Man era? The fucktard's off by about 16 years. He has to be joking right?
edit: Do you have a link to that thread?

Kids today, eh?

 

[lamaslany]

To be fair he could have been talking about the physics as well.

Technically, yes, SOME of what Todd said refers to the physics, but overall, what do things like "feeling the string draw", realistic arrow arcs, and most importantly "arrows sticking deep inside materials" add to gameplay? At this point I'd say "nothing", and that's why I file all that crap under "graphics". We can try splitting some hair if someone wants, but what would be the point of that?

There are things that matter to gameplay and there are things that don't. Simple as that. I'd say that crossbows with unrealistic arcs and bolts that don't stick out of whatever crap you shoot them at matter much more than "grand implementation" of bows. My 2 cents.

I know I only joined the RPGCodex a short while ago but I get the impression that splitting hair is the point!

I agree that graphics/animation are a poor substitute for gameplay. However you seem to be suggesting that your actual argument is that crossbows will not be getting the same treatment as the bows - after all the unrealistic arcs and bolts sticking out of things are part of the bow grand implementation requiring both physics and graphics/amimation. I had initially thought that you were arguing against graphics (encompassing fluff like physics) so I may have misunderstood; if so, I apologise.

Something that was already done years ago. Shooting at switches and buttons is not a novelty concept.

Very true; I remember such games myself.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I had initially thought that you were arguing against graphics (encompassing fluff like physics) so I may have misunderstood; if so, I apologise.

Not as much against graphics in general but against graphics that cost us gameplay features.

My point about crossbows was that choosing between an avg graphical implementation of bows, xbows, throwing stuff and a grand graphical implementation of bows only, I'd chose the former. I'm sure it would be totally awesome to shoot at things and see arrows sticking out for the first 10 minutes, but it will get boring quickly.

 

[Spazmo]

RPGs don't need realistic intertpretations of phenomena using real physics. The entire point of RPGs is to use a comparatively simple mathematical model to substitute for all that. I don't want to have to measure wind velocity, weigh my arrow to see what the gravitational force on it will be, determine what angle I need to fire it at so it'll get there and then apply just the right tension to the bowstring--I just want to roll my bow skill against the other dude's defense rating and be done with it.

 

[Drakron]

Exactly.

If I want realitic dynamics of bows I go get myself a archery simulator, not a RPG.

Oblivion going "realistic" means they have to drop a lot of RPG mechanics since RPG mechanics are not realistic, RPG mechanics are usualy abstract to implement character skill over player skill.

 

[kris]

Oblivion going "realistic" means they have to drop a lot of RPG mechanics since RPG mechanics are not realistic, RPG mechanics are usualy abstract to implement character skill over player skill.

It is not really less realistic than someone aiming a computerised character with a "mouse". RPG mechanics just simluate that the characterdo the aiming and think of the factors. A good RPG mechanic takes things like "cover" and "distance" into consideration.