Preview Idiotic Oblivion preview at CVG

[Kuato]

Guys the FASTER you accept that Oblivion is made FOR CONSOLE audience and FOR XBOX 360 first the BETTER.

Yeah, I love the Radiant AI but I still can't shake the feeling that lots of features (mounts, axes, xbows etc.) were cut to fit with the simpleminded console audience.

RPG lite + Action Lite = niche game

I think Jade Empire sales are a perfect example that dumming down games too much Ultimately makes the game more niche in the end.

 

[Claw]

He probably means how dice decides over player's choice. Like stat rolling in 2e DnD compared to point buy in 3e DnD.

No, he probably doesn't. Were you ever introduced to Mister Context? Nice guy, try talking to him sometimes.

 

[jiujitsu]

<u>How often in RPGs have you been left feeling like you've had little to do with victory, or had little chance to avert a crushing defeat, due to behind-the-scenes dice deciding your fate rather than personal skill? It's an age-old RPG problem</u>

That isn't a problem it's the point of an RPG. You're not supposed to be able to kill anything in the game whenever you want. That's fucking lame. You are supposed to develope your character so you can handle tougher shit.

If this was the Middle Ages I'd drag that guy to a town square and butcher him with the other rabid townsfolk (Codexers).

 

[merry andrew]

I don't think it's about being able to kill things whenever you want. I'm playing Gothic 2 right now, and it has combat that relies on player skill, but I can't kill whatever I want... I have to develop my character for that.

I'm thinking that in Oblivion you won't be able to kill whatever you want without developing your character, but I dunno.

 

[Vault Dweller]

There are 21 skills, but your numbers & combinations of major vs other skills are off. More on that later. We've also changed training and taken other steps to try to keep "class" important through more of the game. Hopefully it will be LESS of a problem.

I saw some posts at the official forums claiming that the screens in some euro mags show 7 major skills. Is that correct?

 

[sabishii]

Surlent, you can improve ALL of your skills, but it'll take a long time to get your minor skills up to high levels (not to mention it'll take a while to get them to levels where you'll be effective at them to begin with). But if you play long enough, sure, you can get them all to 100 and be a master at all of them.

Meaning that how good your character is doesn't depend at all on an intelligent player's wise choice of skills, but rather how long any moron can sit there and play hours on end?

 

[merry andrew]

Surlent, you can improve ALL of your skills, but it'll take a long time to get your minor skills up to high levels (not to mention it'll take a while to get them to levels where you'll be effective at them to begin with). But if you play long enough, sure, you can get them all to 100 and be a master at all of them.

Meaning that how good your character is doesn't depend at all on an intelligent player's wise choice of skills, but rather how long any moron can sit there and play hours on end?

If so, at least it's accurate in comparison to the life we know.

 

[Shagnak]

Honestly it does seem that Oblivion is catering to the console audience given the features like the quest compass (so you don't have to think) and full speech( so you don't have to read).

The "quest compass" exists in plenty of PC games. Recent examples include Sacred, Guild Wars, and even DS2 to a certain degree (major quests only in the demo?). Same with full speech - why do you consider that the domain of console games? (I'm assuming they mean full speech on top of dialog - like DS2 and others)

It seems similar to what happened with Deus Ex 2 and Thief 3. I had mad respect for Warren Spector before that...now I hope he just learned his lesson.

Yeah, "we didn't compromise anything for the consoles, honest you bitches".
Whatever Mr Spector.

Actually, I thought Thief 3 ended up being a damn good game despite compromises on area size etc.

 

[vazquez595654]

why do you consider that the domain of console games?

I don't mean those features per se. I mean within the context of the decisions. In other words full speech would make sense as a feature decided for the console because it's difficult to read on most non HD TV's. And a quest compass makes sense for younger people or for the type of people who don't want to get deeply involved in a game. You could easily just have a waypoint system and have the character autopilot himself there but it does take away from the sense of exploration and wonder.

I'm not arguing for or against a quest compass but it definitely has its pros and cons depending on whether your a console or pc gamer. Sacred wasn't a very compelling game to me. The compass while convenient made finishing quest boring because I never ended up going on the wrong path which is part of the reason you create a giant world in games like Oblivion, Morrowind, and Sacred. Okay maybe I was arguing against it slightly.

I guess I could put it like this...We will probably never see a game as complex and grand as Baldurs Gate 2 on the PC anytime soon. Though not my favorite game you have to admit creating something like that had to be quite an effort. Something that will never be done on a console. It's just too much work and not worth the return on investment.

 

[themadhatter114]

Isn't everything laid out on the map for you in Baldur's Gate II? Someone comes along wanting to give you a quest and then that area appears on your map and everything is pretty straightforward. I loved Baldur's Gate II, but I don't remember doing much exploring, especially in comparison to Baldur's Gate I where you often would find places irrelevant to the main plot.

 

[TheGreatGodPan]

Yeah, "we didn't compromise anything for the consoles, honest you bitches".
Whatever Mr Spector.

Actually, I thought Thief 3 ended up being a damn good game despite compromises on area size etc.

It should be noted that Harvey Smith had been planning on simplifying it from the beginning (he had said the skill system wasn't "orthagonal" enough or something) and near the end of development he cut out a lot just to get it finished, which could have happened regardless of whether it came out for consoles or not. I personally think it would have been better if it had been designed solely for PC and then ported to a console. I also wish Warren also would have been more hands on with the design and NOT told Harvey to "give me heart attacks", which is really just asking for it. I'm not saying Harvey sucks, because he's made very good games, but it seems like every idea he had for IW was bad.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

How often in RPGs have you been left feeling like you've had little to do with victory, or had little chance to avert a crushing defeat, due to behind-the-scenes dice deciding your fate rather than personal skill? It's an age-old RPG problem

Take that statement, re-word it slightly and put it against Morrowinds main-plot (and I'm betting Oblivions linear as hell main plot too) rather than the combat system, and I'd agree with it.

 

[crufty]

On a side note, the popularity of nethack is BECAUSE of it's behind the scenes dice rolling...

apples and oranges, true.

 

[PrzeSzkoda]

In FO and FO2 the combat system was so neat that you could score critical hits whenever you felt like it IF you had high enough combat skills of choice. That was the best side of targeting - just go for the eyes or the head and you're set. I have to admit, though, that in FO2 your character's combat skills become mad after doing the Keeng Rat quest in Klamath (when it got above 130%, you could hit bascially anything in the friggin' eyes).

 

[Killzig]

Did Morrowind even have a plot? Feels like it got lost in a huge mass of fedex quests. Morrowind is vast but its so vast that there's not really any point to playing it. You could say discovery would be a reason to play but its not. There aren't any areas in the game that are particularly interesting, the npcs have no personality.. I still haven't seen anything from Oblivion to suggest that Bethsoft has learned how to write an interesting story, characters, or even figured out how to make their games fun to play.

And with their zeal to try and keep their graphics on par with the FPS' out there I don't see the "LOADING" screen going anywhere any time soon either.

 

[Killzig]

In FO and FO2 the combat system was so neat that you could score critical hits whenever you felt like it IF you had high enough combat skills of choice. That was the best side of targeting - just go for the eyes or the head and you're set. I have to admit, though, that in FO2 your character's combat skills become mad after doing the Keeng Rat quest in Klamath (when it got above 130%, you could hit bascially anything in the friggin' eyes).

If your base stats allow for it and the character has been training with the weapon/surviving with it all this while, why wouldn't he be adept with it? To me, that's the thing about RPGs. Too much focus is given on the actual combat (dodging, slashing... like trying to make every RPG a fighting game) when the combat engine would probably be more interesting if they focused on making it more of a tactical thing. Sure, your character's skills should be important but as the player the main thing you should be concerned about managing is how to utilize your character effectively against the enemies. Not how quickly you can hammer out a dodge slash MAGIC MISSILEEEEE combo.

 

[Percolator Fish]

Vault Dweller you are one shitty newsposter and everything you say is the opposite of the truth.

 

[corvax]

Did Morrowind even have a plot? Feels like it got lost in a huge mass of fedex quests. Morrowind is vast but its so vast that there's not really any point to playing it. You could say discovery would be a reason to play but its not. There aren't any areas in the game that are particularly interesting, the npcs have no personality.. I still haven't seen anything from Oblivion to suggest that Bethsoft has learned how to write an interesting story, characters, or even figured out how to make their games fun to play.

You're smarter than that...I think. The plot was there and even a decent one. Ancient evil rising with you fulfilling the role of the Incarnate, overcoming different tirals, uniting all the Houses and Tribes, overall it was on par with most other RPGs. Of course it was linear with only two ways of obtaining the final items and one outcome. The story got much better in Tribunal. Old god wanting to preserve her power at all cost (you included), King Helseth trying to assassinate you and work with you at the same time. Game is too vast you say? Do you really need someone holding your hand when you play the game? This may be just a personal preference but I absolutely loved the lack of structure. It was much more immersive that way where as in other games I could rarely get into character and felt more like I was following a designed path even though it may be branching. Also I liked the idea of just going out on one's own and do stuff like pearl diving, freelance adventuring, freeing slaves - working for the Twin Lamps, owning my own pad with my own slaves (so I'm a hypocrite), stuff like that really tickles my fancy. The NPC's...yeah they pretty much sucked. Some were quite the characters: Helseth, Almalexia, Vivec, Dviath Fyr, most Telvanni counselors, Curio. But I get your point, this area needs much, much improvement. I'm wouldn't go as far as making each of the 1000 NPC's unique with their own story but would just adda little personality to more of the important ones. So far it looks like Radiant AI will take care of the NPC problem on the "regular folk" level and the main characters need only better writing. The story seems fairly standard and quite satisfactory. The emperor is dead, the empire after over 400 years crumbles, pretty sure other province will rebel...overall it's pretty decent. Keep in mind that there hasn't been an RPG with a solid story since Arcanum. Last point in my run-on ramble: Bethesda in general has figured out how to make their games fun to play vis a vis the popularity of Morrowind. Bethesda needs only heavy tweaking in their game design: quests, npcs, skills.

Oh and just so I don't seem like a complete fanboy I do rank Morrowind behind Fallout, Fallout 2, and Torment on my all time list of favorite RPGs.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Vault Dweller you are one shitty newsposter and everything you say is the opposite of the truth.

Still posting meaningless one-liners, Percolator?