New Fan Interview at TES Forums

[Nael]

Planescape would wipe the floor with Oblivion. Come on, Persuation minigame? What the flaming fuck?

I don't see what the big deal is with the persuasion minigame, and there's no need to flame me in your response. I really am curious what your objection is (besides that the fact that Oblivion is not Planescape, no matter how much you'd like it to be)

My objection is that Oblivion is hugely superficial and mainstreamed, as evidenced by the addition of minigames to replace the deep and beautiful dialog system of a game such as Planescape (1 million words ingame!). Because of the focus on wiki-style dialog and the lack of meaningful dialog trees, Oblivion is inherently disadvantaged in the complex quest department. Without a dialog system similar to Planescape's, you simply can't create a complex and interesting quest that doesn't revolve around combat. The lack of visualization of your character's speech (because of the persuasion minigame) means there is a disconnect between you as a player and the game's NPCs, thus rendering any interaction shallow and one-dimensional. The minigame is just meaningless twitch action where there should be words. I'm not saying Planescape's system is flawless, but it's far deeper and emulates interaction far better than either the wiki system or minigame Oblivion has.

Hmmm, I understand what you're saying but you have to admit that Planescape was really built around that style of dialogue. The TES games, ever since Arena have been more about an entire showcase of technology bundled in an "RPG-like" gameplay format rather than true RPG depth that's shown in games like Planescape or Wizardry.

I agree that it would probably be alot more enriching and interesting if there were dialogue branches and if every conversation effected relationships and plot outcomes, but we'll see how the fame/infamy system in Oblivion works with PC/NPC interaction. I could see it turning out to be little more than a more graphically intensive version of Morrowind's lame dialogue system, but I'm hoping it's not.

 

[Levski 1912]

Fame/infamy sounds like a gimmick straight out of Fable. Bethesda had 3 years and millions of dollars to improve their gameplay, and shining classics to look at, and what did they do? Persuasion minigame and Patrick Steward.

 

[HardCode]

The Persuasion mini-game sounds abso-fucking-lutely horrible. Now, to persuade NPCs reaction to your PC, you have to quickly point-and-click all over the fucking place? They should have just put in a round of Tetris for persuasion. At least that is fun.

Hmmm, I understood "don't take too long" to mean, "don't try out too many options" as in every time you sselect a different persuasion option, disposition goes down a bit.

The interview stated:

Don't take too long, because the person 's disposition is steadily falling.

Sounds to be that the persons disposition drops real-time, down, down down even if you do nothing. You have to be the 1337 cL1ckZ0r to get disposition up.

 

[Chefe]

Fame/Infamy sounds like they're trying to get rid of the "shades of gray" aspect that made the Elder Scrolls unique.

Oh well. Maybe demons will follow us around if we get our evil meter high enough. That'd be cool.

 

[Drakron]

... The TES games, ever since Arena have been more about an entire showcase of technology bundled in an "RPG-like" gameplay format rather than true RPG depth that's shown in games like Planescape or Wizardry.
...

And that is the god damn problem ... they are not Valve or a company that is looking at license their engine.

Making tech demos games is retarded if they are not trying to license deals.

 

[Solik]

I doubt you have to click too fast. The interview said "Don't take too long," not "You have to be fast or the NPC's disposition will plummet." I think it's meant to be pressure on decision time rather than speed-clicking. Think Chess with a 20-second turn limit.

 

[Levski 1912]

Fame/Infamy sounds like they're trying to get rid of the "shades of gray" aspect that made the Elder Scrolls unique.

Oh well. Maybe demons will follow us around if we get our evil meter high enough. That'd be cool.

Yes, but are they soil-eroding demons voiced by Patrick Steward?

 

[Chefe]

Sounds to be that the persons disposition drops real-time, down, down down even if you do nothing. You have to be the 1337 cL1ckZ0r to get disposition up.

 

[Nael]

Fame/infamy sounds like a gimmick straight out of Fable. Bethesda had 3 years and millions of dollars to improve their gameplay, and shining classics to look at, and what did they do? Persuasion minigame and Patrick Steward.

Again, point well taken, but we'll just have to see how it works. Depth of interaction with NPCs is going to be a dealbreaker for me as to whether this game represents more of a downward slope from Daggerfall. Fame/Infamy could be made to work well with NPC interaction if they concentrated on it enough, but like you said I think they probably spent more of their time making pretty graphics and 5 zillion hours of voice acting so that we are reminded even more than in Morrowind that all the random NPCs in the game have the same voice patterns

 

[HardCode]

Then, while fixing things, they decided that they'd make a game that my 5 year old daughter could play with ease...

This, my friend, is why Oblivion will suck badly.

 

[Levski 1912]

A poll shows only 21% of chimps approve of Oblivion. The other 79% were too busy shitting all over the game's boxes provided for the test.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

The Persuasion mini-game sounds abso-fucking-lutely horrible. Now, to persuade NPCs reaction to your PC, you have to quickly point-and-click all over the fucking place? They should have just put in a round of Tetris for persuasion. At least that is fun.

Hmmm, I understood "don't take too long" to mean, "don't try out too many options" as in every time you sselect a different persuasion option, disposition goes down a bit.

The interview stated:

Don't take too long, because the person 's disposition is steadily falling.

Sounds to be that the persons disposition drops real-time, down, down down even if you do nothing. You have to be the 1337 cL1ckZ0r to get disposition up.

Seems like you are right, at least I guess MSFD's comment over on TES forums means that Lumpys interpretation is correct. He made a whole thread out of your Tetris comparison - plagiarism!
Well, I agree with putting some sort of challenge into the persuasion feature, but making it time dependent doesn't sound very interesting.

 

[FrancoTAU]

A poll shows only 21% of chimps approve of Oblivion. The other 89% were too busy shitting all over the game's boxes provided for the test.

I'd make a stupid Pollack joke, but i'm of Polish descent

 

[Dreagon]

Thank you for replying so quickly. Now, I can't delete those triple posts.

Oh, and, I don't know. It's pretty much a parody in and of itself. I mean, really, a fucking persuasion minigame?? I don't think even my comic genius could have come up with something so stupidly hilarious.

Call it the "Dartboard of Diplomacy"

 

[bryce777]

Thank you for replying so quickly. Now, I can't delete those triple posts.

Oh, and, I don't know. It's pretty much a parody in and of itself. I mean, really, a fucking persuasion minigame?? I don't think even my comic genius could have come up with something so stupidly hilarious.

It really seems like the sorry game I have ever heard of. Morrowind was lame, but it's like they are trying to make a comical parody of morrowinds flaws. Your comic is almost redundant, because I think the game itself is just going to be laugh out loud stupid.

I remember starting off slightly leery but thinking I would probably buy it. Then I read a bit more, and decided it was not worth buying. Then I read MORE and more, and I genuinely am incredulous at this point. It is a game made by sleazy, lying assholes who have absolutely zero respect for the intellect of their audience not only when it comes to swallowing their bullshit, but when it comes to actual gameplay. At least with dungeon lords and a few other flops, if they implemented things right they could have been pretty good, or even great games. Even if they do everything well, the basic design and philosophy of the game is so fucking stupid it could not help but be utter shit.

 

[HardCode]

A poll shows only 21% of chimps approve of Oblivion. The other 89% were too busy shitting all over the game's boxes provided for the test.

I'd make a stupid Pollack joke, but i'm of Polish descent

So am I, make the joke.

Don't like the persuasion game, hit the Bribe button. Or cast charm spells or scrolls. Same goes for the lockpicking mini-game -- just hit the auto-attempt button if you don't want to play it, or cast unlock spells or scrolls. Both minigames get easier as your character's skills increase. And the effectiveness of bribes and the auto-lockpick button also depend you your character's skills.

WTF Steve? Now, our character has to suffer and lose gold because we, the player don't want to play stupid mini-games? What kind of shit is that?

 

[bryce777]

Actually, I am beyond incredulity, and am almost to the point I want to buy it just to see what utter shit it is.

 

[Zomg]

Wow. That's going into terra incognita mainstreaming, past the RPG Lite folks and into people who'd rather be playing Freecell and Minesweeper.

 

[Cimmerian Nights]

Is the persuasion mini game even a real mini game? Because, in a mini game, one would expect a challenge of some kind. In the persuasion minigame, it just sounds like you move the cursor around until they give you a "happy face".

Oooh, innovation. Spare me.

Yeah, I'm visualizing something like that mini-game from Anachronox where you have to speed click when the guys inhaling to fill up his lungs. The faster you click the more he smiles, if you click at the wrong time the smile starts to invert into a frown - it would be like inflating a fucking balloon - console RPG gold!

 

[bryce777]

A poll shows only 21% of chimps approve of Oblivion. The other 89% were too busy shitting all over the game's boxes provided for the test.

I'd make a stupid Pollack joke, but i'm of Polish descent

So am I, make the joke.

Don't like the persuasion game, hit the Bribe button. Or cast charm spells or scrolls. Same goes for the lockpicking mini-game -- just hit the auto-attempt button if you don't want to play it, or cast unlock spells or scrolls. Both minigames get easier as your character's skills increase. And the effectiveness of bribes and the auto-lockpick button also depend you your character's skills.

WTF Steve? Now, our character has to suffer and lose gold because we, the player don't want to play stupid mini-games? What kind of shit is that?

You're missing 4%!

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

Wow. That's going into terra incognita mainstreaming, past the RPG Lite folks and into people who'd rather be playing Freecell and Minesweeper.

Weren't you the guy who accused me of hyperbole a few days ago? Spoken like a true part of the hivemind though.

OK, so I am not crazy about this solution either, but does that make it Tetris or a game for 5 year olds? No. The disparity between highly intellignet gneral RPG discussions and mindless Oblivion bashing on this site is baffling time and time again. And most of it is on no higher level than the hyping of the TES fanboys - both is just a pain in the butt.

 

[Nael]

It takes all kinds I suppose... Welcome to the Internut

 

[Dreagon]

Wow. That's going into terra incognita mainstreaming, past the RPG Lite folks and into people who'd rather be playing Freecell and Minesweeper.

Weren't you the guy who accused me of hyperbole a few days ago? Spoken like a true part of the hivemind though.

OK, so I am not crazy about this solution either, but does that make it Tetris or a game for 5 year olds? No. The disparity between highly intellignet gneral RPG discussions and mindless Oblivion bashing on this site is baffling time and time again. And most of it is on no higher level than the hyping of the TES fanboys - both is just a pain in the butt.

I guess you could say it is hyperbole, since apparently this minigame makes Freecell or Minesweeper look like rocket science. Apparently you move the little pointer around until the charactor smiles at you then you click.

Yeah

 

[obediah]

Don't like the persuasion game, hit the Bribe button. Or cast charm spells or scrolls. Same goes for the lockpicking mini-game -- just hit the auto-attempt button if you don't want to play it, or cast unlock spells or scrolls. Both minigames get easier as your character's skills increase. And the effectiveness of bribes and the auto-lockpick button also depend you your character's skills.

WTF Steve? Now, our character has to suffer and lose gold because we, the player don't want to play stupid mini-games? What kind of shit is that?

God what a horrible design decision. Let's cover all the possibilities to be thorough.

I want to play a thief, but hate the minigame: Sucks to be you. At least as you spend your points on it, it will get easier.

I want to play a thief, but love the minigame: Sucks to be you. Instead of getting more challenging as you go, it gets easier. Imagine pac-man where the ghosts get slower and dumber each new level.

I don't want to play a thief, and hate the minigame: Go away, this doesn't concern you.

I don't want to play a thief, but love the minigame: Hooray, you are teh win. Play a different character type, but get all the loot for thieves as a bonus.

So the lockpicking/diplomacy systems are targetted towards people that want to rock at those skills with no in game commitment and uber minigame skills as a player. Man, it just keeps getting better with these fucktards.

 

[Claw]

So trusting the guard says the truth although you received information or proof that he is corrupt, is not a moral choice?

No, it'd be idiotic rather than immoral. I can't believe you are arguing this. It's beyond me.

If I do find out evidence that the guard is corrupt, I can't trust the guard. I can only pretend to do so, while knowing otherwise, which is immoral, but not the question.
I don't give Bethesda the benefit of doubt and assume that this is what the answer was supposed to mean either. From what I've seen in Morrowind, I'd not put it past them to leave it up to the player to beliece what he wants to believe. You know.. what Todd likes to do.

It would be a lot nicer if you had to guage the personality of the NPC, and then if you had decent enough stats and chose the appropriate joke, bribe, persuade, bludgeon choice it would make them more friendly towards you.

Actually.. I think the concept is fundamentally flawed. Bribery is fine, but I don't like the idea of making NPCs like you more with a single action. Imagine that in Fallout instead of the speechcraft checks. The horror.

I'm all for player speed and dexterity when it is required, but in this case it just seems needed in order to compensate for poor design. Time will tell I guess, but I'm not really convinced by this one.

So am I, although we may differ on when it IS required. As in, I don't believe it is required in an RPG.