Preview Oblivion - a game for Casual Joe

[truekaiser]

From the way the 'casual appealing' games play and are designed and such, i'm guessing the casual gamer is something like this:

so true.
make the game for the lowest common iq.
personaly i find better rpg's on irc chatrooms then comercail games.

 

[Tintin]

From the way the 'casual appealing' games play and are designed and such, i'm guessing the casual gamer is something like this:

so true.
make the game for the lowest common iq.
personaly i find better rpg's on irc chatrooms then comercail games.

There's a solution. It's called, don't buy Oblivion, don't waste your life bitching about it. Seriously, constructive criticism is one thing, but you are just lamely going around bitching about something you obviously will never enjoy anyways. At least some people, like Twinfalls, have a balance.

 

[Twinfalls]

There's a solution - stop making fun of children with Down's Syndrome. That kid is probably more interesting to talk to than any of the fucking stupid twits who've just been giggling at her photo.

 

[One Wolf]

i feel ashamed for having laughed....

 

[vazquez595654]

I don't feel ashamed. Although I didn't laugh in the first place because I didn't find it funny. But making fun of people who are different is what jokes are made of. Loosen up Twinfalls. And I am sure the kid IS more interesting to talk to then most people on this forum, but that is not funny. Shame on you.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

There's a solution - stop making fun of children with Down's Syndrome. That kid is probably more interesting to talk to than any of the fucking stupid twits who've just been giggling at her photo.

I giggled and I'm damn interesting, you bitch!

 

[tanjo]

a game that is more approachable to a casual gamer, yet still maintains depth and complexity that a more "hardcore" (for lack of a better term) expects and appreciates

Can you name a few RPG's that you think succeed at this strategy?

 

[bryce777]

Is there a difference between a game that is more approachable to a casual gamer, yet still maintains depth and complexity that a more "hardcore" (for lack of a better term) expects and appreciates -- and a game that is, from beginning to end, tailor-made for a casual gamer with no depth or complexity, nothing more than meets the eye?

Morrowind didn't have much depth or complexity AND it had a shit shit shit interface. Even if you maintained the complexity of morrowind it would still suck but by all accounts that is not the case, unless you can point to some specific examples of where you have allegedly gotten closer to how daggerfall was and explain what you mean by that. So far nothing I have seen in the reviews or marketing points towards this, or to a game I would want to play.

 

[bryce777]

From the way the 'casual appealing' games play and are designed and such, i'm guessing the casual gamer is something like this:

so true.
make the game for the lowest common iq.
personaly i find better rpg's on irc chatrooms then comercail games.

There's a solution. It's called, don't buy Oblivion, don't waste your life bitching about it. Seriously, constructive criticism is one thing, but you are just lamely going around bitching about something you obviously will never enjoy anyways. At least some people, like Twinfalls, have a balance.

The same could be said about you bitching about his bitching.

The reason the codex posts these news stories is that this is all the 'rpg' news that there is - things are really that bad; and, of course, the same applies to us commenting...there is nothing else new to really discuss.

 

[Twinfalls]

But making fun of people who are different is what jokes are made of. Loosen up Twinfalls.... Shame on you.

Shame on ME!?!? This, coming from the ding-dong who pretends he's been banned from the TES forum to look cool?? Shut up and die.

And no, it's not what jokes are made of. Jokes are made of observation and wit. NOT 'look at the spaz snigger snigger I am beavis and butthead combined'.

As for you, Saint, you wont be giggling when i strap-on pound your sorry immature ass til you sport an expression a damn sight goofier than that girl's. Great, now the inner Roqua is coming out.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

Tee hee, you said "nigger".

 

[Drakron]

Is there a difference between a game that is more approachable to a casual gamer, yet still maintains depth and complexity that a more "hardcore" (for lack of a better term) expects and appreciates -- and a game that is, from beginning to end, tailor-made for a casual gamer with no depth or complexity, nothing more than meets the eye?

Yes, one exists and the other dont ... there is no game "approachable to the casual gamer" that maintains "depth and complexity" of a game of its gender

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

I think there are plenty examples.
Thief?

Total War series?
Civilization?
Both are immediately appealing, but also contain a lot of gameplay depth but you can leave a lot to automated "advisors" if you want a simpler experience.
Even Morrowind fits the bill (for me) - the lore alone goes far beyond the casual joe appeal, as do several other aspects (custom classes, spellmaking, alchemy). Yet you can happily play it just running around with a big sword, too.

 

[tanjo]

I think there are plenty examples.
Thief?

Total War series?
Civilization?
Both are immediately appealing, but also contain a lot of gameplay depth but you can leave a lot to automated "advisors" if you want a simpler experience.
Even Morrowind fits the bill (for me) - the lore alone goes far beyond the casual joe appeal, as do several other aspects (custom classes, spellmaking, alchemy). Yet you can happily play it just running around with a big sword, too.

Those are not RPG's.

Morrowind is, but Morrowind 1) didn't have features as friendly to the casual gamer as the features in Oblivion appear to be, and 2) doesn't exactly have satisfying RPG elements to make a really great *RPG.*

Not that I didn't enjoy it for what it was: an opened ended RPG in which it was fun to explore and screw with the NPCs. But it had boring dialog, characters, storyline, combat system, and it lacked all kinds of interesting things that could confuse X-box 360 owners.

 

[Twinfalls]

Even Morrowind fits the bill (for me) - the lore alone goes far beyond the casual joe appeal, as do several other aspects (custom classes, spellmaking, alchemy). Yet you can happily play it just running around with a big sword, too.

I agree with that.

Morrowind was a game that, by all present thinking, could never have 'succeeded' on a console, yet it did. And I bet it would have done just as well, even if it had more skills, a non-linear MQ, and good faction mechanics and quests. And it could have been made even *more* accessible with some of the interface and tutorial directions they seem to be taking with Oblivion.

It can be done, and quite easily, too. And for people to deny that Morrowind had a *lot* of depth in comparison with everything else on consoles, is just foolishly dogmatic.

 

[bryce777]

But making fun of people who are different is what jokes are made of. Loosen up Twinfalls.... Shame on you.

Shame on ME!?!? This, coming from the ding-dong who pretends he's been banned from the TES forum to look cool?? Shut up and die.

And no, it's not what jokes are made of. Jokes are made of observation and wit. NOT 'look at the spaz snigger snigger I am beavis and butthead combined'.

As for you, Saint, you wont be giggling when i strap-on pound your sorry immature ass til you sport an expression a damn sight goofier than that girl's. Great, now the inner Roqua is coming out.

This reaction makes the loss of human dignity that picture represents so worth it

 

[Vault Dweller]

As for you, Saint, you wont be giggling when i strap-on pound your sorry immature ass til you sport an expression a damn sight goofier than that girl's. Great, now the inner Roqua is coming out.

Real men don't use strap-ons!

 

[tanjo]

If having good stories behind your game means it has depth, then every LOTR game in the world has more depth than any Baldur's Gate, Fallout, or Elder Scroll's game could ever have. But that's not what gives a game depth.

The "chosen one" was shallow. The dialog was shallow. The NPC's were boring and shallow. The quests were boring and shallow. Shallowness is not a characteristic of depth.

And I'm comparing it to my idea of a good RPG, not "everything else on consoles."

 

[bryce777]

I think there are plenty examples.
Thief?

Total War series?
Civilization?
Both are immediately appealing, but also contain a lot of gameplay depth but you can leave a lot to automated "advisors" if you want a simpler experience.
Even Morrowind fits the bill (for me) - the lore alone goes far beyond the casual joe appeal, as do several other aspects (custom classes, spellmaking, alchemy). Yet you can happily play it just running around with a big sword, too.

I don't think it's impossible, but what oblivion does isn't simplify, but add more features. It is like how microsoft put the autoformat features into word 4-5 versions back - they are making the software easier to use for the bottom 20% of users but for everyone else it is an annoyance.

 

[Twinfalls]

The "chosen one" was shallow. The dialog was shallow. The NPC's were boring and shallow. The quests were boring and shallow. Shallowness is not a characteristic of depth.

And I'm comparing it to my idea of a good RPG, not "everything else on consoles."

The point is that it can be done. I maintain Morrowind is a game with depth. But - even if it is not by your criteria, then it would STILL have sold even if the changes you seem to mandate as showing 'depth' were put in place.

If the MQ was different with more 'depth', if the dialogue was not wiki but tree-with-depth, if the quests were not 'boring' (how does this negate 'depth'??) but 'fun' and had depth, basically if the damn thing had depth bursting out of its ass in a raging torrent, it would STILL have sold. How do I know this? Because as it was, it sold on the Box. And this was NOT due to a lack of 'depth'. This was due to a pent-up demand for that kind of game which hitherto had never been met.

And the fact that it sold on the Box tells us that it is a game which is 'accessible', which can appeal to the 'casual gamer' because, well, hell, surely everyone agrees here that the majority of people who would choose to play an RPG on a console MUST be casual gamers......

 

[Vault Dweller]

I maintain Morrowind is a game with depth.

Awesome! How do I unlock it? Do I have to beat the game first?

 

[tanjo]

Yeah it was a complete success except all the people complaining to Bethesda that they got lost and they didn't feel like reading directions, etc, etc, etc, etc.


If it was more complex, they'd have gotten even more phone calls, and we'd still be stuck with Oblivion.

 

[Twinfalls]

I maintain Morrowind is a game with depth.

Awesome! How do I unlock it? Do I have to beat the game first?

Yeah Z-fucking-ING.

It has sufficient depth for the purposes of this discussion, which is to illustrate that 'it can be done'. Added depth in the form of content changes to skills, factions, quests, decisions would not have hurt its sales on the console - which means you can have depth and 'accessibility'.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Yeah ZING.

It has sufficient depth for the purposes of this discussion, which is to illustrate that 'it can be done'.

Maybe, maybe not, but this is the Codex, so stataments like "it has sufficient depth" simply won't do. If you can support your position with facts, examples, and arguments, please do so, otherwise...

 

[Twinfalls]

Maybe, maybe not, but this is the Codex, so stataments like "it has sufficient depth" simply won't do. If you can support your position with facts, examples, and arguments, please do so, otherwise...

Why don't you tell my why it lacked depth? Then, why don't you answer this:

Suppose Morrowind featured a far less linear MQ, perhaps something akin to Daggerfall. Suppose faction quest lines featured real inter-faction mechanics. Suppose a few more skills were present - say climbing, swimming, backstab. Suppose decision-making was more enforced, like, for example, Daggerfall and Oblivion's enchanting-as-guild-perk-only feature?

Suppose combat featured more depth in the form of blocking and dodging animations, but still stayed true to its TES roots, ie real-time action-style?

Would you then concede that it had 'depth'?

If Morrowind had been released in that state, with everything else the same do you suppose it would have failed to sell in the numbers that it did, on the Xbox? What reasons would you give for that?

If it WOULD sell as well, on a console, (it had greater sales on the Box than on the PC) how would this not demonstrate that a game can be made with depth, yet remain approachable to a casual gamer?