Oblivion Expansion Interview

[Lumpy]

I can't fucking believe you really are being a complete moron on this. So you only have to visit each town just once and you can use fast-travel from there on, so what? How does it have anything to do with what I said, or what kind of fucked up sarcasm was that if it indeed was? Go back to my post and read it again and try to comprehend this time.

You were attempting to be the clever, and suggest that having fast travel to revisit places rather than slogging across the map time after time is a convenience rather than a crime against humanity. However, YOU DON"T HAVE TO VISIT A TOWN BEFORE FAST TRAVELING TO IT. That is why your use of upteenth was was retardXored.

OMFG111! We are all doomzored!!!
So fucking what? Maybe some guys don't like riding a horse through some boring scenery. Maybe some have played the game 12 times before, and don't want to travel between the towns again. How the fuck does their ability to improve the game lessen your enjoyment of it?

 

[denizsi]

However, YOU DON"T HAVE TO VISIT A TOWN BEFORE FAST TRAVELING TO IT. That is why your use of upteenth was was retardXored.

Since you seem to have a comprehension problem, this might help:

PLEASE SHOW ME HOW WHETHER YOU HAVE TO OR DON'T HAVE TO VISIT A TOWN BEFORE FAST TRAVELLING TO IT IS RELATED TO WHAT I SAID. YES, FAST-TRAVEL IS A CONVENIANCE, WHICH SOME RETARDS OBJECT TO, BECAUSE THEY HAVE THE LARPER'S SYDNROME WHICH GIVES THEM THIS URGE TO WALK BETWEEN PLACES REGARDLESS OF THE PRESENCE OF FAST-TRAVEL AND BECAUSE OF THIS, FAST-TRAVEL SHOULD BE OUT!1

I'll also be happier if no one resorts to bigger font sizes or writing in caps the next time.

 

[bylam]

I can't fucking believe you really are being a complete moron on this. So you only have to visit each town just once and you can use fast-travel from there on, so what? How does it have anything to do with what I said, or what kind of fucked up sarcasm was that if it indeed was? Go back to my post and read it again and try to comprehend this time.

You were attempting to be the clever, and suggest that having fast travel to revisit places rather than slogging across the map time after time is a convenience rather than a crime against humanity. However, YOU DON"T HAVE TO VISIT A TOWN BEFORE FAST TRAVELING TO IT. That is why your use of upteenth was was retardXored.

To be fair the towns are well-known and as your character begins the game as a citizen of the empire it can be guessed that he/she knows where the main towns are. It's not like all the villages show up at once, you do actually have to find them.
And the use of umpteenth was appropriate and your analysis is suspect.

 

[JarlFrank]

To be fair the towns are well-known and as your character begins the game as a citizen of the empire it can be guessed that he/she knows where the main towns are. It's not like all the villages show up at once, you do actually have to find them.

If somebody tells you where a certain area is, you must travel there manually before ebing able to fast travel to it, even if you know the exact location.
Okay, you could argue that these places are mostly in the wilderness and off-road, and the cities are reachable by the well-known roads...

 

[Blahblah Talks]

Again, the discussion of the merits, or lack thereof, of fast-travel is completely retarded in light of the many more catatrosphic short-comings of Oblivion.

 

[Romanian_Dude2005]

My only beef with Fast-Travel is that it doesn't offer any challenges to the notion of traveling large distances. Daggerfall had about 4 options to customize the way you got from location A to B like traveling fast but careless or slow but cautious.

I would've liked if there were time limits to get to certain locations like in Fallout, or the challenge of getting enough supllies to survive the trek like in RoA or all sorts of interesting random incounters that shouldn't necesarily be combat orientated (I liked the +1 Charisma bard in Fallout)


It's a missed oportunity, but it's not a fault of the game. For me FT is basicly how in Fallout you had to manualy open doors while in Arcanum they opened automaticly when your PC went through them, however you could STILL choose to LARP and open them yourself before going through them

 

[Texas Red]

There is fast travel in Oblivious because otherwhise the repetitive scenery, lack of anything unique and everything scaled would be far too annoying and obvious.

Also, Bethesda felt it would be too confusing and difficult for the Xbox kiddies to buy passage on a ship/strider/portal/whatever. Its amazing how idiotically the fast travel was implented. They could have made mage portals in every town or, which would actually make sense, add random encounters. Of course the bribed reviewers found no flaws with it.

 

[suibhne]

I would've liked if there were time limits to get to certain locations like in Fallout, or the challenge of getting enough supllies to survive the trek like in RoA or all sorts of interesting random incounters that shouldn't necesarily be combat orientated (I liked the +1 Charisma bard in Fallout)

Of course, FO had an abstracted world-map system which represented travel through an entirely separate interface, so this is comparing apples to rotten blood oranges. Personally, I think the world-map interface is much more effective at conveying a sense of long distances and world scale, but Oblivion's system is particularly asinine since it has no logical in-game rationale whatsoever.

 

[cutterjohn]

My only beef with Fast-Travel is that it doesn't offer any challenges to the notion of traveling large distances. Daggerfall had about 4 options to customize the way you got from location A to B like traveling fast but careless or slow but cautious.

I would've liked if there were time limits to get to certain locations like in Fallout, or the challenge of getting enough supllies to survive the trek like in RoA or all sorts of interesting random incounters that shouldn't necesarily be combat orientated (I liked the +1 Charisma bard in Fallout)


It's a missed oportunity, but it's not a fault of the game. For me FT is basicly how in Fallout you had to manualy open doors while in Arcanum they opened automaticly when your PC went through them, however you could STILL choose to LARP and open them yourself before going through them

I think that the Romanian Dude has gotten it AFAIC about fast travel when I was playing. I also missed that the passage of time has no real meaning, i.e. no "holidays" (such as they were) like Daggerfall had. That being said when I had been playing Oblivious, I eschewed the use of horses and walked every where in the hopes of finding something interesting or easter eggish... Ah, and I had another thought as to fast travel, in that I would have preferred in civilized areas to have to transport yourself to some office to make use of fast travel, e.g. a port to use a ship, or be at your ship if you could own one, be on your horse or have to go to a stables to travel by horse, the mage guild teleportation system, hiking option only if you had no horse, etc. all adding to the time factor and missing danger element or lack thereof.

One thing that I did appreciate although I NEVER did notice in my brief play time was that the moon actually had phases... although I simulatenously missed things trhat WOULD have been in character for Oblivious like working sun dials, water clocks, etc. along with the myriad of other more pressing faults.

 

[JarlFrank]

The worst thing was still completely leveled creatures and items.
It's simply no fun to reach the deepest part of a dungeon in the middle of the wilderness to find a chest guarded by lowly bandits containing nothing but 50 gold and a lockpick.
And then, after ascending to level 20, finding bandits in daedric armor in a ruin near town.
Just WTF???

I hope they won't include this in the expansion.
Or I'd have to wait for a version of OOO for Shivering Isles...

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

I hope they won't include this in the expansion.

It's been confirmed that Roofling Isles uses the same scaling system as the original game, and is "suitable for all level ranges".

 

[JarlFrank]

It's been confirmed that Roofling Isles uses the same scaling system as the original game, and is "suitable for all level ranges".

So it's true, they DO NOT learn out of their faults.

EDIT:
I wonder if you can bitchslap the whole world with a level 1 character.
I wonder if you can kill quest NPCs.
Actually, I got this bad feeling of knowing that they will still be immortal.

 

[piydek]

It's been confirmed that Roofling Isles uses the same scaling system as the original game, and is "suitable for all level ranges".

So it's true, they DO NOT learn out of their faults.

EDIT:
I wonder if you can bitchslap the whole world with a level 1 character.
I wonder if you can kill quest NPCs.
Actually, I got this bad feeling of knowing that they will still be immortal.

the reason they don't percieve the horrible level scaling as a fault is because they approach oblivion from the viewpoint of it being a game whose sole purpose is to go anywhere, anytime, killing monsters with your shiny paladin sword.

therefore, it's an arcade game that presents set constant "challenge" - and in this case this "challenge" isn't even set above you, so it demands your skill, as it once was in C-64 arcade games, but it's a mild "challenge" for the retarded next genzorz kids who get very frustrated and very angry when they don't win tah game at first or second attempt at it.

and why is the whole farce of player's "levels", which are of course eliminated by the scaling, even there? ...i don't know why. is it cool to market your game as an RPG these days? is it positive for the sales of games to have pseudo-depth? do the next genzorz kids have a feeling of progression when they say they're "level 65"?

 

[Lumpy]

On the other hand, for an expansion which is tied into the original game, level scaling does make sense. Kind of.
Since it takes some time to get to level 10, and many people who buy the expansions are probably tired of the original game by now, it would be a bad decision to force the player to have a high level in order to play the expansion.
Although they could have used smarter means to circumvent that. Such as optionally starting at level 10.

 

[piydek]

On the other hand, for an expansion which is tied into the original game, level scaling does make sense. Kind of.
Since it takes some time to get to level 10, and many people who buy the expansions are probably tired of the original game by now, it would be a bad decision to force the player to have a high level in order to play the expansion.
Although they could have used smarter means to circumvent that. Such as optionally starting at level 10.

i'd rather start all over again and work to be able to go to that new place...or if the original game has a PC level cap (i'm not really familiar with it, so i don't know), have the expansion set that cap higher when installed, and be callibrated around a level slightly below the cap of the original game at the beginning areas, but with diversity of difficulty depending on certain areas of expansion gameworld. or callibrate it around a certain level of difficulty that's not the cap, but is not level 1 or 5 either. it really depends on the content. starting the expansion alone, at the n-th level would be optional.

in fact, i'm playing morrowind for the first time at the moment with a shitload of mods and am REALLY enjoying it primarily for its atmosphere. recently a beta of a wonderful landmass mod - tamriel rebuilt map 1 came out and the mod makers will implement quests in it that are suitable primarily for the beginning levels. and in fact, that's my gripe with it...since it's quite remote a place, i'd rather have it being difficult and inaccesible.

EDITED

 

[Human Shield]

If Beth loaded the game with interesting terrain, items, and dungeons it could be like D&D with exploring hostile dimensions and lots of races. But everything is boring and worthless, where are the jungles with acid water or floating islands? D&D had a plane with a bunch of big iron cubes smash against each other all the time or relative gravity where you walk on walls and ceiling, Serious Sam had more interesting places then Elder Scroll games.

 

[JoeDirt]

Roofling Isles.

 

[Romanian_Dude2005]

What kind of a fucking shit face ass licker prick head crap eating son of a stupid bitch do you have to be in order to put the worst feature of the original game in the following expansion? How stupid can those fucking morons be to put level scaling in this game too?

 

[piydek]

If Beth loaded the game with interesting terrain, items, and dungeons it could be like D&D with exploring hostile dimensions and lots of races. But everything is boring and worthless, where are the jungles with acid water or floating islands? D&D had a plane with a bunch of big iron cubes smash against each other all the time or relative gravity where you walk on walls and ceiling, Serious Sam had more interesting places then Elder Scroll games.

i find it amazing that they managed to make oblivion so much more boring and generic than morrowind was - gameworld design - wise. if i don't drink heavily while playing oblivion i feel like cutting my veins from the immense amounts of boredom the gameworld imposes on me.

and those diversified environments mods don't help it at all, because those guys concentrated on making more interesting places WITHIN the castle/forest/pond frame. but that doesn't really change the feel and background of certain parts of gameworld.

 

[Texas Red]

What kind of a fucking shit face ass licker prick head crap eating son of a stupid bitch do you have to be in order to put the worst feature of the original game in the following expansion? How stupid can those fucking morons be to put level scaling in this game too?

Im thinking that they are implenting it because otherwhise they would be admiting their own error.

Or better yet nobody will care. The reviews will still award it as the 3rd Coming of Christ(Oblivion itself being the 2nd) with 95% scores. Truly, it doesnt matter if the game is in reality shit on a stick if you meet the following requirements:

1. You are either Bethesda or Bioware.
2. If you are reviewed by the "professional" reviewers and meet the 1st point.

You dont even have to bribe the reviewers if you meet these requirements! Stupendous!

 

[JarlFrank]

You dont even have to bribe the reviewers if you meet these requirements! Stupendous!

Most of the reviewers don't even have to play it before giving it a high score! They just look at screenshotz and videoz and get mofgz0rz pwned by the graphics.
Then they install it and keep staring at the landscape instead of playing, because the graphix rox.
Why does a game need gameplay depth if it has deep graphix?

 

[Chinese Jetpilot]

What kind of a fucking shit face ass licker prick head crap eating son of a stupid bitch do you have to be in order to put the worst feature of the original game in the following expansion? How stupid can those fucking morons be to put level scaling in this game too?

Im thinking that they are implenting it because otherwhise they would be admiting their own error.

Or better yet nobody will care. The reviews will still award it as the 3rd Coming of Christ(Oblivion itself being the 2nd)

I agree. What we need is the 2nd coming of Pontius Pilate to crucify these GOD DAMN games.

 

[suibhne]

the reason they don't percieve the horrible level scaling as a fault is because they approach oblivion from the viewpoint of it being a game whose sole purpose is to go anywhere, anytime, killing monsters with your shiny paladin sword.

As much as I love savaging Oblivion and revelling in Beth's mind-boggling design stupidity, it's only fair to point out that they're not only after an arcade experience for every little kiddie. I think they legitimately wanted to solve the game design challenge of offering a massive gameworld with dozens of hours of sidequests while simultaneously presenting a structured main quest narrative. Their solutions were imbecilic, but they probably think they're onto something - and it's probably easier for them to keep their heads in the sand re. their failure because the problem they were tackling is a legitimate design challenge with which many other games have wrestled.

 

[Texas Red]

Actually I think they just didnt have enough time. There is a dev quote which states that they didnt intend to level scale everything.

Bethesda succeeded in being lazy and greedy without any consequences. No reviewer on the whole internet, according to Gamerankings, found the scaling to be a poor design decision.

 

[JarlFrank]

No reviewer on the whole internet, according to Gamerankings, found the scaling to be a poor design decision.

Let's send them a link to the Codex.

EDIT:
Oh, and calling the level scaling of Oblivion a poor design decision is like calling a bucket of shit a strawberry cake.