Preview Oblivion preview & shitstorm at Wired Blog

[bryce777]

Hehe. Well just to compare the two, I have to stress again that the 360 is a VERY fast machine. There aren't two different engines, one for the 360 and one for the PC, so there's a good chance with a BLISTERNIGLY fast PC, you could at the very least hack the radius falloff of the deco-LOD (grass fade in...check out Farcry or as early as UT2k4).

My point is that I dont see there being a huge difference between the performance of the two. People are under the misrepresentation that the 360 is somehow slower than a PC...yes its slower than a VERY FAST PC, but only marginally for the next year or so, but it is far superior to the average PC that the average PC gamer is going to have today. What I think is most interesting is the "next-gen" comment, and what we were promised with next-gen. Thing is, as I've said before, its not the hammer, its the carpenter.

There was a 17 minute Ghost Recon 3 video on Xboxyde that Ubisoft asked they remove, and being fortunate enough to have seen it, tells a completely different story about next-gen console gameplay and graphics. Yes it most definitely had pop-up, but it was infrequent and seemed to be due to a delay with the frustrum culling (meaning objects popped up as the camera turned, not as the character walked linearly toward distance objects, which would be distance culling). Draw distance was outstanding and the area was absolutely huge(tactical nerds are going to soil erode their shorts). This felt like next-gen. Gears of War most definitely feels like next-gen. Dead Rising looks next-gen. These games are all on the 360 so consider that its not just the hardware. How many PC games ran shitty on high-end PC's that didn't even justify the terrible framerates? Great games and performance are a marriage of talent AND hardware, not just exclusive to the hardware.

People who buy graphic whore games don't have average pcs. It might be faster than my pc right now, but in two years it will be a pile of dogshit.

Also, there is a very serious thing you are overlooking - no fucking hard drives by default. That means that they are extremely limited in what they can do as far as caching stuff goes etc. etc.e tc. etc.

So, you are gimping yourself by making a game that has to run on a pc or on a gimped, lobotomized pc.

 

[Micmu]

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=246343&st=0

The answers like how you can block attack with a bow (!), jumping rats (they jump for your NECK) and Khajiit (cat people) ability to see in the dark for only 30 seconds once a day made me laugh.
And how you can't wear shoes under a robe is an awesome feature too (obviously they couldn't fix the clipping problems, or more likely didn't bother).
There are also no more separated left/right gloves (I can only assume pauldrons too).

 

[war3rd]

FPS Optimizer

Looks like we may all need to get the Oblivion FPS Optimizer, provided one is made (gotta love those Russians).....

 

[Elwro]

Morrowind's FPS Optimizer seems to me to be one of the most overrated game-related programs on the net. It only tweaks the options in real time, nothing more. Apart from crashing.

 

[LlamaGod]

Well, most of those Options dont even exsist in the game if I recall. Bethesda doesn't understand the meaning of 'compatability'.

 

[Rendelius]

The FPS optimizer changed view distance on the fly, to keep the framerate steady. Worked fine for me, apart from the fact that the fog was used to cover the clipping plane and the whole world of Morrowind looked completely out of proportion when FPS optimizer changed the view distance to maximum *g*

BTW, if you load LOTS of mods and the large texture sets you can find on the net, even the most advanced computer has a hard time running the game nowadays. The code wasn't very elegant, so to say.

 

[dongle]

Oh, just to be clear, pop-ups and draw distance issues are in every game; what I failed to note that this isn't new or even really a big deal. The odds of this diminishing the experience are next to none.

The Trees of Pangea demo did pretty well on this. The transition from high to med to low detail models, on down to the 2 poly sprites, is very smooth. Draw distance is fantastic, far off hills are still covered in trees, and this is no noticeable “pop” as things come into view. Now, the tree textures are ugly, and it runs slow as heck with no AI running and very few regular models. But, the level of detail part works.

And, isn’t “next gen” supposed to be not the same old stuff? :D

 

[dongle]

Loading times: Very contradicting reports here. A few found them annoying, a few touched that issue and said that they didn't think it was a problem. A part of the previewers didn't find it worth mentioning. I believe that this issue will be more of a problem on the XBox 360 due to the smaller system memeory.

I think some of the reviewers clearly weren’t familiar with the MW style of interior where it needs to load a separate cell when you go indoors. They prolly expected to be able to just open a door and walk in. Plus cities are “interior” cells now too, with likely a much bigger load than just a simple shack. It may have put them off not being able to just walk through the city gates.

 

[Elwro]

I think some of the reviewers clearly weren’t familiar with the MW style of interior where it needs to load a separate cell when you go indoors. They prolly expected to be able to just open a door and walk in. Plus cities are “interior” cells now too, with likely a much bigger load than just a simple shack. It may have put them off not being able to just walk through the city gates.

Well, I don't blame them. I'm still not convinced that a separate cell for each house is the way to go.
Especially after playing Gothic 2. Yeah, I know it's supposedly less detailed, but I wouldn't demand more details from the city of Khorinis - it's good as it is, and it doesn't have a single "loading" zone.

 

[bryce777]

Loading times: Very contradicting reports here. A few found them annoying, a few touched that issue and said that they didn't think it was a problem. A part of the previewers didn't find it worth mentioning. I believe that this issue will be more of a problem on the XBox 360 due to the smaller system memeory.

I think some of the reviewers clearly weren’t familiar with the MW style of interior where it needs to load a separate cell when you go indoors. They prolly expected to be able to just open a door and walk in. Plus cities are “interior” cells now too, with likely a much bigger load than just a simple shack. It may have put them off not being able to just walk through the city gates.

You shouldn't have to be familiar with a game's technical 'style' to enjoy it....

 

[EvoG]

The Trees of Pangea demo did pretty well on this. The transition from high to med to low detail models, on down to the 2 poly sprites, is very smooth. Draw distance is fantastic, far off hills are still covered in trees, and this is no noticeable “pop” as things come into view. Now, the tree textures are ugly, and it runs slow as heck with no AI running and very few regular models. But, the level of detail part works.

Well just to note one thing first...I'm not defending Oblivion or panning it. I'll reserve my opinion as always by playing it.

Now what I was saying about those "issues" being in every game is that simply Oblivion won't be diminished in of itself because of those issues. Unless the framerate is consistently sub 20, and the loading of sectors is constant and the pop-up is abrupt and wide spread, it really should be expected.

What you said about Pangea is spot on. Just like the MGS4 realtime trailer, it was in a vacuum. Yes without all the game-code, you can isolate and improve graphics performance, so unfortunately isn't a solid comparison. Yes you're right, the issues are not simply our 'technological' level of experience. You CAN make a perfect graphics system, but its when you start to balance the other core game systems that you have to take the good with the bad.

And, isn’t “next gen” supposed to be not the same old stuff? :D

Hehe, believe you me, I fell for the hype of "Next-Gen" hook, line and sinker. I should've known better, but my inner-child wanted to believe. With that said, what next-gen is really doing is expediting the technology for the mass market. Instead of marginal improvements, still lagging behind PC's, we've now introduced bleed-edge mass market technology. Remember to keep things in perspective. PC users are used to "almost-next-gen" with the games that have come out in the past two years, but to appreciate them at their fullest offering, they(we) needed VERY powerful PC's. Now everybody with 300 bucks can get that and THEN some. Next-Gen is heavily contextual. It is VERY next-gen compared to last-gen consoles. Its next-gen compared to the AVERAGE PC. Its only somewhat next-gen if at all compared to the fastest PC's we can build today, but those are expensive ass machines.

So all in all, what happens is we think we're getting something truly alien in technology and creativity, when in fact we're getting the same software, but on very affordable, bleeding edge PC "tech-in-a-box". When a developer makes a PC game, it has to scale to allow the average PC to run it (min. req). On a console this isn't a problem, therefore, EVERY game can be bleeding edge, and THATS what's next-gen.

Now its up to talent. The talent of the engineers to take advantage of that power. The talent of the artists to produce high quality assets. Between Gears of War and what we're working, Unreal 3 is a beast in technology, offering a LOT of room for talented artists to make some killer shit. If I couldn't claim anything else about next-gen, at least I can assure you I've had my hands on that. So I sincerely believe we are all in for some truly spectacular shit a year or two from now that will better appeal to your sensibilities of what is "next-gen". :D


Cheers

 

[Rendelius]

Loading times: Very contradicting reports here. A few found them annoying, a few touched that issue and said that they didn't think it was a problem. A part of the previewers didn't find it worth mentioning. I believe that this issue will be more of a problem on the XBox 360 due to the smaller system memeory.

I think some of the reviewers clearly weren’t familiar with the MW style of interior where it needs to load a separate cell when you go indoors. They prolly expected to be able to just open a door and walk in. Plus cities are “interior” cells now too, with likely a much bigger load than just a simple shack. It may have put them off not being able to just walk through the city gates.

You shouldn't have to be familiar with a game's technical 'style' to enjoy it....

Nobody said that. All I can say is that the seperate interior cells or dungeons in Morrowind were no problem for MY fun with the game, and I don't expect that to be the case in Oblivion either. The same goes for load times. If they equal the load times in MW (be it interior cells or outdoor areas), they will be no obstacle for me.

What I am worried about most right now are two things: Character progression and economy - because I think these two were the weakest points in MW. You became too powerful too early, and the economy was severely unbalanced. Money made no sense at all after you became level 15 or so.

 

[dongle]

Well, I don't blame them. I'm still not convinced that a separate cell for each house is the way to go.
Especially after playing Gothic 2. Yeah, I know it's supposedly less detailed, but I wouldn't demand more details from the city of Khorinis - it's good as it is, and it doesn't have a single "loading" zone.

Oh, I’m not defending it. Just saying it’s something we’ve know is there for years, not a new revelation about frame-rate issues. Some of it anyway. The part where Chris rides up the hill sounds pretty bad.

 

[Claw]

Well, you did sound like that, though. In any case, it's an objective weakness of the design and worth mentioning.
If anything, not mentioning it because they were already familiar with it would be bad journalism.

 

[bryce777]

Loading times: Very contradicting reports here. A few found them annoying, a few touched that issue and said that they didn't think it was a problem. A part of the previewers didn't find it worth mentioning. I believe that this issue will be more of a problem on the XBox 360 due to the smaller system memeory.

I think some of the reviewers clearly weren’t familiar with the MW style of interior where it needs to load a separate cell when you go indoors. They prolly expected to be able to just open a door and walk in. Plus cities are “interior” cells now too, with likely a much bigger load than just a simple shack. It may have put them off not being able to just walk through the city gates.

You shouldn't have to be familiar with a game's technical 'style' to enjoy it....

Nobody said that. All I can say is that the seperate interior cells or dungeons in Morrowind were no problem for MY fun with the game, and I don't expect that to be the case in Oblivion either. The same goes for load times. If they equal the load times in MW (be it interior cells or outdoor areas), they will be no obstacle for me.

What I am worried about most right now are two things: Character progression and economy - because I think these two were the weakest points in MW. You became too powerful too early, and the economy was severely unbalanced. Money made no sense at all after you became level 15 or so.

Well, obviously that is not what you said, if it is what you meant.

More importantly, it' what he says that's important - he doesn't like the load times.

From what I have read it is the same engine as morrowind, the CS engine. Except with more detailed objects...it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the load times will be much worse.

 

[dongle]

Well just to note one thing first...I'm not defending Oblivion or panning it. I'll reserve my opinion as always by playing it.

<sigh> I’m going to have to buy this game after all, aren’t I?

Unreal 3 is a beast in technology, offering a LOT of room for talented artists to make some killer shit.

I am -so- looking forward to UT 2007. Not to play, just make mods/models for. Question for you; Is melee combat built right in?

 

[EvoG]

<sigh> I’m going to have to buy this game after all, aren’t I?

Methinks so...I am, as I think more sounds good than bad, and I can shut off my brain just for the 'experience' of looking at shit (i.e. graphics whorism) if it ends up being more of MW, which I despised. Mainly, if the dialogue is reasonably interesting, not just a wiki, then overall should be fine. Expectations are low for the narrative, but I got to play SOMETHING on my 360 *blows off dust*.

I am -so- looking forward to UT 2007. Not to play, just make mods/models for. Question for you; Is melee combat built right in?

Nothing is built in really. If you're familiar with modding UT period, you know that all the fancy fun stuff is uscript. Epic has always held the stance that they only put in what they personally use on their projects...its up to the modder to do anything outside that scope. That said, editing it is the same and more. There's ONE thing that I find terribly cool and useful, regarding setting up 'interactions' more intuitively, but I can't really say anything(I know that was a tease). Definitely look forward to it if you're into modding...there is a LOT of new stuff and the environment is very WYSIWYG, making it very enjoyable and immediately satisfying.

 

[dongle]

Nothing is built in really. If you're familiar with modding UT period, you know that all the fancy fun stuff is uscript.

Sounds promising. I used to mod Rune back in the day, which was Unreal 1 engine, with locational damage melee weapons. I wonder if I can set up something similar for what I have in mind? High time I switched from NetImmerse/Gamebro anyway.

 

[voodoo1man]

Edit: I haven't played Morrowind since... well, since a very long time, but didn't Morrowind also have that occasional "loading" message box popping up every now and then?

Iirc it did, but only when entering/exiting buildings - not when walking outdoors.

BS - It had zone loading stops. My PC back when I played it was over recommended specs, but I still could not make those go away in some areas. I think that the frequency of loading also depended on how far the view distance was.

 

[EvoG]

Nothing is built in really. If you're familiar with modding UT period, you know that all the fancy fun stuff is uscript.

Sounds promising. I used to mod Rune back in the day, which was Unreal 1 engine, with locational damage melee weapons. I wonder if I can set up something similar for what I have in mind? High time I switched from NetImmerse/Gamebro anyway.

If the last time you modded unreal was back in during U1, you're in for a shock. You can do anything you can imagine just with scripting alone, and perhaps moreso than with 1. We're talking what, almost ten years of refining their core development platform

 

[7th Circle]

From what I have read it is the same engine as morrowind, the CS engine. Except with more detailed objects...it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the load times will be much worse.

The renderer (it's not a "full game engine" like the Unreal 2 or Doom 3 engines) used in Oblivion is Gamebryo. Morrowind also used Gamebryo but it used an earlier version. Also, iirc, they started using one version of Gamebryo but changed to another during MW development, which is part of the reason the code ended up so ghastily optimised.

All that being said, I still expect notable load times in Obliivion although I also expect things fast ram, fast hd and possibly a dual core processor* to make a big difference here.

* Based on MW's use of separate threads to preload stuff.

 

[Antiphon]

I look forward to the inexplicable wierdo that will come to the Codex, who is obsessively in love with Morrowind yet hates Oblivion with a smouldering insanity. What will his crazy arguments be? Who knows? Stay tuned.

Such a good point. This is one of the most puzzling things that happens here....

Not puzzling at all. They found out their computer doesn't meet the minimum spec and they don't have the money or knowledge to upgrade. If they can't enjoy it, why should anyone else?

One possible explanation anyway.

 

[Antiphon]

I look forward to the inexplicable wierdo that will come to the Codex, who is obsessively in love with Morrowind yet hates Oblivion with a smouldering insanity.

You lookin' at me?

I recognize your name as a modder. Don't let the negative and unproductive people get you down. Oblivion is going to be very much worth playing and modding. I hope you come along for the ride.

 

[Antiphon]

The mind-numbing thing about this is the fact that these kids are elitists. To them, there's two groups: the hardcore leets who can handle the jandal of Oblivion, and the ignorant masses who simply can't face such an immersive RPG masterpiece. If you let your mind really dwell on that, it feels like you're on acid.

I'm sorry, I must have missed the mind reading session. When are those usually held?

 

[Antiphon]

Yeah, I really like such arguments. First, if you criticize the game, they say:

"the game is not released yet! let's judge it when its released!"

then, when its fucking relased and you say it sucks, they say:

Yeah, he gave a 200+ hour game about 2.5 hours and wrote it off. You be the judge.

Come on!

Try this argument:

What have you produced that has improved the quality of my life in any way at all?

MSFD help produce Morrowind which provided me an outstanding value in entertainment thus improving the quality of my life.

Why on earth should I consider anything you say as any where near as important as something MSFD says?