Review Oblivion review at AG.ru - 79%

[Fodel]

Fodel, who the hell are you and why is your avatar so disturbing?

I am a prick :D and my avatar is a vlish, the most beautiful creature of Geneforge. :D

From the Infinity Engine system for example? You are invisible until you are visible. That's it. The sneak attack multiplier is nothing new either. So? What's so awesome about it and why it's better than the Bloodlines system?

In IE games armor, light, sound is irrelevant (i think ), Bloodlines system is excelent also, but armor is out (i think ) and in Oblivion dungeons are darkness :D

So, you are saying that expecting an awareness slider is way too much?

No, im saying that is not fair compare combat system of a Total War (tactical game) with combat system of Europa Universalis 2 (strategy game), also

but the only indicator that player sees is the eye icon, which has only two states: "visible" and "hidden",

is wrong, you can listen the npc, you can see if npc is searching you, you can decide if the the light/shadow is ok or no, and last you have the icon-indicator, nothing wrong with a awareness slider if you want it, but with or without slider you never know 100% your possibilities of sneak, this is a crpg.

Here is an analogy for you. Imagine a system where in combat you either instantly kill your opponent or die. Why? Well, because you don't know the skills of your opponent. Sounds like fun?

Other analogy, you see a foe, and the game indicate with a green/red icon your possibilities of kill him. Sound like fun? imHo no

Now, if only fighters could sell looted items to other fighters only, the game would have been perfect.

Thieves can loot items also.

 

[kingcomrade]

I'm pretty sure you couldn't sell stolen goods in PS:T, either. I remember I once snitched a few dresses from the tailor, but I couldn't sell them anywhere. I don't know what the limits were, though.

 

[Vault Dweller]

In IE games armor, light, sound is irrelevant (i think ), Bloodlines system is excelent also, but armor is out (i think ) and in Oblivion dungeons are darkness :D

The way it's implemented, it doesn't make much of a difference. You can wear the heaviest and shiniest armor, but if you wear slippers, you are as quiet as a mouse. The dungeons are very well lit, so not sure where "it's teh darkness" comment is coming from.

No, im saying that is not fair compare combat system of a Total War (tactical game) with combat system of Europa Universalis 2 (strategy game), also

The guy compared features, not games.

is wrong, you can listen the npc, you can see if npc is searching you, you can decide if the the light/shadow is ok or no, and last you have the icon-indicator, nothing wrong with a awareness slider if you want it, but with or without slider you never know 100% your possibilities of sneak, this is a crpg.

How can you decide if the light/shadows are ok, without some feedback indicating it?

Other analogy, you see a foe, and the game indicate with a green/red icon your possibilities of kill him. Sound like fun? imHo no

How's that relevant again?

Thieves can loot items also.

You missed the point.

 

[Nicolai]

I'm pretty sure you couldn't sell stolen goods in PS:T, either. I remember I once snitched a few dresses from the tailor, but I couldn't sell them anywhere. I don't know what the limits were, though.

Perhaps you just tried to sell them in the wrong store? I think that there were a few stores that didn't allow you to sell items.

 

[kingcomrade]

No, when you tried to sell them the shopkeeper would say, "Sorry I don't accept fenced items" or "I don't fence items" or something like that. It might just be for items that you stole from stores. I never used the pickpocket skill at all in the game.

 

[Section8]

Imagine a CRPG where there is no reasonable measure of your health. No bar, no number, not even a reddening screen; instead there's just live and dead.

That's what Oblivion's stealth system is like. A "light-gem" or equivalent is an important part of any stealth system, since it's a dead accurate measure of how visible you are, as compared to the guess work involved otherwise.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Yup, I was always partial to Vlishes as well. I generally had two to three vlishes and one of the best melee beasts I could summon to go with it.

That said, as Vault Dweller mentioned, one of the designers for Thief was working on Oblivion and Bethesda did bring this up several times as part of why stealth in Oblivion would be super duper cool. There's no reason NOT to compare Oblivion's stealth to Thief given that Bethesda threw that hat in the ring during the preview and interview hype before the game was released. It'd be like Chrysler hiring Carroll Shelby to work on a much hyped concept car only to find out after the car came out that takes 10 seconds to get from 0 to 60MPH. When you hire someone in that field with a fairly big name behind a certain aspect of your product, you're pretty much asking for inevitable comparasions with what that person has done in the past.

 

[Fodel]

The way it's implemented, it doesn't make much of a difference. You can wear the heaviest and shiniest armor, but if you wear slippers, you are as quiet as a mouse

Sorry, i dont understand this quote, in Oblivion with lighter and darker armor better for stealth, in Bloodlines, armor is the same (i think), ergo Oblivion system is better.

The guy compared features, not games.

Well, compare motors of a Ferrari F1 and of a FIAT Panda is absurd, the motor depends of the car (imHo).

How can you decide if the light/shadows are ok, without some feedback indicating it?

By npc reacctions.

You missed the point

My point is very simple :D , i want stolen items, drugs..., illegal stuff out of the "honest business", the normal merchants dont want buy that stuff, so i like Oblivion decision about make a "black market", Thieves Guild is a logical actor for black market, although would be better dont be the only merchant for illegal stuff.

And sell stolen items for normal merchants is an exploit, a merchant npc dont recognize HIS own stolen items.

 

[Rat Keeng]

It'd have been quite simple to make a good stolen loot system in Oblivion, you'd just have to incorporate a time imprint on all stolen goods. When you enter barter-mode at a merchant's, it checks the stolen goods in your inventory for how long you've had them. If the nicked wares were stolen within one or two hours, you can sell them, on account of them not having been declared missing. If they had been flagged stolen, you would need to stash the items somewhere for a period of time, depending on the value of the stolen items. You'd be able to sell them after some time, though I imagine this wouldn't go down well with the instant-result demanding chocolate-milkers, of today's prime gaming demographic.

Now, while I would like something like that, it's still a flawed system, because the merchants check for that one specific item, not that specific type of item. If an Iron Longsword got nicked and reported stolen, should merchants be suspicious of all Iron Longswords? Of course not, how do you tell one Iron Longsword from another, or one carrot from another if that's the case?

On the other side of it, if the only glass warhammer in town got stolen, wouldn't it be natural for merchants to be suspicious of all glass warhammers, at least for some time before they forget about it? And shouldn't a persuasive charismatic thief have the opportunity here, to try and convince the merchant that his stuff isn't stolen? It shouldn't be that hard to have some default dialogue pop up if you try and peddle a stolen item, do a persuasion check and succesfully have your item either accepted or refused, the latter with a severe hit to the merchant's disposition towards you.


But rambling aside, my first 8 hours of thieving experience lead me to conclude, that the stealth system in Oblivion isn't interesting enough to warrant playing a thief character. It's painfully annoying that you're insta-spotted if you shoot someone in the back with an arrow, no matter how dark a shadow you're hiding in. The stealth icon is barely any help at all; If the music switches from regular music to battle music, you're spotted. Icon's useless.

 

[sabishii]

My point is very simple :D , i want stolen items, drugs..., illegal stuff out of the "honest business", the normal merchants dont want buy that stuff, so i like Oblivion decision about make a "black market", Thieves Guild is a logical actor for black market, although would be better dont be the only merchant for illegal stuff.

And sell stolen items for normal merchants is an exploit, a merchant npc dont recognize HIS own stolen items.

How the hell would another merchant know if this sword I stole is actually someone's sword and not a sword I bought from somewhere else?

And then how is that an exploit? Are you saying if I steal a necklace from my neighbor, go down to the downtown non-underground pawn shop and pass it off as if it were my dead wife's jewelry, I'm exploiting a bug in the natural world?

And you know what else? Who cares if this system was the same in BG2 or in PS:T? Just because they're great games doesn't mean every single one of their details is infallible.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

The issue is unique items. In the "real world" highly valuable unique items such as antiques or as in the case recently here, some gauges from an old car (IE: The items professional thieves steal) are easily identifiable as stolen items thanks to Police alerts.

However, that china plate or generic Iron Sword should not be unique enough to raise any eyebrows. The real question is why Oblivion doesn't have "unique" special items which are clearly stolen and use them as the items that are recognisably stolen?

 

[fizzelopeguss]

dungens are much better.

Guh, i just finished the collector quest...10 long ass boring ruins to collect statues from, i ended up just banging the difficulty slider right down, not because the baddies or the ruins are challenging...but just to get through the thing quicker.

Truly if ever there was a quest designed by satan himself....

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

The issue is unique items. In the "real world" highly valuable unique items such as antiques or as in the case recently here, some gauges from an old car (IE: The items professional thieves steal) are easily identifiable as stolen items thanks to Police alerts.

However, that china plate or generic Iron Sword should not be unique enough to raise any eyebrows. The real question is why Oblivion doesn't have "unique" special items which are clearly stolen and use them as the items that are recognisably stolen?

They could even just have made it a value cutoff. Every single item below 500GP is run of the mill and can be sold anywhere (except maybe the former owner) everything above would be scrutinized more and would have to be fenced at the mages guild. That would have worked nicely enough, I think.

 

[Noceur]

The way it's implemented, it doesn't make much of a difference. You can wear the heaviest and shiniest armor, but if you wear slippers, you are as quiet as a mouse

Sorry, i dont understand this quote, in Oblivion with lighter and darker armor better for stealth, in Bloodlines, armor is the same (i think), ergo Oblivion system is better.

The sneak system in Oblivion takes no heed whatsoever to the colour (be it bright or dark) of your character's armor. The only thing that affects your sneak skill (in terms of armor) is the weight of your boots.

The colour brightness of the armor doesn't matter in Bloodlines either, but the "weight" of the armor does. The "heavier" the armor the higher penalty to your character's Dexterity... and dexterity governs the sneak skill. The reason I'm saying "weight" is because none of the armors actually had any weight. They were all basically clothes (although you could get a bulletproof vest). The more confining the armor, the higher penalty to your dexterity is probably a better description. Either way, it is being accounted for in the Bloodlines sneak-system.

 

[Twinfalls]

one of the designers for Thief was working on Oblivion and Bethesda did bring this up several times as part of why stealth in Oblivion would be super duper cool.

He worked on Thief 2 only, not Thief, and I believe mainly as a level designer (eg 'life of the party').

He was already at Bethesda for the Bloodmoon expansion, he wrote many of the quests for that one.

 

[Atrokkus]

My point is very simple , i want stolen items, drugs..., illegal stuff out of the "honest business

You should be a senator.

 

[dagamer667]

To tell the truth, I was never bothered by plain merchants not buying stolen loot simply becase I sell all loot to fences. All guild fences accept every single 'sellable' item in the game, and they are not short on cash. It's less of a hassle to fast-travel to the nearest fence or Thoronir (in the market district) than to look for a trader that will accept weapons or ingredients. It's not as if there is a whole lot of stuff worth stealing in the game anyway. I sold less than 1000gold worth of stolen items, and it covered me all the way up to the monk quest (haven't done that yet).

Yeah, the stealth system is still easily broken with a few tricks.

I still can't figure out how Bethesda could screw the pooch so badly with the omni-present leveling. It totally killed any fun in exploration. What's the point if over 70% of all the containers contain nothing but 50gold + an occasional lockpick or a worthless potion (which, admittedly, have excellent price-to-weight ratios for common items). Occasionally, of course, you find something good (like a 100% frost res ring). The only guaranteed benefit of exploring the countryside early is to map things down for later fast-travel.