Oblivion wasn't dumbed down for consoles sez Desslock

[Excrément]

compared to Morrowind and Daggerfall, Oblivion was not dumbed down.
Compared to what rpgcodexers might expect according to their RPG standards, yeah Oblivion is dumbed down as Morrowind and Daggerfall were (except these two games were for their time more original but still dumbed down in a pure RPG point of view).

Not true. Morrowind had no idiotic journal popups or quest compass, no voice-overs for the illiterate, and not all the dialog was made exclusively as a vehicle for quests without any backstory worth mentioning. It also focused less on action.

Daggerfall made many attempts to be a quality RPG. There was an enormous amount of skills for really obscure things, a complex plot, geenormous dungeons, lots of politics and a world so big you could drown in it. It may not have succeeded in all it set out to achieve, but it was a really good game nevertheless.

Now, Oblivion..it feels like they didn't even try. They just stringed up little gee-action-gaming bits like perls on a necklace, hopeing that would be enough. "Hey this is fun, and this is fun, this'll be a great RPG!"

hey your post is similar to the desslock opinion.it looks like a check list, we got the pros, now the cons, and at the end I still don't give a fuck to what you and desslock said.

P.S : are you the Stargelman, king of the fanboy (cocreator of waiting4oblivion.com and chorrol.com)? if yes (if not don't red these lines), why don't you put your opinion in your website about the game? or maybe you are afraid to no be invite anymore by Bethesda at the E3....I am very impressed by your bravery...

 

[Naked_Lunch]

but if I do understand well the RPG standards of the codexers (choice and consequences, role-playing skills...), Daggerfall isn't a RPG. so it's not "dumbed down" compared to arena, but it isn't a rpg either.

Shut up. There is no hivemind RPG Codex standard.

daggerfall was basically hack and slash in infinite dungeons with huge statistics instead of role playing skill.

What in the great green globe is "role-playing skill?" Digital LARPing?

There a lot of choices and consequences in Daggerfall. I don't remember the location, but there's a great flow-chart of the main plot and how it can be completed in several ways and how doing certain things cuts off one way and opens up another etc.

 

[Binary]

but if I do understand well the RPG standards of the codexers (choice and consequences, role-playing skills...), Daggerfall isn't a RPG. so it's not "dumbed down" compared to arena, but it isn't a rpg either.

Shut up. There is no hivemind RPG Codex standard.

Yeah. And there are no pink aliens either, right?. Hah!

 

[bozia2012]

@Dark Underlord: can't wait when you'll get to the "100hit-ogres-that-1hit-you" part... I gave up when I had to kill enemies standing on roofs or high rocks and casting Flare@Destruction=10 doing 5 damage to them thus making the fight last for hours... Or I could just qsave after each successful hit (the same tactic as in King of Fighters or Samurai Shodown)... Talk about 200 hours spent in Oblivion:
- 15h completing all guilds and main quest + some bigger quests
- 100h killing 20 ogres and 15 trolls while doing more and more quests, giving up
- 85h trying to make another character that isn't that cliche and failing after several tries...

I was going to play that shit in a year or so but that thread brought memories that make feel like killing that fuck Todd...

OB has no replay value - the world is so simple, so shallow and you can accomplish everything (they even removed prereqs for guild ranks - you can be a complete moron and complete mage guild quests)...

 

[TheGreatGodPan]

I hadn't been looking at his info on the side, so I had just assumed Excrement had long had the dumbfuck title. Now my sense of the world around me is just shaken to the core.

 

[Surgey]

If a mod was made that accentuated the point of Oblivion (Read: Go around killing things, stopping occasionally to repair stuff) with just a big random dungeon, Rogue-style, I wouldn't mind. The "roleplaying" parts of Oblivion are lackluster anyways. I would rather have Oblivion just been an endless dungeon with some underground towns every once in a while, like some type of Roguelike. Well, okay, probably not, but you know that might be a decent mod idea.

 

[Elwro]

Yeah, frankly, for a while I thought the Oblivion-plane areas would be randomized ond offer some roguelike-style gameplay... don't know where I got the idea from.

 

[dongle]

Yeah, frankly, for a while I thought the Oblivion-plane areas would be randomized ond offer some roguelike-style gameplay... don't know where I got the idea from.

Oblivion plane interiors are randomized. I've entered a tower, then reloaded and entered the same tower, and found a different set of doors and corridors.

 

[suibhne]

Oblivion plane interiors are randomized. I've entered a tower, then reloaded and entered the same tower, and found a different set of doors and corridors.

INNOVASHUN

 

[Vidken]

@Dark Underlord: can't wait when you'll get to the
OB has no replay value - the world is so simple, so shallow and you can accomplish everything (they even removed prereqs for guild ranks - you can be a complete moron and complete mage guild quests)...

God forbid if you state this fact in the TES forums. You get the standard "ur not a gud roel pleyer" shit, by their handbook.

No consequences for your actions, go anywhere and do anything without any form of resistance or logic. Wow, it must be a "true" sandbox game!

Want to be a trader? YOU CAN ROLEPLAY ONE... despite the fact there's no actual economy or any tangible feature, you can walk between towns and "pretend" in your head that you just bought oranges in Leyawiin for 10 gold each and sold them in Bruma for 11 gold each. If you're playing fucking pretend in your head, you may as well use a bunch of chewed off pencil erasers on your kitchen table as characters for some epic story involving daisy picking.

Oh wait, we won't do that because real life doesn't have HDR and if I "kill" a pencil eraser it doesn't float in space for 10 seconds.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is an RPG too:

- You pick your character (airplane) and set his stats (variant, fuel load, passengers, cargo), and then his looks (floats, livery).
- You can "go anywhere" you want (on the planet), and "do anything" (Fly into a mountain, fly under bridges upside down, land at an international airport without landing clearance, "roleplay" that you just dropped a load of parachuters into a manure silo).
- The ATC window even has more personality and dialogue than Oblivion's characters.
- "Quests!" (Deliver X cargo to Y airport.)
- Mods! (More ways to deliver packages from point A to point B than you can imagine.)

I know Oblivion bashing is "overdone" here, but I had to get that off my chest. The TES forums piss me off.

 

[7th Circle]

hey your post is similar to the desslock opinion.it looks like a check list, we got the pros, now the cons, and at the end I still don't give a fuck to what you and desslock said.

Ok, so you don't give a fuck. Are you posting out of bordeom or trolldom?

Seriously though, when one has a list of pros and cons, one can compare the list to make an overall conclusion. For instance,

1)In terms of NPCs, the RAI gains are outweighed by the dialogue losses...
2)Physics adds a little to the intelligence of dungeons (but far less than they were hyped) but this is more than counterbalanced by the use of things like levitation in dungeons in MW.

This is without even using the big hitters (quest arrow, pop-ups, less choices and consequences etc.).

I should also say that a lot of Desslock's list is dubious to BS: - compared to MW, OB seems to have less spells, a worse plot etc. etc.

 

[TairosAurelius]

PC Gamer is an absolute joke, and has been for some time. I renewed my subscribtion without thinking, and after reading that article, I severely regret it. Still, I shouldn't have expected better out of a rag that has a reputation for reviewing with its wallet. Its glowing review of SWG versuses its scathing critisism of Eve Online' is an example.
Out of all the things Oblivion screwed up, the most important thing is the simple lack of depth and immersion. The world is flat. There's no sense of politics and such. I could almost live with all the rest of the 'streamlining' if it weren't for that.
And don't insult Morrowind. Its universe was well done, and it had a lot of depth. Granted, I don't have much of a standard for comparison, but I know I was immersed, and I enjoyed it greatly.

 

[Naked_Lunch]

Morrowind had the basis for a very interesting setting. I spent most of my time playing talking to the various guildspeople and learning all about the huge amount of factions in the game. Sure not a lot were joinable, but the fact that they were there fleshed out the world a lot more and made it oh so immersive.

 

[Late]

It's not dumbed down for console, it's just dumbed down. Dumb people make a large percentage of the gaming community, so it's only logical to dumb down games as well. Companies don’t want to make dumb people (their consumer base) feel inferior or stupid, because then they might not buy their product. Lets face it people, it’s all about the money.

 

[Mr Happy]

How is Oblivion dumbed down compared to its predecessor, Morrowind?

• Levitation, mark and recall gone.
• Less skills.
• Spears, Crossbows other weapons simply removed.
• Lockpicking not requiring any character skill.
• Persuasion mini-game anyone?
• Alchemy was nerfed in some way, wasn't it? (I can't tell, I never use it)
• All items and encounters are levelled to meet the player, thus removing any and all challenge that might ever have been present. Lockpicking that super-hard chest in the castle at level 1 nets you some coin and not the bounty you might've hoped for given the difficulty of the lock or importance of the castle the chest is in. Wandering into the furthest, darkest cave in the entire land at level 1 finds you in an encounter with nothing more than rats.
• Compass.

What got me was that Oblivion completely removed the structure of the world. Both Morrowind and even more so with Daggerfall had created a strong believable world. Oblivion removed the background conflict, politics, beleivable factions, religious factions, and heirarchy (not to mention all the jazz from Daggerfall that Morrowind didnt have), which had been one of the biggest strengths of the series.

 

[Bradylama]

Also, am I the only one who felt a little dissapointed that the Imperials dropped the Romanesque style? When I think of Legionairies, it isn't some dude in Elvish plate swinging around a silver longsword.

But of course, Imperial Province has no social strife. It's the Imperial province. That's why there's Viking Village and Dracula's Castle. And that town by the Black Marsh that was racist against Argonians but I don't think it played out in any way.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Also, am I the only one who felt a little dissapointed that the Imperials dropped the Romanesque style? When I think of Legionairies, it isn't some dude in Elvish plate swinging around a silver longsword.

But of course, Imperial Province has no social strife. It's the Imperial province. That's why there's Viking Village and Dracula's Castle. And that town by the Black Marsh that was racist against Argonians but I don't think it played out in any way.

The Emperor is dead. He has no known heirs. Now, if you were a city-governing count, with the armies of a city at your command, would you be content to stand around saying "I saw a mudcrab yesterday" or would you marshal your forces and march for the palace?

 

[sheek]

compared to Morrowind and Daggerfall, Oblivion was not dumbed down.

Not matter your opinion on the games, this comment should get the poster dumbfucked.

Daggerfall was anything but dumbed down. It took the already semi-complex elements of Arena and pumped them full of steroids and added many new things. In fact, Daggerfall is the one of the prime examples of how to do a sequel. It took everythng and added on to it, and then made some brand new things.

daggerfall was basically hack and slash in infinite dungeons with huge statistics instead of role playing skill.
but I love hack and slash, I love statistics (I am taking some actuary lessons), and I love inifinite repeatitive world (I like to wander around in google earth to trak ben laden). so that's why Daggerfall is one of my favorite game.
but if I do understand well the RPG standards of the codexers (choice and consequences, role-playing skills...), Daggerfall isn't a RPG. so it's not "dumbed down" compared to arena, but it isn't a rpg either.

You are correct.

According to the logic on the RPG-scale Daggerfall is as good as Oblivion (but with shitty graphics).

NakedLunch and the rest won't say it because they're afraid of upsetting Twinfalls who is a major TES2 fangirl.

 

[Excrément]

compared to Morrowind and Daggerfall, Oblivion was not dumbed down.

Not matter your opinion on the games, this comment should get the poster dumbfucked.

Daggerfall was anything but dumbed down. It took the already semi-complex elements of Arena and pumped them full of steroids and added many new things. In fact, Daggerfall is the one of the prime examples of how to do a sequel. It took everythng and added on to it, and then made some brand new things.

daggerfall was basically hack and slash in infinite dungeons with huge statistics instead of role playing skill.
but I love hack and slash, I love statistics (I am taking some actuary lessons), and I love inifinite repeatitive world (I like to wander around in google earth to trak ben laden). so that's why Daggerfall is one of my favorite game.
but if I do understand well the RPG standards of the codexers (choice and consequences, role-playing skills...), Daggerfall isn't a RPG. so it's not "dumbed down" compared to arena, but it isn't a rpg either.

You are correct.

According to the logic on the RPG-scale Daggerfall is as good as Oblivion (but with shitty graphics).

NakedLunch and the rest won't say it because they're afraid of upsetting Twinfalls who is a major TES2 fangirl.

and if we follow the RPG Codex logic, we arrive to the weird conclusion :
Morrowind was the best game out of the three in a RPG point of view.
huh?

 

[Hazelnut]

One of the reasons I ended 10 year subscription to PC Gamer was the Oblivion review.

You're not the only one. I'm talking about PC Gamer UK though. I still can't get over their review, or even bring myself to reply to it.

 

[sheek]

and if we follow the RPG Codex logic, we arrive to the weird conclusion :
Morrowind was the best game out of the three in a RPG point of view.
huh?

'Best' is a relative term. Dreamfall was also the best Adventure game of 2006.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

The Emperor is dead. He has no known heirs. Now, if you were a city-governing count, with the armies of a city at your command, would you be content to stand around saying "I saw a mudcrab yesterday" or would you marshal your forces and march for the palace?

I'd be worried about another count marching on mine instead. If a few counts decided to send all their troops toward the palace, I'd be sending mine to take over his lands.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

The Emperor is dead. He has no known heirs. Now, if you were a city-governing count, with the armies of a city at your command, would you be content to stand around saying "I saw a mudcrab yesterday" or would you marshal your forces and march for the palace?

I'd be worried about another count marching on mine instead. If a few counts decided to send all their troops toward the palace, I'd be sending mine to take over his lands.

Fair enough, but you'd expect some of them to do something.

 

[Lord Chambers]

But they're filthy creatures!

 

[FaranBrygo]

The guards were busy working another shift at the Fighters Guild. The guild was recruiting after all.