Oblivion: What Will Be Missing?

[Tintin]

If you have a point at least don't cop out with "you suck, but I won't tell you why".

If you consider differing opinions as ludicrous nonsense, well I suppose the "SoIl erosion blunts lol trees r kewl patrick stewart" thing is alright.....

 

[Chefe]

Edited for sillyness.

 

[jiujitsu]

I was talking about gamers, twit.

That's funy, I distinctly remember reading "regular people".

Yea and you should assume that meant regular people who are gamers considering this is a gaming website and we are talking about gamers and games. Just because someone is really smart doesn't mean they have the attention span for an RPG. Most people don't have that attention span. They just want to jump in the action and smash that button.

 

[bryce777]

If you have a point at least don't cop out with "you suck, but I won't tell you why".

If you consider differing opinions as ludicrous nonsense, well I suppose the "SoIl erosion blunts lol trees r kewl patrick stewart" thing is alright.....

I think it is pretty selfevident.

The idea of a neurosurgeon eagerly awaiting the next installment of tony hawks pro skater is pretty fucking ludicrous, for starters. Your idiotic notion of what a 'mainstream' rpg should be is pretty ludicrous too.

Lots of franchises have dumbed themselves down, and where has it gotten them? Out of fucking business. When you market to the lowest common denominator, you are also setting yourself up to compete with console games and you are going to fail miserably. No one wants a sort of rpg action game, it's like having a bunch of ravioli smothered in fresh cilantro and maple syrup - if you are going that route you may as well just make it a shooter like hexen. When you make a crossplatform piece of shit that doesn't take any real advantage of either platform, it is impossible to achieve anything but mediocrity at best. I don't know where your fanatical devotion to morrowind comes from, but I know plenty of real life people who play crpgs, and all of them bought it but not one of them finished it. These people are not some core of lunatics, but the real mainstream of rpg players, whose desires simply aren't being met so many of them are dropping out from the buying process completely. These games sold tons of copies,a nd that was when the pool to draw from was much smaller because fewer people had computers.

All the people who played ultima and wizardry and loved them would not be happy with an avatar who jumped around like super mario...they tried that, and now origin is out of business.

Time and again it's been shown the people who play rpgs are in their late 20s, 30s, or their 40s, yet these fucking simpletons choose to market towards 12 year olds. A lot of companies went for some time on their reputations alone, but that doesn't last forever, and people are getting more and more fed up with this kind of nonsense. That's why pc games are virtually dead - the publishers and to some extent the developers are complete idiots. Did something happen to magically make people not demand the sort of games that they loved in the 90s?? No. All that's happened is instead tons and tons of dumbed down games marketed to a demographic that will never support pc gaming come out and when they fail they say "Gee, looks like no one likes RPGs or adventure games any more. We better make some RTS and FPS games instead!". There has always been piracy, but most kids are simply not going to pay for software, ever, if they can download it. Relying on them as your target market makes sense for consoles, but is suicide for PC games. Someone who has a job and really likes a game series will preorder the special edition for 70 bucks just to get the cool tin box, though. The geniuses at atari think exactly like you and think of pc games and console games under some generic 'video game' market...and they are about done financially. Thank god. No more games ruined or companies put out of business by their lack of qa and rushing games out the door.

PC games are, or should be, different that console games. It's a different market, and just like in the wild you survive by specializing, not by generalizing.

Once in a long while I like an action game, but I don't want to play some POS pseudorpg that doubles as a lame action game.

I think that oblivion will be the biggest release for bethesda. The next game will sell less and be much less ambitious. After that the downhill spiral will go fairly quickly and their games will just be more and more crap and half done and then they will disappear. Then people will say that that is just how the industry is. Well, it's not. When you have a franchise of some kind in the software world, then it's easy to keep making money so long as you just make sure you are addressing your users' core needs and are improving things sensibly.

You may laugh now, but I am right. I have been right all along talking about other companies as well, and when they've then been down and out the fanbois are all so shocked, even though it should have been obvious to all that by fucking over their PAYING fans instead of the unemployed students or whatever who have time to make bring a thread to the 200+ range arguing about nonsense such as multiplayer and modability when shit like that gets used by 5-10% of the people buying the game.

 

[Pr()ZaC]

I don't know if Bethesda will make less with TES 5. Too many "dumb" people out there to diversify a FPS with RPG elements from a RPG, and they're multiplying.

I just hope our ranting said something meaningful to MSFD and to the rest of Bethesda.

 

[Tintin]

-egoistical rambling-

What exactly are you rambling about? I can't remember discussing most of the things you talked about. If you're reffering to what I said in the first page (yes, the drawn out paragraph clearly exaplining everything, im such a troll ) that was my response to the idiotic notion that RPG players are smarter and more complex because they like the "true rpgs". And then I continued to state my opinions on what kind of games are fun, and how exactly does that make me stupider than you (which I am confident I'm not).

And then of course this thing you said "Your idiotic notion of what a 'mainstream' rpg should be is pretty ludicrous too. " is odd because I don't remember ever saying anything like that.

And then I continue to wonder..."Do these people actually prefer playing games which are not fun?"

Because angler responds sarcastically when I say "decisions, planning, effort which is fun to do/make."

So does he actually want to play a game where the decisions and planning is not fun to make? A game that's not fun to play? It boggles the mind.

 

[Chefe]

Because angler responds sarcastically when I say "decisions, planning, effort which is fun to do/make."

So does he actually want to play a game where the decisions and planning is not fun to make? A game that's not fun to play? It boggles the mind.

When did I say this? Lnk plz!

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Well, you may dismiss what Bryce77 wrote calling it "egotistical", but he's right. That's one reason why Interplay folded and why Atari is following suit. The main reason Interplay folded first was because it didn't own a number of the licenses it used to make some of it's biggest hits. It didn't own Star Trek or AD&D and had both of those licenses yanked from them. At the same time, the powers that be decided that consoles were the WAVE OF THE FUTURE so it cut down on PC game production, which was where the majority of it's sales were and tried to go mostly console. It's no wonder why it's debt piled up after that. They stopped producing in their biggest market while losing two big brand names.

Atari owns AD&D, but they're doing the same thing Interplay did by devoting themselves more and more to the console market. Atari may own D&D, but they're langiushing that brand by not producing D&D CRPGs. They, like Interplay, are also pushing PC games on the market while they're still half baked and in need of massive quality assurance. It's hard to find a PC game review about an Atari game where bugs aren't mentioned. Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 might be the only one they've done recently where the bugs aren't totally glaring. All of these are factors in Atari growing closer and closer to collapse.

Bryce77's point was that Bethesda is following close to the same route as the above two companies with their console hybriding of their best brand product they've got. Morrowind was buggy as hell. Daggerfall was notoriously buggy. I'll be surprised it Oblivion isn't buggy too. The big difference between Daggerfall and Morrowind, though, was depth. With each iteration of TES games, Bethesda is reducing the elements that people liked out of the one before it. There's no big hook for either market while at the same time they're cutting off the little hooks and streamlining this or that.

When your biggest hyping point is NPC scheduling and graphics - you're in a rut. A lot of games have fantastic graphics. That's starting to lose it's appeal as a huge selling point. Also, given other titles on the console market, Oblivion doesn't really look that great. Check out some shots of Oblivion and compare those to Gears of War or even Quake 4.

NPC scheduling is a one trick pony. People might be interested in it now, but they probably won't care too much about it once they play the game because it doesn't really factor much in to how the game plays. Most people are probably expecting something uber-kewl from Radiant AI and won't even notice what's going on after a few minutes of watching people scurry around.

Very little of what Bethesda is pushing is actual gameplay. What we do know about the game play is that a lot of it's been stripped. There are no spears, crossbows, and staves. There are less factions to join. If you kill a "vital" NPC, you're presented with a load screen. Things like that don't make for a smashing game. In fact, they make for a half assed sequel and it's a trend. Morrowind had less stuff than Daggerfall and Oblivion will have less stuff than Morrowind.

Bryce77 is right. At some point, if this trend continues, TES is dead and with it, Bethesda. TES is Bethesda's biggest brand right now. Without it, where are they?

 

[jiujitsu]

I don't want anyone to mention Atari ever again. They are shit and they are going to rape Baldur's Gate.

Fuck them and I hope they go completely out of business before they can release BG3. I hope they sell the license to Obsidian. Then Obsidian will make a game worthy of being called Baldur's Gate 3.

 

[Tintin]

-analysis about bethesda-

That's all very detailed and a nice read, but I never said anything which would spark this kind of discussion, so I'm confused as to why it's taking place, or why bryce is responding to an imaginery argument I made.

As for what you said, I don't think the main sellling point is grpahics and radiant ai. I always thought it was the idea of "living in another world", a different huge world for you to live in and explore. And graphics and radiant ai does help that, so I guess that's good advertising.

 

[Chefe]

As for what you said, I don't think the main sellling point is grpahics and radiant ai.

You're right, it's also Patrick Stewart and combat.

Disagree? Show me an interview that proves otherwise.

I always thought it was the idea of "living in another world", a different huge world for you to live in and explore. And graphics and radiant ai does help that, so I guess that's good advertising.

"Living another life" (which is the motto) is different from "walking around looking at NPCs eating and admiring pretty forests". If they hyped this thing as a fantasy world simulator or an 'exploration' game, then it would be perfectly fine. However, they're hyping it as an RPG which will set a detrimental prescedent on RPGs to come: "Hay! We don't need no stinkin' depth! We just need purity graphics and kewl kombat!"... especially since Oblivion is poised to sell well.

However, like has been pointed out, continually dumbing down a series is not good for the long run. Would Sim City be on its fourth version if Will Wright decided to dumb down the series after two? Would Zelda be on it's 10th-or-whatever version if Nintendo kept removing items and shortened dungeon puzzles? No, these series expand on the previous versions. Bethesda has been doing the opposite ever since Morrowind was released.

You should go read the original design plan that the Daggerfall devs had for Morrowind. It, amazingly, expanded on Daggerfall. But they didn't have the resources yet, so they put it off. When Ken and Todd became the head honchos, what did they do? Keep with the original idea of expanding on Daggerfall? Well, I think you know the answer to that.

 

[Excalibur]

I don't want anyone to mention Atari ever again. They are shit and they are going to rape Baldur's Gate.

Fuck them and I hope they go completely out of business before they can release BG3. I hope they sell the license to Obsidian. Then Obsidian will make a game worthy of being called Baldur's Gate 3.

RAPE RAPe

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

SP, your analysis of Bethesda is pretty much as wrong as it could possibly be, but since Bethesda is a privately held company that even more than in the past has a tendency to keep its cards close to the vest, I'll forgive you your misconceptions

 

[Excalibur]

SP, your analysis of Bethesda is pretty much as wrong as it could possibly be, but since Bethesda is a privately held company that even more than in the past has a tendency to keep its cards close to the vest, I'll forgive you your misconceptions

Prove us wrong then? why dont you?

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

Excalibur, that's what we've been working on doing for the past few years

 

[Vault Dweller]

Hmm, you do know that quotes like that have a tendency to bite the author in the ass? I would be very, very happy if Oblivion is as good as Daggerfall was, but considering the coverage and all those dumbed down things it's very, very unlikely. Still, I salute the strength of your beliefs, and hope to see you around after the release.

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

I don't expect everyone to like the game. I think a lot of doubters will, and some won't. You can't please everyone. I think Psychonauts is one of the best games of the year, yet I know many people who wouldn't even look at it because of the art style. Similarly millions love the Grand Theft Auto games, but I never really got into them. The standards for what's expected in an RPG are very high here, though there is a current of a somewhat contradictory attitude towards those standards as applied to games by some developers compared to games by other developers.

As long as people play Oblivion for what it is, and instead of focusing on "what's missing" focus on "what's there" -- which is a hell of a huge game with, despite predictions, a great deal of depth -- basically as long as people give it a fair shot, I'll be content with whatever verdicts they reach.

 

[Chefe]

The reason Psychonauts failed commercially and GTA continues to dominate the market is because this generation has been weaned on certain types of games. Hell, GTA is what weaned most of them! Do you think all these mindless Diablo clones that masquerade around as RPGs would have been widely accepted back in the early 90's? Hell no. Now, don't get me wrong, I liked the original Diablo, but it's been detrimental with its effect on CRPGs. The companies have made a conscious effort to dumb down their games and essentially forced people into what games they like (just look at any other media, like music). These games are easier to make, don't require much imaginative though, and expand the market at an alarming speed instead of letting it slowly grow (Read: Greed). Now, I'm not saying Bethesda is doing this (I can tell this game wasn't easy to make and isn't "mindless"), but you guys are focusing on lush forests over diverse roleplaying elements. I know you'll disagree with me here, but just look at the skill choices you have. Choosing to either slay someone with a sword, spell, or stealth isn't what defining your character, and essentially roleplaying, is about.

As with the standards in RPGs... nice way to be vague. It's no surprise who the culprits are here. Folks like to think there are certain expectations, but the truth is there are none. I don't call "make it have stats" and "make it hack n' slash" standards for a role playing game.

The argument of "focus on what's there" is one of the things I take up when I defend Fable. However, Fable has no previous game it's going off of. Oblivion has three award-winning games behind it. If the Elder Scrolls has been a big part of your life in computer games, seeing many roleplaying elements taken away just plain sucks the cooch. Are we to just keep "focusing on what's there" for every game series as it continually is dumbed down and features are removed so it can cater to a crowd who either haven't reached puberty yet or don't even play games?

Now, with this so-called depth, what exactly does depth mean to Bethesda Softworks? So far, I see no depth, all I see is forests, Radiant AI, and Patrick Stewart. Nothing on dialogue, how magic works, or even how any skills other than "hitting things with heavy weapons" works. Now I know you guys have this policy of keeping everything top-secret for some reason, but I'll be damned if I'm going to drop down $50 bucks and later find out that this so-called "RPG" doesn't have any real RPG aspects about it. I appreciate you commenting on various things, and I have learned alot, but what you're saying here is still typical Bethesda "trust us, it'll be cool".

The Witcher, which doesn't even have a release date yet, has more information than Oblivion. It is looking like a far better choice though, and something to save my cash (which doesn't come easily) for. The devs don't keep saying "trust us, it'll be cool". They list features that are in, what to expect from quests, and release movies that show off gameplay (and aren't just pretty pre-renders). All I've heard from Bethesda about Oblivion is "less skills, less guilds, more trees, more Patrick Stewart, more radiant NPCs". So, technically, I've heard all the stuff that doesn't affect gameplay so far (barring hand combat).

 

[hiciacit]

...
Bryce77 is right. At some point, if this trend continues, TES is dead and with it, Bethesda. TES is Bethesda's biggest brand right now. Without it, where are they?

If they are truly dumbing down, then probably with good reason (i.e. big sale forecasts). Oblivion is probably going to sell better than Morrowind, so that will hardly signify the end of Bethesda (or TES for that matter). Not htat I necessarily disagree with any of your other comments...

 

[Excalibur]

Excalibur, that's what we've been working on doing for the past few years

i just cant get over the fact that it seeams like a console game first, then a pc game second, from whats been presented... dont abandon the true fans at heart !!!!

 

[Balor]

... (or TES for that matter)...

Ok, you have a game. To be brief, and to keep this in terms that are as simple as possible, let's say it's rolling spheres.
You love it. Absolutely.
Then, a company comes up and says - we are making a sequel that will improve on the previous game a great deal! Buy it now!
Ok, you went, bought it, and what do you see?
Instead of rolling spheres you get to lay down bricks. Looks nicer indeed (if even bricks are somewhat distorted and tend to lay down a bit askew), but it's different game!
Developers mumble 'ok, we kinda foiled that, but our NEXT game will sure include rolling spheres, and that will be kickass! You MUST buy it.
Ok, you buy it. And it's still about laying bricks. Really pretty, shiny bricks, cool special effects for laying them, yet still bricks. No spheres.
So:
a. You lose all faith in the company that repeatedly lied you about 'keeping the spirit of the series, staying true to the game, etc.
b. You understand that the game liked so much is pretty much dead. Because no one will make the game about rolling spheres anymore... that you loved the original game for.
c. It does not mean all some people will not like that new game. Some of them, expecially those that never ever heard of the first one, consider it perfect and the like. Yet...
d. You will not buy sequels to this game anymore.
e. People who love to lay bricks have much shorter attention span then those who loves to roll spheres, and there are other games that allow to lay bricks, but for less price... so they eventually leave too.
Series truly die.

A few other implications:
First 'layind bricks' game included a set of tools that actually allowed to make a spheres out of bricks.
It was a damn hard work, tools are extremely unwiledy (they were tailord to make bricks, after all, and that's much easier then making spheres), spheres turned out deformed and rolled poorly... yet they did roll!
So, when fans of the original game were buying the second 'bricks' game, they were hoping that better tools were included, that allowed to make nearly perfect spheres... and what do we hear?
Tools stay almost the same, and developers kinda hint that they made the bricks harder.
So, major disappointment ensues, see a. and b.

I hope I've made that clear.

 

[bryce777]

... (or TES for that matter)...

Ok, you have a game. To be brief, and to keep this in terms that are as simple as possible, let's say it's rolling spheres.
You love it. Absolutely.
Then, a company comes up and says - we are making a sequel that will improve on the previous game a great deal! Buy it now!
Ok, you went, bought it, and what do you see?
Instead of rolling spheres you get to lay down bricks. Looks nicer indeed (if even bricks are somewhat distorted and tend to lay down a bit askew), but it's different game!
Developers mumble 'ok, we kinda foiled that, but our NEXT game will sure include rolling spheres, and that will be kickass! You MUST buy it.
Ok, you buy it. And it's still about laying bricks. Really pretty, shiny bricks, cool special effects for laying them, yet still bricks. No spheres.
So:
a. You lose all faith in the company that repeatedly lied you about 'keeping the spirit of the series, staying true to the game, etc.
b. You understand that the game liked so much is pretty much dead. Because no one will make the game about rolling spheres anymore... that you loved the original game for.
c. It does not mean all some people will not like that new game. Some of them, expecially those that never ever heard of the first one, consider it perfect and the like. Yet...
d. You will not buy sequels to this game anymore.
e. People who love to lay bricks have much shorter attention span then those who loves to roll spheres, and there are other games that allow to lay bricks, but for less price... so they eventually leave too.
Series truly die.

A few other implications:
First 'layind bricks' game included a set of tools that actually allowed to make a spheres out of bricks.
It was a damn hard work, tools are extremely unwiledy (they were tailord to make bricks, after all, and that's much easier then making spheres), spheres turned out deformed and rolled poorly... yet they did roll!
So, when fans of the original game were buying the second 'bricks' game, they were hoping that better tools were included, that allowed to make nearly perfect spheres... and what do we hear?
Tools stay almost the same, and developers kinda hint that they made the bricks harder.
So, major disappointment ensues, see a. and b.

I hope I've made that clear.

This is pretty much it exactly.

I am not trying to bash oblivion here, really; it is then tintin who says "I FUCKING LOVE BRICKS! PEOPLE WHO LIKE SPHERES ARE GOD DAMNED COMMUNISTS JUST SHUT UP AND BUY THE GAME AND QUIT WHINING ABOUT BRICKS INSTEAD OF SPHERES! YOU THINK YOU ARE SO HIGH AND MIGHTY IN YOUR IVORY TOWER ROLLING SHIT AROUND ALL DAY. WHAT A FUCKING PRETENTIOUS ASSHOLE YOU ARE. THE FUTURE IS BRICKS!!!"

Now, smileyface dude seems like a good guy and all, but it is hard to get a perspective on something you are making compared to something you are just a user for, especially before it is even done. He seems to believe in what he is saying, and if he didn't obviously he still wouldn't say "Sorry, this is not a game for people who like spheres, and in fact it is rather stupid." if he wants to stay employed.

Now, that said, the actual gameplay does not sound that terrific to me. Hopefully they will have a lot less moronic way of talking to people at the very least, but it does not really even sound like that's the case. The game might still be a good game on the weight of its story, but all of the positives are things people do not actually care about after the first ten minutes.

With story etc. you can't really reveal to much without spoiling it. I think there is the possibility it could be good enough to make the game worthwhile, but I doubt it will be the case, and I don't see anything which they can point to where they can truthfully say that they are going back towards what daggerfall was like.

 

[Tintin]

it is then tintin who says "I FUCKING LOVE BRICKS! PEOPLE WHO LIKE SPHERES ARE GOD DAMNED COMMUNISTS JUST SHUT UP AND BUY THE GAME AND QUIT WHINING ABOUT BRICKS INSTEAD OF SPHERES! YOU THINK YOU ARE SO HIGH AND MIGHTY IN YOUR IVORY TOWER ROLLING SHIT AROUND ALL DAY. WHAT A FUCKING PRETENTIOUS ASSHOLE YOU ARE. THE FUTURE IS BRICKS!!!"

What the hell are you talking about? Are you seven years old? Are you just pulling up random things out of your ass and posting that I said them? I don't recall ever talking about what RPGS should be, what mainstream gaming should be, what the future games should be, or any of this other rambling that you're going on with.

I'm starting to wonder....can you read?

 

[match000]

Well I'm totally new here, but I am a big fan of RPG's and CRPG's.

I've been following Oblivion very excitedly, and after reading all your posts, I too am "worried" that its going to suck a big one and basically be a console gamer's action game.

What I say is why don't you all just don't buy the game, and let the series and the company die. That'll show them... Let Bethesda go down as an example to the industry of what happens when you abandon your true fanbase and pander to the lowest common denominator.

The industry won't learn until it has some examples... so let Bethesda be the first.

Now if Oblivion turns out to be a truly improved revolutionary CRPG, then I'll buy TWO copies just to help Bethesda..

 

[Chefe]

You are also silly.