Oblivion won't be the worst game ever.

[Vault Dweller]

Most of the regulars here seem to believe that real, quality RPGs are based around lots of interactive dialogue.

No, choices & consequences are the #1 criteria. DF is one of my favorite games, and I didn't expect awesome dialogues, although I must note that the quality of writing in DF was much higher then that in MW, but that new dumb persuasion game is the stupidest thing Bethesda has come up with since that cast & fight feature.

The roleplay that exists has always been about overcoming challenges in the method of your choosing

Well, DF offered you a lot of options and choices everywhere, from character creation to quests, and variety of challenges to go with those choices and options. MW offered you stereotypes, and looks like Oblivion took that to the extreme that belongs in a 3-class console fighting game.

 

[Nael]

Including Daggerfall, which seems to be getting the most praise from the series.

That's because Daggerfall was the only TES game to have any semblence of consequence (EDIT: damn, VD beat me to it )which is a fairly important component of what RPGs should be. Now it's just down to: "Accept this quest or don't... I'll be here 5 months later with the same quest if you happen to change your mind even though my herd of sheep is on fire."

Maybe Oblivion will be different and actually prove all the naysayers wrong. Maybe it won't, but who the fuck knows, and at this point in time, who the fuck cares? Everyone just needs to chill out until the game is released. Then you can rationally praise or poo-poo all you want. Until then the fanboys and haters alike should stop making themselves look like imbeciles.

 

[Nog Robbin]

That's because Daggerfall was the only TES game to have any semblence of consequence (EDIT: damn, VD beat me to it )which is a fairly important component of what RPGs should be. Now it's just down to: "Accept this quest or don't... I'll be here 5 months later with the same quest if you happen to change your mind even though my herd of sheep is on fire."

Excellent!
Always advocated for some time relevant quests, but it get's shouted down most vehemently by those that don't want to feel any pressure or have any consequence for their action or inaction.

... Until then the fanboys and haters alike should stop making themselves look like imbeciles.

But everyone's entitled to a hobby, aren't they?

 

[Vault Dweller]

@ Nael: You must admit though that most "haters" have valid reasons and facts, like the persuasion system, all that removed stuff, the PR focus on gimmicks, dumbing down (grouped skills, the compass, big-ass font, cast & fight, magical staves only, etc), while fanboys' only argument is we trust DEVs who are awesome because they are DEVs. And the graphics are purty.

 

[Nael]

@ Nael: You must admit though that most "haters" have valid reasons and facts, like the persuasion system, all that removed stuff, the PR focus on gimmicks, dumbing down (grouped skills, the compass, big-ass font, cast & fight, magical staves only, etc), while fanboys' only argument is we trust DEVs who are awesome because they are DEVs. And the graphics are purty.

The key is moderation though. You can dislike and even hate the established features of Oblivion and still be respectful to those who disagree without being insanely spiteful. Along the same lines, you can perhaps see some potential in Oblivion without being such a drooling idiot about it.

So yes, I agree that those haters have valid reasons for disliking Oblivion. As do I. The fanboys have reasons for liking Oblivion. As do I. So let's just wait until the game is released then we can point fingers at the game and with a realistic foundation make an informed decision to laud or laugh at it.

In the meantime I'll be under the Bodhi tree, meditating

*oohhmmmmm... ohhhmmmmmmm...*

 

[Solik]

No, choices & consequences are the #1 criteria.

Bad criteria. Sid Meier once defined games as a sequence of interesting choices. If a choice is a real choice, it has consequences (otherwise it's just the same option dressed two different ways). Even Doom had choices and consequences -- blast the monster with the rocket launcher, and spend precious ammo and absorb a bit of damage yourself, or use the shotgun, which had more plentiful ammo but takes more shots to drop the enemy. When you say this, though, I do understand that you mean it in another context. However, that other context is in the backdrop of the game's environment -- the NPCs you interact with, for instance. And that boils mostly back down to dialogue. While there are some other things, like availability of services and quests and whether or not you're attacked by guards on sight, that stuff just boils back down to standard vanilla gameplay consequences, which don't seem to be what you're as interested in.

I also must have missed the detailed consequences in Daggerfall. While it was true that you lost something for refusing a quest, you were never under the illusion that the quest was anything more than a randomly-generated challenge that may or may not be remotely suitable for you (or even remotely entertaining, in some cases, to attempt). For me, it pretty quickly got to the point where I just saved before asking for a quest, and loaded until I got a reasonable one that fit my character. While refusing faction quests did little to you in Morrowind (because they were linear rather than generated), refusing misc quests actually did usually keep you from being able to attempt the quest again later. It would also frequently modify disposition, but the incredibly stupid persuasion system made that irrelevant.

I don't think Oblivion will prove many of the naysayers wrong, because they're complaining about something that is not and never has been its focus. There may be a good chance it'll prove wrong the ones who think it has reduced the number of choices, because I think doing a skill count is a rather ineffective way to judge something like that.

 

[Vault Dweller]

The key is moderation though. You can dislike and even hate the established features of Oblivion and still be respectful to those who disagree without being insanely spiteful. Along the same lines, you can perhaps see some potential in Oblivion without being such a drooling idiot about it.

Well, there are plenty of people who are interested in Oblivion like Ghan and many others, and I don't see their interest in the game being targeted or mocked. People who are, well, idiots will not be respected here. Simple as that.

So let's just wait until the game is released then we can point fingers at the game and with a realistic foundation make an informed decision to laud or laugh at it.

Are we allowed to point fingers at specific, revealed, and explained features like the persuasion system? Can we jump to a conclusion that playing a talker will be a painful experience for anyone over 12?

 

[elander_]

I also must have missed the detailed consequences in Daggerfall. While it was true that you lost something for refusing a quest, you were never under the illusion that the quest was anything more than a randomly-generated challenge that may or may not be remotely suitable for you (or even remotely entertaining, in some cases, to attempt).

Not exactly random generated but quests were picked at random from a template of hand-writen quests.

For me, it pretty quickly got to the point where I just saved before asking for a quest, and loaded until I got a reasonable one that fit my character.

You could have done the some thing without having to save and reload. There was no loss for refusing a quest and ask again.

I don't think Oblivion will prove many of the naysayers wrong, because they're complaining about something that is not and never has been its focus. There may be a good chance it'll prove wrong the ones who think it has reduced the number of choices, because I think doing a skill count is a rather ineffective way to judge something like that.

Who's to say what Daggerfall could have been. The game was so ambitious that too many things were droped. The thief gameplay was actualy suposed to be like Thief where you could actualy hide in shadows. The game was suposed to have mounted combat and armies roaming the land. There should have been armies mounting sieges around cities. The kingdoms would sometimes declare war to each other (remenber those messages "kingdom x has declared war to y and city z is under siege"). A fast travel map was planed with roads and rivers were the player would move in the map and could use a survival skill (there are nessages and pieces of text in the source that mention this skill and the use of of roads). And a lot of other details i can't remenber. It was suposed to be something similar to what M&B is today but with a good story and the possibility to effectively play other classes (not just cosmetic classes that all wrap to fighter) like thief, acrobat, healer and more exotic classes.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Sid Meier once defined games as a sequence of interesting choices. If a choice is a real choice, it has consequences (otherwise it's just the same option dressed two different ways).

Well, MW allowed you to play anything you want as the fanboys claim, but the game didn't give a damn about your choices, which is why I included consequences to clarify. Bioware is also known for meaningless choices leading to the same outcome.

I also must have missed the detailed consequences in Daggerfall.

You are looking at it from dialogue/quest perspective, while I'm looking at it from gameplay perspective. For example, your choice to pick Climbing skill was rewarded by the game actually allowing you to climb castle walls and offering non-linear dungeon design with walls, openings, air shafts, etc. Same goes for Swimming, Languages, etc.

I don't think Oblivion will prove many of the naysayers wrong, because they're complaining about something that is not and never has been its focus.

Gameplay that doesn't suck?

There may be a good chance it'll prove wrong the ones who think it has reduced the number of choices, because I think doing a skill count is a rather ineffective way to judge something like that.

What is the effective way? Less skills = less builds. In DF, I could have a thief with Short Blade, Backstab, Critical Strike, Climbing, Jumping, Swimming. In OB it's Blade and Athletics, same as most characters. All those builds forced into one will now experience the game in exactly the same way. Role-playing, my ass.

 

[Nael]

What is the effective way? Less skills = less builds. In DF, I could have a thief with Short Blade, Backstab, Critical Strike, Climbing, Jumping, Swimming. In OB it's Blade and Athletics, same as most characters. All those builds forced into one will now experience the game in exactly the same way. Role-playing, my ass.

Having to choose from so many skills takes soooooooo long. I think Bethsoft just wants us to get to the meat of the game... [/sarcasm]

 

[Solik]

You also choose fewer skills up-front in Oblivion, though, so it should work out to be about the same (with fewer strange nonsensical-type builds and overly gimped builds possible, I'll grant you). More importantly, the Morrowind phenominon of every character becoming good at everything regardless of their choices should be gone, since skills you don't choose are supposed to level exponentially slower. We'll see how accurate those claims turn out to be.

Also, I'm not sure those choices in Daggerfall were all that meaningful. If you didn't choose Swimming, for instance, then you just carried around stacks of water-breathing potions. The choice between Blunt and Long Blade was pretty much just cosmetic. To me, it seemed that a lot of those things were borderline meaningless.

I do understand the appeal of tons of options at character creation and different perks and abilities to try out, though. The quality-over-quantity debate has no simple answer in these regards. I'd love to toy with modding in some more stuff that Bethesda didn't add myself. For instance, rather than adding skills, ditch the stupid Birthsign system and go for a more advanced perk and flaw system, like D&D's feats or those optional things you can add on in Daggerfall at the end. Instead of Critical Strike the skill, Critical Strike could be a perk that makes you randomly score critical hits in combat. Stuff like that.

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

Ghan not getting mocked - I wish! Anyway i get thrown in with the fanboys half of the time, but so what.

I finally start to understand why VD likes DF but hates MW - so you thought the character choice had too little impact on the abilities of the player. Hmm, I see what you mean with the examples you mentioned, but there was still plenty of effect to make it interesting for me. Access to lockpicking, levitation, or acrobatics made a big difference as to wher you could go and how to get there.
Personlity (and speechcraft, via pesuasion) made a diffenece in quite a number of quests if you wanted to resolve them peacefully (several of the mages guild qeusts, e.g.).
Playing magic vs non magic character made quite a difference as to which opponents to fear or not to fear. Weaknesses or resistances conferred by birthsigns did make a noticeable difference especially early on. The house and guild you chose made a difference in quite a large part of the game.

Of course there were loopholes and the jack of all trades symptom - but I swear to god that I have played 2 characters past level 30 without them becoming that - just by limiting training and skill use to what came naturally through the gameplay instead of advancing my character as fast as I could.

So I guess I am still surprised that the difference was large enough for you to love the one and hate the other. I can see the difference, but the impact on the overall experience doesn't seem that large to me. The way I played them the experiences in them, the options of what I could have my character do - that was all very similar. And I thought MW had a plus since while the quests still were Fed Ex and boring, they were better embedded in the world, with the various factions taking on a certain reality, because you learnt mre about their agenda, their struggels against each other etc. as the game went on, while the factions in DF always remaind static "quest machines" - they had no story to tell.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Also, I'm not sure those choices in Daggerfall were all that meaningful. If you didn't choose Swimming, for instance, then you just carried around stacks of water-breathing potions.

Breathing wasn't a problem, actually swimming in armor if your skill low was. I posted a war story awhile ago, here is a short version: explored, ran into a monster, fell into some water during the fight and went straight down, had to throw out everything including the armor, swim out with nothing but a sword and continue the suddenly becoming challenging fight. Needless to say, that couldn't happen in MW or OB.

 

[Solik]

It's been confirmed that armor and other objects sink and cause you to sink in Oblivion (see fan interview), though it's true that there's no swimming skill to bail you out.

 

[Levski 1912]

Oblivion could benefit from large-scale battles. What's the point of having such an engine if all you're rendering is one or two enemies (and/or allies)? Just a thought.

 

[elander_]

And I thought MW had a plus since while the quests still were Fed Ex and boring, they were better embedded in the world, with the various factions taking on a certain reality, because you learnt mre about their agenda, their struggels against each other etc. as the game went on, while the factions in DF always remaind static "quest machines" - they had no story to tell.

It would be just a mater of adding more quest templates. But that was never the purpose of factions. Daggerfall had a good non-linear main-quest graph that provided much more drama and political insight.

The point of skills is that when you choose a set of skills to play with you expect the game to reward you by providing quests apropriate for your skill and class choices that allow you to develop your char and not the other way around. That is you pick those skills that let you finish the game. If this is the case then you are playing an adventure game and not an rpg.

Climbing is a good example. If you want to play a thief that is a nulity in magic you choose climbing to overcome obstacles not alteration. On the other side if the thief is also a nullity in combat the game should be able to provide the thief with quests so that he can continue to develop his character, raising in level and gaining experience using the skills he has choosen.

Have you ever RPed a pnp game Ghan? With a good dungeon master he can setup a scenario for you where you can be whoever you want and keep advancing in the game. This is, i believe, what DF developers where trying to do by adding all those skills, random quests and leveled creatures to the game.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Ghan not getting mocked - I wish! Anyway i get thrown in with the fanboys half of the time, but so what.

Friendly pokes don't count, do they? :wink:

I finally start to understand why VD likes DF but hates MW

You could have asked...

... so you thought the character choice had too little impact on the abilities of the player. Hmm, I see what you mean with the examples you mentioned, but there was still plenty of effect to make it interesting for me.

There is more to that.

First, the design supported and provided an option to use those skills: air shafts / walls with opennings to climb, pits to jump over, creatures who may not attack you if speak their language (a viable option for explorers), water filled dungeons, etc.

Second, you weren't forced to take any particular route. Don't like levitating? Take Climbing - a good and solid alternative. Healing spells? Medicine. Water breating? Swimming. Fighting? Backstab & Critical Strike or Languages.

Third, advantages/disadvantages that further improved your options of developing and playing truly any character you want. Pick "take damage in holy places" and you actually will. Chose Rapid Healing for your Conan and forget about those potions. Etc.

Quests were of much higher writing and role-playing quality overall. There were quests for monks (investigate appearance of a deity), quests for mercs (protect a guild), for highly skilled mages (cast a certain spell - it actually made sense for mage guilds to provide those services to people and use talented mages for that), for adventurers to look for rare ingridients in dangerous places; and you could decline any quest that didn't fit your character.

So, you could make any character and truly play the way you want to, doing what you want to, and never running out of things to do.

Add to that 30+ guilds, witch covens, vamps, werewolves, banks, horses & carriages, houses & ships to buy, HUGE gameworld, and all that in one game, you can see why I feel about DF and MW the way I do.

So I guess I am still surprised that the difference was large enough for you to love the one and hate the other.

It was that "less of everything" feeling: less skills, less guilds, less quests, less interesing, less quality, etc.

And I thought MW had a plus since while the quests still were Fed Ex and boring, they were better embedded in the world, with the various factions taking on a certain reality, because you learnt mre about their agenda, their struggels against each other etc. as the game went on...

That only highlighted and draw attention to the lack of any reaction & consequences in the game.

 

[Vault Dweller]

It's been confirmed that armor and other objects sink and cause you to sink in Oblivion (see fan interview), though it's true that there's no swimming skill to bail you out.

What's the point then?

 

[Solik]

Well, there's less water, so a skill for it may be nerfed. Perhaps Acrobatics or something helps you, I really don't know. If nothing else, that could go into the Perks system I want to mod in :p

 

[GhanBuriGhan]

Ghan not getting mocked - I wish! Anyway i get thrown in with the fanboys half of the time, but so what.

Friendly pokes don't count, do they? :wink:

The legendary friendliness of chefe and bryce always gives me that warm fuzzy feeling...

I finally start to understand why VD likes DF but hates MW

You could have asked...

I did a couple of times, didn't want to get on your nerves any more...

... so you thought the character choice had too little impact on the abilities of the player. Hmm, I see what you mean with the examples you mentioned, but there was still plenty of effect to make it interesting for me.

There is more to that.

First, the design supported and provided an option to use those skills: air shafts / walls with opennings to climb, pits to jump over, creatures who may not attack you if speak their language (a viable option for explorers), water filled dungeons, etc.

Yes the dungeon design was pretty good that way. However there were some such things in MW as well: Mountains you could only get over with high acrobatics or levitating. Telvanni towers. The language solution in DF was lame in My opinion, but maybe I felt that way because I don't like a simple die roll decide such things - it should have been a little conversation minigame at the very least, or it could have let to actual conversation with new quest groups, or dungeon tips, or whatever as rewards.

Second, you weren't forced to take any particular route. Don't like levitating? Take Climbing - a good and solid alternative. Healing spells? Medicine. Water breathing? Swimming. Fighting? Backstab & Critical Strike or Languages.

Levitating? Acrobatics or potions. Water breathing - high athletics (yes the swimming skill was nice - on the other hand having general athleticism factor in is nice two, combination for the win, IMHO). Fighting? Sneak, Magic (offensive or passive - e.g. invisibility). Yes, VD, some options were lost, and I am not one to celebrate that, but there were still lots of options!

Third, advantages/disadvantages that further improved your options of developing and playing truly any character you want. Pick "take damage in holy places" and you actually will. Chose Rapid Healing for your Conan and forget about those potions. Etc.

On this point you will hear no arguemtns from me - I constantly nag about the advantages disadvantages sytem over at the TES forums myself. The Birthsigns were a poor replacement. Point granted.

Quests were of much higher writing and role-playing quality overall. There were quests for monks (investigate appearance of a deity), quests for mercs (protect a guild), for highly skilled mages (cast a certain spell - it actually made sense for mage guilds to provide those services to people and use talented mages for that), for adventurers to look for rare ingridients in dangerous places; and you could decline any quest that didn't fit your character.

Better writing? A few maybe, overall I don't see that. I thought some of the guild quest were very fitting. Doing the pilgrimage for the tribunal temple, establishing trade between Tevanni and ashlanders, gebeldhirs bet, the "bad people" quest. and As I said, the background for the quests was far superior. Not being able to give up or decline quests was indeed a bad design decision. Although there were usually three or four quest lines per guild, so you could go some way even if you decided not to do a certain quest. E.g. I never did the "kill the false nerevarine" quest the temple gave me.

So, you could make any character and truly play the way you want to, doing what you want to, and never running out of things to do.

Yes, and I found the same to be true for Morrowind. Of course I don't have the amount of time to sink into games today as back in the DF days, so maybe thats part of the reason too. But there was more to see and do in MW than in almost every other game I played, including most RPG's

Add to that 30+ guilds, witch covens, vamps, werewolves, banks, horses & carriages, houses & ships to buy, HUGE gameworld, and all that in one game, you can see why I feel about DF and MW the way I do.

.

Only that the 30 guilds were really 5 archetypes. And that horses carriages or banks weren't huge gameplay features. Or that WW or V gameplay was minimal (and V were in MW). All nice to have but no game makers or breakers. Of course it helped that I could get all of that and then some back through mods

So I guess I am still surprised that the difference was large enough for you to love the one and hate the other.
It was that "less of everything" feeling: less skills, less guilds, less quests, less interesing, less quality, etc.

I understand, considering what you value most in games I can see how it was dissapointing. Though there is still a difference of a dissapointment and total shit.

And I thought MW had a plus since while the quests still were Fed Ex and boring, they were better embedded in the world, with the various factions taking on a certain reality, because you learnt mre about their agenda, their struggels against each other etc. as the game went on...

That only highlighted and draw attention to the lack of any reaction & consequences in the game.

There we are different, I think a well painted background always adds a lot to the game, no matter what. And the quest were designed in a way that didn't really raise the expectation that there should be huge consequences. And DF doesn't get better just because it "didn't draw attention" to its lack of consequences either.

 

[Solik]

Hey, I didn't know Morrowind's factions had multiple lines. That's pretty cool.

The core of the disagreement here is mostly on how to achieve depth. Daggerfall went with tons of skills, where each skill is basically just a number stuck into a formula. Your ability to select and manipulate those skills created the depth and interest in the game. In Oblivion, there's far fewer skills, but skills do more than just plug into a formula (for the most part). There's skill perks at multiple levels, which do things like unlock new combat moves or allow for investing and such. So, the choice between skills matters a lot more, but there's not as many skills to choose from.

Which is better is entirely personal preference. Obviously the best system is lots of skills where all of them are deep, but perfect games would require near-infinite development time, and over-ambition leads to buggy Daggerfalls :p

 

[whitemithrandir]

Hey, I didn't know Morrowind's factions had multiple lines. That's pretty cool.

The core of the disagreement here is mostly on how to achieve depth. Daggerfall went with tons of skills, where each skill is basically just a number stuck into a formula. Your ability to select and manipulate those skills created the depth and interest in the game. In Oblivion, there's far fewer skills, but skills do more than just plug into a formula (for the most part). There's skill perks at multiple levels, which do things like unlock new combat moves or allow for investing and such. So, the choice between skills matters a lot more, but there's not as many skills to choose from.

Which is better is entirely personal preference. Obviously the best system is lots of skills where all of them are deep, but perfect games would require near-infinite development time, and over-ambition leads to buggy Daggerfalls :p

Well, my main gripe with Oblivion isn't the fact that there are less skills; it's that these skills are fluffed up with fancy, less complex, and frankly unneccessary components, such as minigames and twitch-based checks, all of which I firmly believe detracts from the core RPG experience.

 

[Perishiko]

Hey, I didn't know Morrowind's factions had multiple lines. That's pretty cool.

The core of the disagreement here is mostly on how to achieve depth. Daggerfall went with tons of skills, where each skill is basically just a number stuck into a formula. Your ability to select and manipulate those skills created the depth and interest in the game. In Oblivion, there's far fewer skills, but skills do more than just plug into a formula (for the most part). There's skill perks at multiple levels, which do things like unlock new combat moves or allow for investing and such. So, the choice between skills matters a lot more, but there's not as many skills to choose from.

Which is better is entirely personal preference. Obviously the best system is lots of skills where all of them are deep, but perfect games would require near-infinite development time, and over-ambition leads to buggy Daggerfalls :p

Well, my main gripe with Oblivion isn't the fact that there are less skills; it's that these skills are fluffed up with fancy, less complex, and frankly unneccessary components, such as minigames and twitch-based checks, all of which I firmly believe detracts from the core RPG experience.

Edit: What i typed got deleted somehow.

Anyhow, what annoying mini-game besides the persuasion crap is there?

The lock picking mini-game can easily be skipped with a press of a button to allow for skill checks.

 

[whitemithrandir]

Edit: What i typed got deleted somehow.

Anyhow, what annoying mini-game besides the persuasion crap is there?

The lock picking mini-game can easily be skipped with a press of a button to allow for skill checks.

The Combat is a mini-game in and of itself.

 

[Perishiko]

Edit: What i typed got deleted somehow.

Anyhow, what annoying mini-game besides the persuasion crap is there?

The lock picking mini-game can easily be skipped with a press of a button to allow for skill checks.

The Combat is a mini-game in and of itself.

I guess i haven't heard much about the combat. I heard it just dropped the dice rolls for the chance of hitting. As far as i knew there were automatic "neck strikes" that would cause paralyzing at high levels, but other then that...?

Can you clarify what you mean?