Preview Shivering Isles of Choices

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

but it's not a direct attempt to be comedic.

On the Roofling Isles? Please.

 

[bat_boro]

Because the expansion features fewer NPCs the team was able to go into more depth with each, fleshing out their personalities more completely, and with that giving them more to say. This figures directly into the quest design that aims to take advantage of these eccentric characters and their unique situations. Their warped psyches present plenty of convoluted, entertaining problems to solve, but it's not a direct attempt to be comedic.

I don't think we'll see a memorable character there.
In fact, the only NPC that I remember from Oblivion was Glathir, the crazy guy ... well, he was kind of cool, until the moment I killed him.

It sure means more voice acted text, though.
And more boredom, I think.
After all, why do you need to listen when the yellow pointer is leading you by the hand and telling you what to do?

 

[Elhoim]

Examples such as the sword and the Felldew quest give us hope that the realm of the Shivering Isles is just as detailed and complex as that of Oblivion.

Enough said

At first I thought this was just another standard Oblivion quest where I would ask enough people questions until finding the answer and then return for the reward. This being the land of Dementia, we had a new tool to grease the wheels - torture. To be honest, I spent the next half of an hour walking around town having my henchman shoot lightning bolts at random citizens whether they knew anything or not.

Shoting lightning bolts instead of speaking? That sounds EXTREME! :twisted:

 

[JarlFrank]

Shoting lightning bolts instead of speaking? That sounds EXTREME! :twisted:

My imaginations of torture go far beyond that, but whatever... I guess they wouldn't want to scare off the younger players, who are their target group

 

[Jim Kata]

Choice figures prominently throughout the expansion. The gate itself even offers you two doors from which to choose. Both lead to Sheogorath...

Watch out, VD--if they keep this up, you'll be out of work!

If they add another door - leading to Sheogorath, of course - I'm fucked.

I knew I shoulda chose the blue door!

 

[Micmu]

Don't worry guys, you'll be able to go through all doors at once.

 

[Cthulhugoat]

Don't worry guys, you'll be able to go through all doors at once.

Can I fast travel through doors? Opening doors if booooring! Look, a butterfly!

Uh huh. So, what is Shivering Isles about? R00FLES and L0L0L0L0LLIP0Ps (teh humro!) or madness ores, madness swords LOL and madness turds (ZOMG madness elemental)?

 

[kingcomrade]

(ZOMG madness elemental)?

That would be so Xtreme.

 

[franc kaos]

Not to stop the Oblivion bashing because you're all having such fun, but the two doors do lead to different areas in the shivering isle which I believe comes under choice and consequence...

I already know that. Two cities, you can go to either. It's mind-blowing. What's the point about bolding "and"? They only make sense as pair anyway.

And the sword that is different, I believe Ultima7 part 2 had something similiar - how lame...

The sword isn't terrible by itself, but no reason to kiss Bethesda's feet either. OMG, STOP THE BASHING! THERE IS SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T TOTALLY SUCK)!!!

Besides, the best part about getting the Blackrock Sword in Black Gate - I don't recall any special sword in Serpent Isle - was the process of aquiring it, not admiring your character while swinging it around.

Don't get me wrong, I won't be buying this, or any other Bethesda product for the foreseeable future. If I wanted to play console games I'd buy a console. I'm from the Arena/Daggerfall era (currently getting into Gothic3 - anyone know what a grey endurance bar means?), but if people are going to rip the piss out of a sentence (from the news clip it's made to look as though that's the complete sentence) they could at least use the whole thing.

Here's one: 25 - 30 hours playing time, yea, right, if you walk/ride everywhere, pick every available new herb, make potions,watch every sunset, sleep in game, clean out every dungeon, exhaust every conversation and do every side quest it might last 20 hours: Our QA testers are from the local care in the community hostels and work for meals.

The sentient sword in U7 was a reward when you finished a plugin they sold (though unlike Bethesda's plugin it did actually last quite a few hours). I believe (though my memory is bad) that it too grew stronger when it tasted blood and became quite uber, it could speak and was fairly sarcastic.

The bolded and: There were a couple of choices in Oblivion, but none of them seemed to suffer/offer any consequence.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

(currently getting into Gothic3 - anyone know what a grey endurance bar means?

Drink one of those disease potions.

 

[dagorkan]

Who the fuck enjoys 'crafting' in a role-playing game anyway? If you need the crafting (Arx Fatalis) as part of the quest/plot maybe but when there is no apparent plot... LOL. Get ingredient #1, get ingredient #2, click your mouse button and get some shitty item which serves no purpose. It's like the Next-gen chemistry nerd experience. Why the fuck would your character want to visit the Shivering Isles? If you are not mad before playing this mod you'll be shivering in a corner like a schizo before it ends.

 

[Kingston]

Crafting can be quite fun. I rather enjoyed it in Arcanum, but it could have been oh so much better.

 

[dagorkan]

I thought it didn't really work in Arcanum. You put points into the skills and bought recipes but often you would only use a item schematic once in the game - except things like bullets, traps, salves and explosives. You really need to read a walkthrough to know what's worthwhile and what you will need otherwise you simply waste character points. There's also no time element and you can 'craft' pretty much anywhere.

Of course you can also mass-produce some items just for sale but it's boring and just stupid because you spend so much time doing it and can't say "Party spends five days in Tarant making stuff to sell".

I thought a nice 'crafting' system in 'Return to Krondor'. Basically you would only make potions during the Camp/Sleep option. You needed all kinds of bulky/heavy equipment and sometimes very complex combinations of base ingredients (from types of liquid/water bottles, multiple herbs, special ores etc) which took different times to make. Also the ingredients to products requirements was (relatively) logical.

Again though the stuff was so heavy that realistically you wouldn't drag it around everywhere. For the main part of the adventure it's just an extra weight better left behind... which meant preparation, calculating how many of different kinds of potions, grenades, repair pastes, poisons etc you would need in advance and being careful with your resources.

Crafting isn't meant to be a fun part of the gameply, it should be a costly but valuable tool with the potential of making some of your tasks easier or opening up new quest completion options if you had the foresight to prepare - or paid attention to rumors (eg bringing holy water or making the anti-vampiric antidote in RtK).

Combining crafting with a completely 'open' (sandbox) game is probably not going to work.

 

[OccupatedVoid]

Jimbob, are you going to download this via Azureus so that you can review it?

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

Jimbob, are you going to download this via Azureus so that you can review it?

You're a horrible person. The very suggestion appalls me, as it should appall all right-thinking folks.
Azureus is bloatware.

 

[JarlFrank]

Jimbob, are you going to download this via Azureus so that you can review it?

I am going to buy it, and maybe review it too. Heck, the few cheap laughs at the bad game design alone will be worth it.

 

[Claw]

The sentient sword in U7 was a reward when you finished a plugin they sold (though unlike Bethesda's plugin it did actually last quite a few hours). I believe (though my memory is bad) that it too grew stronger when it tasted blood and became quite uber, it could speak and was fairly sarcastic.

Arcadion needed life to restore his powers, so you can access his magic abilites. I don't know about doing more damage with the blade, but then I didn't pay that much attention to combat. Anyway, thanks for telling me about The Forge of Vritues again, it's already been half a year since I last played it after all.

 

[Volourn]

"Crafting isn't meant to be a fun part of the gameply"

Type for yourself, you big fuckin' piece of shit. Crafting is meant to be fun, and can be if done right. So.. fuck off.

As for Shivering Isles.. I'm shivering over the knowledege that many of the bashing it, and Bestheda in this very trhead are gonna buy it anyways.

I'd weep for them if I actually had the capacity to cry.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Type for yourself, you big fuckin' piece of shit. Crafting is meant to be fun, and can be if done right. So.. fuck off.

Volourn, if I ban you again, it will be a long one. I'm one of the few people who like you, but bullshit like that I simply won't tolerate.

 

[Volourn]

"Volourn, if I ban you again, it will be a long one. I'm one of the few people who like you, but bullshit like that I simply won't tolerate."

Neither will someone tellinge me what i should think, or do.


"I'm one of the few people who like you,"

Stop lying. It's embarassing.

 

[Limorkil]

Sounds terrible

the tears she cries during these rendezvous are poison to her creation. Collected from a handkerchief she drops, they can be applied to your weapon to give you the upper hand against the giant.

In the original game there is a quest where you go through a portal into the world represented by a painting, and there are trolls you can kill using turpentine as a poison on your weapon. So the "odd poison gives you an edge against a specific foe" idea is not exactly original.

The gate itself even offers you two doors from which to choose. Both lead to Sheogorath, but depending which you chose you'll either set foot in Mania or Dementia first. <snip> Mania excesses reign supreme; it's a bacchanalian celebration gone awry and everything glistens with an unbelievable sheen. Head to the other side and you get the baser side, and a real sense of descending into Dementia. Everything is dark and foreboding

So, basically its just a variation on Good/Evil, Heaven/Hell. Oh the Plane of Madness. It's so .... mad!

The new Dawnfang sword is also sure to be sought out by many. Get 12 kills with it and it becomes more powerful, leveling up in a sense, but the catch is that it resets every 12 hours with the cycle of the sun. But as the only item in the game that does anything like that, its appeal is undeniable.

Except that this idea was already done in Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul, the most popular PC fan-made mod, with the "Light of Dawn" that gets more powerful with each vampire you kill. Hell, "Dawnfang" / "Light of Dawn" - not even the name is terribly different.

The map of the Shivering Isles looks an awful lot like a head in profile view, and, divided up as it is, it's easy to picture as one of those medical cross-sections of the mind that show you which areas are responsible for the different parts of the human psyche. In this case, though, it describes the landscape of a land born from the mind of madness.
After passing the gate from Fringe ...

Am I the only person who thinks that maps that look like a picture of something are really fucking lame. I always hate map competitions for games like Heroes of Might and Magic where the winner did some stupid map that, when fully cleared of the "fog of war", looks like Abe Lincoln.

With so much to play with, you're sure to want to get to it right away when you get Shivering Isles, and the way Oblivion handles character progression lets you do that. Because the enemies all scale along with you as you progress, you can start a new character and almost right away head into the expansion. While that might not be completely realistic -- there's a few basics you'll want like a better weapon, or a new spell -- you can make a quick run through Cyrodiil and be on your way in good time.

OK, now that shows you that this preview was heavily stage managed by Bethesda. The biggest criticism of the game is the stupid leveled content, yet here is a paragraph in the preview that just happens to point out the positive aspect of the system. Any content that spends a lot of words trying to convince you that the most negative aspects of something are actually benefits should be labeled what it really is - marketing.

 

[Vault Dweller]

"Volourn, if I ban you again, it will be a long one. I'm one of the few people who like you, but bullshit like that I simply won't tolerate."

Neither will someone tellinge me what i should think, or do.

Volourn, this situation has only two potential outcomes. One, you tone your insults down, and two, you'll get perma-banned. Your choice.

Note to anyone who asked me to unban Volourn: if you can talk some sense into the boy, do it now. If it comes to another ban, it will be permanent.

 

[Volourn]

That's life. *shrug*

The fellow started it by posting bullshit, and I called him on it. That's the Codex way.

Deal with it. I'll deal with the banning.

I warned YOU that it wouldn't take long to get more banning threats.

Bring. It. On.

 

[Jim Kata]

What ever happened to vollyboy, anyhow?

He's always held unbearably ridiculous opinions but he seems to just get more...er, nutty, over time.

 

[Vault Dweller]

The fellow started it by posting bullshit, and I called him on it. That's the Codex way.

The fellow had an opinion. You disagree? You debate it. This is the Codex way. Calling him "you big fuckin' piece of shit" because your opinion is different, isn't.