The Oblivion Thread vol. II

[yin26]

But man does the Oblivion plane reminded me of Quake or Doom (the originals). I felt a little Deja Vu.

I kept thinking of the final phase of Half Life, but you're right on those others, too. And I agree it's so easy to get sidetracked. I have to use great discipline to get x, y, z done before even thinking about a, b, c. I love it!

[Harovan]

I have played a bit around with several builds and classes and will now mainly play with 2 builds. Both are custom classes.

The first is a Mystic Warrior, a fighter with Blade, Block, Heavy Armor, Weaponsmithing, Restoration, Illusion and Mystics as main skills. He's a Breton with The Mage as birthsign. He represents the good side of me. He'll be a loyal agent of the new imperator and faithful Blade knight, focus on the main quest, never steal or murder and blah.

The other is a Soldier of Fortune, a thief with Blade, Light Armor, Weaponsmithing, Alchemy, Sneak, Security and Marksmanship as main skills. He's a Bosmer and his birthsign is The Thief. He's my evil side. He'll be a thief and cutthroat. He'll deliver the amulet and free Martin from Kvatch, after this he'll consider his moral debt (for being released from jail) as paid back, and he won't give a damn about the main plot anymore (hope that's possible). He doesn't care one bit about the throne, his only concern is to relieve every citizen from all their wealth and, if possible, take their lives too.

[yin26]

Nice! I also felt similar after just delivering Martin. I have even decided NOT to cure myself of being a Vampire because 1) I think Vampires are given a bad rap 2) some of the skill boosts are great and 3) I feel a certain debt of gratitute to a certain Arena Champion who, let's just say (for those who didn't solve this quest) had a special relationship to vampires.

So, I will likely help the Empire, but I will do so as a misunderstood vampire/thief who has no problems advancing himself by all sorts of illegal activity along the way. What a great game!

[Quillan]

Ralph, that is remarkably similar to what I played with both my characters so far. The first one was a thief-type, with Blade, Block, Light Armor, Sneak, Security, Marskman and Illusion as skills. Birthsign was The Lady. The second I call a War Wizard. He's also Breton, born under The Mage, with the skills of Blade, Block, Heavy Armor, Armorer, Destruction, Alteration and Mysticism.

[snoopy369]

How do you guys manage, with Blade and Armor in your major skills?? Doesn't that drive your level up way too fast?

[Dinner]

I bought this yesterday and I found that with blade and armor as major skills I leveled up quickly. To quickly as non of my other skills could keep up.

[Harovan]

Spellswords rule. Perhaps even a bit too much. It's nice to be able to give your adversary a good whack with your sword and at the same time have enough mana for several good heals during combat or after it. And it's pretty easy to level Block this way. I checked it with a highwayman: He wanted to extort me, I told him where he can stick it, he said fine!, and started to whack me. I put my shield up and waited till my health is down to 2/3, then set off a heal to full and rinse, repeat. My mana regenerated almost the same speed as he damaged me, so I could hold him off pretty long. At some point I killed him, had quite some block and heavy armor updates and, since shield and armor were pretty worn off, scored some armoring too. All 3 constitution - if I do this for a whole level, it should be a sure +5.

[yin26]

(...oops, this goes in the hardware section...)

[Harovan]

As for leveling too quick - as long as it's your main combat skills, you're fine. A problem is only if you level with non-combat skills, while you leave your combat skills sucking. Because then you're screwed in combat - monsters don't level in speechcraft or alchemy.

You can level other skills anytime you choose to. Just have a break and have an alchemy day, or cast some light, heals or detect live while running etc.

I tried a character with only those skills as major, which are controllable to level, but I found him horribly unfun. He had no personality. It's a rather powergaming approach. Gaining levels becomes extra work. Not that this is a bad thing per se, it's just not everyone's beef.

[snoopy369]

I suppose ... I just imagine that you'd level TOO fast. I have light armor and blade as nonmajor skills, yet am like 85 in blade and 100 in light armor, by level 20 ... if i'd had these as major skills, i'd have been level 20 way, way earlier, and had a much harder time with things ...

[ZargonX]

How do you guys manage, with Blade and Armor in your major skills?? Doesn't that drive your level up way too fast?

I just don't sleep unless I'm ready to level

[Dinner]

It still keeps building up. You'll sleep once and then find 5 levels have passed.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Oerdin
It still keeps building up. You'll sleep once and then find 5 levels have passed.

Actually, that's not true. If you 'earn' 2 levels, you get 1 level each time you rest, for 2 rests.

[Dinner]

I could have sworn. Only had it one day though.

[Asher]

Despite the notoriously ugly women and quirky glitches, Bethesda's Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion will go down in history as the fastest selling Xbox 360 game to date. Peddling to the tune of 1.7 million units since launch, the title has acquired an incredible market share and even spoke up for 13% of the total PC games sold that week. Just like the allure David Hasselhoff, Oblivion has even managed to become an international hit, having traveled over seas and broken records in the UK, Germany and France.

The game has also been received with open arms, as almost all of the reviews can testify. Metacritic reports a solid score describing "Universal Acclaim" for Oblivion and we haven't heard many other bad reports either. Next-gen RPG makers definitely have a yardstick to try and measure up to now. If you haven't had the opportunity to play this game yet, then what are you waiting for?