Now we descend into Oblivion ... (pt 3)

[Silver14]

Oblivion is better then Morrowind and lets not forget that Morrowind and its expansion are on the X-BOX so they've been touched by consoles as well.

When is the last time you played Morrowind, perhaps you should revisit it? I only ask because sometimes how we remember games isn't what they really are.

Morrowind un-modded anyway is kind of boring. Its easy and the opponents are not varied enough.

Oblivion isn't perfect though it can be too hard - the difficulty increaseing with your level seems unbalanced and the interface reeks of a console.

I wouldn't play Morrowind or Oblivion unmodded. Oblivion NEEDS interface mods and both games need the mods that make faces look better among other things.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Silver14
I was under the impression that the area to explore in Oblivion was larger then Morrowind. At any rate it is big enough for me.

It is. I know people complain, but the fact of the matter is that Oblivion IS much larger than Morrowind.

[Thorgal]

Originally posted by Silver14
Oblivion is better then Morrowind and lets not forget that Morrowind and its expansion are on the X-BOX so they've been touched by consoles as well.

Morrowind was designed for PC and retouched for consoles while Oblivion is designed for consoles and retouched for PC.

When is the last time you played Morrowind, perhaps you should revisit it? I only ask because sometimes how we remember games isn't what they really are.

In fact i have it installed now in my PC since i do some modding for the Tamriel Rebuilt mod.

Yeah, for sure Oblivion engine is infinitely better: physics, graphics... but Oblivion world design is worse. It seems they have not worked too hard in it. This time Bethesda has inverted much more time in eyecandy to show X-Box 360 graphic power that in extensive world building.

[Thorgal]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


It is. I know people complain, but the fact of the matter is that Oblivion IS much larger than Morrowind.

Nope, in fact Cyrodiil area is SMALLER, adding Oblivion areas it is slighty larger.

[Rasputin]

the only frustrating thing so far , is the lack of

Spoiler:

GARLIC

still to find/ steal one more

[Traianvs]

The game's starting to bore me a bit.

I'm levelling quickly, even though I have not even explored that much of the world. Then again the game is too time consuming in the sense that combat can take much too long from time to time. Quite often it's necessary to slash at someone for a while, retreat while healing and then hack away again. And usually every dungeon is composed of the same enemy, with no variety in them at all. Every dungeon looks the same, there are no special traps, mechanisms, surprises etc that you'd expect in an RPG. Baldur's gate (especially #2) did much better in that.

Cyrodiil is loaded with dungeons and places to loot, but they're all alike, there's no incentive to enter them anymore. The loot's usually nothing special anyway. From time to time there's a quest in there, like returning a missing argonian daughter or some fighting guild quest to rid a dungeon from a goblin infestation but that doesn't happen often!

So basically the dungeons take too long for what they are, so you end up doing a few dungeons wasting some thugs, and then after you've seen it over and over you search for some quests in the cities. That's a missed chance.

Maybe they could have made the world larger, with less dungeons, but better dungeons; worked out more and decorated hand-made instead of randomly generated. That would improve immersion (that's the makers' goal right?)


Another thing is that in order to speed and facilitate combat, enemies need to die quicker. They always seem to have loads of HP so after a while I don't care about hiding behind my shield, then striking etc etc. I'll simply keep hacking away non-stop and then heal afterwards which also takes some time but is usually quicker.
Furthermore, potions are mostly worthless, even the ones you pick up along the way. Let's say a potion that lasts 30 seconds is not going to make a big difference. It'll save you some HP or something, but you can heal yourself for free while you go on your way. The hassle of going to your inventory, then your 4th tab, and scrolling down and searching the right potions (even with the mod it's tedious) isn't worth it.
Couldn't they have implemented some hotkeys for your potion list, your spells etc (8 hotkeys is definately not enough). This reeks of console interface!

[Traianvs]

I forgot some more annoying things that I want to mention here

-The jumping. The way you can jump around is totally unrealistic. Okay it's an RPG, but if a physics engine for realistic movement of bodies, objects etc is used, it's better to use a realistic jump too. For example: a jump while attacking might look cooler and give more satisfaction. Right now jumping and attacking is really useless and hard to execute (even though it's an extra ability for having ranked in acrobatics)
And maybe, a jump that is useful could be more fun too. I mean, I can jump reaaallly high now, but so far it hasn't brought me to places that I couldn't get to otherwise. Sure I can jump on the city wall of bruma, but that's about it. With the possibility of jumping now they could have added some hard to get places or other ways of entering a building, sneaking in and looting the place for example?

-Same criticism could be applied to sneaking. Once you whack at a guy, you can't hide again which is frustrating. Besides, opponents never hide on you, and have the AI of a retarded zombie which kinda sucks too.


anyways i could go on much longer but ya get the picture

if they can mix BG - thief - rune next time it will be fokin awesome.
They tried to add more immersion, but for me it's still not enough

[asleepathewheel]

I wish there were more good vs bad choices. Like when you confront the sirens at anvil. once you talk to them at the farm, its kill them. I want kotor style choices in these things. I want to be able to play a pure evil character, but the MQ is pure gooey goodness. Wish there was a chance to use oblivion for my own purposes...

[Rasputin]

yes an open ended RPG would be cool. no right or worng way to finish the game, just lots of real schoices which have consequences .

[Imran Siddiqui]

Couldn't they have implemented some hotkeys for your potion list, your spells etc (8 hotkeys is definately not enough). This reeks of console interface!

Morrowind had 9 hotkeys and no one says that game 'reeks of console interface'.

[Rasputin]

and esideas all us console owners are very happy

[El_Cid]

Originally posted by Rasputin
and esideas all us console owners are very happy

yes - i remember when i first got and played Morrowind(it was on my xbox) - i was just sooo happy to have atleast 1 game that had some depth to it, then Kotor came out and both those games stopped me selling the xbox. If was a 360 owner i'd be very gratefull for Oblivion also - it might be the game with most substance that the console will get?

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

Couldn't they have implemented some hotkeys for your potion list, your spells etc (8 hotkeys is definately not enough). This reeks of console interface!

Morrowind had 9 hotkeys and no one says that game 'reeks of console interface'.

Morrowind is too long ago so I can't remember and comment on that, but the fact remains that I dislike the hassle of clicking through menus. I want fookin hotkeys ! Every decent and non-decent game has them

[Kinjiru]

Originally posted by Thorgal
Oblivion lacks the variety of Morrowind and the world scale is ridiculous and an obstacle for proper further modeling.

Not sure that I understand why you think that the world size has anything to do with restricting modding? There is still plenty of space on the map for things. Especially in the northwest and northeastern areas.

Or, just put a small cave entrance on the surface and make an enormous underground Dwemer installation, or Vampire stronghold, or set it up as an enormous city that was buried in an earthquake.

Or, have the player jump on a boat and 'sail', that is insta-transport, to a wholly new island or whatever.

Or, have the player gain access (sneak in if a thief, earn access if a mage, serve as a mage's bodyguard if a warrior) to a mystical teleporting device that takes the player to a new landmass.

In other words, use a little imagination.

Also, I think the perception of size has much more to do with two UI elements. 1) The very short day/night cycle and 2) the location markers popping up at an (IMHO) extremely far distance. Lenghten the cycling and turn off (or reduce) the marker distance (BTMod, and others) and the world instantly feels much much larger because you will truly have to wander around when trying to find something.

[Thorgal]

Oh, I was not speaking about perception of size but of real size.

Lets see... Cities in TES world are where they are, you cant add some city wherever you want in northeast because there are more free space, that would be a shoody piece of work. The great mods, as Silgrad Tower/Dark Marsh or Tamriel Rebuilt among others have thousands of people working in rebuilding Tamriel continent with great succes. They have rebuilt huge areas, for instance all the Morrowind province around Vvardenfell is yet finished for Morrowind engine. Now they are trying to do the same for Oblivion. But they cant.

An example to illustrate it: there are another mod trying to rebuild Morrowind world in Oblivion engine. The first intention was the obvious one: adding all the Morrowind province to current Oblivion World. That would be nice wouldnt it? Impossible. You cant rebuild Morrowind world in Oblivion scale, there are not enough space. For instance Balmora would overlap with Caldera, Pelagiad with Seyda Neen. there would be no place for mountains, islands, for nothing. So forget it.

It is sad because to build exteriors now is a lot easier than in Morrowind becuase now we have tools to randomize vegetation , speeding up the world creation as Bethesda did (ala Daggerfall ) and the use of Grayscale bitmaps for terrain relief, while in Morrowind all was done manually.

The only solutions are:
1- Rebuild Cyrodiil too in a proper scale
2- Using your "imaginative solutions". For instance doing the provinces in separated mods, in diferent scales.

The second one is obviously ****, so the only solution is to throw away all the Oblivion's Cyrodiil province to remake it in a proper scale.