Oblivion

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Nostromo
Isn't Mount & Blade a third person game?

I think it can be played in first or third, just like Oblivion.

[Dis]

had to take a break, the game is making me dizzy.

[El_Cid]

lol yeah that circling around on horseback kind of dizzy - still amazing simulated combat though as you do get sick and dizzy when running around in circles on a horse!

I think when I stopped trying to make Oblivion into the game it couldn't be(I've seen some posts on the amount of mods people use - I think I was running around 12?), and wanted a change from the sometimes too epic dungeon crawling in Daggerfall....as it really could on occasion destroy your will to live(in game); I went back to Morrowind and got into modding that. You really can mod Morrowind into a very different game(ok the combat will always be its weak point - don't know why they changed it from Daggerfalls?).

After a few months of doing it with about 20-30 mods, I was persuaded to go that extra mile and use wyremash - then that opened up another level of Morrowind modding(wasn't easy mind you!) and in the end my mix ended with around 100 mods. It's not 100% stable, has any Bethesda rpg on PC been? but it's entirely possible to recover most situations with wyremashes built in fixer, unlike in the default game where by a hosed save was un-recoverable.

So now I got a Morrowind game with about 33% more landmass over the GOTY edition, completely new textures to avoid that 'everything is very brown' syndrome.
New char models(nude also as stick on pants just seems too smelly no?) that are mostly better looking than Oblivions(not quite as detailed, but no funny lighting effects+paint on beards etc).

100's of new wildlife types(in the sea on land and in the air), 100's of new monster types, 1000's of new weapon+armour models+clothing choices.
A few new factions(+quests) and a few new races along with 100's of new faces for char gen start.
New sound effects all over Morrowind(frogs ribbet near marshes etc).
Dozens of new quest lines to follow, many come with the new landmass mods like 'Sea of Destiny' etc.
I need to sleep and eat and drink, shops shut at night and day/night time really means something now.

Weather effects skills, so for example being a thief at night or in heavy fog makes things easier.

I got a shed load of new buyable houses to own, and a banking system to keep my cash in. And it's a much tougher challange also(all the various balanced weapons/armour/skills mods etc).

The list of improvements is just too long, and I keep finding new stuff all the time, that I forgot I put in(or didn't read too much of the readme files to give it away).

Oh and it's all been free!(poor console gamers )

In some ways it still is the same old Morrowind so it's not 100% perfect:

The combat still feels the oddest out of the TES series, or about as odd as I found combat in Oblivion,
'oh look I can't miss, even with a 20% score in blade' - which is kind of the counter to Morrowinds,
'God darn why do I always miss with my bow - I got 30% skills!'

The economy is still broken, even with some mods that try to address the issue of being able to make too much money - I still can make too much money too easily.

I can't ride a horse(but there is a mod for that), but after seeing how that worked in Oblivion, I figure it's only a good feature in a game like Daggerfall where the game world size is big enough.

And the game still evolves as a catch or carry type of game(go there, take this, kill that etc).

But overall I'm totaly glad I learn't how to build a mega-mod Morrowind, in terms of the TES games it really does give me a proper choice over just wanting to play Daggerfall all the time(and being sad it was never really finished!).

Looking at Oblivion(and the valient effort of the modders to make it as epic modding wise as Morrowind) which really is a pale comparison as a TES game, with too many fundemental flaws that can't be modded out.

If people want to give it a go(making the ultimate TES game via modding Morrowind) check out these links:

http://www.mwmythicmods.com/ronin.htm#6

http://www.mwmythicmods.com/telesphoros.htm

http://www.elricm.com/nuke/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index

http://wrye.ufrealms.net/#Morrowind

EDIT: This is a must have, the FPS optimizer program to increase view range.

http://www.elricm.com/nuke/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&req=viewdownloaddetails&lid=816

For many things you may need to google around for live links, but the info is out there somewhere. I can't say when I will finish Morrowind now - it could be years! All good ones too!

[Dis]

sometimes they try too hard to have the characters be realistic. No female eye candy . A lot of females are old hags. But sometimes it looks like they just put the face creater on random and go with it. They have these weird complexions that don't match. Like they have this skin disease.

And creating your own face takes like 20 minutes. Holy hell!

I had no desire to create another character after installing ooo, even though they recommend it. They say it would be imbalanced. They didn't say exactly how it would be imbalanced. I was still killing stuff very fast with my silver 2 hander (I'm level 5) outside.

But I went in these one ruins, and getting my ass handed to me. Not only do I have to deal with this thing shooting frost thingies at me (some kind of trap), I have 2 mobs and their summons. I managed to get the spectral wolf by leading him into the water. So I guess that's good, I had to retreat, that area was too tough for me.

It's just this game seems boring. And the mods don't really change that. Don't think I'm ever going to finish this game. I may play today, but probably not. I think I'll just pick up the nwn expansion instead.

[El_Cid]

Yeah the face gen in Oblivion is one of what i call the 'two steps forward two steps back'(2sf2sb) design issues in the game. It is a very powerfull tool for char gen, but it takes a long time to make each face and it's pretty hard to actualy get the exact look you know you want.
The way shadows work on the model in the game world isn't hinted at in the face-gen, so often you get to the game and it looks bad - time to try again.

Still the animation+reaction to actions in the game world is very well done in places. I spent much too long looking at the way rats+zombies reacted to my blows - it was very detailed. Shame I couldn't seem to put an item down on a table or shelf without throwing all the items around it all over the place though!(2sf2sb)

Be carefull with not starting a new char when you add mods - you may get all sorts of weird reactions. Still your game still appears to be running(not crashing) so maybe it's not a big issue?

In Morrowind, especialy a super moded version, you can't get away with that - once I had my 100+ mods it took me about 3 months of play testing to work out which mods would work ok and seemed a good addition to the game. I can't even guess how many chars I had to create through that process!!! still I didn't have to spend 20 mins on each face - so that helped.

This was an interesting article that probably some will remember:

http://consumer.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTA2NCwxLCxoY29uc3VtZXI=

I think through it you can see why Oblivion was the game it was, and why Ken no longer works for Bethesda. It's reading between the lines a bit, but with the departure of a guy with the track record and role playing experience of Mr.Rolston, and I guess a move towards favouring new, younger talent in terms of game design; well it's why I no longer find TES an interesting game series, and why I'm fairly confident their attempt at Fallout will leave me equaly cold.

[Serb]

Originally posted by El_Cid
In Morrowind, especialy a super moded version, you can't get away with that - once I had my 100+ mods it took me about 3 months of play testing to work out which mods would work ok and seemed a good addition to the game. I can't even guess how many chars I had to create through that process!!!

You are a maniac.

[El_Cid]

Originally posted by Serb

You are a maniac.

BUT.....I do now have one of the best crpgs i've ever played, and it will keep me going for a very long time.

hmmm i suppose if I ever finish it all, I can simply go and look through all the mods again and build a different version from the thousands freely available.

Oblivion(and any future TES) will never be able to compete - they are not designed that way now.

[pg]

Personally I think Oblivion is the best in the series yet. Maybe over time my opinion will change but I think it's great so far with maybe 30-40hrs played for me. My favorite before that was Daggerfall. I find almost everything to be substantially improved over Morrowind. The only thing TES series needs now to be almost perfect is some random dungeons.

[EPW]

Originally posted by El_Cid

Oblivion(and any future TES) will never be able to compete - they are not designed that way now.

I don't see why not, Oblivion has a more powerful editor than morrowind. There are thousands of great mods availible, and for the most part game play is better in Oblivion than in morrowind.

[El_Cid]

It's true that my opinion is just that. And it won't apply to everyone - we all like different things, and thats how it should be.

For me no matter what I tried to do modding wise in Oblivion, it remained the most shallow of the TES game so far, and that wasn't good enough for me - I was expecting more of a real progression of the series, not just an incredible graphic overhaul.

As for modding Oblivion, yes it has mods and can be modded, but from most of the Morrowind modders you read it isn't as flexible as the editor you got in Morrowind.

You have to read around in the Morrowind forums to get at this info - as on the official Oblivion forums they have a habit of deleting threads that try to make an honest discussion on these kind of subjects.

I'll just say 'voice dialogue' to point at one big flaw in Oblivions design and it's modding potential. Of course if an rpg isn't about the story of the adventure for a player, then they will probably not rate this too highly.

If someones idea of an rpg is more Diablo, than Betrayal at Krondor for example, then Oblivion has all the modding potential you need.

This is not wrong, just pretty dissapointing when stacked against what TES could have been if the original design had been kept as the backbone of the series.

Remember it started out as a pnp rpg that guys like Julian Le Fey ported to computer. And while never properly realized, they were getting close.

Now Oblivion(and future TES no doubt) can sit happily alongside Halo3 and find they share so much in common.

Progress? debatable.....but they sure made a bucket of cash with the consolification process and chargeing for small mods etc.

That kind of thing just lost the series for me. I won't buy any more as from my point of view the older games are better TES rpgs - and can be made more so all the time.

I guess it really is just a matter of personal tastes when it comes to what crpg means to each of us.

[Nostromo]

Oblivion was better than Morrowind on a number of points. But despite those improvements, I think Morrowind was still a better game overall, even though I was never gaga about Morrowind. The setting was more interesting, less generic than Oblivion. The story was better, more intriguing (even though I didn't get far). In Morrowind, exploring the country side was actually fun. You had wreckages to explore. There were the cool dwarven ruins. And you were rewarded for exploring. But not in Oblivion. You get a couple of coins and some plants. Big ****ing deal...

[Solver]

I'll just say 'voice dialogue' to point at one big flaw in Oblivions design and it's modding potential.

Absolutely. I think it might just be the worst thing about Oblivion, actually. The decision to record all dialogue puts a fairly stringent limit on how much text they can have. As a result, there wasn't as much dialogue in Oblivion as there could have been (for random characters and less-important questlines). Besides, the voice-acting itself is sometimes horrible. Not to be annoying, it'd need 2 or 3 people for each race. As it is, instead, they have like 1 person per 2 races. As a result, not only do all Nords sound the same, but they also sound very similar to Orcs.

The main quest characters are well-acted, though. That's what I would have preferred. Full voice dialogue for the main quest, done with good voice actors, as it is the case, and good old text-only for the rest.

Thanks to modding, though, I like Oblivion. I got some interface mod to deal with the biggest gripes on the first day, have added more of various mods since. Good stuff. Things I like in Oblivion, compared to Morrowind:

1. NPCs. Their AI is far, far, far less interesting than what the developers promised. They simply don't do most of the things that were advertised as AI features. Nonetheless, Oblivion NPCs actually do something. Just the fact that they move around and between areas is good. NPCs sucked in Morrowind. The vast majority would only move within a 5m radius. Some were just rooted in spot. Day and night, no matter what weather. It was such a huge atmosphere killer.

2. Challenge. Oblivion has some challenge, levelling of enemies isn't done exactly right, but again better than Morrowind. In Morrowind, with any character, you start becoming really powerful at around level 8-10. By level 20 you're practically a god. With my Morrowind character, a mage, I didn't powerplay. I don't even have some of the more powerful artifacts or use exploit-y tricks. Yet, the character can practically take out armies alone.

Oblivion's levelled enemies are nice to ensure that you always get a challenge. There'll always be bandits that are a challenge, for example. It just has other silly side effects. Such as, when you hit level X, suddenly all bandits get upgraded weapons and armor. When you're level 30, the common bandit has armor that, if sold, could probably buy him a manor.

3. Quests. Morrowind was quite lacking in quest variety. Oblivion has more varied quests and some are truly inventive. Moreover, many of the Oblivion quests have stories associated with them - a bit more than a one-sentence description. This is particularly true with the guilds. Oblivion guild quests follow a storyline. Morrowind guilds, for the most parts, had separate quests that had little to do with one another.


What I liked better in Morrowind:

1. Exploration. Morrowind had more unique places. Oblivion also has different types of places - caves, forts, Ayleid ruins, each fun in its own way. That's fine compared to the Morrowind Dwemer ruins and Daedric shrines. What Oblivion lacks is unique stuff in there. In Morrowind, some dungeons had unique items hidden. There's the whole problem of balance with them being sometimes quite overpowered, but it was fun to seek artifacts. It was fun and satisfying to complete a dungeon and find a unique item. Oblivion doesn't have much in the way of unique items.

2. Weirdness. Oblivion's setting is fine and each city has a distinctive style. However, as is traditional to many RPGs, Oblivion's places mostly look like medieval Europe. The forests are also beautiful and all. But Morrowind had a whole bunch of these really weird-looking places. The Telvanni mushroom cities. Some of those mushroom plant/tree things in the wilderness.

3. Universe role. This is simple. Morrowind simply has much more of the universe stuff - history of that world, in-game fiction and all.



I think that there's a fair amount of things Oblivion does right. With mods, it improves a lot - mods have also greatly increased my enjoyment of Morrowind. By the way, some of the Morrowind graphics mods are amazing. With higher-res textures, additional lighting features and, of course, new models, modded Morrowind can look far better than "regular" Morrowind.

[ZEE]

Solver you forgot the fact that you could be fighting a dude with 3 arrows stuck in his head and still lose...

[Solver]

That's true in both

Really, the combat in these games is a bit weird. Morrowind is like D&D in the first person. Which sucked for intuitiveness. You swing a sword, you see it going towards your enemy graphically, he's standing just in front of you... no hit. And you miss like 8 out of 10 shots while your weapon skill is very low.

Oblivion's combat is more on the FPS side, making aiming and reflex more important. There, though, weapons skill isn't important enough, particularly given how all weapons are classed as either Blunt or Blade...

EDIT: Morrowind's stability soooooo sucked. It's not just the bugs, it's the crashes. Lots and lots of crashes. And loading times that are about the same as Oblivion's, if not longer.

[Skanky Burns]

A hallmark of TES games has been freedom. One of the design changes I dislike in Oblivion is the distinct increase in restrictions. You can't wear a robe over your armour, you can't even wear pants under your robe (unmodded), you can only have 4 potions affecting you at once, hell, with the reduction of weapons to blade, blunt and bow, I can not even make a character who weilds a halberd or even a basic spear.

The exploring factor can be somewhat modded away. Using OOO for instance, higher-level characters exist in specific areas so you have to go and find them if you want to loot them, rather than just levelling up level up the entire world at the same time.

One further complaint against voice acting, characters tend to have different styles of speech depending on what you ask them. This is glaringly obvious when talking to beggars, but occurs in other characters as well.

Another big gripe I have is that the capital city of the entire empire has a population roughly on par with any city in Morrowind and a fraction of that in Vivec. As the centre of an empire, it should be the spot to be and have a population to match.

That said, I do like the fact that NPCs move around and actually do other stuff. I like the better graphics (modded so I can see more than 6 items in my inventory at a time). I like the better stability of Oblivion, although its performance could be a bit more consistant (repeatedly killing scamps in the same location tends to slow the system down despite the fact that they disappear when respawning).

I am enjoying playing Oblivion and will do the main and most side quests too, but I will be going back to Morrowind after that.