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I picked up Shivering Isles on the way home today. I'm about an hour or so into it (just got past the gatekeeper and wandering around Mania). The expansion itself appears to be quite stable, with no outstanding bugs (though I did find an minor alignment issue with a wall - I mention this because one of my mods is causing CTDs in the Tamerial world space, with surprising frequency after the 1.2 patch - yeah, that'll be fun to track down...).

The voice actors appear to be same from base game, with a couple of others thrown in (one of which sounds very similar to the Imperial voice actor).

The world space looks to be completely hand made, with lots of details. Mania itself looks like the Chorrol-Burma road area crossed with the south eastern sections of Morrowind, and its damn cool. The textures look almost as good as Qarls while having a much smaller memory foot print.

The creature design is very good. They're strange(r), made sewn/rend flesh, bones and/or wood and bark.

Anyway, here's a few shots:





For those that haven't updated to 1.2 yet, you can see the new LOD system in action in the first two shots.

And they'd look a lot better if Nvidia would fix the AA/HDR problem in Vista...

I was blown the fuck away.

Where Oblivion had endless redwood forests that got pretty boring, this new land's areas are wonderful. I spent hours roaming through Dementia, a sickly green-gray landscape covered in fog and dying trees and giant mushrooms. It's quite interesting. I fought aweseome-looking monsters, including one that looks like a giant Praying Mantis crossed with a spider. The other area is all golds, purples, and blues, and it really is like a barrage of colour.

The game really feels like a lot of detail and thought went into every single NPC and location. All people have unique personalities, and all the locayions have a definite 'feel' to them. Also, the side-quests rock, as does the main quest, and every other quest.

Even the caves and ruined forts are much more interesting than before.

Also, people no longer care if you walk around in public as the Gray Fox. Boss!

WHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATT IT IS OUT!?!?!??!?!?!



*grabs nearest praying mantis and bites its head off!!!!!!!!*



FOR THE GOD OF GOOOO!!!


EDIT: Oh and does it auto-update your oblivion to 1.2?

Shinova wrote:EDIT: Oh and does it auto-update your oblivion to 1.2?

Yes.

Okay, I just finished the Main Quest.

BRILLIANT!

I loved everything about it, from piecing the Gatekeeper back together to becoming the Duke of Dementia to becoming Sheogorath holy shit and becoming a Daedric Prince.

In addition, the dialogue is excellent, with Sheogorath's constant shouting and mockneyed scotch accent a good foil for Haskill, whose great as a dry manservant.

The quests managed to all seem fun and unique - even the 'Fetch' quests didn't feel like fetch quests.

BRLLNT!

What's the length of all the quests in the game compared to Oblivion?

Also, I hear there's no horses. My speed is 110 (Path of Steel gave me the +10), so I don't mind

Very very fun.

Also, try killing Sheogorath for a laugh. He paralyzes you, says "You shouldn't have done that. Enjoy the view!" then teleports you up very high in the sky to fall back down.

Dammit! I've only been able to put three hours into this. I've got to find some time to play this!

Vympel wrote:What's the length of all the quests in the game compared to Oblivion?

Also, I hear there's no horses. My speed is 110 (Path of Steel gave me the +10), so I don't mind

Same length, or a bit longer, really, but they're shorter since you don't have to travel nearly as far to get to the 'Dungeon far away from civilization containing x'. Also, they're fun enough that you never really notice, and there aren't any generic 'Fetch' quests that get repetitive and boring.

I got the game today and started playing- it was as soon as I finished the Main Quest*.

What's the armor like in the Shivering Isles? Better than Daedric? I currently have a full Sigil Stone enchanted set of Daedric (Resist Magic +110 with Mundane Ring, and some spell absorption due to the Spelldrinker Amulet, my custom helmet and the Magebane Greaves I found) and a few spare Sigil Stones (unfortunately I didn't have the patience to contiuously load game to get the Resist Magic +20 among the 22 Oblivion Gates I closed before the Main Quest shut them all forever, so I only have one of them).

It'd be a shame to stay in Daedric in the Shivering Isles if there's no method to get cool, enchanted Madness Armor that's more capable than my current Daedric set.

One cool feature I found is that when you steal in someone's house, they'll run up and take what you stole back from you.

I've yet to kill the Gatekeeper.

*Annoyingly, the first time I finished the Oblivion Main Quest (on this playthrough, I finished Oblivion originally last year, on my old machine) both Baurus and Jauffre died. I couldn't have that, so I loaded and went again, and they luckily both lived (though one hit would've killed Jauffre).

As to Knights of the Nine- in the Undercroft of the Priory of the Nine is a special display stand where you can put all the Relics of the Crusader with a simple tap of the spacebar (and take them off again, either all of them or one by one)- including the Mace and the Sword (the Sword is my main weapon).

Why the hell didn't Bethesda implement this as a buyable item for all your houses? I was thinking a similar display stand together with a weapon rack for all the different types of weapons (ie. Ebony Armor and all the Ebony weapons in a rack behind). The stand in the Undercroft proves it can be easily done.

For my part, in Frostcrag Spire (my main home) on the main level, I've set up manequins (provided by a manequin mod) in a sort of semi-circle on either side of the Atronach altar (not on the raised area, but on the floor below it) with all the different armor types that I've collected full sets of throughout my 110 hours of playing Oblivion. On the right is the heavy sets (including Blackwood Company armor, that's how anal I am) with Daedric Armor being in a position of primacy, and on the left is the light sets (including Brusef Amelions' armor), with Glass Armor being in a position of primacy. In the centre is a manequin with my Arch Mage robes, armed with my Mage's Staff of Soultrap (symbolic really).

In the Frostcrag Spire vaults I've stored all the different types of weapons (with the exception of the various longsword types, which are all being held in ready position by the manequins upstairs) for each armor set, the Daedric artifacts I have no use for, miscellaneous unique magic items I don't want to get rid of, a huge store of magic and normal arrowsl, and some spare full sets of glass and daedric just in case.

Oh, and the Bag of Holding mod works with Shivering Isles, so I really didn't need to go to all this trouble, but I thought I'd get my house in order before I set off to the Shivering Isles just in case.

This is the most fastidious I've been ever, by the way.

Somehow i talk to anyone in the houses and I only get the rumor speech option. Is there something screwed here or have i yet to do something?

That's pretty awesome, Vympel.

I just have a glass cases mod for my home in Skingrad, and I've thrown in a whole bunch of my spoils of adventure.

DPDarkPrimus wrote:That's pretty awesome, Vympel.

I just have a glass cases mod for my home in Skingrad, and I've thrown in a whole bunch of my spoils of adventure.

The glass cases that come with the houses, I find, are totally useless- the grab function (z key) is too imprecise to place anything anywhere with any neatness or precision- all my bookshelves and glass cases in Skingrad are empty