Elder Scrolls Oblivion review

Faram · Post by **Faram** » 2006-03-30 03:17am

Fellow Elder Scrolls Oblivion fanatics look at the new sticky!

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-03-30 04:32am

RE the robes-over-armour mod: I don't understand why they did it they way they do. If you just change robes to be only 'upper body', they're not invisible, nobody is naked, and there is only a tiny bit of clipping. I'll stick with my own mod, thanks.

Seggybop · Post by **Seggybop** » 2006-03-30 04:45am

I've become the leader of the Dark Brotherhood at level 1! Yay!

Luzifer's right hand · Post by **Luzifer's right hand** » 2006-03-30 09:05am

The only mod I use is the imporved UI...everything else just seems like cheating to me. I know I'm strange.

btw:
I cleaned quite a few Oblivion gates already and found out that games reuses maps. :/

Edit:
Awesome AI

Don't understand me wrong I love the game but I have never played a game before were NPCs which fight on your side were that stupid.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2006-03-30 09:27am

Just received the game in my hands here at the office. Looking forward to playing it this weekend. I'll probably read through this thread but to make things easier for noobs like myself are there some key pieces of advice to look out for when playing such as skills sets to avoid, must have skills, weapons, etc. You know down and dirty basic things to make the experience go smoothly the first time out of the gate.

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-03-30 09:52am

Stravo wrote:Just received the game in my hands here at the office. Looking forward to playing it this weekend. I'll probably read through this thread but to make things easier for noobs like myself are there some key pieces of advice to look out for when playing such as skills sets to avoid

I usually don't concern myself with such advice- I always play a pure Warrior, as much as any given game can allow, on the first run through, and Oblivion's other types of fighters (Crusader, Knight, etc) will likely follow. I never waste my time with mages- I hate spell casting in all its forms, no matter what the game is. To me, nothing is more downright fruity than being some toff in a robe lobbing fireballs. Just limp-dicked.

(of course, that doesn't stop me from getting useful magic skills, but the primary way of killing people will always be running them through with a longsword)

The mods discussed don't particularly attract me (I don't find the messages that annoying) though I will download one to fix the levelling of enemies- though I don't see such a thing on tessource.

One invaluable tool that came out for Morrowind that I hope they make for Oblivion is "the Revealer"- basically it lists every awesome, unique item in the game, and where (and how) to find it, by location.

With a cool external map application (showing all of Morrowind), it was easy to track down awesome gear, though some I found by total fluke (the underwater dwemer dungeon with Dragonbone Cuirass, for example).

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2006-03-30 10:41am

Definitely would be a warrior class. In all my RPG experiences I have rarely if ever played a mage (save for Diablo but that's not a 'real' RPG) so I'd be on the lookout for the skills that a warrior needs and the differences between the warrior 'classes' in the game.

I read in one review that combat is a bit clunky or clumsy. Not sure what your experiences are on that call by IGN but after seeing some of the screen caps and the promise of a real open game play where I can wander around and just have fun I am eager to pop this into my rig and play over the weekend.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-03-30 10:56am

The combat is quite good for a traditional RPG. It's no Mount and Blade, but it's pretty nice.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-03-30 02:56pm

I've opened an AMP thread for pictures. Post!

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2006-03-30 04:47pm

Vympel wrote:
Stravo wrote:Just received the game in my hands here at the office. Looking forward to playing it this weekend. I'll probably read through this thread but to make things easier for noobs like myself are there some key pieces of advice to look out for when playing such as skills sets to avoid
I usually don't concern myself with such advice- I always play a pure Warrior, as much as any given game can allow, on the first run through, and Oblivion's other types of fighters (Crusader, Knight, etc) will likely follow. I never waste my time with mages- I hate spell casting in all its forms, no matter what the game is. To me, nothing is more downright fruity than being some toff in a robe lobbing fireballs. Just limp-dicked.

My next run through will be a Battlemage. Robes? More like Daedric Armor. And the Fireball's just to cook them- they aren't done until I've cut them into serving portions with my Claymore.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-03-30 04:48pm

DPDarkPrimus wrote:
My next run through will be a Battlemage. Robes? More like Daedric Armor. And the Fireball's just to cook them- they aren't done until I've cut them into serving portions with my Claymore.

I suggest tweaking the base Battlemage class, its way too broad and non battle.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2006-03-30 05:35pm

Ace Pace wrote:
DPDarkPrimus wrote:
My next run through will be a Battlemage. Robes? More like Daedric Armor. And the Fireball's just to cook them- they aren't done until I've cut them into serving portions with my Claymore.
I suggest tweaking the base Battlemage class, its way too broad and non battle.

Oh, it'll be a custom class all right.

Post by **Vympel** » 2006-03-30 07:52pm

I think the combat is great. It's not too complicated, but the feel is fantastic- when you take a hit on your shield, you really feel it, and it's the same when you strike someone else.

As much as can be approximated, it feels like a real throw down medieval fight. When that Khajit highwayman with the iron warhammer attacked me on the road, it was a damn good fight. I thought my shield was going to break.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2006-03-30 08:23pm

Steath combat needs some work, first off all, there's no way to distract guards. I thought I was being smart when I pulled out my bow and shot a bowl off the table next to a guard so he would turn around, but he never blinked nor moved. So I outlined him in twenty arrows but until I hit him he never moved.

Likewise since I sneak attack everything, it's annoying to cast invsibility, jump to the side and stop only to have bandits still magicly see me, or at least charge towards where I am.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-03-31 01:46am

Vympel wrote:I think the combat is great. It's not too complicated, but the feel is fantastic- when you take a hit on your shield, you really feel it, and it's the same when you strike someone else.

As much as can be approximated, it feels like a real throw down medieval fight. When that Khajit highwayman with the iron warhammer attacked me on the road, it was a damn good fight. I thought my shield was going to break.

One thing that makes me annoyed is that theres a delay between clicking block and it blocking(maybe its just on my machine), sometimes I get hit because theres this 'delay' between actions.

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-03-31 02:50am

Yeah, if you're getting smacked around it takes you a while to get back to a ready position so you can whip up the shield. It's especially noticeable when you're facing multiple enemies.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2006-03-31 09:20am

PLayed for a few minutes last night. WOW. The graphics are really impressive and the voice acting is superb (Patrick Stewart, how can you go wrong.)

I may have a problem in that I broke all my lockpicks opening a chest in the first dungeon and now there seem to be only two ways out of the 'well room'. Either the iron gate that requires a key or a side room with a very easy door to lock pick save no lockpicks. I tried bashing the door but to no avail. Am I fucked and have to restart - not that it would bug me as its literally 5 minutes in the game - but I don't want to spend 20 minutes hunting for a way out if I'm stuck.

The way you can manipulate your face is just leaps and bounds ahead of any other character creation system I've seen but the fact that I can't choose stats like say focussing on strength or intelligence is a tad annoying.

Combat feels good so far but killing rats is no way to judge a combat system. Looking forward to getting out into the world and do some real exploring.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-03-31 09:25am

For lockpicking, always have a torch out and on fire. This makes all the tumblers move slowly - usually they get harder as you go on.

Always use a custom class. You'll be able to choose your own focus in skills and stats. Just don't pick fast skills like acro and athletics as majors, or you'll level too fast and get killed by Besthedas retarded level-matching system.

The face thing in Silent Storm is way better, but they licensed some other companies technology for it. It's easier to make a not-butt ugly face in SS.

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-03-31 09:25am

Your stats are changed acording to race choice, you can then tweak every time you go up a level.

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-03-31 10:46am

Stravo, have you shot the barrel?

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2006-03-31 10:48am

GuppyShark wrote:Stravo, have you shot the barrel?

Bastard, I didn't even think of that. Many thanks.

I assume then that containers are destructable so I can smash barrels and boxes to find items?

Pablo Sanchez · Post by **Pablo Sanchez** » 2006-03-31 11:57am

Stark wrote:For armour, I'm not really interested in lowering weights so much as making them more sensible: chain weighing 20% of steel is just stupid. Weapons are of course currently absurd, but I've never played a high-strength character so I don't know how high the weight allowance goes. Frankly, I don't really consider weight limitations a significant part of the game, and carrying half a dozen swords is not impossible.

I actually went into the construction set and edited the weight of every weapon to be more sensible. I didn't do a really complete job, though, I just set basic values around the upper end of historical weapons--longswords are five pounds, claymores eight pounds, daggers 1 pound. And so on. I'd like to go through and do a more complete job, for pretty much every item in the game.

The big stumbling block on this is that I can't find any way to edit more than one thing at a time. Making all the weapons weigh the right amount took about a fucking year because I had to double click every single one and individually change the weight value, and since every little enchanted iteration is supposed to be a totally different weapon under the game engine, there's something like a billion of them. I'm certainly not going to rush to create a "total weight overhaul" .esm if it's going to take several days to do it.

If there's something I missed that would allow me to edit more than one item at a time, please tell me.

Another matter that occurred to me was that I think your movement speed is affected by what percentage of your max encumbrance is filled--at least this was so in Morrowind. Since my weight adjustments would be almost entirely downwards, would this lead to PCs and NPCs zipping around really fast?

Ace Pace · Post by **Ace Pace** » 2006-03-31 12:51pm

I got a weight change mod that adds more weight carrying capability, so most NPCs are barely encumbered. I havn't noticed them zipping around.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2006-03-31 04:21pm

Stravo wrote:
GuppyShark wrote:Stravo, have you shot the barrel?
Bastard, I didn't even think of that. Many thanks.

I assume then that containers are destructable so I can smash barrels and boxes to find items?

No, actually. If they have items in them, they'll have the "Loot" icon on them, so just press the Use button to open them up.

BTW, I created a new character yesterday, just so I didn't have to muck about in the sewers once I beat the game with Doe. I'll introduce you all to Benson Ostranger, Wandering Battlemage, soon enough.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-03-31 05:33pm

Pablo Sanchez wrote: If there's something I missed that would allow me to edit more than one item at a time, please tell me.

Oh I know. I *know*. I sort-of assume you can use the scripting system somehow to define rules to change multiple items, but they aren't grouped into 'classes' (ie, sword, axe are just 'weapons' and such) so I'm not sure how it'd work. I'm tossing up right now using my armour mod to get a bit more sensible on the materials (iron offering similar/slightly worse protection than steel, but being heavier: Dwemer armour being very light for heavy armour but offering slightly better protection than steel etc) to make it a bit more flexible and characterful than the current tiered, one-way system.

Pablo Sanchez wrote:Another matter that occurred to me was that I think your movement speed is affected by what percentage of your max encumbrance is filled--at least this was so in Morrowind. Since my weight adjustments would be almost entirely downwards, would this lead to PCs and NPCs zipping around really fast?

It doesn't seem to. I actually notice my own speed changing based on load, but it doesn't work that way for NPCs I don't think.