The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

[Kaiser Caesar]

I recently started to play The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion on my Xbox 360. So far, I've gotten a couple of hours in or so, have (SPOILER) given the Amulet of Kings to Jauffre, and have been sent off to find the Emperor's son in Kvatch (END SPOILER). It's fun so far, although I don't believe I have made it far enough in yet to make a full decision on it. My character is an Imperial named Leinad, he's Level 1 right now, of a class I created, Hired Sword. It's basically the Imperial race's race attributes, with some of the more redundant things removed, and stitched out for magic (I cannot play a fantasy role-playing game without having the ability to use some magic). The classes two main attributes are Personality and Luck, and its Major Skills are Blade, Block, Destruction, Heavy Armor, Mercantile, Speechcraft, and Restoration.

But enough about me, what do you think about this game?

[Koolaidkirby]

personally I found magic to be terrible in that game, the spells scaled horribly (at least i thought so, i remember i tried to make a pure wizard and by the time i was level 8ish monsters took about 30 fireballs to the face to kill)

playing a warrior type was fun though, its a great game.

[apocolypse]

Loved the game. I can't recall what the time was on my last save, but I know I've wasted at least 110 hours or so (I think more ) of my life playing it. But I do agree wrt the magic issue. I usually just wound up meleeing the hell out of everything, and using spells here and there to help level up.

[McC]

Playing the game on 360 is a sin. Oblivion becomes so much more when you can mod it. Mods that replace the broken leveling system Bethesda originally implemented are particularly useful. I usually play with about 30 or so mods (of varying level of impact from purely cosmetic to game-altering) installed, and absolutely refuse to play the game unmodded.

That said, I've played through it from soup to nuts three times, and played through segments of it probably half a dozen times beyond that. Dark Brotherhood remains my favorite part of that game.

[RazorOutlaw]

First, don't worry about spoilers like that. It was pretty obvious from the beginning that the amulet was going to trade hands. And anybody who wanted to the play the game would have done so all ready. If you want some opinions on the game, though, you can find them in these two places: http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... er+Scrolls and http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... er+Scrolls.

As for myself I kind-of enjoyed the game. I hated the repetition of the dungeons, the Oblivion planes, combat was just ok, and the fusing of the different weapon classes was silly and made them more boring. It's been pointed out before that axes are by no means "blunt" weapons. and spears are also gone from the game. The side-quests are what kept me really interested but for the most part I felt like I was just going to different dungeons on my own time and crushing heads.

[Eleas]

Pretty enough game, but subpar in many respects. Its much-touted "freedom" is more or less an illusion, as you're generally limited to one or two solutions. Whereas its predecessor managed to be diverse, inspiring and in some weird way convincing, Oblivion constantly and flagrantly breaks the illusion. Its fighting engine is good, I'll give it that, and its outdoor vistas, though monotonous, are very beautiful. But the experience itself is infinitely poorer than Morrowind. The whole game just feels... pre-chewed, like a tourist attraction, complete with handrails and chipper guides and encounters scaled to be just tough enough. You never get a sense of scale, of grandeur, or even of significance. The most you can hope for is momentary diversion, and I guess Oblivion does provide that.

[General Zod]

Playing the game on 360 is a sin. Oblivion becomes so much more when you can mod it. Mods that replace the broken leveling system Bethesda originally implemented are particularly useful. I usually play with about 30 or so mods (of varying level of impact from purely cosmetic to game-altering) installed, and absolutely refuse to play the game unmodded.

Personally, I hate this mindset. Any game that needs dozens of fan mods in order to be "good" is a horrible game.

[McC]

Personally, I hate this mindset. Any game that needs dozens of fan mods in order to be "good" is a horrible game.

I wasn't making a claim about the quality of the game (except perhaps a negative one), only stating the criteria required for me to enjoy it. I tend to agree that a game that must be modded to be enjoyed is flawed, with the exception of games that one mods for fun/personal reasons.

[charlemagne]

Personally, I hate this mindset. Any game that needs dozens of fan mods in order to be "good" is a horrible game.

Well, it is a horrible game before you add the mods Personally I liked Oblivion unmodded at first, but once I realised it's flaws (especially the awful level scaling) and got rid of most of them through mods, the enjoyment went up 500% or so. Anyways, I don't see why I shouldn't play a game that is made good/better through mods.

[General Zod]

Personally, I hate this mindset. Any game that needs dozens of fan mods in order to be "good" is a horrible game.

Well, it is a horrible game before you add the mods Personally I liked Oblivion unmodded at first, but once I realised it's flaws (especially the awful level scaling) and got rid of most of them through mods, the enjoyment went up 500% or so. Anyways, I don't see why I shouldn't play a game that is made good/better through mods.

Except that's not what I said. If mods make it even more fun, then that's one thing. But if you need them to make it fun in the first place, then it's a horrible game.

[Darth Onasi]

Personally, I hate this mindset. Any game that needs dozens of fan mods in order to be "good" is a horrible game.

Well, it is a horrible game before you add the mods Personally I liked Oblivion unmodded at first, but once I realised it's flaws (especially the awful level scaling) and got rid of most of them through mods, the enjoyment went up 500% or so. Anyways, I don't see why I shouldn't play a game that is made good/better through mods.

Except that's not what I said. If mods make it even more fun, then that's one thing. But if you need them to make it fun in the first place, then it's a horrible game.

The Bethesda Design Philosophy:

1) Make sub-standard game.
2) Let modders make it awesome.
3) Said awesome modded game becomes Game of the Year.
4) Take credit for modded game instead of base game.
5) Profit.

[Kaiser Caesar]

Playing the game on 360 is a sin. Oblivion becomes so much more when you can mod it. Mods that replace the broken leveling system Bethesda originally implemented are particularly useful. I usually play with about 30 or so mods (of varying level of impact from purely cosmetic to game-altering) installed, and absolutely refuse to play the game unmodded.

That said, I've played through it from soup to nuts three times, and played through segments of it probably half a dozen times beyond that. Dark Brotherhood remains my favorite part of that game.

My computer does not meet the minimum requirements for the game, or just barely does, I'm not sure, and I don't care for mods anyway, and am afraid to use ever since one rendered my copy of Rise of Nations unplayable.

[charlemagne]

Except that's not what I said. If mods make it even more fun, then that's one thing. But if you need them to make it fun in the first place, then it's a horrible game.

So you're saying that it's still a horrible game after it's been made good by mods? And I shouldn't play it, although it's fun now, because it's horrible? I don't follow. I agree that games shouldn't be released in a state where people who bought it have to fix it afterwards, and it sure as hell is lots of laziness and/or stupidity on Beth's side what made Oblivion so broken in vanilla state - but it still is fun with mods.

[Kaiser Caesar]

Well, it is a horrible game before you add the mods Personally I liked Oblivion unmodded at first, but once I realised it's flaws (especially the awful level scaling) and got rid of most of them through mods, the enjoyment went up 500% or so. Anyways, I don't see why I shouldn't play a game that is made good/better through mods.

Except that's not what I said. If mods make it even more fun, then that's one thing. But if you need them to make it fun in the first place, then it's a horrible game.

The Bethesda Design Philosophy:

1) Make sub-standard game.
2) Let modders make it awesome.
3) Said awesome modded game becomes Game of the Year.
4) Take credit for modded game instead of base game.
5) Profit.

But I thought Oblivion's Game of the Year edition's additional content was produced by Bethesda.

[Darth Onasi]

Bethesda can't sell modder content, that's illegal.
What they can do however is take advantage of the reputation earned by the modded game and the ever growing mod community that makes the base game look better than it really is.

[Stark]

Absolutely. If they actually got negative press for the hopelessly broken games they'd probably change. The fact that people who are prepared to trawl through hundreds of mods eventually find a configuration that they like means these games become profitable despite their terrible quality.

Once again, nerds vote with their wallets for shit. I wonder why Beth never fixed any of those obvious problems in their series of games?

And I agree with Zod. Oblivion is, on it's own merits, a game that's broken top-to-bottom, full of bad ideas and with some of the worst combat ever seen. I've seen mods that a) fix stuff that Beth couldn't be fucked fixing, b) do things Beth said was impossible or impractical and c) improved areas (like art etc) to a higher quality, which just reflects badly on Bethesda. Paying for them to suck and fail = bad.

And this is totally brand loyalty. Look at games like STALKER - equally broken, equally not up to hype, but since it's not Elder Scrolls or Babylon 5 or whatever it sold proportional to it's quality.

[Kaiser Caesar]

Am I the only one here that likes the combat in the game? Admittedly, I have only gotten into a couple of fights, the Tutorial section not included, but I find it fun when I play it.

[Stark]

Yeah you'll love it until you work out all combat is 'bounce in, hit, bounce out', that ranged is worthless and magic only works with very specific builds. The ONLY advance from the days of Underworld 1 is that there's no to-hit, just an utterly broken armour system.

[General Zod]

So you're saying that it's still a horrible game after it's been made good by mods? And I shouldn't play it, although it's fun now, because it's horrible? I don't follow. I agree that games shouldn't be released in a state where people who bought it have to fix it afterwards, and it sure as hell is lots of laziness and/or stupidity on Beth's side what made Oblivion so broken in vanilla state - but it still is fun with mods.

Are you being intentionally retarded or do you just enjoy shoving words in people's mouths? How about you focus on what I'm actually saying instead of what you want me to say.

[McC]

improved areas (like art etc) to a higher quality

In all cases, improving art resolution (vertex count, texture size, etc.) is going to amp up system requirements. In most cases, the visual improvements I've seen come at the expense of perf (terrain being an obvious one, but essentially every visual mod hurts a bit). Bethesda, however, is constrained to produce a game that people can run. And yes, I realize when Oblivion came out, people could barely run it. Keep that in mind.

[charlemagne]

Are you being intentionally retarded or do you just enjoy shoving words in people's mouths? How about you focus on what I'm actually saying instead of what you want me to say.

I just don't agree that a game is still horrible if whatever made it most horrible can be fixed by mods. I can see Stark's point, though:

Absolutely. If they actually got negative press for the hopelessly broken games they'd probably change. The fact that people who are prepared to trawl through hundreds of mods eventually find a configuration that they like means these games become profitable despite their terrible quality.

Once again, nerds vote with their wallets for shit. I wonder why Beth never fixed any of those obvious problems in their series of games?

but I can't help it that Oblivion was still fun, and so was wading through mods - I totally know that this is not for everyone, though. But yeah, I'd like to see Bethesda putting out a game with overall really high quality, because that would make for an even better modder's sandbox.

[Darth Onasi]

do things Beth said was impossible or impractical

Reminds me of the whole mounted combat issue. Not only did Bethesda claim it was impractical in Oblivion, they said it would be extremely hard to pull off in any game of similar style.
Then Mount & Blade laughed in their faces. And then modders have made many mounted combat mods.

[General Zod]

I just don't agree that a game is still horrible if whatever made it most horrible can be fixed by mods. I can see Stark's point, though:

So you're just illiterate. I never said anything about whether it's still horrible after the mods have been applied. In fact, the only thing I was commenting on was the base game itself, before the mods are added. Is this simple enough or do I need crayon to illustrate my point?

[General Zod]

do things Beth said was impossible or impractical

Reminds me of the whole mounted combat issue. Not only did Bethesda claim it was impractical in Oblivion, they said it would be extremely hard to pull off in any game of similar style.
Then Mount & Blade laughed in their faces. And then modders have made many mounted combat mods.

I hear Nintendo managed to do mounted combat pretty well in a Zelda game or something.

[Darth Onasi]

do things Beth said was impossible or impractical

Reminds me of the whole mounted combat issue. Not only did Bethesda claim it was impractical in Oblivion, they said it would be extremely hard to pull off in any game of similar style.
Then Mount & Blade laughed in their faces. And then modders have made many mounted combat mods.

I hear Nintendo managed to do mounted combat pretty well in a Zelda game or something.

Well Ocarina of Time wasn't really sandbox. Though yes, many people did point that out, not that Bethesda listened.