Please tell me why I'm going to hate Oblivion

[Talshuler]

OMG - just tried a few posts on the official forums to see whether people feel the same way - the only replies I get are "C'mon we can explore amazingly real environments and see deer, wild boar, birds and also rather nasty monsters that look alot better than cliffracers".

I understand why many people here are so unhappy - why has Beth not talked about quests etc and instead concentrated on the graphics?

 

[Imbecile]

PS: Too many words, I am sure. Simply put, there is no objective standard to judge Oblivion by, but there is a subjective standard: Comparison to previous Elder Scrolls games. Should be obvious, really.

But that’s the whole point. If you are going to compare games, compare them to its competition. Y’know, the ones coming out now. Should be obvious really

If someone brought out Pong 2, with slightly snazzier bats, and a multiball option – magazines wouldn’t go “Pong! But more so! 9/10.” They would compare it to recent games that fall into similar categories. That compares the quality in a subjective, but sensible way.

You may have expectations based on previous games, but just because you expect 86 different endings doesn’t mean that the game is bad if it only has 40. Its just disappointing.

 

[Lumpy]

I agree that Oblivion could have been much better. However, unlike you, I'll probably like it very much.
I find it unfair that you're criticizing Oblivion for certain missing features, yet you're not criticizing Gothic 3 for the same missing features.

 

[Master Thief]

I think Thomas Jefferson said it best...

"Those who would sacrifice RPG mechanics for Graphics deserve neither."

 

[Vault Dweller]

OMG - just tried a few posts on the official forums to see whether people feel the same way - the only replies I get are "C'mon we can explore amazingly real environments and see deer, wild boar, birds and also rather nasty monsters that look alot better than cliffracers".

I understand why many people here are so unhappy - why has Beth not talked about quests etc and instead concentrated on the graphics?

lol That thread is hilarious:
http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/inde ... pic=233643

Spears and crossbows dont really mean alot to me..nor does mounted combat..i think the less skills thing is actually nice..makes things nice and simple

less guilds..that is sad but all the guilds that are in will have a nice juicy quest line to do

Think of it this way: they took those out so they can put other things in.

Nobody knows what those things are, but they sure as fuck believe in them. TES forums are a great place to research blind faith.

I believe most RPG'ers have enough imagination to overcome any and all of these issues. If not, prehaps they should find a different game that requires less imagination. shrug.gif

Wow!

 

[dunduks]

I find it unfair that you're criticizing Oblivion for certain missing features, yet you're not criticizing Gothic 3 for the same missing features.

It's becouse Gothic 3 is adding features and not stripping them down like in Oblivion. Piranha Bytes are expanding their previous game, while Beth does the opposite.

 

[Lumpy]

I find it unfair that you're criticizing Oblivion for certain missing features, yet you're not criticizing Gothic 3 for the same missing features.

It's becouse Gothic 3 is adding features and not stripping them down like in Oblivion. Piranha Bytes are expanding their previous game, while Beth does the opposite.

Good. I agree. Pyrahna is better than Bethesda.
But it's not a reason to say Gothic 3 is better than Oblivion.
Let me expand GBG's example:
One company has made a game - pong. It had one ball and one level. Another company has made a game - Daggerfall - it had a huge world, etc.
Then, each company makes a sequel - the first company makes pong II - two balls and two levels. The other company makes Daggerfall II, with half of Daggerfall's world. Then, is Pong II better than Daggerfall II, because it improved on it's predecessor while DF II didn't? Or is DF II still better than Pong II, while the first company is better than the second?

 

[Nog Robbin]

I guess a lot of it comes down to expectation. With OB many RPG fans were hoping to seen MW expanded more towards that game system offered by DW. Instead we see prettier graphics, but the game system (certainly for RPG fans) has been reduced and simplified.
I haven't played the Gothic series - but I am certainly interested in doing so now. Consequently I haven't compared OB and Gothic. Nor have I said that it's ok for OB to miss a feature because Gothic also won't use it.
With OB I really wanted an expansion on what went before - fixing the broken things instead of removing them, and then adding stuff. I'm disappointed because the focus seems to have been so much on the graphcis (and the scenary does look good, even if some of the characters/animations still seem a bit jaded), that they have had to cut corners elsewhere. And before you start on with the "soil erosion development doesn't mean they couldn't afford to do other things" I mean things like the implementation of interior cells for offering large graphical cities meaning levitation can't be implemented. No extra animation for crossbows (which would then use havok physics for the bolts, much like arrows do), yet they add horses which are nothing more than something to ride on.

I will still probably get OB. There is little real competition in the RPG sector. Plus with the CS we may be able to get something out of it geared more towards an RPG offering. But I think somethings will be hard to implement fully, or won't work well with other mods, because basic hooks won't exist in the game in the first place (such as a nutrition value against foods to allow need to eat mods to be developed seamlessly, or an encumberance value to be stored against items as well as a weight to allow a better inventory system to be developed.

 

[Pr()ZaC]

OMG - just tried a few posts on the official forums to see whether people feel the same way - the only replies I get are "C'mon we can explore amazingly real environments and see deer, wild boar, birds and also rather nasty monsters that look alot better than cliffracers".

I understand why many people here are so unhappy - why has Beth not talked about quests etc and instead concentrated on the graphics?

lol That thread is hilarious:
http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/inde ... pic=233643

Spears and crossbows dont really mean alot to me..nor does mounted combat..i think the less skills thing is actually nice..makes things nice and simple

less guilds..that is sad but all the guilds that are in will have a nice juicy quest line to do

Think of it this way: they took those out so they can put other things in.

Nobody knows what those things are, but they sure as fuck believe in them. TES forums are a great place to research blind faith.

I believe most RPG'ers have enough imagination to overcome any and all of these issues. If not, prehaps they should find a different game that requires less imagination. shrug.gif

Wow!

Good God! I never seen such glaring fanboism and ignorance concentrated in 3 (at the time of this post) pages. That place isn't going anywhere and we all tried.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Good. I agree. Pyrahna is better than Bethesda.
But it's not a reason to say Gothic 3 is better than Oblivion.

Ok, let me explain. The TES series started with a strong RPG (Daggerfall; Arena doesn't count), and then started losing RPG features & elements until only the basic elements were left (Oblivion). The Gothic series started with an RPG-light game, and then started adding RPG features & elements, making G3 a very promising RPG. So, on one hand, we have a game that barely meets RPG requirements (at least those of the Codex), on the other hand, we have a potentially strong RPG. Granted, not much is known at this point, but what's known sounds way more appealing than what's known about Oblivion.

Sure, there is no mounted combat, spears, etc, but you've been here long enough, Lumpy, to understand what the real criticism of Oblivion is and why people are bitching about less important elements.

 

[Talshuler]

I guess a lot of it comes down to expectation. With OB many RPG fans were hoping to seen MW expanded more towards that game system offered by DW. Instead we see prettier graphics, but the game system (certainly for RPG fans) has been reduced and simplified.
I haven't played the Gothic series - but I am certainly interested in doing so now. Consequently I haven't compared OB and Gothic. Nor have I said that it's ok for OB to miss a feature because Gothic also won't use it.
With OB I really wanted an expansion on what went before - fixing the broken things instead of removing them, and then adding stuff. I'm disappointed because the focus seems to have been so much on the graphcis (and the scenary does look good, even if some of the characters/animations still seem a bit jaded), that they have had to cut corners elsewhere. And before you start on with the "soil erosion development doesn't mean they couldn't afford to do other things" I mean things like the implementation of interior cells for offering large graphical cities meaning levitation can't be implemented. No extra animation for crossbows (which would then use havok physics for the bolts, much like arrows do), yet they add horses which are nothing more than something to ride on.

I will still probably get OB. There is little real competition in the RPG sector. Plus with the CS we may be able to get something out of it geared more towards an RPG offering. But I think somethings will be hard to implement fully, or won't work well with other mods, because basic hooks won't exist in the game in the first place (such as a nutrition value against foods to allow need to eat mods to be developed seamlessly, or an encumberance value to be stored against items as well as a weight to allow a better inventory system to be developed.

Nice to see someone from the UK with a healthy perspective - what is it with Americans, you've got the blind faith ones on the official boards and the blind defiance ones here ;-)

Anyway, tha aside, I basically going to judge OB on an Ultima 7 basis. Most people here should agree with me in saying how fine Ultima 7 was, and in fact it had quite a few similarities to OB:

- Slightly dumbed down character creation/progression - can't remember anyone complaining about 'OMG they removed the gypsy hut from Ultima 6!11!!'
- Scheduled NPCs - not quite Radiant AI, but it's so much better to see a baker baking bread, going to bed on time etc. I'm looking forward to that about OB
- Combat was slightly dumbed down in U7, but at least I got a crossbow, and triple one's at that ;-)
- the ultimate 'you are the choosen one' thing going on.
- A big world where you could pick your way through side quests in any order - quite like OB.

Maybe we should try picking out the things we liked in games like U7, and see whether OB is going to deliver any of them, for instance:

- amazing storyline, and excellent quests. I mean, how good is a game to get in drug addiction into the main storyline? No word from Beth about how this will compare so this could be worrying, or could be just as good.
- Excellent NPCs - this is where I think OB will really fall down - Iolo and the crew were such excellent characters.

anything else?

 

[Claw]

But that’s the whole point. If you are going to compare games, compare them to its competition. Y’know, the ones coming out now. Should be obvious really

It should be as obvious as the fact that Earth is a disk. :wink:
Comparing them isn't an end in itself. I only compare games to rationalize my personal preference. To that end, it's irrelevant whether the games I compare it to are old or contemporary, in fact your demand is utterly misleading.
After all, I don't compare Oblivion to Unreal Tournament 2004 just because it's contemporary. Or maybe I should compare it to UT2007 rather?

That compares the quality in a subjective, but sensible way.

The sensible thing would be to aknowledge the difference between a reviewer and a fan, and not presuppose a universal standard that a fan doesn't want or have to adhere by. Your supposition of a "sensible way" of comparison is just preposterous.

You may have expectations based on previous games, but just because you expect 86 different endings doesn’t mean that the game is bad if it only has 40. Its just disappointing.

Oh, jolly good! I'm disappointed!

Good. I agree. Pyrahna is better than Bethesda.

Absolutely. Sharper teeth, for starters. And more German.

But it's not a reason to say Gothic 3 is better than Oblivion.

I don't see your point. Maybe some people said Gothic 3 was better than Oblivion, but mostly the criticism of Oblivion and praise of Gothic are independant as they should be.
If anything I notice a fixation on the side of TES fanboys on comparing the two to assert the superiority of Oblivion, to the point of registering on Gothic forums for that single purpose.

 

[Thrawn05]

Right, Horses are there just for the cool factor. The game world is not that big, a caravan style travel would work just fine. Give you reason to have some money on hand.

Since when was getting the 5 coins needed for a caravan all that hard? Actually, since when has money in any RPG ever been hard to get in vast, un-needed quantities.

Well, that's if you have a high mercantile. In any case it does make the money flow and those little 5 gold coin trips do add up.

 

[Claw]

Anyway, tha aside, I basically going to judge OB on an Ultima 7 basis. Most people here should agree with me in saying how fine Ultima 7 was, and in fact it had quite a few similarities to OB:

Your example is at the same time spot on and flawed. The main flaw is that before Ultima 7 came Ultima 6, which many Ultima fans still consider the best of the series, and a pinnacle of the genre.
Whereas OB follows MW, a game which is considered a pale shadow of Daggerfall's greatness by some fans, and imo recruits many fans from a crowd that likes fantasy action-adventures, and apparently feels that "RPG" is a sort of honorary title to be collected.

Maybe we should try picking out the things we liked in games like U7, and see whether OB is going to deliver any of them, for instance:
(...)

anything else?

I think that's qute enough: Great story and NPCs in Ultima 7 compared to uncertain quest and doubtful NPC quality in Oblivion.
Well, to be honest the "living world" aspect mentioned above belongs into this category. However, it too early to judge this yet. Even Gothic, which had a great animated world in comparison to Morrowind, fell short of Ultima 7 in many aspects. We will only know how well Oblivion compares to Ultima 7 when it's released.

 

[Tintin]

Summer wrote:
I believe most RPG'ers have enough imagination to overcome any and all of these issues. If not, prehaps they should find a different game that requires less imagination. shrug.gif

Wow!

I agree that that is a stupid quote. But I found an even stupider quote, I can't believe these dumb fanboys:

"Play it with a 'I am really here' outlook, allow your imagination to fill in the unique details that you need"

Hold on a second.....that was from a post by Twinfalls about Daggerfall right here in the Codex........

....are you going to make fun of Twinfalls now too?

 

[Talshuler]

Anyway, tha aside, I basically going to judge OB on an Ultima 7 basis. Most people here should agree with me in saying how fine Ultima 7 was, and in fact it had quite a few similarities to OB:

Your example is at the same time spot on and flawed. The main flaw is that before Ultima 7 came Ultima 6, which many Ultima fans still consider the best of the series, and a pinnacle of the genre.
Whereas OB follows MW, a game which is considered a pale shadow of Daggerfall's greatness by some fans, and imo recruits many fans from a crowd that likes fantasy action-adventures, and apparently feels that "RPG" is a sort of honorary title to be collected.
I think that's qute enough: Great story and NPCs in Ultima 7 compared to uncertain quest and doubtful NPC quality in Oblivion.
Well, to be honest the "living world" aspect mentioned above belongs into this category. However, it too early to judge this yet. Even Gothic, which had a great animated world in comparison to Morrowind, fell short of Ultima 7 in many aspects. We will only know how well Oblivion compares to Ultima 7 when it's released.

I'm not trying to point out that Ultima 7 followed a brilliant game, but trying to judge OB against U7 in isolation - let's just imagine that pong preceeded both games...

And in comparing U7 to OB, the main points that I listed above stick out. Since we don't know about enough the quests, the only thing we should be disliking at the moment is the NPCs - and we don't even fully know that, so why are we complaining?

Complaining about anything else that is missing from OB would just be like complaining about them missing from U6, U7, Gothic and other games that I still enjoy playing. I mean, U7 was the definition of wiki conversation, and so many other games follow that pattern, so we can't really take the p*ss out of OB for being similar!

Both this board and the official ones are so much alike it's scary. All I see are people completely blinded by their own opinion about this game that hasn't even been released, and a few sensible brits stuck in the middle - I guess that's a fair reflect on the rest of the world as well ;-)

 

[Vault Dweller]

@ Tintin:

No, and I'll tell you why. Imagination is one of the important elements that with many others form a gameplay experience. The only question here is the ratio. If a developer relies on your imagination too much, shipping you a notepad, that sucks. If you can imagine everything yourself, why the fuck would you wait 4 years for that wonderful moment and pay 50 bucks for that? If a developer gives you a detailed, rich, atmospheric world, rich not in bloom & graphics, but in what you can do in it, then it takes only a spark of your imagination to bring it to life.

Twinfalls' imagination added some icing on that huge cake that was Daggerfall. Summer suggested to use imagination to ignore all the problems with Oblivion that were listed above. To continue the analogy, it's as if she poured a few pounds of icing over some cake crumbs. See the difference?

 

[Tintin]

Summer suggested to use imagination to ignore all the problems with Oblivion that were listed above.

Yes, it was on a smaller level, but it was still the same thing. The poster on that Codex thread made some comments about repetition in Daggerfall and it's world and Twinfalls response was to use your imagination to overcome it, and that he wasn't "playing Daggerfall the right way". And that really reminds me of the TES posters except about Daggerfall rather than Oblivion.

Twinfalls wasn't adding icing to the cake, he was using "imagination" as an excuse to overcome the problems that the previous poster had mentioned about Daggerfall, and to tell him how the play Daggerfall the "right way".

 

[Zomg]

The, "How much imagination?" question deserves one of those semi-intellectual discussion threads.

 

[bryce777]

First off, the gothic series is better than morrowind and oblivion by a huge margin. Second off, oblivion would not get 1/10th the flack here if it weren't for the fact they hyped the living shit out of the most mundane features imaginable, and also were compulsive lying assholes with no ethics whatsoever. Most important, the game they are going to deliver simply isn't an rpg even by the loose definitions we see toady. Fuck, you could make a very ood argument it is not even a game at all. It is a (somewhat) interactive cutscene vehicle cum Sims expansion pack.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Summer suggested to use imagination to ignore all the problems with Oblivion that were listed above.

Yes, it was on a smaller level, but it was still the same thing.

Everything is the same thing, my young friend. RPGs aren't made out of secret ingredients, it's the exact formula and ratio that define them. FO1 and FO2 are very different games, yet they are basically the same. Just like IWD1 & 2, or Arena & Daggerfall, or Daggerfall & Morrowind, Wasteland & Fountain of Dreams. It's the ratio of those same things that makes games & features very, very different.

The poster on that Codex thread made some comments about repetition in Daggerfall and it's world and Twinfalls response was to use your imagination to overcome it, and that he wasn't "playing Daggerfall the right way". And that really reminds me of the TES posters except about Daggerfall rather than Oblivion.

There is a difference between overcoming a repetetive pattern or even a feature and overcoming the LACK of features. Surely, you can see that; if not, you'd need a surgery to remove the bias from your eyes.

 

[HardCode]

I dislike that they are not doing it but their goal was not to make horses for combat it was to make them for a form of fast travel. So stop the bitching about wanting mounted combat i mean take a second sit down and think of what it would be like if they actually did attempt to put it in.

What the fuck for when they already have fast travel? I'd prefer that they made horse combat instead of l33t graphics. Bethesda bullshits about how they don't put things in the game unless they do it right, and their horses are 100% proof they are fucking liars. How much role-playing can be offered by having to dismount your stolen horse to fight, and the fucking homing-horse runs away across the continent? Think a little ....

What the fuck is wrong with you, do you read their fucking interviews they have said many times that it is just an added feature to have fun with, jesus fucking christ. Learn about the shit before you go bashing people that are stating their opinions.

You are a moron. There are dev quotes that explicitly state that they were working on horses and mounted combat, but Beht claims it "didn't work out." So YOU fucking read their interviews. The latest BULLSHIT about an added feature for fun is to PR a glossy coating on their previous admission of being UNABLE to properly implement horse combat. Stupid.

 

[HardCode]

So if the horses were implemented as a form of fast travel, what was the fast travel "instant teleport" system implemented for?

For ADHD XBox munchkins.

 

[HardCode]

Second off, oblivion would not get 1/10th the flack here if it weren't for the fact they hyped the living shit out of the most mundane features imaginable, and also were compulsive lying assholes with no ethics whatsoever. Most important, the game they are going to deliver simply isn't an rpg even by the loose definitions we see toady.

Agreed, even though I hate you

 

[Tintin]

Everything is the same thing, my young friend.

How old are you?

There is a difference between overcoming a repetetive pattern or even a feature and overcoming the LACK of features.

That's like saying it's different if you're racist against black people than if you're racist against jewish people. A repetitive pattern is also in a way a lack of something in the game. Repetition and a missing feature are both problems, and the answer to both these these problems was "use your imagination" and "you're not playing the game the right way". And the "imagination" crap is still used in both instances to explain a problem in the game.