Alexander said:
untried and untested system for npc's. Untried and untested by you yes. However the devs have spent quite some time, and are still spending quite some time developing it. I'm not sure I understand the reasoning behind it to be honest, I mean if something isn't tried and tested, how could it ever be tried. Or in other words, if no one is brave enough to try out something new, wouldn't that mean we'd be stuck with the same old things in every game published?
You misunderstand my point. Not untried and untested as in
never to be tried and tested but as in
a completely unkown quantity. Of course new things should be included in a new game. But not at the expense of so many other features - especially when it is being feature-rich that has got your games noticed in the past.
The Devs say RAI is cool (which is what they say about
every feature in Oblivion) but we have only their word for it - we haven't seen it, tried it, or tested it (hence "
untried and untested"). It is, in other words, a completely unknown quantity as far as
we are concerned. So, from an totally unkown quantity it is somehow morphed by fanboys into the greatest thing since sliceed bread. I have no idea how this revamped scheduling system is going to work and whether it is going to be brilliant or a complete load of crap - and neither do any of the people who are posting about how it rocks.
Alexander said:
And going on about it, how was the DF Ai again? I've never played it myself so it's only second hand info but I've heard some horrid stories on it
That there are bugs in Daggerfall is well known - although the last patch does clear a majority of them up. All I can say is that, since I patched it last, I've had no real problems with it - certainly no "crashing to desktop"-style problems like I have with Morrowind.
Alexander said:
second, a quest compass, I could imagine many people finding it very helpfull. Similarly you pherhaps after trying. Could you imagine what could happen when both you and the npc could technically travel anywhere, in a world as large as Oblivion's? It might mean you could spend a month or more, just tracking down the person you need to find. And on the other hand I could imagine the concept, note the word concept there, going against your every nature. well if you dislike it, why not simply ignore it?
A couple of points off of this quote.
First, I'd hardly call 16 square miles, nine... sorry, eight "cities", a few scattered hamlets and 1500 NPCs "huge". Small certainly, bijou possibly - but huge?
The other point is that the compass is there whether you want it to be or not - right next to the parts of the UI that you need to keep an eye on if you're playing a warrior or mage. As to your comment -
you could spend a month or more, just tracking down the person you need to find - that's just the usual fanboyish reaction to the wonderful RAI again. Think logically about it. 90% of the NPCs are only going to be moving around in a (very) small area - home, work, inn, home - not galivanting off across the map like a ferret in sugar-shock. How many guards or shopkeppers, guild-heads or commoners are going to go to the next town over for lunch? If the RAI has 1500 NPCs zipping across the map 24/7 then Bethesda have screwed it up big time.
Alexander said:
]third, agreed, I'm a bit disappointed that we won't have mounted combat, but pherhaps the devs had a good point when they said it and dual weilding could be very unbalancing. I believe most rpg'ers are very much in favor of balancing things.
And again with the balancing. It's a
SINGLE PERSON RPG for god's sake. What does it matter if sword A or skill Z is slightly better than Sword B or skill Y? We all know that the majority of the people playing Oblivion are going to be going around wearing the leetest armour and carrying the bestest sword regardless of their role, class, or skill-set simply because that's how they've always played the game and - by jimmeny - they ain't about to change for some high falutin' RPG.
Alexander said:
]Soil erosion, well let's just leave it be as I don't really think that's something anyone could say something either for or against with passion, there are other things might be a lot more important
How about, instead, we call it what it really is? Smoke and mirrors that waste resources that should have been spent on adding something of more value to the game - like, perhaps, horses that can carry a burden other than the rider. Or carts, for fuck's sake.
Alexander said:
]voices, Do you think it harms the game having celebrity voices? Yes then I would love to hear your reasoning behind it. I'm assuming it's better then "such voices get the mainstream gamers/mainstream general people interested, and might make Bethesda a lot more money which would be bad for them"
And if you don't think it harms the game, as I do, then I wonder why you put it on your list.
Because it's more smoke and mirrors - crap designed to make the great unwashed masses go "ooooo, that's freaking cool, gotta get me some of that it's got PATRICK STEWART!!!" The cash spent on them could have been spent on other things - like paying someone to develop a Nine Divines faction instead of completely misleading everyone about it.
Alexander said:
]Again can;t say I'm very thrilled about not being able to kill those npc's, but I do ask myself, would I ever even kill them if i could? ifnot then could it just be the principle involved there? And I often find nagging about a principle isn't a very dignified thing to do ^_^
And it's better then an auto reload device, that's for sure.
And you know what would have been even better? Letting people face the consequences of fucking up. Perhaps that would teach the
omi polari that boast about killing everyone in Vivec a lesson? See, like you - I don't go around killing everyone in the game unless the character I'm role-playing would have done.
Alexander said:
]Staves shooting magic? I've heard the outcries of all those people that were disappointed about having staves that were
not able to launch magic from a staff, I've stopped counting the number of times I saw such posts and now that people get this, they start complaining about how "it's all gone way too much into a FPS" Make up your mind will you
A staff that shoots fireballs (or whatever) and can be reloaded with an ammo-clip.... damn' I meant soul-stones - if that isn't catering to the FPS
kill everything that moves and then kill it again just to be sure crowd I don't know what is.
As for staves that shoot out magic - there is a perfectly good word for that sort of thing. it's WAND. If they wanted to shoot fucking fdireballs a la Harry Potter why not add wands to the game and leave the melee staff alone?
Alexander said:
]Well being able to weild a weapon and casting a spell is something I'd consider to be quite an improvement. And some of the other things are equally prom[ising. making your own spell effects with the CS, and all the things we haven't heard yet. It's not like we've heard every aspect of the combat or stealth systems either, just something to find out for ourselves I reckon.
And something I consider to be a complete joke. Either you're concentrating on using the weapon or you're concentrating on using magic. Never whistle while you're pissing - you end up out of tune and with a wet leg. Besides, it's Bethesda's bad design that made it impossible to cast while carry a weapon in the first place. Unless the weapon was enchanted, of course. Then it was a piece of cake to do both.
Alexander said:
]and lastly as to the xbox achievement thingy, I have no idea yet how that's going to work with oblivion, have you heard something yet? I would be curious after it. And besides, this more even then the compass, is something you can easily ignore if you wish
Again smoke and mirrors, albeit forced on them by Microsoft. In other words, resources that could have, and should have, been spent elsewhere instead of providing all the console kiddies with bragging rights and a way to chat to their mate in Timbuktoo. It's also a waste of overhead since that's something that's got to be running in the background all the time, diverting runtime from other tasks.
Alexander said:
]My appologies for the lengthy post override, I hope it's size hasn't kept you from reading it fully
Unlike the people for whom Oblivion seems to be designed, I'm not afraid of reading something more than a paragraph long.
Alexander said:
My point, to be short, is I truely believe people make too large a deal out of things.
I agree with you completely - although probably not in the manner in which you'd expect
