That's the "cons" of the game in the Gamespy review. Still, they gave it 4*.Bugs and technical issues; Poor character animations; AI limitations; console-style interface.
Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
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Psychobabble
- Spectre
- Posts: 706
- Joined: 06 Jan 2006
- Location: Melbourne, Australia
- Contact:
Exactly what I thought after reading the comments on official forums. It looks like the gameplay issues are minor in comparison. The huge interface is probably the most annoying to me, gameplay-wise. I like to have as many infos as possible on the same screen so I can find what I need in less than a second, but menus and such are time consuming and break the action too much to be enjoyable.
I don't care much about animations once in the game, I still remember what animations were around 1986 when I played a computer game for the first time (I know, I was late ^^). And I can live with a limited AI since it still looks to be better than most other games and will eventually be fixed. But things like bugs (including those of the AI) and console interface already made me drop several very good games because I couldn't enjoy them more than an hour before everything crashed, corrupting the saved games or after long efforts (this usually happens in strategy games at the end of a big battle, murphy's law, probably) or before I felt I was wasting more time looking for something in the interface than actually playing the game.
I hope they'll fix all those details because the game really looks fun to play if you don't take all of this into account.
I'll probably watch carefully the changelogs if the demo doesn't come out soon enough, the game looks to have a great potential.
I don't care much about animations once in the game, I still remember what animations were around 1986 when I played a computer game for the first time (I know, I was late ^^). And I can live with a limited AI since it still looks to be better than most other games and will eventually be fixed. But things like bugs (including those of the AI) and console interface already made me drop several very good games because I couldn't enjoy them more than an hour before everything crashed, corrupting the saved games or after long efforts (this usually happens in strategy games at the end of a big battle, murphy's law, probably) or before I felt I was wasting more time looking for something in the interface than actually playing the game.
I hope they'll fix all those details because the game really looks fun to play if you don't take all of this into account.
I'll probably watch carefully the changelogs if the demo doesn't come out soon enough, the game looks to have a great potential.
Spiritu Insanum
Someone told me it's best to wait for a patch as there is a rather serious issue with CTD under some conditions. And it supposedly happens every time you try to perform that perfectly "legal" action (think it was about looting armour after you'd reached level 20 or something like that).
Who the hell locks these things?
- Duke
- Duke
Thanks for the scoop. It's pretty much as I recall and not really my cup of tea. I prefer turn-based RPGs with parties of multiple characters. I really did not care for Morrowind's combat or magic systems. But to each his own.Grumpy Old Wizard wrote:Well, I don't recall ever seein a Loincloth of Noxious Vapors, but you do have to move your mouse to swing a weapon, and there are various metals for weapons and you can capture the soul of an enemy in a soulstone (if you know the appropriate spell) and use it to enchant an item.Caradoc wrote:I keep forgetting... Is this one where you move the mouse back and forth to operate your sword? Or where you catch demons and bind them into your magic items? Or where you get weapons made of various metals (seems like I had something made of obsidian that was always breaking)? And (pardon me for this) is there a Loincloth of Noxious Vapors?
I've played so darn many RPGs that they start to run together.
It is a first person real time single character rpg. You choose your race, gender, birthsign, and pick either a standard class (I chose a standard mage) or design your own class.
GOW
Before you criticize someone, first walk a mile in their shoes. If they get mad, you'll be a mile away. And you'll have their shoes.
I for one am no good at taking my own advice, I bought the game today, hehe. And it's pretty amazing I must say. I have the setting at a medium level and it runs as smooth as you can wish for. It runs much smoother than Morrowind in fact, and there's no memoryleak that I could discern after hours of playing (Morrowind have one iirc). Loading between zones are fast, and the loadings in-zones aren't there at all, it just says loading area briefly onscreen but no stutter. Loading a quicksave takes 2 seconds. No crashes either, except it did sort of crash a bit when I shut it down now but I was quitting anyway 
So am enjoying it, fun with a run around and just do stuff-game. If there's any problems in it I'll just cross that bridge when I come to it.
Oh, and yeah the interface ingame is less than ideal; a bit cumbersome. But oh well, nothing's perfect.
So am enjoying it, fun with a run around and just do stuff-game. If there's any problems in it I'll just cross that bridge when I come to it.
Oh, and yeah the interface ingame is less than ideal; a bit cumbersome. But oh well, nothing's perfect.
Who the hell locks these things?
- Duke
- Duke
It may not solve all problems about the interface but there are mods to change it with a "12 lines" interface (the original being 5 or 6), and it has a bigger map too.Ethric wrote: Oh, and yeah the interface ingame is less than ideal; a bit cumbersome. But oh well, nothing's perfect.
Spiritu Insanum-
HodgePodge
- Round Table Knight
- Posts: 3530
- Joined: 06 Jan 2006
Since Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion doesn't seem to have StarForce then I may just buy this game. And even though it's not a "Might & Magic" RPG, I did enjoy Morrowind somewhat, even though I don't particularly care for 3D games.
Although, I'll probably
wait until the patches
come out and/or the
price comes down a bit.
…
…
Although, I'll probably
wait until the patches
come out and/or the
price comes down a bit.
…
…
Well, I have now managed to play oblivion on my Nvidia 4200 64 Meg video card.
Some nice fellow did a patch for graphic cards which don’t support pixel shader 2.0.
It runs ok from my perspective (so far), except that there is a rainbow across my screen.
Point being that you as well could probably manage to run the game on a old computer if you are desperate to get a hold of the game and not bothered by a slow fps rate.
Some nice fellow did a patch for graphic cards which don’t support pixel shader 2.0.
It runs ok from my perspective (so far), except that there is a rainbow across my screen.
Point being that you as well could probably manage to run the game on a old computer if you are desperate to get a hold of the game and not bothered by a slow fps rate.
Some impressions of Oblivion after a few days, compared also to Morrowind:
You still have the freedom you have in Morrowind to do what you please, and even more so (first time I stole a horse and fled town was great ). Riding a horse is fun, I just had to have a black one. A stolen hours will leave once you dismount, buy one at it will follow you.
On the other hand, there isn't much need to travel by horse as you can fast-travel to any location you've already been, as well as to the major towns even though you haven't been there yet. A huge convinience of course, as the endless trecking from questgiver to questlocation and back in Morrowind could be a pain. But also a curse, as it makes the game feel smaller. Part of the fun in Morrowind was standing in some ancient ruin in the middle of nowher thinking "Hmm, wasn't I going somewhere...". There's still a lot of countryside with a lot of ruins and caves to get lost in of course, but less incentive to do it.
Skills has been improved in some ways, for example do you now get ranks with additional bonuses for each one, in addition to the improvement due to higher numerical value (1-100 as base). These extra ranks come at intervals of 25, and can be for example that at Expert Marksman (75) you get a chance to knock down your target. But I miss some skills. Medium armour and unarmoured are no more, only light and heavy armour. Less choice=bad. Also in Morrowind I often went without a helmet simply because I want to see my characters face. Was nice having an armour skill that covered that too. Also there is now 1 weaponskill for blades, everything from claymore to penknife, and one skill for blunts that curiously also covers axes
Haven't seen a spear in the game so assume they are out. This sort of "dumbing down" I have no love for, and is one of my main complaints.
Another complaint is the inventory\interface system, which is dreadful. Whoever thought it up (and I use the word "thought" in it's widest possible meaning), must be new to this sort of game. And dropped on the head at birth. The inventory is the hated list of items, where you have to scroll down every time you want something that isn't on the top of the list. Sure there are filters and different ways to arrange the list but it's still a list! So much better with an actual inventory that displays your items, where you can pick what you want right of because you know what it looks like. It worked nicely in Morrowind and countless other games, so it's a mystery why it's like it is. I guess the game also being developed for *spit* consoles it to blame in some way, that's the only other explanation I can come up with besides the developer with serious mental defect-one. Other menus like character stats and quests-info are also avkwardly done.
On the other hand quests are easier to keep track of now, with an arrow pointing you to the next step. Feels like a bit of a cheat sometimes and part of the dumbing-down process but it IS better than having to run around looking for some guy for hours and hours and hours only to find him 2 meters to the left of the first place you looked. And seeing as people really move around and do stuff now it is needed. Seeing people go to work, eat, go to bed (with their clothes on on top of the covers but oh well) really is a nice feature I can't say I've seen in any other game. NPC's that meet eachother will strike up a conversation about dull stuff, you start recognising the conversations soon enough but they do shift somewhat according to where you are and where you are in the game.
To counter this the voiceacting is not good at all. Seems they only had 3-4 people for the job doing some variations on funny voices, and on a particular group of NPC's they really screwed up. Namely the beggars. Talk to a beggar and he\she will talk in an amusing "Lawks I have no food, spare a coin"-voice, but then if you talk to them on a general topic they will have a "normal" voice. Sure it's impressive with so many NPC's with so many different topics etc etc, but it would have been a lot more impressive if it were done right. Not even having Patrick Stewart do the intro voiceover as the dying king can remedy the flaws in this area.
BUt all in all, a fun game that can eat hours of your time, I'd give it an 8 on a scale to 10.
You still have the freedom you have in Morrowind to do what you please, and even more so (first time I stole a horse and fled town was great
). Riding a horse is fun, I just had to have a black one. A stolen hours will leave once you dismount, buy one at it will follow you.On the other hand, there isn't much need to travel by horse as you can fast-travel to any location you've already been, as well as to the major towns even though you haven't been there yet. A huge convinience of course, as the endless trecking from questgiver to questlocation and back in Morrowind could be a pain. But also a curse, as it makes the game feel smaller. Part of the fun in Morrowind was standing in some ancient ruin in the middle of nowher thinking "Hmm, wasn't I going somewhere...". There's still a lot of countryside with a lot of ruins and caves to get lost in of course, but less incentive to do it.
Skills has been improved in some ways, for example do you now get ranks with additional bonuses for each one, in addition to the improvement due to higher numerical value (1-100 as base). These extra ranks come at intervals of 25, and can be for example that at Expert Marksman (75) you get a chance to knock down your target. But I miss some skills. Medium armour and unarmoured are no more, only light and heavy armour. Less choice=bad. Also in Morrowind I often went without a helmet simply because I want to see my characters face. Was nice having an armour skill that covered that too. Also there is now 1 weaponskill for blades, everything from claymore to penknife, and one skill for blunts that curiously also covers axes
Haven't seen a spear in the game so assume they are out. This sort of "dumbing down" I have no love for, and is one of my main complaints.Another complaint is the inventory\interface system, which is dreadful. Whoever thought it up (and I use the word "thought" in it's widest possible meaning), must be new to this sort of game. And dropped on the head at birth. The inventory is the hated list of items, where you have to scroll down every time you want something that isn't on the top of the list. Sure there are filters and different ways to arrange the list but it's still a list! So much better with an actual inventory that displays your items, where you can pick what you want right of because you know what it looks like. It worked nicely in Morrowind and countless other games, so it's a mystery why it's like it is. I guess the game also being developed for *spit* consoles it to blame in some way, that's the only other explanation I can come up with besides the developer with serious mental defect-one. Other menus like character stats and quests-info are also avkwardly done.
On the other hand quests are easier to keep track of now, with an arrow pointing you to the next step. Feels like a bit of a cheat sometimes and part of the dumbing-down process but it IS better than having to run around looking for some guy for hours and hours and hours only to find him 2 meters to the left of the first place you looked. And seeing as people really move around and do stuff now it is needed. Seeing people go to work, eat, go to bed (with their clothes on on top of the covers but oh well) really is a nice feature I can't say I've seen in any other game. NPC's that meet eachother will strike up a conversation about dull stuff, you start recognising the conversations soon enough but they do shift somewhat according to where you are and where you are in the game.
To counter this the voiceacting is not good at all. Seems they only had 3-4 people for the job doing some variations on funny voices, and on a particular group of NPC's they really screwed up. Namely the beggars. Talk to a beggar and he\she will talk in an amusing "Lawks I have no food, spare a coin"-voice, but then if you talk to them on a general topic they will have a "normal" voice. Sure it's impressive with so many NPC's with so many different topics etc etc, but it would have been a lot more impressive if it were done right. Not even having Patrick Stewart do the intro voiceover as the dying king can remedy the flaws in this area.
BUt all in all, a fun game that can eat hours of your time, I'd give it an 8 on a scale to 10.
Who the hell locks these things?
- Duke
- Duke
Funny thing: all this talk about Oblivion got me to go back and give Morrowind another try (actually, I just picked up where I left off two years ago). My opinion the first time wasn't that high and I expected I'd play it a few hours and come to the same conclusion I did last time (i.e., that I didn't like it). Strangely, I've really taken to it this time and I've been playing it nonstop for a few days now. Go figure.
"What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were like a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?" - Richard P. Feynman
Well Morrowind I've finished the main quest-line, the Tribunal quests, become head honcho of the Telvanni, Hlaalu, mages guild, morag tong and thieves guild, good way along on other factionquests and done an awful lot of other quests and generally explored, looted and pillaged the whole island
All that on many different characters of course. Started many many on that... so not to sure I'd find motivation to play that again. But perhaps later when I've forgotten most of it. It is better than Oblivion though, all in all. But for now, riding my dark elf vampire through the dusky landscape on my black steed on the way to my next Dark Brotherhood-asignement is the flavour of the month
Hey that gives me an idea for a thread.
All that on many different characters of course. Started many many on that... so not to sure I'd find motivation to play that again. But perhaps later when I've forgotten most of it. It is better than Oblivion though, all in all. But for now, riding my dark elf vampire through the dusky landscape on my black steed on the way to my next Dark Brotherhood-asignement is the flavour of the month
Hey that gives me an idea for a thread.
Who the hell locks these things?
- Duke
- Duke
For those of you who understand Norwegian, here is a review of the game.
In War: Resolution, In Defeat: Defiance, In Victory: Magnanimity, In Peace: Goodwill.
Don't know if I should dare to install it tonight... I only have till 19th to play before school begins again and I must play my usual 2 -3 hours of tubaKalah wrote:For those of you who understand Norwegian, here is a review of the game.
Nice review there
But out of curosity are there werewolves lurking around in this land named Cyrodiil. You see my cousin claimed he saw a wolf like creature leaping past some trees, not noticing my cousin (luckily) some meters from the graveled road. The problem is that I dont know where he was only that there was a lush green wood with a couple of hills and the forest just got darker the more you walked further into it. Can anyone confirm this?
But out of curosity are there werewolves lurking around in this land named Cyrodiil. You see my cousin claimed he saw a wolf like creature leaping past some trees, not noticing my cousin (luckily) some meters from the graveled road. The problem is that I dont know where he was only that there was a lush green wood with a couple of hills and the forest just got darker the more you walked further into it. Can anyone confirm this?
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