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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion |OT|
- Thread starter Amir0x
- Start date
I agree, but the level was designed to make it seem that it was building up to something. The corpses - recent - piles of skeletons, increasing degree of terror and panic in the notes. The place was MASSIVE so it was all pretty anti-climactic. Two caves I've gone into have had a similar build, and they had bosses at the end (one of which I still can't defeat).DJ Brannon said:
Bummer. Thanks for checking it out.Ecrofirt said:
Just completed the Mages quest line, it was quite enjoyable, but brought to light some minor flaws running through the game -
If you imagine the game is like a tour guide, it takes you by the hand and takes you to the most wondeful and brilliant places where you can do and see brilliant things. Essentially most games are like this as part of the level/plot design and some do it better than others.
Well this is where Oblivion comes short I think, at least in the Mages quest line. Traven sacrifices himself so you can take out the King of Worms, the biggest badass necromancer around who otherwise would have whooped both our asses. But the lack of spectacle or awe was well....bizarre. It turns out Traven is indeed a noble and wise ruler, who was probably very powerful. But we never touch on any of this. When he dies, it was just like "ok....cya". In my case, I woke him up out of bed and he then speaks to me and bam he dies right there by the bed. I then take his clothes and staffs and claim the room as my own.
I guess you can put it down to the lack of scripted events. It would have been much more powerful if we had seen Traven in action or become close to him in some way. Like say on the mission to retrieve the necklace where the mages betray the guild and become necromancers. It would have been so cool if they had played along to try to see where my alliegance lay, once they found out I was loyal to Traven they should have tried to trick me into say drinking a poison or something. Depending on my choice different things happen. If I dont suspect them and drink it, I wake up to find myself in a cell with no posessions and a shadowy figure about to torture me, Traven then busts through the door and saves me. If I dont drink, they get angry and 10 necromancers bust in to swarm me, but again Traven comes in and helps out. Instead what we got was "What?? You're not a necromancer? DIIIEEE!!!"
But its not only that. The final showdown with Mannimarco was such a come down. Similar to above, it was just turn up, slash for 10 seconds, win. I didnt feel any dread of fear whatsoever. He didnt even seem like a powerful necromancer, it was just some old dude. When I confronted him he should have tried to trick me or dupe me, enthrall me or whatever. It was just "I am a necromancer!! You're not! DIIIEEE!!" The build up was so normal you know. There should have been walls of corpses leading up to a pitch black room where all I hear is raspy breathing, perhaps a whisper of "help me" in the background and someone chanting a weird tongue. Can you imagine how much cooler that would have been? If we'd used the detect life spell, imagine if parts of the wall lit up as well - (some of the corpses still live), confusing us a bit and scaring the hell out of us all at once. Feels like a big missed opportunity.
I'm not slagging anyone off, their work is phenomenal already and the game is huge. But I think next time if they add the spectacle in terms of how they lead us through the game, the level design, the quests, the stories, the interaction with quest characters and so on it will be twice as good. I would prefer a smaller game world with the above than a gigantic game world which kind of feels detached. Maybe the other quest lines are different...
Bottom line is when I return after it all and they call me arch-mage....it doesnt feel as satisfying as say...a "thank you for playing" message at the end of some more basic games. While a game like SMB3 or Zelda leaves you with a sense of "wow that was amazing" or even "phew, I did it" - this was more like, "ok, another box ticked, whats next". While the characters and AI are amazing as a world, I never feel like its a world I belong in, always detached.
I'll stop the essay there. Hope no one takes offence. Just some personal 'improvements' for next time - but then again this was probably all a deliberate design decision...
Well this is where Oblivion comes short I think, at least in the Mages quest line. Traven sacrifices himself so you can take out the King of Worms, the biggest badass necromancer around who otherwise would have whooped both our asses. But the lack of spectacle or awe was well....bizarre. It turns out Traven is indeed a noble and wise ruler, who was probably very powerful. But we never touch on any of this. When he dies, it was just like "ok....cya". In my case, I woke him up out of bed and he then speaks to me and bam he dies right there by the bed. I then take his clothes and staffs and claim the room as my own.
I guess you can put it down to the lack of scripted events. It would have been much more powerful if we had seen Traven in action or become close to him in some way. Like say on the mission to retrieve the necklace where the mages betray the guild and become necromancers. It would have been so cool if they had played along to try to see where my alliegance lay, once they found out I was loyal to Traven they should have tried to trick me into say drinking a poison or something. Depending on my choice different things happen. If I dont suspect them and drink it, I wake up to find myself in a cell with no posessions and a shadowy figure about to torture me, Traven then busts through the door and saves me. If I dont drink, they get angry and 10 necromancers bust in to swarm me, but again Traven comes in and helps out. Instead what we got was "What?? You're not a necromancer? DIIIEEE!!!"
But its not only that. The final showdown with Mannimarco was such a come down. Similar to above, it was just turn up, slash for 10 seconds, win. I didnt feel any dread of fear whatsoever. He didnt even seem like a powerful necromancer, it was just some old dude. When I confronted him he should have tried to trick me or dupe me, enthrall me or whatever. It was just "I am a necromancer!! You're not! DIIIEEE!!" The build up was so normal you know. There should have been walls of corpses leading up to a pitch black room where all I hear is raspy breathing, perhaps a whisper of "help me" in the background and someone chanting a weird tongue. Can you imagine how much cooler that would have been? If we'd used the detect life spell, imagine if parts of the wall lit up as well - (some of the corpses still live), confusing us a bit and scaring the hell out of us all at once. Feels like a big missed opportunity.
I'm not slagging anyone off, their work is phenomenal already and the game is huge. But I think next time if they add the spectacle in terms of how they lead us through the game, the level design, the quests, the stories, the interaction with quest characters and so on it will be twice as good. I would prefer a smaller game world with the above than a gigantic game world which kind of feels detached. Maybe the other quest lines are different...
Bottom line is when I return after it all and they call me arch-mage....it doesnt feel as satisfying as say...a "thank you for playing" message at the end of some more basic games. While a game like SMB3 or Zelda leaves you with a sense of "wow that was amazing" or even "phew, I did it" - this was more like, "ok, another box ticked, whats next". While the characters and AI are amazing as a world, I never feel like its a world I belong in, always detached.
I'll stop the essay there. Hope no one takes offence. Just some personal 'improvements' for next time - but then again this was probably all a deliberate design decision...
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
kaizoku said:
From where I am in the game, I tend to agree with you here. I think it's likely a result of the open-ended and non-linear structure of the game, as well as it enforcing an extreme first-person story POV. It's virtually ALL first-person with you essentially being detatched from the epic events in that you never see the omniscent "reader's view" of events. You wake up in prison, you learn the story of what's going down by just following along and listening to what folks are saying, and having someone occassionally turn to you and deliever a small snippet.
But you don't have much in the way of conventional cut scenes that could be used to build tension and reward with payoff.
Also, combat-related issues that drain some of the tension and build-up are probably related to the game system itself; this game isn't like a lot of others where major foes are just totally different and operate by special "boss rules". It probably makes it a lot harder to devise a way to make certain battles seem more epic than others. For instance, in my experience, while the general AI of the world as a whole is great, enemy AI can be surprisingly simplistic. You might expect a true animal such as a wolf to just run at you clawing and biting until you or it are dead. But most of the battles with other enemies haven't felt very much like duels or fights... it's usually very MMO-like. They see you, they aggro, they run over and keep slashing and casting until you kill them. I'd have liked to see the human(oid) enemies at least, circle, play with you, taunt, try to act as if they don't want to die themselves, even flee and run away if it looks like they can't win a fight. Just something to raise the drama and take advantage of such a well-realized world.
However, like your own comments say, I don't mean to slag anyone. Oblivion is astounding. It's just that a few elements look more painfully shortchanged in contrast to the richness of the rest of the game.
Edit: I know I've gotten into a few fights where an enemy actually pauses to at least say something, but it's rare.
ai opponents will definitely run under the right circumstances -- i've had to chase dremora spellcasters halfway down oblivion towers. :/ when i was
, just about everyone ran from me, and i ended up slaughtering them a dozen at a time in the cave's far corners. kinda satisfying!
infiltrating the mythic dawn hideout
Nope... I'm on 360 however.Ecrofirt said:
I've also had baddies physically taunt me (Ogre's doing the "come get some" hand motion) as well as human(oid) characters like Vampires and basic humans run away from me. Seems the only ones that do are usually magic users and they'll run away to either heal themselves or summon creatures to help them. Everyone else pretty much do the change 'till they die method that you guys are describing.Kaijima said:
Maybe you're just killing them too fast.
I'll totally agree that boss characters are far too easy though.
RE: the lack of drama/intensity. As you know the game features no cutscenes, so of course it won't have as much of an impact as the ones that do.
raYne said:
Its not so much a lack of cutscenes, but scripted set pieces as I described - kind of like Half Life. There are a couple I have encountered in Oblivion so its not like it was impossible, its just abit neglected.
Better storytelling techniques is all it is really. Probably too much to ask for but it'd be awesome huh?
Lost Fragment
Obsessed with 4chan
Alrighty, I got this game a few days ago and have been obsessively enamored with it ever since. Unfortunately though I think I ran into a bug which may have screwed up the main quest progression...
So uh, any help? I've been keeping multiple saves but my most recent one before this is about 3 hours back -_-
I'm at the part in uh, Arvil I think it is, where I have to talk to Captain Burd about the spies in the city. Well I killed the spy before I talked to him, and now the quest doesn't want to go forward. The spy is laying dead in her home, but the quest thingie keeps telling me that to progress I have to go there. I've searched the home high and low and there isn't any sort of item I have to pick up to progress things.
So uh, any help? I've been keeping multiple saves but my most recent one before this is about 3 hours back -_-
Yeah, the game does have a few "scenes" where they take control by forcing your character to stay in one place while other characters interact. I'd say that's as far as they were willing to take it for one reason or another.
Still, it's no that I'm disagreeing with you about the point (I'm not), but one could argue that you're supposed to be seeing things from your only your perspective. Everything gets built up from either what you've been personally either told or read. The vast majority of the "action" takes place behind the scenes, so it pretty muchs ends up being. "This is what happened... now you go fix it".
They could've easily made your character present for much/all of said action (and have it go down in realtime) and remedy the issue. Part V!
I'd definitely agree and say the reason behind this is the open ended gameplay. I know I didn't follow one questline for long before I got distracted by some other quests. :lol
Time related, most likely
Still, it's no that I'm disagreeing with you about the point (I'm not), but one could argue that you're supposed to be seeing things from your only your perspective. Everything gets built up from either what you've been personally either told or read. The vast majority of the "action" takes place behind the scenes, so it pretty muchs ends up being. "This is what happened... now you go fix it".
They could've easily made your character present for much/all of said action (and have it go down in realtime) and remedy the issue. Part V!
I'd definitely agree and say the reason behind this is the open ended gameplay. I know I didn't follow one questline for long before I got distracted by some other quests. :lol
Lost Fragment
Obsessed with 4chan
Core407 said:
It's just called "Spies."
Lost Fragment:
there are two spies you have to kill and there are about a dozen ways to do it, so that quest has the potential to progress weirdly -- just find and kill the other spy, and the quest should complete. there's a trap door leading to a basement in the spy's house, by the way -- have you searched in there?
Lost Fragment
Obsessed with 4chan
drohne said:
Is there really? How did I miss that? I searched that house high and low =(
Thanks ^^
raYne said:
dude I totally know what you are saying, but it sounds like you didnt read my first post about this properly. The examples I gave WERE all from your own perspective. Also things like level design and how the events are delivered to you are what I'm talking about and none of this relies on fmv or cut scenes.
Someone with X360, I have a favor to ask:
Could you please go to the Bravil Mages Gild for me?
Once there, find Delphine Jend. She wears a dark blue dress, and goes to sleep on the far end of the second floor.
When you find her, pickpocket her, and tell me what items she has.
Could you please go to the Bravil Mages Gild for me?
Once there, find Delphine Jend. She wears a dark blue dress, and goes to sleep on the far end of the second floor.
When you find her, pickpocket her, and tell me what items she has.
Cutscenes in this game remind me a lot of the Thief series (ok, so a lot of this game reminds me of Thief, though I'm sure that's unintentional) but aren't quite as deep. Then again, Thief was designed around being hidden in the shadows to eavesdrop on key conversations to get more info on the plot, and not all of Oblivion's environments are designed with that in mind.
The only thing that really bugs me about Oblivion is there aren't multiple solutions to some quests. And I don't mean a quest where you have to kill someone but there's 3-4 different ways, I mean quests where you can't progress by charming someone with high speechcraft and personality, bribe them with good mercantile, or find a thief-ish way to resolve their problems.
The only thing that really bugs me about Oblivion is there aren't multiple solutions to some quests. And I don't mean a quest where you have to kill someone but there's 3-4 different ways, I mean quests where you can't progress by charming someone with high speechcraft and personality, bribe them with good mercantile, or find a thief-ish way to resolve their problems.
Just tried and yeah she had the <Missing Name> item, which falls under the misc category, and 323 gold.Ecrofirt said:
The game froze when I tried to drop it to get a closer look though.
Well you got your answer then didn't you..PhatSaqs said:
There are exceptions though, as I have left things both in the woods and on the street inside of cities that have remained there for well over 100 hours. If you leave something in a public place (building specifically) it'll be "taken" after 3 or so days.
raYne said:Just tried and yeah she had the <Missing Name> item, which falls under the misc category, and 323 gold.
The game froze when I tried to drop it to get a closer look though.
Well you got your answer then didn't you..
There are exceptions though, as I have left things both in the woods and on the street inside of cities that have remained there for well over 100 hours. If you leave something in a public place (building specifically) it'll be "taken" after 3 or so days.
Cool.
Wonder what she was supposed to have?
Steve, and word?
firex said:
This is why I prefer Morrowind when it comes to quests. You could do quests any way you wanted to and not get punished for it (unless you count the "vital npc has died so you have to get the final weapons differently" bits.) In Oblivion, your hand is held very tightly (essential NPCs can't die, quests end if you kill the wrong NPCs sometimes, doors frozen shut, being too effective of a thief can break some quests so you're forced to do them "correctly", etc.)
Do The Mario
Unconfirmed Member
I am not sure if I should cure my vampirism, I think it would be kind of cool that my character did all his evil stuff (dark brotherhood) as a vampire then became righteous again.
Then again I love my hunters sight and being immortal is what all the kids are doing these days.
Then again I love my hunters sight and being immortal is what all the kids are doing these days.
IAmtheFMan
Member
This game is sucking up so much time. It really does seem very alive.
Also, when I got into the Arcane University, I didn't like all the lip everyone was giving me. There was a class going on, and one person too many said that they didn't have time to talk to me. Of course, this is AFTER I had become Master of the Fighter's Guild, so my ego wasn't gonna take this sitting down. I took out my own personalized Katana blade that does about 35 damage (Ouch the Blade is its name) and single-handedly wiped out the entire Arcane University, starting with that damn class. Of course, I got kicked out of the Arcane University but I couldn't get out at that point. No matter. By the end of my purge, I had killed 27 pussy mages. I should've taken a screenshot; I felt like friggin' Sephiroth or something.
I was doing the Mages Guild Recommendation quest for Anvil, (the one with the thief/assasin/whatever where you pose as a merchant) and I passed her, the 2 guys watching me jumped out and started beating the crap outta her. Then all of a sudden, a passing guard came by and all they saw were two people who were attacking this poor woman for no reason, and started attacking them, eventually killing them (but not before killing the thief.) I just nonchalantly stood aside and waited for the brawl to end.
Also, when I got into the Arcane University, I didn't like all the lip everyone was giving me. There was a class going on, and one person too many said that they didn't have time to talk to me. Of course, this is AFTER I had become Master of the Fighter's Guild, so my ego wasn't gonna take this sitting down. I took out my own personalized Katana blade that does about 35 damage (Ouch the Blade is its name) and single-handedly wiped out the entire Arcane University, starting with that damn class. Of course, I got kicked out of the Arcane University but I couldn't get out at that point. No matter. By the end of my purge, I had killed 27 pussy mages. I should've taken a screenshot; I felt like friggin' Sephiroth or something.
belgurdo said:
Agreed. I killed Vivec the first time I met him in Morrowind and laughed my head off (then reloaded, of course). The first time I met the
Gray Fox, I whipped out my shit and tried to take his head off. Then it was like "The Gray Fox is unconscious." and I was like well shit!
It's interesting that the PC and X360 code is similar, down to same missing data fields. The middleware more than held its own on this game, I guess.raYne said:Just tried and yeah she had the <Missing Name> item, which falls under the misc category, and 323 gold.
The game froze when I tried to drop it to get a closer look though.
Do The Mario
Unconfirmed Member
Upon curing vampirism will my appearance return to normal?
Kung Fu Jedi
Member
Lost Fragment said:
I just did this quest over the weekend as well, and I had a hard time finding the second spy at first. I asked around, and got a few clues, but I never could find her. So eventually I
returned to the rune stone again at dusk and waited. Sure enough, she showed up and I was able to killer her off and finish up the quest. You'll also need the "Order" that are in the hidden basement under the floor of Jerle's house to finish it off.
I finally got pissed at this game. I spent this time sneaking into the castle to find a locked gate. But for some damn reason, my 'unlock door' spell isn't fricken working on it. It just keeps passing right through the door. So I'm gonna go make 'touch' unlocking spells. Sucks though cause my guy can't unlock with a lockpick worth shit and I used up the Skeleton Key for the main quest cause why would I need it, I can unlock any door with these spells!
S|kH said:
You likely need to downsample some of the shaders and such due to not having enough horsepower. Google Oldblivion, or it might be www.oldblivion.com. They have a patch that makes it compatible with lesser videocards.
Kung Fu Jedi
Member
LakeEarth said:
I've been having more issues with the locks in game as well. My lock picking skills and my alteration skill are roughly about equal. I'm mostly running into "Hard" locks now, and my best spell is Open Average, which I need to improve, and my lockpicking skills are right around 50 or so, which obviously needs to improve as well. That skill goes up very slowly through normal use. I may need to look up a trainer.
(spoiler free version here, spoilered simple directions below): If you can, go to Leyawiin and ask NPCs about Daedra shrines. At the very least you should be able to ask some people in the mages' guild. I remember some dark elf NPC having that option for me. Then you can get a map marker for a place to quest for a good lockpick that will also boost your skill a lot.Kung Fu Jedi said:
Go north from Leyawiin along the road until you see a daedric shrine marker on your map, and you'll find the shrine of Nocturnal. Then just do the rather easy quest there and you can get the Skeleton Key, an unbreakable lockpick that also fortifies your security by 40.
Kung Fu Jedi
Member
firex said:
Thanks for the tip! I'll look into it. I could use the help!
One of the little things that annoys me greatly about becoming Arch-mage is that everytime I enter and leave the Arcane University, the battlemage at the entrace says 'ahh...you must be the arcane universitys latest edition'. Couldn't they have scripted him to say something different when you become the head of the Mages guild, like 'Welcome back Arch-mage'. It's just one of those things that other people have been saying is that you don't feel you have achieved anything. People just treat you the same. When I talk to people in the University themselves, they should be respectful of your title. They shouldn't tell you to buzz off because they are busy.
haha, I got so sick of that guy when I went through the mages' guild with my other character. I mean wtf, every other NPC seemed to react to my rank, but that guy's always "ah, you must be the arcane university's newest addition, blah blah blah." it's up there with the random conversations that are always like "I saw a mudcrab the other day." "Disgusting things!" for me in terms of chatter I've heard too much.Crow said:
Kung Fu Jedi
Member
LakeEarth said:
I found some slippers in a random dungeon last week that fortified your sneak ability. I think it gave you +6 to sneak or so. My sneak is fairly eye, so I sold them off to pad my ever growing coffers.
And I agree with what you guys are saying. There should be a few more reactions to your ranks in the guild when you interact with different people in the world. Heck, I'm still doing a few of the side quests in the different Mage Guilds throughout the game, and every once in while someone would say "If the Guild found out about this, I'd be kicked out for sure". All the while, I'm going "Hello! I am the Arch-Mage, and your ass is soooo gone!"
Also, I finally did the Lifting The Vale quest over the weekend, which was a great quest. Very well done. But the Countess of Bravil "enticed" me with a stipend of 25 gp. I have 120k or more at the moment, and she's going to entice me with 25 gp? Hell woman, I drop more than that on ale!! :lol
Sometimes you get caught even with 100 sneak, I've had it happen to me too. It's best to save beforehand and if they go hostile, run off (if you can) and hide so they can't find you.LakeEarth said:
But for gear that fortifies sneak (once again, spoilered, just in case) that I've seen:
Murder someone and then do the initial Dark Brotherhood quest, and you'll get a suit of light armor that I believe fortifies sneak by 10.
BlueTsunami
there is joy in sucking dick
What you have to remember about pickpocketing is that, the heavier the object your pickpocketing the higher chance you will be caught. So stealing a Key at 100 Sneak is cake but stealing a Bow or even worse, a Sword will have a higher chance of alarmer the person.
Kung Fu Jedi
Member
LakeEarth said:
Lake: What's your sneak skill level?
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