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[yonder]

The levelling system confuses me :/ The enemies get stronger as you level? But I'm levelling to be stronger than them, dammit! I'm thinking about doing a bit of studying and then start over with a plan on how to get a maximized character fairly early. Question: Let's say I play as an orc. If I level all the magic schools to the max will I be able to cast any spell? Man, this is to complex for me... I'm used to JRPG levelling.

Great game, however.

 

[GhaleonEB]

The levelling system confuses me :/ The enemies get stronger as you level? But I'm levelling to be stronger than them, dammit! I'm thinking about doing a bit of studying and then start over with a plan on how to get a maximized character fairly early.

Two things on the leveling without wanting to re-open a can of worms:

1) You will eventually get "ahead of the curve" against your enemies. They stay tough, but you pull ahead, for the most part.
2) Your skills, not level, is what makes combat get easier. You need to focus on certain skills to survive. Read the previous page about the combination of Alchemy and Marksman, for example. I utterly destroy high-level enemies with a few shots now.

 

[yonder]

Read the previous page about the combination of Alchemy and Marksman, for example. I utterly destroy high-level enemies with a few shots now.

*reads*

Sounds awesome.

It's a bit annoying, however, that you need to learn so much in order to 'feel in control' of the game. I've played 10 hours now and there's so much that I've yet to understand. But I guess the feeling you get from finally grasping it all is great.

 

[Kung Fu Jedi]

The levelling system confuses me :/ The enemies get stronger as you level? But I'm levelling to be stronger than them, dammit! I'm thinking about doing a bit of studying and then start over with a plan on how to get a maximized character fairly early. Question: Let's say I play as an orc. If I level all the magic schools to the max will I be able to cast any spell? Man, this is to complex for me... I'm used to JRPG levelling.

Great game, however.

The leveling system isn't all that hard really. When you level, yes, the creatures around you improve as well, but not nearly to the same extent as you do. You'll easily outdistance them eventually, and you'll find them replaced with more challenging monsters. The system has it's flaws at times, but really it does a decent job of keeping the challenge level high throughtout most of the game.

In the more linear JRPG terms, it works the same way, it just that the new areas you move into have bigger/tougher monsters. The more wide-open nature of Oblivion doesn't allow for that same straightforward progression, so the challenge has to be maintained some way.

 

[gblues]

Being able to give your horse an inventory is a no brainer. I know there was a PC mod that did that, and it makes perfect sense. I don't use my horse much, but I like the idea of that. Also, being able to attack while mounted would be cool. I know there are some technical issues to that one, but it would be nice. At least let me fire my bow.

You can already use Shadowmere to carry stuff:

- Kill (well, knock out really) Shadowmere
- While the horse is knocked out, interact with the "corpse" and put your loot there.
- To get your loot back, "kill" Shadowmere and get it back from the corpse.

A bit inefficient, but it works.

Nathan

 

[Kung Fu Jedi]

You can already use Shadowmere to carry stuff:

- Kill (well, knock out really) Shadowmere
- While the horse is knocked out, interact with the "corpse" and put your loot there.
- To get your loot back, "kill" Shadowmere and get it back from the corpse.

A bit inefficient, but it works.

Nathan

LOL! Good to know. Not quite like having saddlebags, but still... :lol

 

[yonder]

Okay, I just read some FAQs and I'm more confused than ever :/

Apparently if you reach the maximum of all stats you don't level any more? What about skills? Can I become a master of archery while I'm still level one? And almost every FAQ I've read insist on choosing major skills that you aren't going to use very much... Is this so you can control your levelling?

Essentially, what I want is a character that is an expert at almost everything thus giving me the abilty to vary my fighting tactics and such, making for a more rewarding game. I sthis possible?

Whoa, that's a lot of questions... Hope you can answer them. Please help me!

Oh, and tell me a bit about your characters, what skills you have mastered, your level and so on - I need inspiration!

 

[GhaleonEB]

Okay, I just read some FAQs and I'm more confused than ever :/

Apparently if you reach the maximum of all stats you don't level any more? What about skills? Can I become a master of archery while I'm still level one? And almost every FAQ I've read insist on choosing major skills that you aren't going to use very much... Is this so you can control your levelling?

When you choose your Major Skills, you are basically deciding how you are going to level. Each time you increase ten of those, in any combination, you go up a level. It's a good idea to have a mix of combat and other skills, due to the leveling of the enemies. For example, if you level based only on Sneak, Security, Armorer, Alteration and Alchemy, the enemies are going to RAPE you later on. Throw in some Conjuration, Blade, Blunt, Destruction or Archery and you'll be fine.

Essentially, what I want is a character that is an expert at almost everything thus giving me the abilty to vary my fighting tactics and such, making for a more rewarding game. I sthis possible?

You can make a jack of all trades. You level skills, primarily, based on USAGE of those skills. So if you want to be a master thief, sneak around a lot. If you want to get good at achery, shoot arrows lots. etc. The ONLY difference between a Major and Minor skill is leveling Minor skills won't boost you character's level. Also, Major skills start out higher.

Whoa, that's a lot of questions... Hope you can answer them. Please help me!

I'll try!

Oh, and tell me a bit about your characters, what skills you have mastered, your level and so on - I need inspiration!

It's all about balance. My first character, I did a Battle Mage (pre-set class), so I could use a combination of attack magic and melee combat. It worked out well. However, I did not use Alchemy, Marksman, Sneak, etc. much.

This new character, I made a combination of skills I never touched the first time through. Here's what I did (from way earlier in the thread):

Race: Wood Elf
Specialization: Magic
Key Attributes: Speed, Luck
Sign: Thief

Major Skills:

*Blade
*Alteration
*Conjuration
*Illusion
*Mysticism
*Marksman
*Sneak

In my first character, combat typically went like this:

1) Send in a summoned creature ahead of me (using Conjuration spells).
2) Jump in while the enemies are fighting the critter I summoned and whale on them with melee.
3) Re-summon if needed. Clean up with melee and some Destruction magic.

My new character, combat goes like this:

1) I spot enemies at a distance using detect life/night vision custom spell
2) I poison an arrow and nail them from sneak, doing 3x damage, plus poison damage.
3) If the enemy is powerful, I hit them with a few more shots to stack the poison effects.
4) If there are lots of enemies, I'll summon a creature to help out.
5) Use combination of blade and arrows to fight, using lots of poisons along the way.
6) Run away, while poisons take effect. Most guys will die in ~20 seconds.

Protip: Get into the Arcane University FAST. You get access altars that let you enchant your own weapons and make your own spells. It's a MUST to get the most enjoyment out of your character.

 

[yonder]

Ghaleon, thank you so much! I really appreciate it.

Interesting, your second character is almost exactly what I have in mind right now. I might make something similar to that.

But I still have one question unanswered: can ypu become a master of a skill at level one?

Thanks again! I think I'll go start over now.

 

[gblues]

Ghaleon, thank you so much! I really appreciate it.

Interesting, your second character is almost exactly what I have in mind right now. I might make something similar to that.

But I still have one question unanswered: can ypu become a master of a skill at level one?

Thanks again! I think I'll go start over now.

Yes, you can. Keep in mind that if you power level one of your primary skills, you'll gain a ton of levels all at once when you sleep in a bed--a bad thing to do, since you'll instantly be going up against harder monsters with lv1 gear. You = assraped.

Nathan

 

[Kung Fu Jedi]

Generally, I think it's best to level naturally, and not put it off while focusing on getting mastery of a skill. In fact, for the most part, I didn't even think about how I was levelling too much, until later in the game when I wanted to make sure a certain skill was advancing to where I needed it. Really, if you just play the game the way you want to, and not worry about the systems that are going on underneath. Just play and enjoy. You can actually over think it at times.

 

[GhaleonEB]

Generally, I think it's best to level naturally, and not put it off while focusing on getting mastery of a skill. In fact, for the most part, I didn't even think about how I was levelling too much, until later in the game when I wanted to make sure a certain skill was advancing to where I needed it. Really, if you just play the game the way you want to, and not worry about the systems that are going on underneath. Just play and enjoy. You can actually over think it at times.

This is good advice. Really, most of my effort around leveling went into designing the character. If you buid your character, and primary skills, based on how you plan to play then those skills will scale naturally with your level; you don't have to force it.

 

[yonder]

Generally, I think it's best to level naturally, and not put it off while focusing on getting mastery of a skill. In fact, for the most part, I didn't even think about how I was levelling too much, until later in the game when I wanted to make sure a certain skill was advancing to where I needed it. Really, if you just play the game the way you want to, and not worry about the systems that are going on underneath. Just play and enjoy. You can actually over think it at times.

You know, this is probably the best way. Good advice, indeed.

 

[bengraven]

Leveling naturally unfortunately made my sneak skill turn out to be ass. This was unfair, too, because I snuck around constantly.

 

[Kung Fu Jedi]

Leveling naturally unfortunately made my sneak skill turn out to be ass. This was unfair, too, because I snuck around constantly.

How so? I sneak around pretty constantly too, and Sneak leveled fairly easily and quickly for me. My only problem with it was that it only levels when there is someone around to hear, so occasionally I'd get the message that it had gone up in rank while I was in a dungeon, and that would alert me to the fact that someone was close by that I hadn't been aware of before. :lol

 

[bengraven]

How so? I sneak around pretty constantly too, and Sneak leveled fairly easily and quickly for me. My only problem with it was that it only levels when there is someone around to hear, so occasionally I'd get the message that it had gone up in rank while I was in a dungeon, and that would alert me to the fact that someone was close by that I hadn't been aware of before. :lol

There lies the problem. I guess I was mainly using it in dark dungeons and since I'm not much of a "spelunker" (read: dungeon crawler), I never used it as much. I could never sneak up on creatures in the woods like I had wanted to, because I can't see the ****ers.

Seriously, Beth, your world is beautiful. But could you mow the lawn a bit? Just a bit? The grasses and shrubberies are almost too long.

 

[GhaleonEB]

There lies the problem. I guess I was mainly using it in dark dungeons and since I'm not much of a "spelunker" (read: dungeon crawler), I never used it as much. I could never sneak up on creatures in the woods like I had wanted to, because I can't see the ****ers.

Seriously, Beth, your world is beautiful. But could you mow the lawn a bit? Just a bit? The grasses and shrubberies are almost too long.

I totally agree about the grass, I lose stuff there all the time.

What you need is a Detect Life spell - I have one on almost constantly in dungeons so I know when to start sneaking.

 

[Kung Fu Jedi]

Seriously, Beth, your world is beautiful. But could you mow the lawn a bit? Just a bit? The grasses and shrubberies are almost too long.

Yeah, I don't know how many times I killed something, only to not be able to find it in the grass to loot it. Shorter grass would have probably increased the framerate as well.

 

[GhaleonEB]

Yeah, I don't know how many times I killed something, only to not be able to find it in the grass to loot it. Shorter grass would have probably increased the framerate as well.

I'd like to see it thinner - same models, but 1/3 as dense. Then push the draw of it out further and tweak the frame rate...some of that grass is thick. If there were small gaps then I could see stuff, like that enchanted axe I lost last night.

 

[bengraven]

I guess we'd still have problems finding things if it were shorter. Items, of course. We'll still be able to find that dead land dreugh, but those silver daggers would remain out of reach.

What we need is a "Detect Lewt" spell.

 

[Kung Fu Jedi]

I guess we'd still have problems finding things if it were shorter. Items, of course. We'll still be able to find that dead land dreugh, but those silver daggers would remain out of reach.

What we need is a "Detect Lewt" spell.

Yeah, that spell would have come in hand at times. Corpses were hard enough to spot at times, items and weapons they dropped, were nearly impossible.

 

[bengraven]

Yeah, that spell would have come in hand at times. Corpses were hard enough to spot at times, items and weapons they dropped, were nearly impossible.

Yeah, and sometimes in caves, things would fall over edges and behind rocks.

Here's another fix I'd like. When you Drop items in your house, they don't fall behind bookshelves or desks and are impossible to reach without telekinesis.

 

[Core407]

All they really needed is a detect weapon spell or something.

 

[Kung Fu Jedi]

Yeah, I don't know how many times I dropped stuff in my house, only to have it go away forever.

 

[GhaleonEB]

The Collector's Quest is tough - I've cleared out over 20 Alyid ruins and found 5 statues. Having a hard time finding more...

 

[bengraven]

The Collector's Quest is tough - I've cleared out over 20 Alyid ruins and found 5 statues. Having a hard time finding more...

Sounds like it could get annoying.

 

[Kung Fu Jedi]

The Collector's Quest is tough - I've cleared out over 20 Alyid ruins and found 5 statues. Having a hard time finding more...

Have you given them all to him? If I recall, after I gave him the first two or three, he gave me a list of other locations. That's a great quest line though. Felt epic in scale, and I would have liked to have seen a few more like it.

 

[GhaleonEB]

Have you given them all to him? If I recall, after I gave him the first two or three, he gave me a list of other locations. That's a great quest line though. Felt epic in scale, and I would have liked to have seen a few more like it.

He does give me some others to go to, but I have not found them yet. Plus, he only lists three (after finding the first two), so that leaves five more out there. So, I explore each one I find.

 

[xabre]

Any word on an expansion pack yet?

 

[Suerte]

Any word on an expansion pack yet?

Bethesda employee mburg writes:

"We have no plans to make an expansion for oblivion. Should that change we'll make an annoucement on Elder Scrolls.com."

 

[Kung Fu Jedi]

Bethesda employee mburg writes:

"We have no plans to make an expansion for oblivion. Should that change we'll make an annoucement on Elder Scrolls.com."

Where is this posted? If true, that really disappoints. After having two expansions for Morrowind, to not have any for Oblivion would be really disappointing. I guess it's the DLC that is the expansion this time out.

 

[Mejilan]

Where is this posted? If true, that really disappoints. After having two expansions for Morrowind, to not have any for Oblivion would be really disappointing. I guess it's the DLC that is the expansion this time out.

All of the DLC released so far doesn't equate to a fraction of the content added in just one of Morrowind's expansions.

 

[Suerte]

Where is this posted? If true, that really disappoints. After having two expansions for Morrowind, to not have any for Oblivion would be really disappointing. I guess it's the DLC that is the expansion this time out.

http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=523507&st=0#

 

[Vark]

The Plot Thickens!

 

[GhaleonEB]

The Plot Thickens!

*shakes fist*

 

[gblues]

Eh, just wait. It'll happen. It's sold too well for there not to be an expansion at some point. Right now they just can't admit that they're thinking about it.

Nathan

 

[platypotamus]

Eh, just wait. It'll happen. It's sold too well for there not to be an expansion at some point. Right now they just can't admit that they're thinking about it.

Nathan

There's also the alternative line of thinking that goes like this:

"Meh, Oblivion's huge enough, and no expansion means more people working on Fallout 3 (maybe)"

so that's some comfort potential.

 

[siamesedreamer]

ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stupid finals......I haven't been able to play this since last week. Its over though tomorrow and I'll be playing all weekend.

 

[GhaleonEB]

My daughter, who turns 4 tomorrow, has started her first game. We designed her character and got through to where you pick up arrows and bow in the first dungeon. I turned the difficulty waaaaaaay down to the bottom so she can play, as she's still learning to navigate in 3-d space (she's a Flash PC gamer, I'm afraid). She killed two rats on her own with a sword, then when she met another killed it with her fire spell. She loves the game. I'm so proud. <3 Natalie

 

[Gattsu25]

They aren't thinking about it

They're probably already working on it

They better be >_<

 

[GDJustin]

I got the game recently as well, and I'm having a great time with it, but 4 hours in, I'm a little underwhelmed with the overall experience. It's like... yeah there's extraneous caves everywhere to explore and whole towns designed down to EXACTING detail that you'll never even need to visit in the course of the main quest... but so what? Example:

Cruising around in the forest I discovered "Goblin Jim's Cave." I stop, spent about 45 minutes exporing the whole thing until I finally ran into Goblin Jim himself, plus a few cronies. He proved to be tougher than expected and I barely, barely scraped out of the battle alive. Did he have some sweet sword I didn't have access to? Or some alchemy ingredients? No. In fact, he had NOTHING on him. The entire dungeon didn't have anything of use for me. Neither did the two before it, really.

Maybe I've just been spoiled by WoW's "microrewards," where nothing you do is completely without purpose.

Again, I can't stress enough that the fantastically huge world, detail, etc., has very much sucked me in... but man... couldn't Goblin Jim at least had a decent helm or something for me? I'm only four hours in and I'm already tempted to start skipping these caves and just burn through the main quest/guild quests.

I dunno... maybe I just don't get it. Or maybe there's a quest that DOES involve offing Jim, and I just need to find where it's activated, to get my reward.

Any Oblivion vets have any comments?

 

[GhaleonEB]

I got the game recently as well, and I'm having a great time with it, but 4 hours in, I'm a little underwhelmed with the overall experience. It's like... yeah there's extraneous caves everywhere to explore and whole towns designed down to EXACTING detail that you'll never even need to visit in the course of the main quest... but so what? Example:

Cruising around in the forest I discovered "Goblin Jim's Cave." I stop, spent about 45 minutes exporing the whole thing until I finally ran into Goblin Jim himself, plus a few cronies. He proved to be tougher than expected and I barely, barely scraped out of the battle alive. Did he have some sweet sword I didn't have access to? Or some alchemy ingredients? No. In fact, he had NOTHING on him. The entire dungeon didn't have anything of use for me. Neither did the two before it, really.

Maybe I've just been spoiled by WoW's "microrewards," where nothing you do is completely without purpose.

Again, I can't stress enough that the fantastically huge world, detail, etc., has very much sucked me in... but man... couldn't Goblin Jim at least had a decent helm or something for me? I'm only four hours in and I'm already tempted to start skipping these caves and just burn through the main quest/guild quests.

I dunno... maybe I just don't get it. Or maybe there's a quest that DOES involve offing Jim, and I just need to find where it's activated, to get my reward.

Any Oblivion vets have any comments?

Not all of the caves have great booty in them; I've found that about 1/2 of the random caves have great stuff. So you have to get lucky sometimes. Try in particular exploring Alyid ruins - Varla Stones, Alyid Statues and some nice enchanted weaponry are pretty commen in them.

One thing I discovered early on was that you can complete quests without realizing it. For example, IIRC, there is someone you speak to that wants Goblin Jim dead and will reward you for it. If you talk to them first, it's a quest and you go off to kill Goblin Jim. Now, if you talk to them, you just tell them you already offed him and you're instantly rewarded. There are quite a few dungeons like that.

And for some folks, such as myself, dungeon crawling is its own reward. I'm nearly 100 hours into my current game, and I'm level 28, but I have only completed 30 quests. I have, however, cleared out over 60 optional dungeons including nine optional Oblivion Gates. I love exploring them, and some have brilliant and complex designs. For me, they are more iteresting than most of the quests in the game. For someone such as yourself, you may find them less interesting. That's why they're optional.

 

[gblues]

I got the game recently as well, and I'm having a great time with it, but 4 hours in, I'm a little underwhelmed with the overall experience. It's like... yeah there's extraneous caves everywhere to explore and whole towns designed down to EXACTING detail that you'll never even need to visit in the course of the main quest... but so what? Example:

Cruising around in the forest I discovered "Goblin Jim's Cave." I stop, spent about 45 minutes exporing the whole thing until I finally ran into Goblin Jim himself, plus a few cronies. He proved to be tougher than expected and I barely, barely scraped out of the battle alive. Did he have some sweet sword I didn't have access to? Or some alchemy ingredients? No. In fact, he had NOTHING on him. The entire dungeon didn't have anything of use for me. Neither did the two before it, really.

Maybe I've just been spoiled by WoW's "microrewards," where nothing you do is completely without purpose.

Again, I can't stress enough that the fantastically huge world, detail, etc., has very much sucked me in... but man... couldn't Goblin Jim at least had a decent helm or something for me? I'm only four hours in and I'm already tempted to start skipping these caves and just burn through the main quest/guild quests.

I dunno... maybe I just don't get it. Or maybe there's a quest that DOES involve offing Jim, and I just need to find where it's activated, to get my reward.

Any Oblivion vets have any comments?

Wait to go spelunking until you're a much higher level--maybe even after the main quest is complete. The loot is leveled with the bad guys, so when you go back through those caves as a level 30 warrior, you'll get much better stuff than what you'll get as a level 1 newb.

Nathan

 

[firex]

One thing I like about Oblivion is, it may not reward you for every dungeon, but they're all going to provide a nice twist on different experiences. I mean, I've never run into 2 ayleid ruins, caves, mines, forts and so on that are the same. Even if they seem similar to begin with, once you get past the early part they become incredibly deep and open up much differently. Not to mention a lot of the same types of dungeons will have vastly different creatures inhabiting them, especially as you level up. Also, enemy drops and loot are largely random, so don't get discouraged just because a little named guy didn't have great items. Sometimes you'll simply fight a champion/leader type of NPC and they'll have some enchanted gear for you... but also, one thing about Oblivion is, even if they just have generic gear, you can customize it with enchants and so on to make it have whatever effect you want. So no piece of equipment is really worthless unless you've completely outgrown it.

 

[GDJustin]

Yeah. I mean I'm not saying I'm not enjoying myself. The spelunking has just underwhelmed me, so far. Honestly my gaming habits are such that I almost never, EVER even beat my games anymore, let alone spend 100+ hours with them, so maybe I should just go ahead and go through the main quest, before I end up moving on to something else. If Obliv. does suck me in (which I concede is very possible), then those caves will still be there waiting for me...

Edit: And having not every dungeon containing something sweet is cool. That much makes it more awesome when you do find something sweet. I'm very down with that. The problem is I don't think I've found *anything* sweet in my four hours so far. I know in Oblivion terms 4 hours is nothing, but in reality it's a long, long time to spend with a videogame with little real RPG reward payoff.

Like what's with the first one you explore, that's right in front of you when you leave the sewers at the start of the game? It's HUGE, I swear I spent over an hour in it, and when I exited I wasn't any better off, I felt like. I dunno... I get that the exploration is rewarding in and of itself... but eh.

 

[Kung Fu Jedi]

Yeah. I mean I'm not saying I'm not enjoying myself. The spelunking has just underwhelmed me, so far. Honestly my gaming habits are such that I almost never, EVER even beat my games anymore, let alone spend 100+ hours with them, so maybe I should just go ahead and go through the main quest, before I end up moving on to something else. If Obliv. does suck me in (which I concede is very possible), then those caves will still be there waiting for me...

Edit: And having not every dungeon containing something sweet is cool. That much makes it more awesome when you do find something sweet. I'm very down with that. The problem is I don't think I've found *anything* sweet in my four hours so far. I know in Oblivion terms 4 hours is nothing, but in reality it's a long, long time to spend with a videogame with little real RPG reward payoff.

Like what's with the first one you explore, that's right in front of you when you leave the sewers at the start of the game? It's HUGE, I swear I spent over an hour in it, and when I exited I wasn't any better off, I felt like. I dunno... I get that the exploration is rewarding in and of itself... but eh.

Wow! I'm surprised you didn't find anything of value in that first dungeon, as I know for a fact that I came out of there with a number of good things, especially considering the level my character was at. The necromancer you fight at the end had some decent loot, and the bandits living on the early levels provided me with not only plent of things to sell for cash, but some decent, early level equipment as well.

What level is your character? With only four hours in, you can't be too high just yet, and Oblivion's loot tables are based on the your level, so it's unlikely that you'll come across a kick ass weapon when you are level 4 or 5, although you may find some useful rings or amulets, or even potions. You'll find much better stuff as you progress in ranks though, but I eventually found that creating my own weapons provided the best stuff over all.

When it comes to exploration of these dungeons, it's kind of a personal thing. Some people love it, some don't, and just want to stick to the quests. Personally, I love exploring the big, 3D worlds of games like Oblivion or GTA for example, so for me, exploration is part of the reward. That said, I usually mixed things up though, spending some time on the main quest for awhile, then doing some side quests, joining a guild and working on their quests, then taking a break from that to explore a few dungeons, and finding some items that might not be useful to me, but at least I could sell them off for the gold. At early levels, you can never have enough gold. Later on though, you'll be swimming in it.

 

[bengraven]

I'm late to the expansion pack conversation, so excuse me.

In that thread on the main forums, the dev never says there "won't" be an expansion pack. He says there are no plans for one. It sounds coy to me.

At the same time, you don't NEED an expansion pack if the DLC can keep up at a good pace. However, there will have to be some huge, game-changing content to make up for the lack of a stand-alone expansion pack. A new land will eventually have be released, as well as changes such a new guilds or werewolves (you know the old school fans are clamoring for that). This is a bit irritating as games like NWN released "premium modules" with more content than the DLC and for almost the same cost AS WELL as released two expansion packs.

The thing that is the worst about this in the end, though we can pick and choose what DLC we want, we'll likely still pay more than we would have for an expansion pack.

 

[Kung Fu Jedi]

Yeah, anyone who has been reading this thread knows I'm all for an expansion pack, but I've stayed well away from the DLC. And as someone else pointed out on the last page, all of the DLC is but a fraction of what was included in one of the Morrowind expansion packs.

I'm not surprised an expansion hasn't been announced yet, but it is surprising that a Bethesda employee would make a statement like "we have no plans for an expanison" or something similar.

It also doesn't help that Vark drops by every 250 pots to make a cryptic statement either! :lol

 

[Bodom78]

God, how I hated Morrowind. Pick up Oblivion for my brother and thought, what the hell I may as well give it a go. As I expected boring and overwhelming since I’m used to and prefer action, FPS and general quick pick up and play games.

I’m 11 Hours into it now, and my views on the game have totally changed. It's a great world and exploring is really laid back and interesting. At first I was picking up everything and going into every door, due to conditioning from action games where you assume that if its there your supposed to take it, if you can go somewhere, then there’s a reason for it. Now that I better understand the freedom and do as you please game mechanics I appreciate it more and have adjusted my habits.

Such a large game that requires so much time, I don't know if I will ever finish the game as I don't have as much time to play as I would like, but I know I will have fun with it no matter how far I get.

 

[Kung Fu Jedi]

Welcome to the cult Bodom78. Yeah, the switch from a FPS to a free from RPG like Oblivion can be tough at first. In the FPS, you're not use to having the kind of freedome you have here, and you're right, most things are there for a reason. In Oblivion, the world is built to be like a real world, so you end up with tons of mundane stuff that has no real value to your character, but adds layer upon layer of depth to the world.

I love exploration as well, in a FPS or in Oblivion. The difference is that the world of a FPS is usually very restrictive, and you follow a fairly linear path most of the time, although good game design tends to hide that path some and give you the illusion that you are making choices. In Oblivion, there is no need to hide anything. The world really is wide open, and you really do have the freedom to explore.

As for finishing the game, don't worry about that. Just play the way you want, enjoy the game, explore, do quests, and if you feel motivated, finish the "main quest." There really isn't an ending to the game anyway. Before you know it, you'll be a 100 hours in, and you'll realize how much you've been hooked, and how deep, and great the game is.

Spoiler

I really should work for Bethesda!