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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion |OT|

Baron Aloha said:
I forgot to share a great radiant AI moment I had last night.

I was walking around the imperial city and some guy jumped off the top of a building and ended up killing himself!!

I went the check the body (and pocket the key to his house) and his brothers were standing around him looking at his body. Then one of them goes "Stupid idiot. He always did like jumping off things."

:lol
 

DenogginizerOS

BenjaminBirdie's Thomas Jefferson
When was the last time a console title like this was released simultaneously with the PC version, and the two play and look identical?
 
I haven't tried this yet, but I know with Nvida cards in the control panel you can force AA to be applied to games instead of application controlled AA. I wonder if it is possible to do that along with the HDR.
 
dark10x said:
Looking at the "official" max PC shots, the distance objects DO look a lot rougher than they do while playing the 360 version. Those shots Borys posted above (at dusk) are quite rough indeed.

What do you mean by "rough" there? Is it good or bad? In your FarCry comment I thought you used it as a positive thing, but now I'm not so sure.
 
My first funny Oblivion story, I posted this in another forum this morning.

"The funniest thing happen last night when I playing and I laughed for nearly 10 minutes. I was just screwing around exploring a cave I come across. Just looking for goodies. When I came out of the cave this potion bottle lands in front of me and rolls with a bit of inertia. I thought to myself, "How odd?!" and picked up the bottle. Then this travelling merchant (of the cat like race can't remember the name off the top of my head), literally 'bum-rushes' me and asks in a fierce tone if I was going to pay for it?! I have the option to pay or to say no. I said no just to play around, and he responds with a sneer, and something to the effect of, that's the way I like to handle this and pulls out a huge double edged war axe and we go at it. After the battle I laughed my @$$ off even my wife (who overheard our confrontation from another room) thought that was funny as hell!"

So this game goes to show you if it's to good to be true then it probably is. I didn't know I'd have to use my street smarts in a role playing game. I almost got jacked?! :lol

I LOVE THIS GAME!!!"

Damn Bethesda....you guys poured a lot of style and part of your souls in this game. The 3 years of development really jumps out over and over. We shall see what the year holds, but I'm sure this game will get a ton of accolades and awards. This is by far one of the BEST RPGs I've played. I haven't had this much fun with a game in a long time. I sitting here at work with baggy eyes and about 5 hours of sleep....and I don't give a DAMN!! :lol
 

Ben Sones

Member
As cool as those images above look, screenshots just don't do justice to the trees and foliage in the game, which are rendered down to each individual leaf blowing in the wind. You really have to see them in motion.

The HDR rendering is also really cool. It gives the whole game an atmospheric glow that looks way, way better than bloom, since it replicates how we actually see things in the real world. If you are playing this game with AA turned on instead of HDR, then you are missing out.
 

Borys

Banned
Dudes I don't have this game yet.

I'm just so pumped right now looking at those PC shots (from other gaming forums) that I simply cannot sit here at work.

I envy every single one of you that plays this game right now either on 360 or PC.

As for the changes to the INI file, I'll dig around and post them but as you can see the framerate *really* suffers so it isn't actually worth it.
 
Man, this game is just incredible, everything I had hoped it would be (and everything I hoped Fable would be, as well).

From the landscapes to the dungeons these are just some of the best looking environments I've ever seen. The first underground ruin I found was just O_O. The way architecture and nature were combined reminded me of Metroid Prime's environments.
 

TTP

Have a fun! Enjoy!
Kung Fu Jedi said:
Not much time today, as I have to go to a company retreat. Ugh. Yes, that's going to suck, knowning I'd rather be playing Oblivion.

Anyway, some quick thoughts on the game. It's incredible, as everyone else has been saying. Graphics are very impressive, although I do see what the reviews are saying about the low res textures on distant objects. Not quite blue and green blobs, but still a little low res. Otherwise, everything is amazing, including great use of lighting.

The D-pad hasn't been an issue for me at all. I guess I got lucky and have one that has diagnols that work well. I've filled up the 8 slots pretty quickly though, and I do think wading through your inventory could be a bit better.

I haven't seen any real Radiant AI stand out moments yet, but it is still interesting to watch people go about their day. The world feels much more alive than in Morrowind. I have seen the NPC's carry on conversations, but they all worked well when I listened in. Nothing to complain about like in that one early review.

The load times were expected, so haven't bothered me, and it's interesting how much they drop off after you play a bit. I'm sure the hard drive is coming into play there, and it makes a huge difference.

Overall, it was worth the wait. Great game, and I haven't even scratched the surface yet. Congrats to Bethesda, and thanks Steve and Vark for making such an awesome game.

Pretty much agree with that, except for the "graphics are very impressive part" (360 version). That's actually what I basically dislike about the game. Bare in mind that with "graphics" I mean anything from characters animation (expecially in relation to the environment - no need to go further the very first minutes of the game to notice how bad it is) to art direction (uh? This is the game you should point to when talking "generic and derivative") to LOD management (pop-ups and draw-ins really kill the suspension of disbilief to me, not to mention the bad frame rate in the "overworld"). I think anything that's not presctipted about the AI is pretty basic and dumb: they see you, they chase you. You run and hide without being seen but they still know where you are? How come? Not that this matters too much since this is not a fighting game but still... I've also seen enemies (and allies) trying to pass through walls, doing circles on the spot or generally doing stupid stuff that screams "I'm fake despite the normal mapping I'm dressed with may lead to you to believe".


Despite all this I keep playing it like there is no tomorrow. Dunno if this is due to my incoscious desire to find something that wows me (cos nothing yet managed to do that) or just the pleasure to finish all the quests this game keeps throwing at me, but I'd eventually say it's a competent old-school western RPG.
 
Hmmm. Loved this game initially but I just wasted an hour trying to find a cure to disease which picked up from one of those crab things. What do I do to get rid of it? Didnt find any potions or spells to do so. The game should tell you what you are supposed to do about it.

also what is this b*****t about everyone else levelling up in the world, including sneak so thievery becomes harder on level up. Doesnt this mean that once you max your skills, you start degrading in peformance vs the world every level up?

Also, if guards level up with you can u ever become a monster after playing the game 200 hours or whatever, or are they always better than you and untouchable?

-edit- also what determines if guards come in the room or not when you break into the store's rooms. sometimes guards would appear and arrest me even though the owner shouldnt have seen me go in. is it random?
 
Borys said:
Dudes I don't have this game yet.


As for the changes to the INI file, I'll dig around and post them but as you can see the framerate *really* suffers so it isn't actually worth it.


Ah ok, thanks for clearing that up :).
 

Helznicht

Member
Originally Posted by jarosh:
ouch. why does it look so much better than any 360 screenshot i have seen so far?

Because a $3000 machine is better than a $300 one?

At a worse framerate, should probally be mentioned here. :D
 

Baron Aloha

A Shining Example
cleveridea said:
also what is this b*****t about everyone else levelling up in the world, including sneak so thievery becomes harder on level up. Doesnt this mean that once you max your skills, you start degrading in peformance vs the world every level up?

Whenever you level everyone else levels but I'm 99.9% sure that they don't get as much of a boost as the player does. I think the NPC leveling is just a little check Bethesda put in there to make it harder for folks to create God-like characters like in Morrowind.
 

Borys

Banned
me said:
Holy fuck is this game beautiful. Hats off to Bethesda.

12.jpg


10.jpg


0.jpg


1.jpg


66.jpg


22.jpg


55.jpg


7.jpg


9.jpg


3.jpg


Oblivion%202006-03-21%2023-01-46-53.JPG

So here's the deal.

Shots by MasterChef :)lol, oh the irony) from Rage3D Forums.

His rig:

AMD X2-4400+
WD Raptor X 150
SG Barracuda 120
Logitech Z-5300's
Mx 518 ~ Func 1030
Saphire 1900 XTX 512MB
Creative X-Fi Xtreme Music
Logitech Elite ~ Dell 2005FPW
OCZ EL DDR PC-3200 Platinum 2GB
Lian Li 20th Anniversary Case Black
Asus SliA8N ~ Enermax NoiseTaker 470 Watt

His settings:

Max in game settings
HDR on
Bloom on
No AA
16xAF
1680X1050 res

NO INI changes. Yes - all those amazing shots are without a SINGLE INI change!

ABSOLUTELY BREATHTAKING, GJ BethSoft.

As for the recommended INI tweaks from the previous 2 night shots:

uGridsToLoad = 10 (5 by default)
uNumDepthGrids = 1 (3 by default)
fGrassEndDistance=3000.0000
fGrassStartFadeDistance=2000.0000
bUseWaterReflectionsMisc=1
bUseWaterReflectionsStatics=1
bUseWaterReflectionsTrees=1
bUseWaterReflectionsActors=1
 

Crag Dweller

aka kindbudmaster
Hmmm. Loved this game initially but I just wasted an hour trying to find a cure to disease which picked up from one of those crab things. What do I do to get rid of it? Didnt find any potions or spells to do so. The game should tell you what you are supposed to do about it.

Page 13 in the manual under diseases.
 

Helznicht

Member
I knew this was gonna be the best RPG evah when while I was playing
I noticed a little line running accross the floor, on closer examination, I see that it indeed a trip wire and carefully trip it with my hands, then seeing 2 spiked blocks sweep out of the walls in front of me. Been waiting for something like thin in RPGs for a LONG time, and its pulled off flawlessly.
 
cleveridea: Get rid of diseases this way:

Either go to a potion shop and get a Cure Disease potion. It's rather expensive though, ~250 gold. A much easier way is just to get into a local church and click the altar, it will clear your diseases.
 

Geoff9920

Member
Wow, this game is insane. I sat down to play it after work - 3:30'ish, the next thing I know it's 8'o clock and I forgot about dinner. :p With my short attention span, getting engrossed in a game for that long of a time is extremely rare. Hats off to bethseda, and steve & vark, this game is incredible. :)
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
Naked Snake said:
What do you mean by "rough" there? Is it good or bad? In your FarCry comment I thought you used it as a positive thing, but now I'm not so sure.
I mean, looking at the screenshots taken from the PC version without AA, the objects in the distance have a very rough look to them that makes them standout and really does give them the "blob" look that people were complaining about. On the 360 version with AA (and likely the PC version with AA), those same objects appear much smoother and seem to work well with the trees near the camera. The image quality is just so incredibly good on 360 and looks much smoother than running a game in a higher resolution on my PC at 1680x1050 (native screen resolution). Possibly the best image quality we've seen on 360 yet. Walking around non-organic locations (which don't suffer from the imperfections seen around the natural areas), the image quality is good to the point that it looks like a pre-rendered clip.

Take a look at that photo I snapped the other day. Naturally, the camera softens things a bit more...but the game retains that incredibly smooth appearance in person. There just aren't any rough, jagged edges to be found anywhere.

tes4_1.jpg


I wish I had some better reference shots to calibrate the brightness better. Some scenes really DO seem a tad too dark. Does anyone have any shots taken from the castle (with the fire) following the closure of the first Oblivion gate? That was an extremely dark area for me, but when I raised the brightness in order to view everything, it looked TOO bright and lost the mood. I'm not sure exactly how dark it should be. Everyone I've talked to has said that it is also very dark for them, but I still think it needs a bit of work.
 

Ben Sones

Member
That guy doesn't have both HDR and bloom on, because they are mutually exclusive. You can either have bloom (and AA) or HDR, not both.

And if you are wondering, you want to go with HDR. Looks way better than bloom, and is totally worth losing AA to turn on.
 

eso76

Member
Borys said:
NO INI changes. Yes - all those amazing shots are without a SINGLE INI change!

No ini changes ??
Incredible. This game looks.....like nothing i've seen before. Sure, there may be areas where you're going to notice blurry textures problems and trees turning into sprites; it's probably very 'uneven' (as in, it probably has its share of dull or bad looking areas too) but the landscape in these screenshots ara breathtaking.
 

Helznicht

Member
Walking around non-organic locations (which don't suffer from the imperfections seen around the natural areas), the image quality is good to the point that it looks like a pre-rendered clip.

IAWTP. The dungeons look and play SO good that I wouldnt care if the outside looked like WoW, this still would be the greatest RPG I have ever played.
 
>> Page 13 in the manual under diseases.

yeah but where? I must have been looking in the wrong place because I spent 3 hours playing the game without finding a place that sold the potion, or a location that does the healing (chapel etc). The world is so fraggin huge.

I am paranoid about levelling up before fixing the disease :lol I know it probably doesnt make a difference (low endurace) but who knows what bugs are in such an ambitious game. I already had a repeating tumbler sound bug (kept playing the tumbker sounds even after I finished lockpick and was exploring)

I dont know how they test such a huge game. its a monster. and much congrats due.
 

DenogginizerOS

BenjaminBirdie's Thomas Jefferson
Dr_Cogent said:
I hate this game.

Kept me up till 1:30 AM. Arg!!! Blurry tired vision at work FTW!

Heh. I cut myself off at midnight and I feel like I am swimming in peanut butter right now. Plus, my workload quadrupled in size about 10 minutes ago. Waiting to get crazy, and all I can think about is Oblivion. scratches junkie arm
 
cleveridea said:
>> Page 13 in the manual under diseases.

yeah but where? I must have been looking in the wrong place because I spent 3 hours playing the game without finding a place that sold the potion, or a location that does the healing (chapel etc). The world is so fraggin huge.

I am paranoid about levelling up before fixing the disease :lol I know it probably doesnt make a difference (low endurace) but who knows what bugs are in such an ambitious game. I already had a repeating tumbler sound bug (kept playing the tumbker sounds even after I finished lockpick and was exploring)

I dont know how they test such a huge game. its a monster. and much congrats due.

There are some plants you find around that will restore attributes. One in particular restores Endurance with something else.
 
Baron Aloha said:
Whenever you level everyone else levels but I'm 99.9% sure that they don't get as much of a boost as the player does. I think the NPC leveling is just a little check Bethesda put in there to make it harder for folks to create God-like characters like in Morrowind.

that would be cool. I like the idea of the guards being powerful, but I also liked the idea of eventually being able to wipe out entire towns (a friend of mine liked doing that in morrowind) even if it takes 200 hours to build up the character that strong. just like thats its possible.

I even got guilty when I pickpockets some gold from poor people, I reloaded the game so these imaginary characters wouldnt wake up and be imaginarily heartbroken. :lol
 
dark10x said:
I mean, looking at the screenshots taken from the PC version without AA, the objects in the distance have a very rough look to them that makes them standout and really does give them the "blob" look that people were complaining about. On the 360 version with AA (and likely the PC version with AA), those same objects appear much smoother and seem to work well with the trees near the camera. The image quality is just so incredibly good on 360 and looks much smoother than running a game in a higher resolution on my PC at 1680x1050 (native screen resolution). Possibly the best image quality we've seen on 360 yet. Walking around non-organic locations (which don't suffer from the imperfections seen around the natural areas), the image quality is good to the point that it looks like a pre-rendered clip.

Take a look at that photo I snapped the other day. Naturally, the camera softens things a bit more...but the game retains that incredibly smooth appearance in person. There just aren't any rough, jagged edges to be found anywhere.

Oh yeah, I know what you're talking about now. I downloaded many "Masterbit HD" videos from IGN for the 360 version and I was stunned by the image quality, loved the soft and smooth yet detailed look. I don't have a 360 though (or an HDTV), so I'm going to be playing the PC version, I just hope that I'll be able to use high settings and get a good framerate on my machine (3GHz, GeForce 6600 128MB, and 1GB RAM), my LCDs native is 1440x900 which would probably be overkill for my specs, so I'll probably play at a lower resolution (without upscaling/stretching) or play on my old CRT.
 

quetz67

Banned
OK, I have a P4 3,0 1Gig

My options:

- Buy an xbox 360 and play at PAL resolution (768x576 interlaced)

- Play on my machine with 6600 graphics card at 800x600 (30fps fine for me, how good will it look?)

- Buy a new graphics card (not more than 200 Euros, as silent as possible, what should I get?)
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
Last night I ran through a meadow of lilacs or something with crickets chirping and a light rain falling. The moonlight was glistening throughout all of the valley between Kvatch and the other cities....

The vistas in this game are unbelievably gorgeous.
 

Aponi

Member
cleveridea said:
I even got guilty when I pickpockets some gold from poor people, I reloaded the game so these imaginary characters wouldnt wake up and be imaginarily heartbroken.

I can match that... In the initial dungeon I was killing some rats, got one and went off to kill some other stuff and then came back and a 2nd rat was standing there nudging around on the first, dead rat like it was Bambi asking his mom to get up. Of course, my solution was to shoot the other rat to put it out of it's misery. :D
 

arrarro

Banned
I really cannot undertstand what is all the hype about this game now that it's out in the stores!
Hey! This is the greatest delusion of all my gamer life! I tried the XBOX 360 version because of the easier control system. I am really really depressed to hear from a lot of people that the graphics are awesome, amazing! Since I am a medicine doctor I will offer a free eyes examination to everybody assuming the xbox 360 grafx is amazing: what about draw in, pop up, bad oh yes very bad frame rate in outer world but above all VERY POOR textures almost everywhere, not to mention about stupid NPC behaviour (they walk into walls do not react if you steal them or slash them). What about physics? Something can be hit and thrown away and some other (and more important) things not! The arrow you throw simply disappears into water without a single splash! Where is the atmosphere? Where is the feeling to live in a simulated world? Look at the textures of a hill when you are far from it: PLAYSTATION ONE RESURRECTED!
you know what? NEXT GEN DOES NOT LIVE HERE! Maybe the absolute need for a good and deep action role game has dimmed everyone's reason. The game pace is also SLOOOWWW and when a fight situation occurs most of times the enemies appearance in the scene and animations are so mediocre you will ask how could bethesda do such a poor work. Yes I know, most of you will argue the story counts and maybe you are right but I am playing a role playing game on a NEXT GEN system and I am not looking at anything next gen here! Forget about graphics, forget about physics, forget about anything but the story, is this really enough? IMO definitely NOT!
I am seeing here the same situation with PERFECT DARK ZERO, first came the hype and then the CRAP about it!
Now ban me or do what you like, but try this game before buying it, this is my advice!

(forgot to say I played it on the last model of SAMSUNG 32" HD LCD LE32M61B with a MS VGA cable @ 720p....)
 

Dr_Cogent

Banned
arrarro said:
I really cannot undertstand what is all the hype about this game now that it's out in the stores!
Hey! This is the greatest delusion of all my gamer life! I tried the XBOX 360 version because of the easier control system. I am really really depressed to hear from a lot of people that the graphics are awesome, amazing! Since I am a medicine doctor I will offer a free eyes examination to everybody assuming the xbox 360 grafx is amazing: what about draw in, pop up, bad oh yes very bad frame rate in outer world but above all VERY POOR textures almost everywhere, not to mention about stupid NPC behaviour (they walk into walls do not react if you steal them or slash them). What about physics? Something can be hit and thrown away and some other (and more important) things not! The arrow you throw simply disappears into water without a single splash! Where is the atmosphere? Where is the feeling to live in a simulated world? Look at the textures of a hill when you are far from it: PLAYSTATION ONE RESURRECTED!
you know what? NEXT GEN DOES NOT LIVE HERE! Maybe the absolute need for a good and deep action role game has dimmed everyone's reason. The game pace is also SLOOOWWW and when a fight situation occurs most of times the enemies appearance in the scene and animations are so mediocre you will ask how could bethesda do such a poor work. Yes I know, most of you will argue the story counts and maybe you are right but I am playing a role playing game on a NEXT GEN system and I am not looking at anything next gen here! Forget about graphics, forget about physics, forget about anything but the story, is this really enough? IMO definitely NOT!
I am seeing here the same situation with PERFECT DARK ZERO, first came the hype and then the CRAP about it!
Now ban me or do what you like, but try this game before buying it, this is my advice!

(forgot to say I played it on the last model of SAMSUNG 32" HD LCD LE32M61B with a MS VGA cable @ 720p....)


What about the unreadable blob that is your post? What about that? :lol
 

kaching

"GAF's biggest wanker"
Dr_Cogent said:
I hate this game.

Kept me up till 1:30 AM. Arg!!! Blurry tired vision at work FTW!
1:30? Try 4am, Weaksauce.

So has anyone managed to create a pretty female face in the editor? I spent nearly 45 minutes just working on the face, refusing to be stymied by a system that has almost as many sliders for nose attributes as there are skills in the game. And the complexion slider seems to go from blotchy to mottled. I finally came up with a passably attractive face for a wood elf. After all that effort, it only took me 10 minutes to create a custom character class.

But the game itself, yeah, I think they finally sold me on a TES game. The main concept of an open-ended RPG was always alluring, but the execution of the previous games left much to be desired. The world of this game is a pleasure to explore and the interactions with the environment, NPCs and creatures all possess the level of immersiveness that was missing from the previous games for me.

One simple encounter that occurred early on and started to make me a believer: I spotted a deer and decided to see if I could sneak up on it. Anytime I would get within a few hundred feet though, it would become aware of me and prance away. So I kept at it for a few minutes until I chased the deer to a ruin (forget the name ATM) and it disappeared over a small rise in front of the ruin. I came over the rise and found the deer dead, with something feasting on it.
It turns out a mage had been using the ruins to run experiments on reviving life and invisibility and had been successful in basically creating a pack of invisible rats. Which killed the deer.
So then of course I had to deal with what had killed the deer.
 

Dr_Cogent

Banned
kaching said:
1:30? Try 4am, Weaksauce.

Weaksauce whatever. I probably have to be up in the morning earlier than you do. Do you have a 2 year old? I'm thinking no, since you went to bed at 4 AM. My kid is up as early as 5:30 AM.
 

<nu>faust

Member
arrarro said:
I really cannot undertstand what is all the hype about this game now that it's out in the stores!
Hey! This is the greatest delusion of all my gamer life!

Since I am a medicine doctor I will offer a free eyes examination to everybody assuming the xbox 360 grafx is amazing:

Something can be hit and thrown away and some other (and more important) things not!

you know what? NEXT GEN DOES NOT LIVE HERE! Maybe the absolute need for a good and deep action role game has dimmed everyone's reason

! Forget about graphics, forget about physics, forget about anything but the story, is this really enough? IMO definitely NOT!

best post ever,
 

Dr_Cogent

Banned
Musashi Wins! said:
Yes. Sort of.
And I've never run into an rpg character before that was so blatantly rationalist.

Rational about what? She's an angry bitter bitch. That's all I got out of her. What, because she "hates the Gods". Is that it?

Is this just because she aligns with your aethistic viewpoint? Is that what you are getting at?
 

arrarro

Banned
TheDuce22 said:
I have a better suggestion, throw away your videogames. If you cant enjoy Oblivion nothing will make you happy.

and I suggest to do the same with your XBOX 360 if you have one because a ZX Sinclair is enough for all your gaming needs. No grudge, really! :D
 

SteveMeister

Hang out with Steve.
kaching said:
So has anyone managed to create a pretty female face in the editor?

I dunno, I think my Breton is fairly attractive:

brida1.jpg


I usually just hit Randomize a bunch of times until I find a good base, and then do minor tweaks.
 

Musashi Wins!

FLAWLESS VICTOLY!
Dr_Cogent said:
Rational about what? She's an angry bitter bitch. That's all I got out of her. What, because she "hates the Gods". Is that it?

Is this just because she aligns with your aethistic viewpoint? Is that what you are getting at?

Haha. Well I'm not
an angry bitter bitch. But I don't recall running into a miserable atheist in a world of magic and the gods before in a RPG. I was cracking up.

Holy crap, that's a good looking Breton.
 
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