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[Nerevar]

just out of curiousity, for xbox 360 owners, what is everyone playing this on? I'm currently on a 50" rear projection LCD, and it's been wonderful. However, I've come to the conclusion that 1 HDTV isn't enough for sharing with my girlfriend now that my true love has arrived, and I need to pick up another midrange HDTV to replace the old tube and dedicate more time to my Oblivion love. Also, reference this thread if you have any wonderful suggestions.

 

[Odrion]

Just how bad is the performance for the X-Box 360 version when it's Hard Drive is missing? Does it only effect going into new areas? Or will the entire game take a framerate hit?

 

[Dr_Cogent]

Just how bad is the performance for the X-Box 360 version when it's Hard Drive is missing? Does it only effect going into new areas? Or will the entire game take a framerate hit?

I doubt anyone but Steve could answer your question, since I don't think any of us in here actually bought the tard pack.

 

[VALIS]

There just too many options, this game is overwhelming me.

It absolutely does overwhelm. I played for 7 hours last night and read the strategy guide for 2, and I still feel overwhelmed, just like I did with Morrowind. That's really the appeal of this game for me, though. It's a micro world with all sorts of nuances and rules and patterns to learn over time. For now I'm having fun just exploring and kicking the crap out of those random goblins and highwaymen and imps who dare ambush my thug Nord Knight.

 

[chespace]

god... wish i was home playing this right now. continue the adventures of chespace, the breton spellsword.

more screens, evilore. the graphic whore in me hungerz.

 

[IJoel]

Question: I'm currently playing as a pure mage. Should I bother spending points in anything other than Intelligence, Willpower and Personality?

I'm mostly worried I might end up with really low hp which could hurt me in the end. Any comments?

 

[Musashi Wins!]

Question: I'm currently playing as a pure mage. Should I bother spending points in anything other than Intelligence, Willpower and Personality?

I'm mostly worried I might end up with really low hp which could hurt me in the end. Any comments?

map some healing spells and get into alchemy (potions). keep your distance and you will probably be alright.

 

[urk]

So what does everyone's initial character selection look like?

I went with a male Bosmer (Stealth). Birthsign Thief. Alch, Conj, Ill, Sneak, Mark, L Armor, Blade. Ripped right out of the strat guide.

I call him Schmendrick.

 

[TemplaerDude]

I'm probably gonna pick this up today, but I'm working tonight and I've got a full day of classes tomorrow so I probably won't get a good sniff of it till Friday. :'(

 

[.Abras.]

I doubt anyone but Steve could answer your question, since I don't think any of us in here actually bought the tard pack.

But someone can take out the HDD just to compare the difference.

 

[Dr_Cogent]

But someone can take out the HDD just to compare the difference.

Well, I'm personally not messing with anything. If it's not broken - I am not touching it. The moment I touch it it'll break on me for sure

 

[RegularMK]

Quick question:

Are tere more towns than displayed on the map? If not, that kind of sucks. I've only been to one of the mapped towns and it was tiny. One thing I liked about Morrowind was how immensely populated it was... please tell me there's more places to go

 

[urk]

But someone can take out the HDD just to compare the difference.

Wouldn't the game want a mem card then for saves?

 

[UncleScr00ge]

Has anyone found and abandoned house anywhere? I want some place to stash my overflow stuff, but I don't necessarily want to kill for it.

 

[jarosh]

It absolutely does overwhelm. I played for 7 hours last night and read the strategy guide for 2, and I still feel overwhelmed, just like I did with Morrowind. That's really the appeal of this game for me, though. It's a micro world with all sorts of nuances and rules and patterns to learn over time. For now I'm having fun just exploring and kicking the crap out of those random goblins and highwaymen and imps who dare ambush my thug Nord Knight.

this post makes me question my ability to cope with oblivion's ultra complex world.
never played an ES before...

 

[FrenchMovieTheme]

i found an abandoned house when i joined the dark brotherhood. then again they are living in it... so it's not really abandoned

 

[Dr_Cogent]

I have a question

Spoiler

I tried to get into the Thieves Guild at Imperial City. I lost the challenge to some chick. Now, every night I come to the garden at midnight, that dude is never there - but the lizard guy is. What the hell? Did I do something wrong? Did that character get killed or something? Where is he?

 

[Sysgen]

Old? From ign:

Oblivion uses the Xbox 360 hard drive extensively to cache (copy and reuse) game data. This is done to optimize all loading the game does. It has been found in rare cases on some Xbox 360s that the cached data can get overly fragmented. This exhibits itself by the game taking a long time to load anything from menus, dialogue, sounds, objects, levels, and more.
To solve this problem, reset your Xbox, and hold down the A button as the game is booting up. If any button is held while Oblivion is loading, it will clear its hard drive cache, and create a new one. Once you see the "Bethesda Softworks" logo video, the game is already loaded, and the cache should have been cleared.

Note, this does not effect your game in any way other than loading. You will not lose any saved data.

 

[Dr_Cogent]

Old? From ign:

Does anyone know if the 360 has a way of "defragging" the HD possibly?

 

[Pedigree Chum]

Man, I didn't know Oblivion looked THIS good:

Thanks to Morphix for the pix.

 

[FlyinJ]

Does anyone know if the 360 has a way of "defragging" the HD possibly?

I've actually noticed that loading takes a lot longer now, after 10 hours of play. Entering a city before was about 10 seconds of load, now it's around 25-30. Outdoors takes longer to load as well.

I don't know about this "fragmented hard drive" thing. I think it may have to do with savegame bloat. I tried the hold down A button thing while booting, and it didn't help.

 

[Harmonica]

I've actually noticed that loading takes a lot longer now, after 10 hours of play. Entering a city before was about 10 seconds of load, now it's around 25-30. Outdoors takes longer to load as well.

I don't know about this "fragmented hard drive" thing. I think it may have to do with savegame bloat. I tried the hold down A button thing while booting, and it didn't help.

I remember back when I played Fallout 2, the more I played, the longer the loads got. They got unbearable, and apparently it was actually a known problem the game had. As you played more and more, and left more save data (places where people died, things you left on the ground, etc.), the file used to save just got more and more bogged down. Eventually it took 10ish minutes for me to load

Does Oblivion save every movement? If you move a pot in a room, then travel across the world, then come back, will that pot stay where you left it?

 

[Odrion]

I doubt anyone but Steve could answer your question, since I don't think any of us in here actually bought the tard pack.

I swore there were other people posting here about them being stuck with a tard pack. But they all probably got Hard Drives by now. :\

(As for pulling out the HD and testing... Doesn't the 360 require a memory unit so you could log into an account?)

 

[dark10x]

just out of curiousity, for xbox 360 owners, what is everyone playing this on? I'm currently on a 50" rear projection LCD, and it's been wonderful. However, I've come to the conclusion that 1 HDTV isn't enough for sharing with my girlfriend now that my true love has arrived, and I need to pick up another midrange HDTV to replace the old tube and dedicate more time to my Oblivion love. Also, reference this thread if you have any wonderful suggestions.

I'm using a 42" HD Plasma display and it looks absolutely stunning.

I'm curious, though, I've heard that the game is quite dark from another plasma user, a CRT user, and a DLP user...but I haven't heard anyone mention LCD. How dark is the game on your set? Some of the dungeons are just so incredibly dark to the point where you have entire areas that are almost completely black (though you can usually see as there is almost always a "light at the end of the tunnel"). I've had to keep a good supply of torches handy to make it through the dungeons, which I suppose is kinda cool. I don't really like to crank the in game gamma control up, however, as it results in the colors losing some of their richness.

Edit: looks like the picture morphix took answered my question. That last shot shows exactly what I'm talking about. The tunnel on the left is totally black. It looks pretty nice like that, actually, but I wanted to be sure I had everything calibrated properly and wasn't missing out on details...but I've had no reference images (still don't).

 

[FlyinJ]

I remember back when I played Fallout 2, the more I played, the longer the loads got. They got unbearable, and apparently it was actually a known problem the game had. As you played more and more, and left more save data (places where people died, things you left on the ground, etc.), the file used to save just got more and more bogged down. Eventually it took 10ish minutes for me to load

Does Oblivion save every movement? If you move a pot in a room, then travel across the world, then come back, will that pot stay where you left it?

As far as I can tell, yes. I've even seen corpses in the overworld laying where I killed them when I went back a few days later.

 

[SteveMeister]

I've actually noticed that loading takes a lot longer now, after 10 hours of play. Entering a city before was about 10 seconds of load, now it's around 25-30. Outdoors takes longer to load as well.

I don't know about this "fragmented hard drive" thing. I think it may have to do with savegame bloat. I tried the hold down A button thing while booting, and it didn't help.

The X360's HDD cache can become fragmented. I think if you hold down the A button while the game is booting (before the Bethesda logo appears) that'll clear the cache & your performance should improve.

Here's a post on the TES forums describing what to do:

Oblivion uses the Xbox 360 hard drive extensively to cache (copy and reuse) game data. This is done to optimize all loading the game does. It has been found in rare cases on some Xbox 360s that the cached data can get overly fragmented. This exhibits itself by the game taking a long time to load anything from menus, dialogue, sounds, objects, levels, and more.

To solve this problem, reset your Xbox, and hold down the A button as the game is booting up. If any button is held while Oblivion is loading, it will clear its hard drive cache, and create a new one. Once you see the “Bethesda Softworks” logo video, the game is already loaded, and the cache should have been cleared.

Note, this does not effect your game in any way other than loading. You will not lose any saved data.

 

[FlyinJ]

The X360's HDD cache can become fragmented. I think if you hold down the A button while the game is booting (before the Bethesda logo appears) that'll clear the cache & your performance should improve.

Here's a post on the TES forums describing what to do:

In my post, I said that I tried the pressing A while booting thing, and it didn't help.

 

[tuco11]

First time ever playing an Elder scrolls game. This game rules. I got one question. When does work on a sequel begin?

 

[Wulfer]

If you're experiencing unusually long load times while playing Oblivion (including loading of menus, dialogue, sounds, objects, levels, etc.), Bethesda has posted an explanation and simple solution.

Game data that is cached on the Xbox 360 HDD can become (on rare occasions) overly fragmented, resulting in exaggerated load times. To solve the problem, just reboot the console and immediately hold down the A-button (or any button) while the game is loading — release the button once the "Bethesda Software" logo appears. Doing so will dump the old hard drive cache, fixing the problem. It's important to note that this will not affect your saved game data.

http://www.joystiq.com/


Well, I guess everyone will know about it now... :lol

 

[newsguy]

Quick question about going to jail...

Spoiler

I went into one of the towns for a quest involving alchemy. The guards were nice to me, everything was fine, but when I got to leave the guard says I broke the law and on the top left it said that there was a bounty for 220. Anyway, if I stole a horse in a far, far away town, can I be arrested in this one?

forgive the newb q's but it's not only my first ES game, it's the first RPG I play for more than 5 minutes.

 

[Harmonica]

As far as I can tell, yes. I've even seen corpses in the overworld laying where I killed them when I went back a few days later.

Well, my first impulse is to say "That's so awesome", but if it means we end up being faced with 10 minute load times like in Fallout 2, then I change it to "That's so awesome but it sucks that the load times will get real long."

 

[Dr_Cogent]

Why doesn't the cache just get cleared every single time at boot up? I can tell you now, newbs are not going to know what the problem is, and will get PO'ed if the game gets sluggish and they don't know what to do as a result.

 

[jedimike]

In my post, I said that I tried the pressing A while booting thing, and it didn't help.

I think if you press A while loading....... j/k

... maybe you have to hold it through the whole power on cycle up to the point where the Bethesda logo appears.

 

[FlyinJ]

I need lockpicking tips.. I can't seem to get it.

Are you supposed to find the pattern for each tumbler? For instance, if I see that the tumbler stays longer at the top, should I count how many taps it is before it happens again? Like - slow, fast, fast, fast, slow? Is the timing always the same? It seems slightly different every time I try to count how many between the slow ones.

 

[VALIS]

Quick question about going to jail...

Spoiler

I went into one of the towns for a quest involving alchemy. The guards were nice to me, everything was fine, but when I got to leave the guard says I broke the law and on the top left it said that there was a bounty for 220. Anyway, if I stole a horse in a far, far away town, can I be arrested in this one?

forgive the newb q's but it's not only my first ES game, it's the first RPG I play for more than 5 minutes.

Good question. I don't think so, but the one time I tried to steal a horse I got nabbed right away so I don't know. Perhaps you walked into a room or picked up or read an item you weren't supposed to?

 

[urk]

Quick question about going to jail...

The answer, unfortunately, is yes. It seems word travels at the speed of light.

 

[epmode]

Well, my first impulse is to say "That's so awesome", but if it means we end up being faced with 10 minute load times like in Fallout 2, then I change it to "That's so awesome but it sucks that the load times will get real long."

From what I understand, the only permanent changes you can make to an area are in a house you own. Anything else will be reset after a few days of gametime, presumably to avoid savegame bloat.

 

[KarishBHR]

will this run on my PC?


512 ram
128 9800XT
Athlon 2800+

 

[oldschoolpinball]

Jesus I need to go to sleep. I started playing at 9:30pm and now it's 2am.

Spoiler

And I just got to the emperial city too... After getting out of the first dungeon, I just wandered around and cleaned out two nearby dungeons... I'm currently a Breton spellsword.

This game is awesome! goddamn...

we are one in the same!

 

[Sjoerd]

will this run on my PC?


512 ram
128 9800XT
Athlon 2800+

I got about the same system:
2600+XP @ 2300mhz (3200+++++++ something)
1024MB RAM
9700 PRO

Running the game at 1280*786 and it has been fine so far. Graphics are very very good, especially when considering my hardware is more than 3 years old! I've got the maximum viewing distance for terrain and trees and everything else set to medium, exept shadows which are turned off. I didn't expect the game to look so good and run great at the same time.

I tried the game on the max settings(without hdr, not supported by hw) and I didn't even look that much better to be honest.

 

[FlyinJ]

How do weapon potions work? When you apply one, does it only affect the first hit of the weapon, or is it on there for a while?

For instance (quest from Cheydinhal city spoiler)

Spoiler

When I was doing the enter the painting quest, the guy gave me 6 bottles of turpentine which give me a +50 damage bonus against Painted Trolls. Every time I used one of these bottles, only one hit of my weapon did the +50 damage. I had to use 3 bottles for every troll. Once the third troll came at me, I was out of the bottles and he kicked the hell out of me. I'm only level 5, maybe I'll have to come back on this quest. Is there anything else that trolls don't like that would help?

 

[Justin]

Question about the Oblivion Gates.

Spoiler

I found two gates outside of the Imperial city. Should I clear them or will i vist them as part of the main quest?

 

[BenjaminBirdie]

How do weapon potions work? When you apply one, does it only affect the first hit of the weapon, or is it on there for a while?

For instance (quest from Cheydinhal city spoiler)

Spoiler

When I was doing the enter the painting quest, the guy gave me 6 bottles of turpentine which give me a +50 damage bonus against Painted Trolls. Every time I used one of these bottles, only one hit of my weapon did the +50 damage. I had to use 3 bottles for every troll. Once the third troll came at me, I was out of the bottles and he kicked the hell out of me. I'm only level 5, maybe I'll have to come back on this quest. Is there anything else that trolls don't like that would help?

Spoiler

I beat them at Level 2 so that's not it. I honestly only used one Turp per perp. I think the key is to hit them several times with your sword because the second you let up, they start getting health back. So I went hack hack hack hack SHEILD, MOVE BACK, hack, hack, hack, fire, hack and just barely managed to beat them one at a time. After each one, though, make sure to replenish your health with your magic and then replenish your magika. Worked for me. But it was HAIRY.

 

[raYne]

The answer, unfortunately, is yes. It seems word travels at the speed of light.

Indeed. :lol

I got tired of walking everywhere while I was searching the countryside, so when I bumped into a guard on a horse near Cheydinhal I followed him around 'till I got the opportunity to take it from him. He stumbled upon a bandit camp and when he got off to go handle some business I took the opportunity to take it from him. He started chasing me but couldn't keep up. I head towards the Imperial City, cross the east river, ride around the city, cross the west river etc.

Hours later, I'm now over in the Imperial Reserve (ie the middle of nowhere on the complete other side of the "world" for those who don't know) just doing some wondering around looking for adventure. All of a sudden a guard... and I swear to God it's the same guy, attacks me from behind tries to take the horse back! After a surprised "WTF!" a battle ensues and I end up dead. :lol!

edit:
The horse controls suck by the way... as does the fact that you can't attack while on horseback.

Spoiler

or do you learn that eventually?

 

[FrenchMovieTheme]

im loving the game so far, but a few questions:

1. who do i sell unwanted items to? none of the shopkeepers i have spoken to give me that option.
2. am i supposed to be manually attributing experience points to certain fields? i am still on "level 1" but i don't see any option to distribute experience points. is it done automatically?
3. can i turn my back on whatever guild i join and join a new guild? or can i be part of multiple guilds?

i think i might buy the strategy book for this game, seems to be too complex for my mind to grasp at this juncture O_O

 

[Fallofmart]

How worth it is the collectors edition over the normal one?

It costs $17 extra here (uk) and I could put that towards another game...

Anyone? Please?

 

[raYne]

1. who do i sell unwanted items to? none of the shopkeepers i have spoken to give me that option.

*shrugs* I'd like to know the same.

2. am i supposed to be manually attributing experience points to certain fields? i am still on "level 1" but i don't see any option to distribute experience points. is it done automatically?

When you get enough experience a message comes up on the hud telling you when you can level up. Then you just find a bed to sleep in and when you wake up you can distribute your points. Other points are distributed automatically to whatever you gained experience in. Blade, for using you sword a lot for example.

3. can i turn my back on whatever guild i join and join a new guild? or can i be part of multiple guilds?

You can abandon them without consequence as far as I've seen. Yes, you can join multiple (all of them if you like) at once. I'm currently in both the Mages and Fighters Guilds.

Anyone? Please?

Err you can find the contents in multiple places (this thread for example). Why don't you read what they are and decide if you want them or not?

 

[IJoel]

Hours later, I'm now over in the Imperial Reserve (ie the middle of nowhere on the complete other side of the "world" for those who don't know) just doing some wondering around looking for adventure. All of a sudden a guard... and I swear to God it's the same guy, attacks me from behind tries to take the horse back! After a surprised "WTF!" a battle ensues and I end up dead. !

:lol

 

[Fallofmart]

Err you can find the contents in multiple places (this thread for example). Why don't you read what they are and decide if you want them or not?

I know the contents I just wanted opinions on them from people who actually owned it but nevermind

 

[3rdman]

im loving the game so far, but a few questions:

1. who do i sell unwanted items to? none of the shopkeepers i have spoken to give me that option.
2. am i supposed to be manually attributing experience points to certain fields? i am still on "level 1" but i don't see any option to distribute experience points. is it done automatically?
3. can i turn my back on whatever guild i join and join a new guild? or can i be part of multiple guilds?

i think i might buy the strategy book for this game, seems to be too complex for my mind to grasp at this juncture O_O

1. If you look below the conversation choices, you'll see a couple of icons...Persuade, Barter, Repair (if applicable), and Train (if applicable). Select as needed.

2. Exp. points are handed out automatically, but you'll be given 3 points to modify anything you want at every level up.

3. I believe you can be in as many guilds as you want...I think.

Now my turn, when can I get a Steal Soul Spell. I have all these Soul Gems and nothing to put in them