Oblivion Discussion

Dexter · Post by **Dexter** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 2:50 pm

Right, this thread is for people who have Oblivion to talk abou the game, and give answers for some of the questions that we have had since the game was announced. If you do not have the game, feel free to ask questions about it here.
This is NOT a spam-friendly thread like the other Oblivion thread. This is a purpose-driven thread, and I do not want to see people junking this thread up.
With that said, Gamestop opens in fifteen minutes, I'm off to fetch my copy.

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 2:55 pm

Oh and please note one thing. Everybody who will buy a copy before I get mine will have his nuts cracked in no time. I am not joking. Be warned. I watch you.

knightmare · Post by **knightmare** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 8:29 pm

does it count if we ordered a copy but will not recieve it until 2 days later?

fanfas · Post by **fanfas** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 8:39 pm

Watch the spam...

Well i have a question.. How in comparation with MW the scale feels? Does it really is a lot bigger then MW? or the map is not that big? and do wehave to sacale down HM a lot??

Also, this one i can't resist... PLEASE SOMEONE GO TO THE CS AND MAKE A SMALL ISLAND FAR FAR AWAY to see if that stupid map bug is removed... or not...(if not i wonder what is their excuse now...)

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 8:46 pm

well, the game intro movie is uber sexy... and thats all i can say since the game crashes afterwards (i told parnets i needed a better vid card, but listen they did not)

Thrignar Fraxix · Post by **Thrignar Fraxix** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 1:07 am

(Idea for mindless fun) go into peoples houses and stores and such, and run across tables and counters and knock their stuff everywhere! also, I was able to walk through the walls into a pseudo Chorral, anyone else find this bug interesting. PS: to those who don't have it, they make the towns sort of as interiors or something. now back to playing!!!

Sload · Post by **Sload** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 1:14 am

Does it include an island in the Abecean? I imagine you might not be there yet, but does it have it on the map?

Sload,
inquring minds are absolutely dying to know because they want to post a thread they think is sort of important

Post by **Swiftoak** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 1:39 am

Wait. What cards did u guys use when they crashed? If theyre better than GF 5500FX than it will not be worth it for me.

Sload · Post by **Sload** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 1:48 am

Except that they probably just needed to turn the settings down if their card was in the required list.

Silverwood · Post by **Silverwood** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 2:22 am

Can I give a tip about the first part, i found out a really bad unavoidable glitch.

*SPOILERS*
DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT WANT A PART GIVEN AWAY

in the very begining, when you catch up with the king, you get to the "Fork in the road scene" you are with the king privatly, and he gives you the _____. A guy comes out of the wall, for reasons "unknown". Do not stand on the left side of the king. You will die instantly, no matter what. This is just a tip to look out for because this happened to me, and i had to go back really far.

(puts on scissor proof pants...)

Massalinie · Post by **Massalinie** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 3:27 am

Stalker wrote:Oh and please note one thing. Everybody who will buy a copy before I get mine will have his nuts cracked in no time. I am not joking. Be warned. I watch you.

Nice try Stalker, but I have no nuts to be cracked! MWAHAHAHAHA!!!

Silverwood: Haha! I was right in front of him, and I nearly jumped right out of my seat when that guy came through the wall!!

In general:

The horse riding is very hard to control, I got to ride on one for a while but only inthe little pen thing.. apparantly it's illegal to just take horses...

You can pick stuff up with the Z key, but it counts as stealing as much as actually taking the item does (I got sent to prison for touching somebody's pumpkin)

There are no silt-strider type travelling devices, but you can warp from town to town anyway just by selecting them on the map.

The NPCs follow you around when you are in their house and make sure you don't steal anything. They open the doors you close as well, which is really annoying since theft was my main way of making money in Morrowind.

The food makes a weird squelching noice when you pick it up.

You can actually bet on gladiator tourney's in the arena, and even become a combatant yourself.

You can sit in chairs!

It takes a while to get used to NPCs not always being where you left them.

Those would be my main points... for now

I am happy to answer any questions

Dexter · Post by **Dexter** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 4:06 am

Right, I'll have to go through this later and delete the spammy posts, because apparently it's been too long since I gave one of my harsh tongue-lashings.
Here's what I've found out of note:
I overheard a conversation in the Mage's Guild that the Nerevarine left to explore Akavir, and has not been heard from since. So that solves the question of whether or not we will be including the Nerevarine.
The scale is definitely bigger. Although you can warp from town to town without any fees, the actual travel time from town to town is much longer than it was in Morrowind. This is added to by the fact that Cyrodiil has much more altitude changes, so what looks like a straight line on the map is really a long trek up and down hills.
The intro tutorial is long. Took me at least 20 minutes to actually escape from the prison (I also spent a good half hour configuring my character's face).
Combat rocks.
All dialogue is voice-acted.
Towns indeed cannot be entered by jumping over the walls. The act as interior cells. Ironically, they work exactly the same way we had planned for Mournhold. That being said, towns are much bigger and alive than they were in Morrowind. Most doors are locked at night, and the people are generally asleep in their beds. During the day, NPCs will walk around towns, in and out of buildings.
Quests are much less confusing, and open-ended. Since NPCs don't like to stay in the same spot, you can see the location of NPCs active in the current quest on your minimap, and can locate them with your compass.
Haven't so much as opened the CS yet.

The_Warder · Post by **The_Warder** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 4:46 am

is there still a lot of loading spots?
and hows the performance on most comps?

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:09 am

Are loading times much slower compared to MW or is that just a rumour.

Dexter · Post by **Dexter** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:48 am

Loading times depend. For me, it seems that loading generally takes a little longer. However, there are no loading times when you are exploring an exterior. In Morrowind, every time you entered a new exterior cell, the game would pause as the cell was loaded. In Oblivion, that never happens. You will see some text saying "loading cell" or something along those lines, but the game will keep going as normal.

Silverwood · Post by **Silverwood** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 11:25 am

The only lag I have to worry about is spell effects. It tends to be when I'm fighting more then two spell-users, the game lags a little bit. Something to look out for.

fanfas · Post by **fanfas** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 1:41 pm

Hey Dex, whats your rig? as a lot of people are whinning about loadings? and as anyone tried the map thing i mentioned?

Eraser · Post by **Eraser** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 2:59 pm

My report. I concur with most of what dex said. a few points though.

Combat I find far more simple, even with the power attacks. However since there are more animations, and its much much faster than MW, its better.

Loading times vary for me. The first time going between interiors and other ints, or ints and exts I find the loading time on par with MW. Going back and forth through cells you've already been through is pretty instant.

The popup in exteriors can be a bit distracting at times, but I've yet to try the new Nvidia drivers that may help. Forests tend to be a bit slow for me, but still very playable.(Uber rig, but every distance and shadow slider maxed out) Outside of forests, generally OB runs faster than MW ever did.

Dialogue is actually dialogue now! except between NPCs their conversations tend to be pretty short and meaningless, but they talk to eachother instead of wandering around like idiot robots with amnesia.

My only beef is the interface for the inventory and everything else. Its all accessed by ONE key, and feels far more tailored to the xbox version. I've yet to figure out how to drop items if I'm not using a container or body.

9.7/10

Morgoth · Post by **Morgoth** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 3:37 pm

Does anyone care to inform me about the MAGIC SYSTEM??

Dexter · Post by **Dexter** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 3:43 pm

I've yet to figure out how to drop items if I'm not using a container or body.

Hold shift and click the item.
My rig isn't uber. I forget exactly what it is, but Oblivion auto-configured the game to run on medium settings, and it does so without a hitch.

Massalinie · Post by **Massalinie** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 5:17 pm

There is loading between cells, but it's very unoticable, every now and again you get a little messege on the screen say "loading area" or something like that but it doesn't freeze the action at all.

For me, loading times are very much the same, I have a pretty fast computer though.

And yes, combat TOTALLY rocks, you get blood spattered up your arms and on your sword etc. Also, the combat sounds are really realistic and sometimes a bit gross, Not that I mind that

The gravity thing is cool, near the beginning you fire arrows into the bucket and it hangs differently. Generally things are a lot more realistic. Stuff falls on the floor when NPCs knock it off the table, YOU can knock stuff off the tables. It's very cool.

As for Magic, I only used it a bit before but I'll have a go at some stuff tonight.

So far what I've seen is nothing short of awsome, but I'll have to have a go at some of the side quests, fighters guild etc.

As for the tutorial, yes it was really long but you can skip the dialogue by left-clicking which would make it much faster when starting a new character as you could just speed through all the bla and literally run through the dungeon skipping all tutorial stuff unless you wanted the countless lockpicks, bones etc that there are to find down there.

My goal right now is to train, and make some money!

The Old Ye Bard · Post by **The Old Ye Bard** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:02 pm

Does anyone know if Vivec is officially dead?

Dexter · Post by **Dexter** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 9:47 pm

Nothing about Vivec. I haven't found any new books regarding Morrowind in the game (I spent a lot of time in the Mage's Guild libraries), but most of the books from Morrowind have been carried over into this game. It is said several times that many Dunmer have immigrated to Cyrodiil to escape the oppressive rule of the Temple. So perhaps after the fall of the Tribunal, the Temple went apeshit in an attempt to keep control.

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 9:51 pm

Dexter wrote:So perhaps after the fall of the Tribunal, the Temple went apeshit in an attempt to keep control.

Heard anything about Imperial bias ?

Macar · Post by **Macar** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 10:00 pm

I agree. The Imperials would be just the type to say, "they came here because it's better here!". Of course, I wouldnt put it past the temple to be jerks.

Dexter · Post by **Dexter** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 11:11 pm

No, this was the Dunmer saying this.

Lady Nerevar · Post by **Lady Nerevar** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 11:15 pm

i only got it to work today... and havent even got past the tut. all i have to say is that it kicks major ass. (even with my uber lag)

fanfas · Post by **fanfas** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 12:10 am

Hey guys... don't ignore me

please someone try to make an island far away and see if you can see it in the map... From what someone said in the ESF the map thing from MW is still there

but maybe the person did something wrong... I know you all are just playing the game while we EU players are just waitting for it to come, but testing this takes just 5 minutes (i think). Thanks.

Vegor · Post by **Vegor** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 12:28 am

Dex do you know what kind of GPU you have? I'm pretty curious as to what kind of GPU is needed to run it at medium settings.

-Eidolon- · Post by **-Eidolon-** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 1:35 am

The Old Ye Bard wrote:Does anyone know if Vivec is officially dead?

According to the new edition of the PGE, Vivec has vanished, and it is unsure whether he is dead or not. The Nerevarine presumably left for parts unknown after Bloodmoon.

Eraser · Post by **Eraser** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 2:16 am

One of the devs said that unless a character is killed off as part of a quest, then they're considered "alive" in lore. Of course with all the power gamers killing vivec for a soultrap, they may have changed that to accomodate the "OMGWTFBBQ I killed teh vivic d00d in morowland howz he aliv eagain?????!!!!!111" idiots.

Combat is definitely more interesting and fun. Simpler, but better, more visceral and energetic. The best comparison I could make to a friend was sort of like Jedi Knight, but heavier feeling because its with big metal swords and armor instead of lightsabers.

As for the size of the game. I'm pretty content. The world feels huge always. Only when you're at cities pretty far away and can still see the imperial city's tower does that change. And then, it just feels like you're really high up and not that far out into cyrodiil yet.

There's no reason to worry about the map bug at all. Not with the seperate worldspaces. They fit all of Cyrodiil into one just fine, we'll just have a unique worldspace for each province.

Who's up for making a Hammerfell heightmap?

PoHa! · Post by **PoHa!** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 2:30 am

Morgoth wrote:Does anyone care to inform me about the MAGIC SYSTEM??

Magic system is awesome, me thinks. Get a spell equipped, and push "C" to cast it (actually, being a Morrowinder, I changed this to cast from "R", which feels more natural) no matter what you have in your hand. The effects from Havok sometimes feel overdone, but on the whole they look pretty good (making rats burn is fun... heck, EVERYTHING is fun).

My own experiences of note:

- I found a ruin of sorts, and was looking around at things, when I was suddenly hit from behind. I pushed "F" to ready my weapon, swung around, and saw nothing. Then I was hit again. So I ran up some stairs, and turned around to watch for any movement. Then I saw its outline, just barely. It was an INVISIBLE FREAKING RAT! I couldn't seemed to hit it, so I summoned a skeleton (which is named "PoHa's Skeleton" instead of just "Skeleton" btw) and let him kill it. Then an invisible wolf showed up. I let my skeleton kill it too.

- I once shot a wolf with an arrow, looking down upon it on a fairly steep, rocky slope. That last arrow killed it, and it rolled several feet down the hillside, spinning and flailing all around. Freakin' hilarious.

- All the things that people have been complaining about over the development cycle (fast travel, compass, size of the province, animations, etc, etc) had no right to complain, IMO. Everything works fine, and it doesn't seem 'dumbed down' to me at all.

- Quests are MUCH more varied from Morrowind's "go to x, do this"

- Simply breaking into someone's house and tossing all their stuff on the floor when no one's around is fun. I've done this several times. I'm crazy.

- Dungeon crawls are awesome. Some of them have a puzzle of sorts, though are still straightforward enough to not be confusing (the ones I've seen at least).

- If I had to complain about something, then I'd complain about how much of my free time this game is taking up.

Thrignar Fraxix · Post by **Thrignar Fraxix** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 2:35 am

I haven't got the chance to play much, college essays and a psycho, yet well meaning mother are keeping me from my obblivion, is there ANY spot where you can see into the next province?! I tried looking into hammerfell from the colovian highlands but it wouldn't let me even go to the border of Cyrodil.

Gibstov · Post by **Gibstov** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 2:44 am

I heard some NPC's talking about Tamriel and they mentioned Morrowind.

I can't quote them exactly,

But the gist of it was that Slavery had been made illegal in the Morrowind province, and house Hlallu and Dres joined together and freed the beast races.

Sload · Post by **Sload** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 2:53 am

Ahahahaha! Good one.

ENIGMA* · Post by ENIGMA* » Thu Mar 23, 2006 4:08 am

is anyone not playing, but reading instead, for any Hammerfell info?

PoHa! · Post by **PoHa!** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 4:29 am

ENIGMA* wrote:is anyone not playing, but reading instead, for any Hammerfell info?

I'm doing both, actually. For instance, I just heard from someone in Anvil that that town uses the "Gold Coast" style of architecture, the "same that they use in Hammerfell."

But the gist of it was that Slavery had been made illegal in the Morrowind province, and house Hlallu and Dres joined together and freed the beast races.

Ahahahaha! Good one.

Actually, Dres made an alliance with Helseth, after which, they proceeded to "pick apart the carcass of ruined Indoril"

And yes, slavery was abolished in Morrowind, and both Hlaalu and Dres "renounced the slave trade, and freed the beastfolk from servitude"

Xui'al · Post by **Xui'al** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 4:38 am

I'm very impressed with it. I haven't been farther than Skingrad, but I can see the White-gold Tower all the way from there!

Say, does anyone know the command line to change your birthsign? The Atronach sucks, because magicka regen is constant, not like it was in Morrowind. Sure you get a bunch more points, but you lose any game of attrition.

Eraser · Post by **Eraser** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 4:47 am

INVISIBLE FREAKING RAT!

Ah that spot. Have you gotten the quest associated with it, that kinda explains the inviso rat, and wolf and sheep and people etc....

The ESFers are having a field day, bitching and whining about every god dammed little thing they can. I don't know about them, but I got exactly what I was expecting. So far everything they've said about the game, what it is and isn't has been pretty true. I'm very happy with OB.

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Thu Mar 23, 2006 5:40 am

From what you siad OB sounds awesome!
And it's coming out tomorrow, I got to get me self a copy.

Tamriel Rebuilt

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