So how efficient does this game run? I'm running,
AMD Athlon XP 2500+
1.83 Ghz
(2 256) 512 MB ram Kingston kvr400 (DDR PC 3200)
ATI Radeon 9800 pro
K7n2 delta msi
anyone have a similar setup; how well does it run?

I liked morrowind and I think I'll like oblivion, but I'm not in the mood for a game that will run slow right now. Should I wait till I upgrade before I buy it?

I have a:
XP 2600+
1 GB RAM DDR PC 3200
ATI 9600 AIW

so my setup is pretty similar. It gets slowed down at times and I have to play in 800x600 but overall it could be worse. During combat, framerates drop to the high teens. It all depends on what you can tolerate.

I'm loving this game. I've been playing with an entirely different strategy than I used to with MW. In MW, I'd charge headfirst into combat and trade blows with people. I got owned a few times doing this by Deranged Zombies and groups of goblins so I've resorted to trying to use a sneak attack (now at 3x damage) with my bow (sometimes with a poisoned arrow). Then I'll keep spraying them with arrows or spells till they get close. Once we get to melee, their health is pretty low.

I'm at level 7 and I just cleared out this vamp lair. Usually I'd kill the regular vamps with them only getting a couple of shots off at me. I also took out a vampire patriarch, he was a bad mofo. Each melee attack would take about 20% of my health but I kicked his ass by backpedaling and throwing fireballs at him. I got a nice set of heavy armor from him.

Now if you are a guild member, you can take pretty much anything inside the guild, does this count for what is in the locked cases? There is a glass sword in a case in a fighters guild and I want it.

Sneak kicks ass, I never used it in MW, it's really easy to raise skill points in it. Find someone who is sleeping and stand on the other side of the wall and walk into the corner. You can get about a point per minute.

you can take whatever you want, but all of the equipment in the cases are either "ornamental" or "replica". They are worthless. The mages guild have some nice soul stones and alchemy regents locked in theirs.

I have a question too. While I was recently wondering around in game, I came across Azura's shrine, and I did the subsequent quest and received Azura's Star. It is obviously some kind of soul stone, but can anyone tell me exactly what it does when its full?

There was an Azura's star in MW. It's basically a rechargeable soulgem. You use it to make and recharge enchanted weapons. This one probably has the same function.

Imagine someone playing this game, having never experienced an RPG game before.

What class? What alignment? What race? WTF?!!?

Well, here is hoping that I made the right choice...

I love the game sofar, and need to explore for another thousand hours. Good thing I have beer in the fridge!

I think I'm leveling too fast. Much of that comes from picking alchemy as a major skill. I don't want to deal with mindlessly raising skill points just to get the +5 modifiers but I don't want to end up not being able to max my stats.

Hey, how does that alchemy thing work?

I have the apprentice Mortar and Pestle; I have all of these food thinks taking up room (and weight), but I can't make anything out of them.

Are there recipies I have to collect, or do I just "Learn" it as I go?

I click the "Add ingredient" buttons, but nothing is available for the second ingredient.

Is there a list of ingredients that everybody knows?

if your alchemy skill is novice, I think you probably need to use the novice alchemy items, and not apprentice. most regular foods can be mixed together to make restore fatigue potions, they're not very useful but they're good for raising your alchemy skill.

Yeah, the lowest level thing, that's what I have. Novice? then that is it.

What do I mix together, and how do I know if I am doing it right? Everything comes up fine on the first ingredient list, but nothing can mix with it (the second ingredient slot)...

Do I go to a shop?

Which one?

Do I get special training?

Where?

I would love to be an alchemist, but damn. I am really having a blocky time learning/practicing/performing this alchemy thing...

from what I took so far, the effects have to be the same for both ingredients. it will only show the first ingredient's effects because the second ingredient's effects should be the same. then you mix them together. it said somewhere in the game that uber alchemists can make potions with only ONE ingredient. hmm..

more memory for sure, hopefully you still have a free slot or 2, stick another 512 in it at least, preferably another gig, but everything else will run it decently

Is anyone else a melee class and getting completely demolished in melee? I am just getting WORKED by everyone I face, except for the occasional mud crab and/or wolf.

I really don't know what I'm doing wrong.

I can't believe how much the requirments for RAM have changed. I remember building my first computer when 256 was equivelent to probaly 2 gigs of RAM today.

I need to decide if I want upgrade just my RAM or motherboard processor or whatever else... hmmm...

With how Oblivion attempts to equalize the difficulty of enemies in relation to your character level, it's common to fall behind in comparison to things you're fighting. I believe it's based solely on your characters level, and so for example if you have blunt and sneak as two major skills, getting 8 improvements in sneak and two in blunt would cause you to level up, so you're melee skills can easily lag behind. This creates a gap in melee proficiency between you and your enemies. It's kind of a skewed system that you can only really get around by setting non necessary skills as your major skills. My fighter character has all spell skills, alchemy, and hand to hand as his major skills as this lets me decide when I level up so that gives me a chance to make sure my melee skills raise at a decent rate in relation to enemies. Hope that made sense, it's a little tricky to explain hehe.

That said, the difficulty slider has a huge effect. My nearly non-combat theif dude struggled until I dropped it two notches. Combat still is hard, but challenging hard, not impossible hard ;). There's no penalty for lowering the difficulty, so if you want to experience a character that doesn't have to whack everything (sniping with arrows rocks. Especially once you get the goodies from finishing the thieves guild quest) it's a good way to go about it. All skills can be maxed out eventually, and different ones do different stats. If you think your strength is lagging, whack something with a dagger or weak weapon for a while :)

From playing morrowind I know that isnt really neccessary, just make sure all your primary skills are primary combat skills, even if you want your character to focus on alchemy, make sure the skills you use in combat are primary, even if that isn't the focus of your character.

Does anyone know how long it takes for dungeons to re-spawn?

Yeah, at least one aspect has to be the same. As a novice alchemist, you only SEE one aspect, so the two have to have the same primary aspect (night-eye, for instance). As you gain skill, you see more aspects for each ingredient and can mix a greater assortment of potions. You can also use the "See All" button or whatever to make two pairs, each with different matches, to increase the combinations within a potion. For example:

Bonemeal and Ironwood Nuts both have Resist Fire

Crabmeat and Lettuce both have Fire Shield (not right at the beginning of alchemy, but they do)

You can mix one of each to get the combined Resist Fire and Fire Shield

Eh, that's a bad example at any rate, because they also have common aspects (damage fatigue I think)... but you get the point. Now, you could do the same with only three ingredients if one had both Fire Shield AND Resist Fire, such as Dragon's Tongue.

Actually, you can get Fire Shield and Resist Fire with just two ingredients at Expert (Dragon's Tongue and Cheese Wedge) since they both have both aspects.

Three days seems to be the default respawn timer for everything else... but I don't know if it applies to dungeons.

So who is going to pay the $2-5.50 for the horse armor :rolleyes:

I lost a lot of respect for Bethesda with that.

Huh? What horse armor and why does it cost RL money?

You can download horse armor.

Something like 5.50 for the Xbox on xbox live
2 bucks for the PC on some download site.

I'm not kidding, its offical eye candy you pay for.

Gotta collect them all!

:rolleyes:

Hahah, well, more power to them IMO.

This isn't really anything terribly new to video games. Especially for eye candy. When BlizzCon occured last year, people were pissed that you got a Murloc pet for attending... so it was basically looked at as you paid $80 for the pet rather than got the pet with your ticket price to go. This is less devious than the proposed Trading Card Game Blizz is supposed to be putting out this year with "rare" cards that will give you items in game.

Yeah, I love this game, but this is REALLY lame. Expansion packs are great... but charging people for stuff that should have been included in the box? L-A-M-E

The really lame part is that this is crippling the mods since they won't release the 3d exporter thingy like they did for Morrowind, so modders can't make new objects.

they dont plan to release the 3d exporter? i just figured they were waiting to release it for now.

Ustwo - do you know if the horse armor has any functional value, or is it just eye candy? This would really suck if the armor actually protected the horse, thereby giving you an advantage in the game that can only be realized by paying extra money.

No one seems to be sure. Since its a single player game that aspect doesn't worry me that much, PC users can cheat all they want with mods after all. They apparently have new real content and shops etc they will be adding. This was the plan all along, as all of this could have been in the release.

not to mention mounted combat isn't in the game, so horse armor is about as worthless as tits on a boar hog. I've never lost a horse to combat, and rarely even have encounters when mounted anyway. Just another example of a good company gone bad due to greed. The mods for morrowind are what made it the amazing game it was, and they were upset they didn't cash in on it. So now they have figured out a way to rape and pilage our wallets throuhgout the life of the game, and keep modders from showing them up with more innovative add-ons for free.

Rape and pillage our wallets? Who is making people pay for these downloadable extras, anyway? You don't want it? Don't buy it. Seems obvious to me.

but why should I have to pay for it when mods of equal or better quality were available before in Morrowind? It would be different if they released the exporter, and then competed against modders by putting out, and charging for, professional mods with a quality that you just couldn't find anywhere else, just like what was done for Neverwinter Nights. In this case, however, the modders don't even have a chance. And this is just the beginning. How long do you think it will be before some company starts making people pay extra for things that used to be included as part of the purchasing price? Say, maybe EA decides to charge 2.99 for each retro jersey or historical team in Madden or NHL. Or Blizzard releases Diablo 3, but it cost 2.99 for every unique armor set you want in the game. You may think thats silly and you would never pay for a game like that, but if the majority of game publishers require the studios to make games in this fashion because they can see it as a viable source of extra profit, that is how games will be made. And it will start with flagship titles such as these, because there will be enough fanboys that will pay the extra money to have every item in game and make it worth while.

I've been gaming for a long time, and there are plenty of things I never thought we as gamers would allow, such as paying $50 for a game, and then paying $15-$20 dollars a month just to be able to actually play it. But I find myself typing this after just finishing a session of D&D Online, which uses that exact method to charge its customers.

That was Coppertop's point, Niki... you DON'T have to pay for it. $1.99 isn't much if the content is worth it to you. If it's not, don't buy it. Just because a lot of mods are free doesn't mean I download them all. And some free ones I'd be willing to pay for if I wasn't able to code it myself. The whole micropayments issue is here to stay, and it's going to become bigger, not smaller.

You don't like MMO models? Well, sure there's some profit, but there's also a baseline cost to a company like Blizzard for RUNNING all those WoW servers. They also have to pay for GMs and Forum Admins. They also have to pay for ongoing development. Since not everything is in a retail box (in WoW at least, a LOT of content comes out in patches every few months)... THAT'S what the $15/month pays for. I find that to be a bargain, frankly. So you don't want to pay $1.99 for horse armor. *shrug* Would you pay $1.99 for some of the other new content coming out at that price like the Orrery or the Wizard's Tower? I most likely will...

The problem should be obvious.

The over all quality of the games will decrease, as that which was once 'included' will now be extra charged for later. Like getting a barebones car vrs a delux model.

In Oblivions case, if you never played the Morrowind mods you don't know how utterly screwed you are in terms of content. Playing morrowind with a full set of mods is BETTER than oblivion in most ways other than the Havoc engine. Now vanilla morrowind is a good game I played it all the way through in vanilla mode, but my disapointment with oblivion made me look back and try the mods. Holy christ they are good. Entirely new skins, faces, sounds, enemy ai, scripting, models, zones and even voice acting. All free. These mods are why morrowind is still on the shelves despite it being an 'old' game. I'll also add that Bethesda added two plug ins on their own for free as well.

Because of this paid for content, do you think Bethesda is going to let people compete with them? The modders can play with what is in game, but can not add anything new, like horse armor, Bethesda made sure of that by not including the 3d exporter like they did morrowind. So while you can pay your $2 for horse armor and your $2 for a wizard tower and your $2 for more vendors, know that you are paying for INFERIOR content that was once free. This will work in the short run, but long run they really pissed off one of the most loyal fanbases in gaming. So yes new people to an RPG most likely think this is heaven, but its like having sex with a condom. Seems great unless you had the real thing.

Again Ustwo, you're comparing a game that has been out for several years to one that has been out a few weeks.

A few of the things I've really liked so far that I haven't mentioned:
Restructuring of skills:
Medium armor was useless. Now there is light and heavy.
Short blade and long blade have been combined (which is really great to me).
Alchemy is soooo improved, the interfacce kicks ass. Ingredients are easier to come by as well. In MW, restore magika ingredients were not as plentifull and it made taking the Atronoch sign much more difficult. Now it's a nusiance, but not crippling at all (which is what should have been intented).
Enchanting is no longer a skill and descent constant effect enchantments are actually possible. It just didn't make sense for it to be a skill, you don't spend enough time enchanting items for it to be a skill and in order for it to be effective, you needed to either drop a bunch of money on training or waste a lot of time recharging enchanted weapons with soulgems. You might as well have just used a console command.
Bonuses from skill mastery, although I haven't been able to get the good ones yet, I'm looking forward to how the knockback, disarm and paralyze will work out.

I do think it's a pain in the ass that you need a bedroll to level up. That's about the only lame thing I can think of.

Some complain that they don't like that the map always tells you where to go. Honestly, I always thought the whole "go here and retrieve item x but I won't tell you where it is" acutally located was an immersion breaker. What is more likely, a hero on a mission that never asks for directions or a hero on a mission that takes the extra second to ask where that location is?

If Bethesda lets the modders mod like they did in Morrowind there is hope that in two year Oblivion will be far better than Morrowind ever was, mods and all.

If not, you won't see Oblivion on the shelves in 2 years, unlike Morrowind.

Right now that $2 pay to upgrade, mostly due to how the xbox 360 works, is crippling that which was best about a Bethesda game.

I agree with Ustwo and Nikil, I flat out wouldn't have played Morrowind without the mods. Which I can actually say with certainty because I got it when it originally came out without using any mods and returned it then picked it up a few years later to try it again with mods and liked it.

As far as what Nikil said about gamers letting companies like blizz charge us monthly, the point is not that Nikil and others like us feel we should get things for free. Nikil it sounds like, me for sure, and Ustwo probably as well are all experienced gamers, we understand that certain things must cost money but just because the way things are now does not make it the only viable way things could be.

Look at paradigm breaking games like guild wars. I personally don't like the gameplay but its online gameplay, without pay per month, is something a lot more people would like I think, but these games like WoW, and DDO know they can get away with charging per month and go with the classic style of managing online gameplay. I'm guessing it's a lot more profitable to go that way and they will if gamers let them. It also encourages bad design principles such as timesinks to keep your playerbase addicted and playing whereas a game like guild wars encourages the developers to make quality expansions to make you want to play rather than manuevering you into staying.

Not releasing everything, like has already been said, is bad because it inhibits player creativity. NWN did very well and the developers competed just fine with the playerbase instead of locking out certain parts of the game...its just like a monopoly...theyre bad in any form.

Nobody is seeing the advantage to the way Bethesda is doing things. Instead of paying $40 for an expansion pack that has, say, ten new features and a shiny box, you can choose the parts you want. You don't want horse armour? Fine, save your two bucks. I though it looked cool and downloaded it. I hope they do many more in the future, because a) if you can afford a 360 a couple of bucks doesn't hurt, and b) it gives them an incentive to create new content for a long, long time.

And ffs, stop comparing Oblivion to Morrowind. If you want Morrowind, go play Morrowind. I've looked at the game box, it doesn't promise Morrowind. Nowhere on the internet has Bethesda ever said that Oblivion is Morrowind. The game isn't even set in Morrowind. You're not going to have the exact same experience as you would playing Morrowind. Hell, I'd wager that if Bethesda made an exact remake of Morrowind, including all the mods, using the Oblivion engine, the same people would complain that they'd be forced to pay for a game they already have. Sheesh.

I'm with hulk on this debate. :)

I haven't been this sucked into a game since the WoW beta. I'm loving it. Best $50 I spent in a long time...

what exactly are they doing to inhibit modders. there are already tons of mods out there. given them time and they will rival the MW mods.

I stated it already, modders can NOT add new objects etc into the game like they could in morrowind. They didn't give the modders the 3d exporter tool like they did in morrowind. If you look all the mods are tweeks of whats already in the game, but modders can no build a new zone or city or house or face like they could in Morrowind.

IF Bethesda releases that then ok, Oblivion will have some great mods. If they don't then Oblivion will only have a few game play tweek mods like those that are out there. Now there is one major graphics improvement mod out there for Oblivion, but thats because the textures were allready in the game, but Bethesda disabled them for some reason. Modders turned them back on.

Now if you were Bethesda, would you give modders the ability to COMPETE with you for free, or would you keep releasing stuff $2 at a time and not worry about them?

Finally the new 'mod' from Bethesda is already IN your game, but the door is locked and you can't get in no matter what. Yes they did it before the game was released and you will get to pay to access the orrery after you pay your money.

(oh and UberTuber this WILL make your character more powerful)

This model is god awful really, as it will encourage developers to say 'hey thats a great feature, lets put it out after release and make them pay for it!' instead of just putting it in the game.

They may not be able to make new models, but they can reskin existing models... that's a start at least.

Not many developers release the SDK immediately upon the game shipping. Give it time, it will happen.

This might be old news, but here's a really nice mod for Oblivion that makes it a little more optimized for PC... larger world map, smaller icons for spells and items so you can see more at one time. Lots of other little useful things that make the game seem like less of a console port and more of an actual PC game.

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.co...s.Detail&id=25

Contrary to what you might think, most developers aren't out there to screw you over. They have a reputation ya know. Anyway, that model has been out there since the advent of expansion packs, it's nothing new.

Expansion packs are great. And of course the developers don't want to screw us over, they're too busy getting screwed over themselves by publishers. Stunts like this are about creating direct revenue for the developers, so they can actually get some money for the game they worked so hard on. Unfortunately, they have to sell us crap, charge monthly fees, or sell the game over the internet for them to get the chunk of change they want. I guess, if anything, we should all start boycotting publishers and only by direct from developers, like Steam, then we won't get screwed by stupid little micropayment bull crap that sucks my dirty bunghole but also sticks it to the publisher. Dammit.

You really missed the point. Tell me what the advantage of a monopoly is? Why wouldn't you want to give players the ability to create new things?

Because then they could make their own horse armour for free.

Not sure if you meant that sarcastically, but I meant advantageous to the players, and why as a player would you support a monopoly that only hurts you?

From a Developer's standpoint, letting players create their own content means that you will get less money from selling official content, since players can replicate it given enough time.

From a player's standpoint, it's bad news because, although devs may have more incentive to make more content for the game, it allows them to become complacent. Just think about the MMO model: release a game way before it's polished and anywhere near finished, fix bugs and add "new" features that should have been in the game at release and use the monthly subscription to justify it, and then make an expansion pack with features that were promised in release and charge full price on top of subscription!

Instead, they'll just charge you small amounts of money for features that definately should have already been in the game, but they were too lazy/greedy to put it into the original release.

What ever happened to the good old days of Total Annihilation's Weekly Unit?

Firstly, even releasing the limited tools they have now, Bethesda have gone above and beyond most other developers. Secondly, multi-million dollar budgets and smaller profit margins are what happened to the good old days of free everything. The MMO 'model' you outlined has very little to do with MMOs. Doom (the very first one) was redone as Ultimate Doom, which had a couple of new scenarios. Final Doom followed some time after. Each had an extra price tag for basically what fans had done. Wolfenstein had a similar model.

Patching bugs is an iffy situation. I'd rather put up with a jerky Oblivion in March then having to wait until June for some minor, stubborn bug fixes. On the inverse, I'd rather wait for GR:AW to have decent netcode. It depends on the issues involved. Monthly subscriptions to MMOs originally came round due to the massive costs involved in hosting them. Consumers accepted these and Blizzard et al are just continuing the trend.

On the topic of the game itself, is anyone finding it ridiculously hard? Perhaps I missed something, but I thought following the main game "path" would be the easiest way to progress through the game. I was told to destroy the Oblivion gate blocking the main gate, and at level two I'm running around madly shooting arrows and fireballs just to avoid getting hit at all. If I do, those damned scamps will kill me in two or three hits. Seems a bit rough for a level 2, anyway..

Yeah, I'm sucking at this game too. It is pretty hard.

From what everyone's said, you have to scale back the difficulty. I feel like a total siss doing that, though.

I've yet to do that, and I am using a theif-like character.

Just make sure you upgrade some of your fighting based stats per level and you'll be fine.

Man I got that bitch rocked back to the most easy setting ever made.

I suck at blocking though so i always get beat down.

Woo Thats Awesome.

I've been busy with finals and all that so I still havn't gotten this game and I just realized that I forgot to ask about the combat systrem in Oblivion...That was the huge let down for me in Morrowind, the combat was horrible. The animations...one would swing a staff or two handed sword as fast as a dagger, and because one way on the weapon was most damaging I ended up using that each swing so that it got really silly constantly poking or whatever some mob.

So if someone could give me as detailed description of the combat system as possible I would be highly grateful, especially contrasted with Morrowind since I already have experience with it. Can you target enemies and see their health? Do the swing animations look better? Do the get hit animations look more natural? Etc.

Thanks.

In essence, if your swing hits a baddie you hit them. If you hold the block when they hit you, you block. The effectiveness is measured by your stats, naturally. Each class of weapon (blade or blunt) swings more or less the same way, ie, a longsword the same as a shortsword but not the same as a two-handed axe. Some neat little combos tie into the system well. The best discriptor for it is solid. It feels very, very solid. Where it balances two handed swords vs daggers is in fatigue. Once your fatigue hits rock bottom your swings don't do very much at all. One can swing a dagger all they like and it'll take much, much longer to tire them out than with a claymore. The health of your foe is shown as a bar over your crosshair, so it's always there in front of you. Hit animations are pretty good, especially at higher levels where a swing from your beastly magic warhammer sends a bear flying into the sky. There's no lock-on targeting but it's rare to lose your bearing thanks to the first person perspective. There are times that you're overwhelmed but that's to be expected - anyone trying to fight six skeletons while being bombarded by fireballs is going to be in trouble ;)

Detailed enough?

"solid" that sounds promising, good. But what about the way you swing the same type of weapon? In other words is it the same animation each time you hit/swing for a 1 handed longsword? The reptitive nature of combat was one of the worse parts for me.

Oh, and what do you mean by block? Do you raise your weapon to block, or are you talking about shields? If your weapon actually raises and blocks their weapon in a fluid animation that would be so cool... versus (for those who have played) gothic 2 where you block with your weapon, but the animation is not fluid, meaning suddenly your sword is just diagonal/in the same blocking position as everytime you hit the block key, it just sort of jumps there, took the cool factor out of it for me.

Oh and if anyone is wondering why I care so much its that I'm a "poor" college student and limit myself to only a few games a year, so I like to be sure (especially since gaming is a very big hobbie of mine, even though I only get 3-4 games a year, I play those games a lot.)

Oh and are their ragdoll physics? Which basically means if a mob dies over a log, it will conform over it like in real life, bodies roll down hills, etc. rather than just one death animation its like having a unique death animation for each environmental detail.

Thanks again for answering my questions :D

Well, pretty much any review will tell you this... but anyway... yes, claymores swing slower than longswords, which are slower than short swords, which are slower than daggers, same sort of thing with blunt. Hand-to-hand is actually cool. Block is either a parry or a shield... shield is more effective, obviously. The animations are fairly fluid, but by no means perfect, it is convincing (usually) when you block, if you fail your block you are staggered back and cannot raise your weapon for a second or two, sometimes you even fall over. of course, you can do the same to the enemy. There are ragdoll physics.

Not true, I checked IGN and they only said, paraphrasing, "like morrowind oblivion has its share of problems with the combat system." They also hinted at ragdoll but didn't confirm. IGN used to be pretty good quality reviews, perhaps it has droped in recent times.

Yeah, swing forms dont change much , but there are different types of swings you can do .

Auto blocking is gone, if you plan on blocking somthing you gotta do it your self now.

Yeah, ragdoll exists, and can be quite funny at times. I've had people die leaning against a wall, well that is untill i use the grab key and pull them by their feel off it. :D

Following up on that last thought... ragdoll is hilarious once you start getting to the extremely high levels... my level 35 thief with 100+ strength (with buffs) sends any NPC sailing 30 feet through the air on a 6x damage sneak attack... it's great... I never used to play my thief as a murderer, but it's so funny that sometimes I just can't resist sneak attacking a random passerby just to watch them sail into other people and objects.

It's not one swing over and over, don't get the wrong idea. It does flow pretty well. Think Legend of Zelda kind of variation.

I'm starting to take note of the ragdoll effects too, it's pretty hilarious. Skeletons have a nice way of exploding into a jumbled mess as well.

It's even more fun once you start dragging corpses around and tossing them off cliffs. Wheee!

The ragdoll physics are great. You throw a fireball at a dinner table full of stuff and it goes flying all over the place. When people die they can go in one direction while their weapon goes the other way.

Fighting is much better than MW. There are more animations for fighting as well. You have attacks that disarm enemies. Once you do that, grab their weapon and they are fucked and will often run away.

The radiant AI is cool also. I was running around and found an ogre. Normally I can go toe to toe with one of them but at the time I wanted to practice marksman on him. They are strong, heal themselves, and take lots of damage so in the process of using a bow on them you can gain a good amount of skill. Well as I backpedaled and sprayed him with arrows, a second comes running along. Then I see this guy following us attacking the second ogre. Once we finish off the Ogres, he starts beating on me! It turns out he was a bandit but hates Ogres more than me.

From what I've heard there is a lot of fun to be had with command humanoid and frenzy. You can get massive brawls started that way.

I do have an odd problem, I'm at lvl 21 now and my acrobatics haven't gained any points since about level 10. It doesn't matter how much I jump around or how high I fall from, I don't gain anything. It's a major skill so I kind of need it to raise. I resorted to adding 10 points via the console commands giving me 50 points in acrobatics. Since there are like 50 levels or so, I'll just add 2 points with each level up. I figure that will distribute it evenly.

One other thing, with alchemy equipment, it is supposed to be leveled. ie, a journeyman can't use expert or master equipment. Well, I was exploring and found a master mortar and pestle and a master calcinator. Right afterwards I was able to buy the rest of the equipment at the expert level. My character had a 68 skill level and was still able to use it.

I make some bad ass potions now. I made two that doe the following:
damage health 7pts for 34 sec
damage magika 8 pts for about 30 sec
silence 20 sec
fire (or frost, depending on 4th ingredient) 7 pts for 30 seconds.

The potion with fire damage should waste vamps. I have a bow of flames (15 pts fire damage) and some blazing arrows (40 pts fire damage). One attack has a base of over 500 damage before you add in a vamps weakness to fire. How would a sneak attack work with that? Is only the physical damage tripled?

Just to further elaborate on these questions.

If you keep tapping your attack key, you'll swing your sword back and forth (you don't get the "hammering" effect of single animation attacks). You also have access to various power attacks, normal ones do extra damage, sideways ones have a chance to disarm, backwards ones can knockback and forward ones can paralyze. Mind you, your opponents can do this as well.

Hand to Hand has been improved because now it also does damage to your opponent's fatigue, so if you can hit your opponent with a few arrows with Drain Fatigue on them, you can run up to them and start hammering away with your fists. When they hit zero fatigue, they fall down and are even more susceptible to blows.

You hit the block key and it raises your shield or your two handed weapon to block. Obviously less damage is taken if you use a shield instead of a weapon to block. If you are hit particularly hard, you might be knocked back and take a second to recover, giving your opponent a few seconds to get a free hit in. This also works against your opponents as well.

It seems the main problem is that for the first few times you play through the game, sometimes fights become obscenely hard, then the game because ridiculously easy because every bandit on the road is toting full Daedric or Glass. There are many mods out there that attempt to fix these shortcomings, by limiting the min and max level of your enemies (most monsters scale with you in the game, making it feel like you haven't gotten more powerful at all) as well as increasing the rarity of the best types of gear in the game, altering the leveling system slightly and improving monster AI.

Thanks a ton for describing the combat system in detail guys.

Sigh, I just found out, this is DVD ROM only? I have a computer with a dvdrom but its not the one I play games on...I may have to do some switching. :( Why in the world would they not release it on a normal CDs as well? Is this the first game to only release it on DVDs?

EDIT: Well this sucks, my dvd rom isn't working, its a samsung SD 608. I googled it and other people have the same problem. I tried changing the IDE controller from DMA to PIO cause someone said that helped them but nothin here. Guess I'll have to wait a year or two before I get to play...though by then I'm sure I'll have forgotten about it heh. :|

hell just get a new dvd player. they are what, $20 now? Also, you can always get a no-dvd patch.

No DvD patch? What's that?

As far as buying one I think theyre more like $40 and I already said I am on an extremely limited budget and will likely upgrade my computer next year so I don't want to put money in it that will be a waste next year. Especially since I'd likely need more RAM too...

Umm... buy the game and then emulate an image with Daemon-Tools... there are legitimate uses for these things, you know.

It's 1 dvd vs like 10 CDs... The market has moved on, man ;)

I bought my HP DVD/CDR for about $20 on newegg. Really, they're that cheap now. There's no reason not to have one on every system. I believe Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory also came out on DVD only. As hulk stated, the market has moved on.

Dude download it from Fileplanet on www.direct2drive.com

No DVD, no worries. Be advised my d/l took overnight and I have a fast connection...their server was the suck.

Edit to say I've used D2D for quite a few games lately and have been mostly pleased with the service. The slow Oblivion d/l was unusual.

That's a nice solution. I had no idea there was a way to d/l full games legally

I remember getting some RPG onces that came on 24 floppies. Then they issues a patch via snail mail that came on 8 floppies. I went to the next KGP show and bought a CD ROM drive.

I'm trying to find a reason to keep playing this game. I REALLY don't like the level-scaling system. I want the old Morrowind system back. What's the point of doing ANYTHING in the game, really? Everything will be just as powerful as you are (to a certain extent). The beauty of Morrowind was becoming a demigod, and in Oblivion, it seems you can't do it. So far anyway.

Also, I was searching online for where I can find the marksman trainer, and I found a whole boatload of cheats that are just literally one-line console commands to give you as much gold as you want and as many levels, skills, attributes, items, whatever. All the spells in one command. Stuff like that. This, combined with no personal satisfaction of being a GOD among insects (I can't even go back to the first dungeon and farm it), makes me want to stop playing. You have a level 30 mage? So what, I can make it in 5 seconds. Level 30 isn't anything anyway, considering the enemies are still hard to kill. Anyone have any suggestions?

Once you get some good enchantments, you can become a god even with the leveled system. However, there are some mods that cap certain enemies at lower levels like bandits, mud crabs etc so you'll kill them easily at higher levels while other enemies remain challenging. There's probably a mod that sets all the monsters to a certain level regardless of your level as well. Basically, get some mods :)

BTmod is quite good, as is no psychic guards.

Lies. Dirty rotten lies. Only half a dozen enemies actually level up. The rest of the scaling is represented with more powerful foes coming at you. The beasties through the Oblivion gates are the best examples of this - stunted scamps give way to Daedroths, but one daedroth is as good as another. And not reaching demi-god? Poppycock! You can enchant weapons with unholy amounts of power, armor that boosts your strength many hundreds of points, sneak right in front of guards in broad daylight and pick any lock with no effort in the end.

As I said before, if you truly want Morrowind, the beauty of games is that you can always go back and play them later ;) The point of the game? Save Cryodil. Reinstate the Emperor. Rise to the head of all the guilds, clear every dungeon, close every Gate. If you're only playing to be able to pwn all the baddies with your Sword of Lameness at level 2 then you're missing the point entirely.

Yeah, I've read many reports of beating the game at level 1 due to the scaling system. The game looks great and I loved Morrowind, but any type of scaling is a huge turnoff for me. :(

Actually you need to be level 2.

There are some mods which do attempt to fix it. I'm saving oblivion until the mods are more solid myself.

So ignore the posts about it being too hard -- I made the mistake of using a premade class.. after re-making as a "Paladin" and a "Predator," (Classes I made) my characters improved tenfold.

Certainly not optimal for certain conditions, but they're definitely keeping me alive a lot longer than "Crusader" and "Witchunter" were..

Paladin:
Heavy Armor
Blade
Speechcraft
Illusion
Restoration
Block
Athletics

Predator
Sneak
Marksman
Conjuration
Mysticism
Illusion
Restoration
Light Armor

That's right. Very few enemy types level with you. Beyond that, humans that you fight level as well. It's not a bad thing, all it does is ensure that you can do quests in any order you want and when you finally get to the main quest, all the big bads aren't 1 hit kills.

It's very easy to make yourself into a tank. Get a full deadric set and enchant it with either fort strength (increasing your damage) or shield (increasing your ability to take damage). I read on another forum that a guy enchanted regular clothes with all shield defenses and ended up with a higher AC than a full deadric set!

After that, enchant your sword with massive damage effect or you can use drain health. DH is temporary, so it's cheap for a lot of points. You can take a sword and give it massive amounts of DH for a duration of 1 second. it drastically lowers the amount of damage you need to do. Now take your enchanted weapons and armor and add in some potions. Max out that skill and create potions that fort str and restore health and magika. You can take 4 at a time so you can be regenerating over 80 hp/sec. Nobody will be able to touch you.

How far is everyone in the game? I really haven't done much quest-wise. I did the mage guild recommendation quests, a handfull of misc quests, closed the Kavatch gate, and beat the arena. Aside from that, I just run around killing things. I'm now at level 23. The leveling system will definitely be beneficial for me.

In MW, I got lost in exploring, fighting, aquiring items and getting mad skills. By the time I got to quests everything was 1 hit kill for me. At least with the leveling, I actually have battles.

I'm level 29 and have cleared some 90 odd locations. Of course, cleared is relative as they repopulate, but there ya go. I've yet to visit Imperial City, Leyawiin or that other town down south. Spoiler: I've gotten Martin to safety and am supposed to look into retrieving the amulet next. I've closed the Kvatch gate and cleared the castle there. Nine Oblivion Gates have fallen to my hand. I have gotten partial recommendations in the Fighter & Mage guilds. I think I will only advance further in the Fighter's Guild and save the rest of the Mage Guild storyline for a more magic oriented character. I haven't played for about a week as I am kind of burned out on clearing out the various dungeons & Oblivion Gates. I think I'll just turn to the main storyline and finish the game.

"Cleric" major skills:
armorer
block
blunt
conjuration
heavy armor
restoration
speechcraft

Armorer, heavy armor & blunt are maxed out at 100. Block is in the 70s and the rest are between 40-60. The game has gotten to the point where I find it pretty easy, unless I am fighting multiple goblins, for some reason. We'll see if the main storyline poses any more of a challenge.

Okay, I need help:

The very first Oblivion Gate that I am trying to close, I get up to the top and do the thing (grab the orb?) and there is a huge flash of light.

Then, my whole screen is in White-out, and I can't see where I am going, except for a few outlines and then the wall.

I try to stumble about, but I can't figure out if this is the game or my comp?

Help please!

after the flash, you should end up standing in front of the closed gate.

I think i've about done everything you can do in the game quest-wise. My dude basically runs shit in all possible ways, though somehow all of the guards in the game hate his guts(perhaps it was the dark brotherhood questline). It took a mere 110 hours. One nice little trick that i didn't try until pretty late in the game is to enchant 5 different pieces of clothing with 20% chameleon. It's like being invisible, except you can attack people and open doors and steal as much as you want without anyone even really knowing you're there. Enemies can't see you and don't attack. You can still manage to wrack up a sizable bounty if you're not careful.

I read about this bug in the forums for some people. No one had a solution, but that was a couple of weeks back.

Edit:Everything does level with you, be it indirectly. That same area that once had wolves will now have bears etc. It maintains the challange without having to strech the imagination of the dev team.

Hmmm, sucks about the white-out, I've never had that happen to me.

Anyone download the Wizard's Tower or Orrery quests? Was wondering whether it was worth it...

I haven't downloaded the Wizard's Tower but the Orrery quest definitely isn't it worth it. It's a 10 minute quest that lets you take +10 to one stat and -10 to another although the actually orrery does look cool.

The Orrery depends how much you value the couple of bucks it costs to get :) I'm happy enough with it, you get some decent kit from the quest NPCs. If you're into eye candy, getting it just to see the Orrery fire up is worth it alone :)

Oh, and that level 2 game finish BS. The main quest isn't terribly long. With some dedicated effort you can finish it in a couple of hours, I'd say. That would, however, completely disregard 1) the other 95% of the game, 2) the difficulty factor being in the player's control at all times. I hardly see how it's any more of an issue than being able to get the ultra EQ in Morrowind and break the game balance. In fact, it proves that the levelling system that Bethesda have used works exactly as intented. Funny that, eh?

How the hell do you make spells? This minor healing spell fucking SUCKS, and as a major skill is Restoration, I should be able to make a better one.

I remember in Morrowind I made a 100 dmg spell at level 1. I had like a 12% chance to land it, but damn when I did.. wooey..

In order to make spells (or enchant items) you need to become a member of the mages guild and use the altar of spellmaking (or enchanting) at the Arcane University. Now, it's not just as simple as joining the guild, you have to do all 7 or so recommendation quests before you can access the AU.

It kinda sucks and is kinda lame but it makes sense in a way. A novice just starting out in the field of magic wouldn't be able to just make up spells at random.

Anyways, screw the healing spells. Use potions instead. I know I keep saying it but it's much more efficient to use healing potions rather than spells. They don't take game time and they don't cost any mana. Also, you can raise your alchemy skills FAST by just making and selling restore fatigue potions.

You don't need to be a member of the Guild to buy spells, either. Talk to the folks in all the guilds. If you're after Restoration, head on down to Anvil or visit any temple.

I'm finally experiencing the scaling, and it does indeed suck! At first, I thought it was a fine concept.. it'll let me do quests at any level, and it prevents me from outleveling a quest and being forced to play the game in a certain order.

It's just pissing me off, now! When I get my ass kicked, it's not like I can say "oh, I'll come back in another level and when I have a better sword." No, because when I come back, those same damn monsters will be there, but they'll be better too! I had this happen with the Arena.. I'm getting my ass kicked by one certain fight (just got Gladiator) and no matter how many levels or pieces of armor or swords or shields I get, they just get tougher. I tried at level 9 with full steel armor, got my ass kicked. Came back at level 10 with half a suit of dwarven armor and a dwarven longsword. Got my ass kicked just as bad. AAAAGGGH. And I'm too damn stubborn to turn the difficulty down.

Thinking it might be time to resort to some mods..