CyCo PL

Yeah, the game was definitely made for Xbox and "ported" to PC. Everything is menu driven instead of mouse clicking and dragging like in Morrowind on PC. It's actually very disappointing the potential that was wasted on the PC version because they didn't take the time to optimize it to take full advantage of the mouse. I guess they were trying to push the game out as soon as possible for both platforms though, considering it was intended to be a launch title for Xbox 360 and PC players have been just as eagerly awaiting it.

Coppertop

I'm going to buy it on my way home tonight - so no need to call the police when I don't show up anymore.

Plaid13

So has anyone found any merchants yet that have alot of money to buy real expensive stuff? i want to sell the armor reward from the arena thats worth over 2k but havnt found anyone with enough cash to give me enough for it.

reiii

this world is so immersive, most impressive game I've ever played out of the box. Well see how i feel in a week.

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reiii

sigh, that was always a pain in the ass with morrowind. Hopefully there's a loaded merchant somewehre.

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hulk

Once your Mercantile skill gets up there, they have more gold. Takes a while, though.

__________________
"'There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person,' says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex."
-- From an IGN game review.

SecretMethod70

For those of you, like me, who are simply wishing they had a system that could play this game and passing the time by looking at how beautiful it is, check out this site that has some awesome panoramic screenshots
http://www.panogames.com/oblivion/

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Silvy

Well, that definitely puts my PC beyond the minimum specs: I can't even get the screenshots to display smoothly!
( I really need a new machine).

It does look extremely impressive though!

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reiii

anyone know where I can find some upgrades from my leather armor and iron weapons? Can't seem to find much equipment variety.

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Plaid13

if you do the main quest right after you close the first oblivion gate you get a bunch of free gear from the blades guild hall type place and that will last you a while. Dont remember if they had light armor or not though.

Reese

I have finished the Thieves Guild, Fighter's guild and The Arena. I spent all day today exploring the map and finding a ton of dungeons. I was wanting to restart my character because I have some lame major skills like hand to hand that never get leveled up but I've done so much there's no way I'm restarting now.

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Plaid13

Anyone know where to find a sneak or security trainer? im not playing a stealthy class but i want to be able to sneak around some and dont really want to just sneak around town all day to level it up. and leveling secuirty is just such a hassle i would like to be able to get it up alot faster.

Apokx

There is a stealth trainer that wanders around the Imperial City.I believe he was in the market district.

Reese

There's a security trainer in Market District of Imperial city sometimes. I think she shows up around 2pm. Also(mild spoiler) Spoiler: If you go to Nocternal's shrine you'll get a quest that will get you a skeleton key which gives you +40 security and it's an unbreakable lockpick.

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Ustwo

To me this game is a disapointment. If you never played a good RPG in the past I could understand loving it, hell I loved Bards Tale when it came out (3d wow!) but by todays standards its crap all around. This is a lot of how I see Oblivion.

The graphics and physics are very nice, but the game play it self is very dumbed down from Morrowind. The enemies are staticly leveled (you can easily finish the game at level 2) so they are always X levels above or below you. Magic/rare items you can't get early on, and later they are as common as iron is for a newbie. The plot is pretty basic, as are the quests.
You have the magic 'go here' compass, fast travel, and the world, while very nicely done, is pretty much the same where ever you go.

Its a good game, and if its your first RPG I'm sure you love it, but anyone who played Morrowind (and some of the AMAZING mods for it), you can only see this as a step back in terms of game play.

I'd call it an action/adventure with RPG elements, not an RPG.

One thing I did was reinstall Morrowind, downloaded some mods I never saw before, and am enjoying that game again. With the right mods (over 500mb in new textures alone) the game is almost as good looking as oblivion (minus the randomly swaying grass).

From what I gather Morrowind had a LOT of techincal issues they patched, and I'm hoping they do the same for Oblivion.

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hulk

Ustwo - the effect of restricting the enemies and items to your level isn't dumbing down the game. Far from it - what it does, much like Diabo, it means you can do any quest, any dungeon, in any order you want (mostly - some are level restricted). Instead of getting awesome gear right away like you could in Morrowind and essentially making the rest of the game a total wank, now you have to work for it. If it's too hard or easy, there's the difficulty slider. Fast travel lets people cross the world without taking four hours to run.

The compass eliminates all the boredom associated with many RPG quests, and I can't imagine how mundane the game would be without it. Well, I can. As mundane as much of the previous Elder Scrolls games. You're ignoring the improvements over Morrowind, too - you can block yourself, and when you hit an enemy it actually hits the enemy. NPCs wander about instead of standing in one spot, they initiate conversation and react to what you do. It's much more of an RPG in the purest terms of the sense, role playing, and less of a stat-fest to get the über-armor as quickly as you can.

__________________
"'There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person,' says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex."
-- From an IGN game review.

Catdaddy33

I haven't played a non MMORPG since Baldur's Gate 2, so I decided to take a short break from WoW and give this a shot. It's a cool game, but like others here I don't like the UI, although I'm getting use to it.

I'm still having problems with the lockpick mini-game, when there's more than one pin, I cant get the mouse to next pin very easily, I tried to tighten the mouse up more but that didn't seem to help much. I really don't want to rely on Auto-Attempt all the time..

Ustwo

You are 100% correct and 100% correct why this game is a disapointment to me.

Diablo is NOT an RPG, its an action game. It does that very well. I was hoping for an RPG, where some areas are VERY hard and others become very easy as the game goes on. I want to be rewarded for going into the very dangerous dungeon and getting out with a good item. I don't want to go into a dungeon at level 5 and find only Iron, and then go to the SAME dungeon, in sight of the capital, at level 20 and find glass armor. It ruins the feeling that its a world and makes it into an FPS.

The difficulty slider is not the answer, its not that the game is too easy or too hard, it just lacks any sort of feeling of 'reality'.

I will fully agree that a badly designed quest is one of the MOST annoying things in any RPG, where you are looking and looking for hut X and can't find it with the vauge 'up north' directions, and then you find out after 3 hours that its just barely outside of the city. That being said the compass is like having a constant spoiler site. Go here, talk, go here, kill, go here talk.

Blocking youself is a nice improvement I do like the combat changes.

As for the NPC's wandering around doing stuff, you are right that vanilla morrowind was very static in this for the most part and oblivion is better. After plugging in a few mods like Morrowind comes alive, its just the oposite. I never played with mods when I first played Morrowind, but my disapointment with oblivion made me check them out, in part to see if oblivion could be 'saved' from the action game it was. Some of the morrowind mods are of professional quality. There is one that replaces EVERY head in the game with a better and unique face. One replaces almost every building/tree texture in the game so instead of that drab morrowind feel you get a very vibrant world. Yet another replaces the armor textures making them look better than what is in oblivion. There are random quest mods, random travelers on the roads, semi-random town mobs, its really quite amazing how much time and effort people put in for free. One of the most impressive mods is called 'better bodies' which removes the sort of art-stick figure look to the NPC's and makes them VERY realistic, perhaps too realistic if you remove all your clothes, though I expeccted orcs to be better hung.

As for the uber armor etc in Morrowind, if you know the game, yes you can get stuff 'above' your level early on. (there are mods that fixed this) You know in 'that' chest there is ebony armor and in 'that' shine there are no guards in a room with a uber sword. If you don't know, then its quite a challange, and is a big part of the fun of exploring. In oblivion, why explore beyond when what you find is the same as what you find anywhere else? You can be champion of the arena at level 2, you can be at level 20, hell its easier at level 2.

If you like action games with a purpose, you will like oblivion, if you like deep rpgs like morrowind you will be disapointed.

What I'm holding my hope out for is that the mods will be able to fix much of what I don't like and based on the offical forums I am by no means alone in this feeling. What I'm afraid of is that while Morrowind was a PC game ported to the xbox, oblivion seems more like a xbox game ported to the pc, and from what some of the modders are saying, its harder to do things with it. Time will tell.

Edit:Oh I did miss your last point. Oblivion is VERY much a stat fest, more so than morrowind. Since enemies level with you, try leveling a non-combat character and see how well it goes for you. You will get your ass kicked outside of town by an uberwolf.

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kutulu

I hate the system for dropping items. it takes too damn long.

BigBen

Ustwo, that is the kind of review I am looking for.

Professional Game Reviewers sometimes overlook the fact that I am not a serious gamer, but I AM A SERIOUS GAME REVIEW READER. I can't shake the habit...

I think on your advice and the screenshots, I will pick this up. Hopefully my computer can take it.

I loved WoW, and found the quests fun and challenging. I loved the ability to make my own shit, sell it, wear it, and the open-endedness of it all.

I didn't like how it sucked me in so that I started to lose track of my personal hygeine, and the subscription costs were the last coffin nail. I might go back to it, I don't know. My brother wants to start a new character on a RP PvP server, and I think that it would be a new challenge.

Well, Oblivion, here I come! I want all of the good stuff of WoW, without any bad stuff.

Turn up the Good, Turn down the Suck!

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Hey, if you are impressed with my memorizing pi to 10 digits, you should see the size of my penis.

Ustwo

Well what I like about a single player game is it doesn't get mad if you go afk for a week unlike people in WoW

Most game reviews these days (even if its not a payola review) are pretty weak because they do the review a few days after release and have spent very little time playing the game just to be 'first' with the review. Reminds me of the cable news.

Oblivion IS a good game, and its very casual play friendly. It lacks depth so if you were expecting a detailed world and political system like morrowind you are out of luck. If you just want to wack on bad guys with some great phyics and effects you are in luck.

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BigBen

WoHOOOO!

ALLL RIGHT!

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reiii

anyone know of a good merchant? I'm having the same problem. too lazy to lvl my mercantile skill all the way up there

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Apokx

Shift+Click takes too long?


And Ustwo, if you wouldn't mind linking a few of the mods you've been talking about for Morrowind, that would be great.
I had planned on reinstalling it once I finish Oblivion.

I've been wondering if they planned on making Morrowind available with Oblivion's engine.

Ustwo

http://www.mwmythicmods.com/

100's on those lists, some were over 100 mb dls. I've only uploaded the cosmetic improvments, going to start to look into gameplay improvements.

Yea I'd pay for a 'Morrowind 2' if they ported it over to Oblivions engine. It would almost be stupid of them not too, old fans of the game would buy it, and new players who never played the original would as well. Odds are they are busy working on an expansion pack for Oblivion though.

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Apokx

Thanks for the link!

If Bethseda doesen't add a Morrowind pack or something to the new engine, I would almost bet money a third party will.


The only complaint I have with Oblivion thus far is how everything scales to your character.There's just something about simple bandits having the best gear in the game that bothers me.The graphics are beyond amazing, the voice acting, and some of the mission lines are incredible.The main story...well I have no clue on really.I'm still freelancing it.

kifferfong

I take it that my 1.73Ghz Athlon XP 2100 with 1gb RAM running a Radeon 9600 128mb will die if i try playing Oblivion? Or have anyone managed to run it on similar specs?

hulk

I wouldn't bet on Morrowind making another appearance, to port it over to Oblivion would be a massive undertaking and nowhere near worth the costs. If you're set on disliking the game though, not much I can do but extend my sympathies, as you're missing out on the best sandbox RPG around, and one of the finest RPGs overall since BG2

And yet with that there's still many hundreds of hours of gameplay in there. Why make players waste any time getting to the meat and potatoes of the game looking for the key NPC themselves?

Speaking of NPCs, comparing a fully modded game with many years of community support to one that's just out of the starting gate is a little unfair If anything, Bethesda have matched the quality of the community stuff themselves right from the get go, and that's commendable in itself.

So, Morrowind is only fun the first time around? Discussed this with a pal at work today, and he said it's more or less impossible to resist nabbing the best stuff when he starts new games. I'd imagine that's the same for 99% of those who played the game, so catering for the absolute minority with their next title, especially when it means changing so much of the game just isn't feasible. Enemies got harder and the gear got better in Morrowind as you advanced, you could just skip a few steps and undo all the balancing the developers worked on.

Oblivion is different each time around, you get the gear as your character improves. It's very much a sense of task -> reward -> task which is key to good game design, and it means it's a very cohesive game world which isn't easily broken.

I'm playing a non-combat character now. Two notches down on the difficulty, and it is absolutely perfect for him If I want to get from town to town without worrying about the baddies, I ride a horse.

If I want to finish this last quest without taking an hour to ride between cities, I use the map to fast travel. If I want to take on the Arena before the Fighter's Guild, or vice versa, or throw the Mages guild in there doing a few missions on the side, while tackling the odd dungeon I come across while wandering, I can, without severe disadvantage to my position as a player and needing to worry about stumbling into a cave of level 20 mutant vampire ogres with my level 5 pickpocket.

Choice is the key to sandbox games, and Oblivion nails it. If you want Morrowind, go play Morrowind and be happy. If you want the next step in the series, play Oblivion. Hell, do both. Best of both worlds, and I promise I won't tell all those screaming fanboys on the official forums that you are

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"'There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person,' says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex."
-- From an IGN game review.

hulk

As an aside, I found a neat quote by one of the devs, from here.

__________________
"'There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person,' says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex."
-- From an IGN game review.

BigBen

Just got it.

I think I am going to be busy for a long, long time. I am happy that my PC can run it, but everything is turned down low.

Oh well. I am going to be asking for help.

Is there any help sites out there? No, I don't want a cheat or Hint page, but I would like to get some idea how seasoned players interact with the game...

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3.141592654
Hey, if you are impressed with my memorizing pi to 10 digits, you should see the size of my penis.

hulk

You could check the official forums, or any of the fan site forums. Or ask here. I'm seasoned, I suppose.

__________________
"'There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person,' says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex."
-- From an IGN game review.

Redjake

My intro video won't play. Anyone have any suggestions? It stutters and starts to separate into different frames on the screen when I make a new game. My system is fully powerful enough to run the game on High, so that shouldn't be a problem. I've updated my drivers, and even turned the graphics down to "low" to make sure it wasn't just video lag. Help!

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kutulu

Oh shit, that's what I get for not glancing at the instructions or controls. I've been dragging them all out of my inventory and it's a pain in the ass.


I'm having a lot of fun making and selling potions. I steal all of the food that I can get away with and make lots of potions with that. I've also been using archery more than I thought I would. How do you go about making poison arrows?

Dungeon_Shade

I just got the game, and beat the main storyline, and I must say that this game is great. For some reason, it just isn't as fun as Morrowind

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hulk

Bah! I just had the power flick out for a second while the game was autosaving. Lost my latest save, it's backup, and the autosave, meaning I've been set back about four hours of gameplay. That sucks.

__________________
"'There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person,' says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex."
-- From an IGN game review.

Dragonlich

I've played the game for the last week or so (interupted by a dead videocard, brand new), and so far i'm impressed. Sure it's different from Morrowind, but so far it's an improvement. I visited some "tombs" in Oblivion, and had to navigate around traps, which is pretty cool. I also had to run like hell for a couple of zombies (first level, gimme a break! . Then, to add insult to injury, those zombies followed my out of the tomb to attack me outside, which never happened in morrowind. I'd say those changes alone make the game much more realistic. As for the combat... I now feel I'm actually fighting for my life instead of just whacking around.

Morrowind was great, no doubt about it (I've seen pretty much every inch of the Morrowind lands, including the expansion packs); but Oblivion is a whole new game to discover!

(By the way, I also played Daggerfall, the eldar scrolls 2. When playing Morrowind, I was always annoyed that that game wasn't as huge as Daggerfall. There's always something to bitch about, I guess.

Plaid13

been so long since i played daggerfall i hardly remember it but i do remmember getting wagons and loading it with stolen loot from towns. that was good fun. wagon packhorse something like that whatever it was neat. but... the dungeons in daggerfall sucked. i hated them so much. i would get lost for so long in them even with the horrible maps.

Morrowind was nice and all but i didnt ever get very far in it because i would get side tracked and forget what i was doing in quests. With oblivion its easy to jump right back into a quest. and i love all the voiceovers.

I really Wish we could still wear normal clothes along with the armor though. even if the clothes cant be enchanted or anything would just be nice to have the look. Hopefully someone will make a mod that lets you do that. Would also love to see what kinda extra content modders add and what it would be like with player made quests or whatever since all the characters have voiceovers.
One thing that kinda bugs me just like it did in morrowind is the helmets. all the crappy low level helmets look nice and realistic like helmets should look like. then the high level ones are all overdone and cheesy looking. just not something that would be practical to wear in combat.

If the world in oblvion was as big as it was in daggerfall with the same amount of quests per town as it has now i would be able to play this game for years.

hulk

And the game would be many, many, terrabytes in size Daggerfall was what, twice the size of Britain?

__________________
"'There's a tendency among the press to attribute the creation of a game to a single person,' says Warren Spector, creator of Thief and Deus Ex."
-- From an IGN game review.

Plaid13

hum yeah maybe your right about how big it would be. they should limit to something reasonable like i dunno 100-150 gigabytes =)

Coppertop

This happened to a friend of mine. I am not sure what video card he has, it is an nvidia though. I do not think he ever resolved it.

Man, I am loving this game. I took 3 days off last week and from Monday to Thursday put 30 hours into it.