Oblivion Disappointing?, More inside... Options

[Kiln]

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I finally got the chance to play Oblivion for the first time a few days ago and I just came up with the idea to get other people's opinions on this game...I played Oblivion for several hours, noting things that I liked and didn't like about it in my head.

I loved the new magic, combat, and stealth systems that Bethesda redesigned so well. The first thing that I found to be annoying was the bounty system, no warning is given to the player that he has a bounty until the guards have already caught you but that is a relatively small problem when compared with all that is good in this game.

Radiant AI was great...at first glance. Gameplay really seemed alive with the living, moving world that was created around me and I was amazed with it.

After a while though I noticed things that weren't so intelligent. Some of RAI's major flaws were with recognition of loved ones, friends, and reactions to events. Bethsoft boasted that the character's conversations would be lifelike and realistic when in reality they often are not. Sometimes when you stand near an NPC he will continuously repeat the same line over and over, which gets old fast.

Husbands and wives speak to eachother as if they were talking to a complete stranger and occasionally whenever an NPC tells another NPC about a bad even occurring, they seem unstirred or even happy about it...

Example of bad RAI conversations in the works:

Husband-"Kvatch has been attacked by the Deadra!"

Wife-"That is good to hear..."

Husband-"Indeed...it has been nice speaking with you...farewell."

Wife-"Farewell."

Another thing that I found to subtract from gameplay was the frequency of ruins, caves, and other points of interest that fill the land. As I was traveling through those beautiful woods I talked about earlier I ran into countless ruins and caves, filled with useless junk that made going into the places virtually useless.

The frequency of the caves and ruins is so great that whenever a player runs into one of the ruins they don't really feel a sense of accomplishment because they know what junk is inside and that nearly all of the ruins have similar layouts.

Things aren't sitting around on tables or scattered through the ruin to pick up freely as they were in Morrowind(I really liked that feature of morrowind), they are all locked up tight, making it pointless for anyone without a lockpick or spell to enter the ruins.

Oblivion seemed to be alot less diverse than Morrowind as well, all of the castles, ruins, and caves looked somewhat alike and there were alot less factions to join.

The glitches seemed to be rather frequent as well, not allowing me to drop some of the quest items after I got them and finished the quests involving them and sometimes the item doesn't register as being in your inventory when you're speaking with an NPC about the quest. Another glitch that I encountered was when allies were attacking something, they sometimes hit eachother and turned on one another without explanation...this actually happened several times while I played leading me to believe that it isn't a rare occurrence.

There were several good things about Oblivion but there were also lots of problems that kept me from really getting into it like I did Morrowind. In the end I think that Bethsoft removed too many of the fantasy elements and mainstreamed the game a bit too much.


So without any further discussion I'll give you my thoughts on Oblivion.

Good:
1.Great new combat, steal, and magic systems really add to immersion and keep the player interested.
2.Graphics are simply amazing, though they tend to get a bit simple at far off distances, they're still good.
3.The voice acting was well done with the important and quest characters but the other NPC characters had some fairly amateur sounding actors.
4.Fast travel speeds up gameplay so that you're not spending hours getting to your destination.
5.The quest compass keeps you from getting lost in the massive environment around you.

Bad:
1.Various and somewhat frequent glitches.
2.Repetetive and sometimes bad voice acting with some characters
3.Stiff character movements with animals and NPCs alike.
4.Horrible third person perspective.(In my opinion at least.)
5.Unfortunately the compass is always there, telling you where to go and keeping you from really exploring and doing your own thing without thought to the storyline.

Ugly:
1.RAI not too radiant after all...somewhat dull NPC behavior outside of quests.
2.No NPC recognition of relationships.
3.Poorly done conversations between NPCs.
4.Random and unexpected NPC behavior like attacking others for no apparent reason.

There is my view on this game, for me the problems distracted alot from the gameplay but overall I would say that it was pretty good despite the glitches and problems it had.

So was I disappointed? Yeah I guess I was...it just didn't have anything that was new or different by way of creatures and stuff to discover. It really seemed like too many of the unique things in the elderscrolls universe had been removed for me to get dragged into it like I did Morrowind but hey, that's just me...

I'd like to know what you think as well.

[HyPN0]

They did state that things like that wouldn't really happen, that was just a demo to show what was capable, she was told what to do but no scripting was involved.

HAHA!So they DID state such a thing? When was that?
Well,that anouncment surely wasn't that widely announced as their ''Revolutionary RAI''.I bet a lot of people did expect to see at least similar things in the game,if not that specific moment.I mean they DID have 4 years
Why showing things that aren't there?
Simply:To draw attention.
Offer something good,give something bad.
Losers.

For what you just said Hypno I now respect your opinions more. If there is an opinion that I entirely agree with it is Hypno's. Well put man! I chose "It was alright but it didn't really draw me in" as well.

Well thank you!

I really liked that place because it was a shithole.

That isn't a censored word?

Hmmm ... so has anyone tried to script anything like the lady flaming her dog, taking a potion to increase her archery skill, etc. using TESCS? Maybe the capability is there for us to script it if we want it to happen.
That's the only thing I can think of about why they would show it but say things like this won't automatically happen in the game.

So now what?lLet the modders do it?
''We will provide a dumb version,let the modders do all the work!''
If that is the case,Bethesda is a group of very irresponsible programmers.
Although ,that isn't far away from the thruth.

This post has been edited by HyPN0: May 8 2006, 09:43 AM

[Pisces]

HAHA!So they DID state such a thing? When was that?
Well,that anouncment surely wasn't that widely announced as their ''Revolutionary RAI''.I bet a lot of people did expect to see at least similar things in the game,if not that specific moment.I mean they DID have 4 years
Why showing things that aren't there?
Simply:To draw attention.
Offer something good,give something bad.
Losers.

They did to a lot for 4 years, I don't know how long MW took but it was 6 years inbetween Daggerfall and MW, they did work on Battlespire and Redgaurd inbetween but it was 4 years since Redgaurd and they made TB, BM and a whole bunch of the crappy games they use to fund themselves inbetween MW & OB. OB uses more advanced software which makes it longer to make and doesn't cut time down anywhere, if they were to make MW now it would still take them exactly the same amount of time. Now I would have perfered if they delayed the release another year so they could work out more bugs and do more guilds and such but then we would all be here swearing about how Bethseda betrayed us.

[HyPN0]

Now I would have perfered if they delayed the release another year so they could work out more bugs and do more guilds and such but then we would all be here swearing about how Bethseda betrayed us.

HAHA
Well,who knows what would happen?
I am annoyed with the fact that they promised a lot,but provided so little.
And that's not just RAI mind you (see my first post).
I think that they were more focused on graphics and ''make-up'' then in deeper gameplay.

It's really good that we have such a strong modding community though.
Some balance mods can really improve gameplay.Like slow leveling and G_'s Loot mod.Not to mention the wonderful BT Mod that makes the GUI a LOT better than Bethesda's.

You know whats interesting about a previously claim?
SNIP
Rant Mode Off

Who said that?

This post has been edited by HyPN0: May 8 2006, 11:36 AM