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.

[Ibis]

Well, my hubby Cain is thrilled with Oblivion because his computer handles it with no lag, no problems ... but for me, I cannot afford right now the upgrades it would cost to make Oblivion run more smoothly and enjoyably on my comp.

I play it for awhile in spurts, but the lagginess gets to me after awhile, especially when some populated areas just go by frame by frame it seems. That's when I stop. I've been modding a bit for it, but I've now found out that my computer with it's present double boot setup of w98/w2k split hard drive cannot in anyway fit the exploded data files of Oblivion onto the w2k hard drive area. I would have to give up playing Dungeons & Dragons or Guild Wars, both of which I enjoy. That means - no retexturing modding for Oblivion, which is something I really love to do.

So, I've returned to Morrowind modding for now. Making some celestial wizard robes that I intended to be for Oblivion when I found the textures. But, I figure I'll make them in MW and then later maybe, after I reformat - I can remake them for Obliv.