Oblivion Disappointing?, More inside... Options

[ThanadoS]

hmm regarding some of the later posts in here, i'm inclined to compare modern games, which are in many regards no match to their ancestors, with modern books. Massproduction for a massmarket with ideas of the masses only containing what the mass wants to see.

You won't find a book that could meet lets say a 19th century book, only as a rare exception to the rule.
Same with games. Good, funny, entertaining, but not exalted.

[Kiln]

I think that perhaps the biggest problem with Oblivion was that for some reason no matter what I did I didn't really feel that it was a great accomplishment. In Morrowind I actually felt as if I'd just raided a unique ruin when I stole from a tomb or something, in Oblivion they all seem too much alike.

Maybe it's not that Oblivion is bad, maybe I just set my standards too high because of Morrowind...I dunno what it is, I simply didn't feel like it was a fantasy world when I played Oblivion, there wasn't enough weird stuff to keep me guessing.

[Fuzzy Knight]

Missed this thread - but I most say I was a little disappointed by Oblivion.

I've been following this game since I joined the TES Forums and then I finally got it. I played for hours a day, exploring, doing quests and all that. I agree with many of the disappointments here, about the NPCs poor conversations etc. cause I agree with Kiln alot.

Something that disappointed me the most was the Main Quest and quests in general... On Oblivion I did focus more on the MQ then I did in Morrowind. But, it felt poor. It was mostly the the 'fight and find' kinda thing. I don't remember the hour differance between the MQ on Oblivion and Morrowind, but the MQ in Morrowind felt nearly four times larger than Oblivion. First of all, the fast travel and compass kinda ruined it all - all was too easy and little exploring. You end up jumping into another Oblivion Gate after another. In Morrowind it all felt much larger, the landscape and everything it was really fun exploring while everything in Oblivion looks the same.
Completeing the MQ in Oblivion at level 16, playing with pretty high difficulty I found out it was challanging, but it was the fighting which was challanging but most the other quests wasn't that fun to play, great ideas like the painting brush and all that, but... it wasn't anything I felt apart in - the way I wanted it to be.
At the end of the quests I also agree with Kiln was the 'great accomplishment' feeling when finishing a big quest or the main quest... In Morrowind, I really got that feeling 'Yes, I've done it - Finally" completing the main quest in level 63.

The dungeons and everything to, I didn't enjoy going into a dungeon or tomb like I did in Morrowind. In Oblivion I was hoping for it too happen something, I was running around, trying to find different switches to open doors and all that but I wasn't really enjoying many of the dungeons. In Morrowind, they were also much a like but I had a much better feeling.. feeling like the character when I went to raid a tomb.

Comparing all good and bad from Oblivion - against Morrowind, Bloodmoon and Tribunal it was very little in the general gameplay I was happy about. I miss the feeling of those real challanges which I experianced in Morrowind, depth, the main quest which seemed so HUGE compared to Oblivion's MQ...

I haven't played Oblivion in a month now, my character is stuck at level 20 or something - but I played Morrowind until I reached level 66 or something - with about two or three quest mods installed. So after following this game as long as I did before I got my hands on them, I'm disappointed but maybe I'm in the same situation as Kiln - Simply expected to much.

So what I've been trying to tell here, is that I just miss the feeling of being apart of something, as I did in Morrowind. We also have the technical issues, which can be found in both games. But those I haven't really encountered yet and something I really don't mind all that much.

I really hope there will come out some really nice expansions and mods soon, with large and deep quests which really makes the game more fun...

That's all I have to say...

[Joryn]

Something that disappointed me the most was the Main Quest and quests in general... On Oblivion I did focus more on the MQ then I did in Morrowind. But, it felt poor. It was mostly the the 'fight and find' kinda thing. I don't remember the hour differance between the MQ on Oblivion and Morrowind, but the MQ in Morrowind felt nearly four times larger than Oblivion.

I will DEFINATELY agree to that. There was just something in the main quest, and plenty of the guild and misc ones, that made me think "somethings missing here, Im sure of it". And its a shame because there were some great bits.

I thought Martin Septim and Mankar Camoran were great characters, with great voice acting. Its a pity they were giving more ways to show and continue with it. The actualy storyline of Morrowind is unbelievably better than Oblivion.

It was so much more epic, it was full of prophecies and trials and destinies. In Oblivion your a mysterious prisoner, who doesnt seem to be recognised by name throughout the entire game (in text I mean, they used to do that alot in Morrowind didnt they?).

It was just "Oh dear, I witnessed the Emporors death. I must now toady about for the rest of the main quest, obligated to do what complete strangers tell me to...."
I dont hate the game, but I certainly think Beth said "Im bored, lets just finish this quick and go home" in certain aspects of the game.

Ill say one thing to finish on though. If you ask me, you can always tell a casual Elder Scrolls player apart from a hardcore one, when they say "The only bad point about Oblivion is it will consume your life!!!".

[Dantrag]

It's disappointing in some ways, but not enough to make me stop playing. It just seems like they made it harder where it didn't need to be (I'm so tired of having to recharge my items every half-second) and made it easier where it didn't need to be. (Fast travel for example; I was perfectly fine with silt striders, boats, and recall. They could've given us caravans/caoches, boats and recall.)

All in all, I enjoy the depth of the quests more; some of the DB quests were ridiculously well-thought out. I especially liked the one where I had to kill everyone in the house without them knowing...

[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.

[Furious_George]

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.

Shoot, Ibis, if I had a comp laying around that would get you good framerates, I'd send it to you... alas I don't

I'm starting to agree with the other folks.... I'm still playing OB, but doubt I'll play it as much as MW overall. There are some absolutely fantastic parts to OB that still take my breath away, and bode well for the future - if Beth can get the story right again.

[DarkHunter]

Wonder where their going next? (Here's hoping for Valenwood... I wanna kill Wood Elves!!!!!!)

[Kiln]

I dunno, I just hope that there's more fantasy elements in the next game because this one seemed to be missing a lot of things that kept me interested in MW.

[Agent Griff]

The cities were much too generic and most books were borrowed from Morrowind. I had more pleasure exploring in Morrowind knowing that I could find loads of unique things. I remember the amazement I felt when I found a Velothi tower in the ashlands that had 3 Redoran warriors inside and a Telvanni wizard who was hiding. Scratch that from Gondor "Cyrodiil".

[Pisces]

Personally I thought the cities had plenty of character in Oblivion, it wasn't smack in the face "OMG, they live in mushrooms" character but they each had their own artechure and style and much more interesting was the subtile character which MW was missing, eg the Argonian vs Khajiit racism in Leyawiin.

[Ibis]

Bah! I like Anvil ... because my Khajiit Kingdom is there. Someone mentioned that they hope that Bethesda goes to Valenwood next so they can shoot bosmers; but I know Pisces & I both hope that their next stop is to Sommerset Isle so we can make fun of all the hoithy Altmers.

I was so happy when the rumors were floating that the Isle was going to be the next game location - before Oblivion came out - but like most rumors .. it was just that.

[Pisces]

The rumor about oblivion's content before oblivion was announced was pretty (completly) accurate, though that wasn't a rumor, it was an educated theory. I don't think the Summerset Isles rumor is an educated theory, more like wild speculation. I do want to go to Summerset Isles

Speaking of Khajiit kingdoms, have you been to Borderwatch (I think thats the name), that is my favourite town, full of Khajiit. I went there quite a few times and its always a pleasure, I use the sheep there as training whenever I go.

[Ibis]

Well, I will watch for BorderWatch on my map .... but you really lost me about the sheep.

**Ibis shudders to think what Pisces is doing with the sheep**

[Lord DoomsDay]

Under a starry sky over a vast grass plain baa's of sheep can be heard.
Farmer Brown looks out his window to see what all the racket is all about.

Farmer Brown: O'h Bloody Oblivion! It's That fish with the gaint axe again. Martha!!! Get me my bow! Its time we settel this.


In any case back to the subject, Oblivion is a game, like any other game out there or any thing in egsistance (Sry for spelling) for that matter it is not perfect.

Personally I think Oblivion is a bench mark in what games these days can achieve.
No other game out there has such a vast 3D world to explore with such a freedom of choice.
Sure there's a lot left to be desired, but witch game doesn't have its flawes bugs and bad developing choices'es.
No game can say it has done what Oblivion has done.
Morrowind was and still is a great game, but it's engin was totally crap.
MW has longer out door loading times and in places more lag than Oblivion on my pc.

I hope that two things will hapen in the future.

1: Other developing companys see's the potential of Oblivions engin and uses it for they're games. (Can you just imagine the possiblety's)

2: Bethesda stops trying to make money out of their mini mods and puts all they're energy into a full blown expansion that has more dungen and story line content variaty.

Considering what Bethesda has accomplished I say hats off.
Even thou they seemed to try and apeal to the masses rather than stay true to their roots in some places.


Ar least it isn't a bug fest like BF2
(no dictionary's where harmed during this horred spelling sestion)

[Ibis]

Hahaha .. LordDoomsDay, I love your imaginative little scenarios. And fried fish would look lipsmackin' good at the end of a skewer arrow! Don't forget to tell farmer Brown'w wife to save me the scales. LOL

And I suppose you are right about Obliv for the people with the proper enough hardware to run it okay. MW did have terrible lags as it went from square to square of real estate. And I don't hear too many people complain about the game just dropping out like MW did for so many people.

[mplantinga]

With the release of the first patch containing the new "very low" graphics setting, I've been able to coax my computer to play Oblivion with a reasonable framerate. It looks really bad (compared to what it would look like on a much better machine), but still looks better than many other games I've played. I haven't really spent that much time with it yet, so I'll have to reserve final judgement. But here's what I can say so far:

1. I really like Oblivion's magic system. I decided long ago that my first character would be a mage, and I've really liked the ability to switch between staves and spells fluidly during combat. I'm sure it would be even better for battlemages; a battlemage in morrowind usually got killed while trying to get his spell hands out. Forgive me if this is evil, but I really like the fact that spells don't fail anymore. It always drove me nuts when I had just enough time to cast a single protective spell before the enemy closed to melee range, only to have it fail and get cut down mercilessly in my unprotected state.

2. I like the fast travel. I know, that may be somewhat heretical, but my recent playing of morrowind involved a lot of use of the coc command because I got bored always traveling places. I still did it sometimes, but there are times you just want to get there and get to the action. Having said that, I've also enjoyed exploring the forests in Oblivion. They definitely look much better than Morrowind; I just wish I had a computer that could do them justice.

3. I miss levitation. I've only played the game for two days, but I already miss it.

4. I don't miss the cliffracers. Flying enemies are evil.

5. Same problem as Morrowind: not enough restore magicka ingredients. I always use the atronach birthsign for my mages, but it is quite expensive to buy restore magicka potions from the vendors. I still haven't found a good natural source of (at least two) ingredients for these potions. But as I said, Morrowind had the same problem.

6. I haven't yet tried out melee or ranged combat, so I can't really comment on those yet.

Conclusion: I decided long ago that I would probably enjoy playing Oblivion. With a couple days experience, I think I'm definitely having fun. That's really the important part. I'm sure I'll continue to have fun playing for many hours to come. I just hope I can manage to get enough sleep.

[Pisces]

The magic systems is AWESOME! Have you seen the soul trap casting effect? it looks sooo cool. Just wait until you can summon a daedroth, then you're unstopable! I'm switching between a ranger and a battlemage, my battlemage has lost abit of its battle to the awesome mage fun but it can still take a pounding, my ranger is weak as, I really need to get her endurance, light armour and blade up, its fun being a theif though, poisons rock.

Levitation I still miss but I have forgotten about it now, there is a mod which adds it I think but all the dungeons are designed not to be able to use levitate so it would mess up things. The designers seem to be trying to make up for the lack of teleporting inside with short cuts out in long dungeons.

5. What are you talking about, there is tons of restore magicka ingrediants, flax seeds and steel blue cap are the 2 I used at low level I think. You will DROWN in flax around skingrad and steel blue something cap is less dense but tends to be everywhere, I think Leyawin or Bravil has some in the town.

[Fethenwen]

Hey cool. I haven't tried out the soultrap thing yet. Aye, spellcasting looks very neat in Oblivion.

[Fargoth]

RAI was most dissapointing!
Let me tell you a story:

I was in the dark brotherhood quest where I found Lucien Lachance.
He told me that there's a traitor, dark brotherhood hunts him...

And when he stop talking he starts to attack me!!! And then comes a woman
with Mythic dawn armor and defends me. After a few seconds Lucien Lachance has
escaped and I started to talk to that woman with mythic dawn armor. She tells
me:

"Thanks for closing that Oblivion gate outside the town!"...
The Mythic dawn agent thank me for closing oblivion gate?
That's stupid.

I have start laughing. Then I've really understand that OBLIVION IS DISAPOINTING. Especially Radiant AI!