Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

[Daragon]

Quick question - is there anywhere near the start of the game where I can store my stuff? I can barely carry anything as I have heavy armour but haven't found any storage places.

Oh, and another question - how does picking locks work? I thought I knew what I was doing until I found one where I had ton push up more than one thingy. 25 broken lock picks later and I'm pretty sure I don't know how to do it. I can get one up (and get awarded skill for it sometimes) but it always breaks on the second. What am I doing wrong?

Until you have enough gold for the shack in the imperial city waterfront + furniture, you can store items in Jauffre's chest in Weynon Priory (the one right on the floor next to his desk, he should unlock it for you).

As for lockpicking, it should be easy for you to open very easy, easy or average containers or doors at your security level manually - don't try anything above that until your security level is at least 50. It's best just to use auto lockpick regardless however.

[Dogg Thang]

Thanks Daragon! Really appreciate the help.

[Sketcz]

From level 10 you can also do a quest to acquire an unbreakable lockpick which makes it much easier. I preferred lockpicking in Morrowind (no minigame bull****, just click for a dice roll and your pick only breaks seldomly), so I went and got the infinite lockpick.

Check out:

http://www.uesp.net/

They have info on EVERYTHING.

[Dogg Thang]

With the locks, I'm wondering if there is a computer setting interfering somewhat with it because I seem to have next to no control over the pick itself and, on the main menu screen of the game, I have quite a bit of lag between what I'm doing with the mouse and where the pointer is going. I might Google it and see if there's a known setup issue or something.

Thanks for the link, Sketcz!

[Sketcz]

You know, I went back to this after my rant in the Skyrim thread, and there are a ton of annoying things with it which weren't in Morrowind (except Cliff Racers, their omission is a blessing). Decided to sleep and accumulate all my levels, and as I expected it's a pain in the ass that the enemies are all now so tough. So I had to drop the slider.

Also, despite clocking over 20 hours in it, I've only now bothered to visit my first Oblivion portal. man, what a let down. I reloaded my save so as not to activate that whole subset of the game. Kvatch can stay burned down for all I care. Oblivion portals suck.

In the meantime, I'm off to complete the Dark Brotherhood campaign.

This game could have almost been the greatest thing ever, but as someone else said, Bethesda tried to be too professional and slick with it, and the lack of brokenness in places is sad.

Why is it that when I cast spells to boost my stats it doesn't actually have any effect? Everything based on stats checks the base states, not the boosted stats. I got so fed up with a low armorer rating that I bought 50 hammers, trekked out to the Shivering Isles, shlepped to the cave with the Amulet of Disintegration, and spent AN HOUR repeatedly degrading my armor and then repairing it until I hit level 50.

That's what made Morrowind great. Sitting in a room, repeatedly doing the same action over and over to **** with the mechanism of it and become a God. Pure sandbox nerdism.

I once bought 100 Sujama to boost my strength stats to like a million, then I used a 100% Break Lock enchantment to break into GOD'S house (as in the house that God lives in), then I punched GOD IN THE FACE until he was dead - but not before soultrapping him.

I NOW OWN GOD'S SOUL IN MORROWIND.

Can you do that in Oblivion? Can you ****.

Also, what's up with all these locks I'm finding where I need a key - I'm pretty sure you lockpick ANYTHING in Morrowind.

MY PROPOSAL

Since Bethesda has made it difficult to fudge with their less broken world in Oblivion, let's post stories of wacky **** we've done. My armorer grinding one is a good start. I tried boosting my armorer skill with magic, but no dice, it didn't let me repair magic items, so I had to find a clever way of grinding.

At first I bought a spell to corrode enemy armor, but I needed Destruction 25 to use it. So I got trainers to boost me there. Then I made a spell of Corrode Armor 25 on MYSELF at the Mage's Guild. But this ate up magic, so then I enchanted an item (Corrode self 5) and hotkeyed the equipping of it. But this was taking too long. So the Amulet of Destruction (Corrode self 10,000) beckoned.

Ahh, take that cleverly implemented rules system, see what I did? I broke you and I bent you to MY WILL. Man, this game totally brings out the control freak in me. I must find more things to break in it.

[Brad]

With the locks, I'm wondering if there is a computer setting interfering somewhat with it because I seem to have next to no control over the pick itself and, on the main menu screen of the game, I have quite a bit of lag between what I'm doing with the mouse and where the pointer is going. I might Google it and see if there's a known setup issue or something.

Thanks for the link, Sketcz!

Hate the lockpicking so I just boosted my unlock spell to insanity level and now I just magic everythign open. Except for SPECIAL MYSTICAL MAGICAL DOORS that can only be opened with the correct key.

[Daragon]

I would be very careful with UESP.net, I didn't link you to it because pretty much a great deal of their pages feature unmarked spoilers.

[QualityChimp]

CEX charge:
?15 for Oblivion
?12 Shivering Isles
?22 GOTY Edition (Shivering Isles & Knights of the Nine)
?15 5th Anniversary Edition (Shivering Isles, Knights of the Nine, making-of DVD and map)

Can you guess which version I went for?

Anyway, before I start this, do you crazy cats have some tips on what to aim for to do well in the game. I don't want to be a warrior if I need spells to defeat some enchanted trees or summat. Likewise I don't want to get mashed up by a Hell Toad because I can't even swing a dagger.

What's the best race to go for and are there certain skills I should focus on first.

Sketcz man, are you gonna give me some crazy suggestions? You seem to try and break every game you play! If you're not blowing up tramps in Deus Ex, you're flying around with stolen gold in Morrowind!

(P.S. I'm 23% through your book and it's getting good!)

[EvilBoris]

I just hacked everything to death on the easy setting, when I felt it was too easy I'd turn the difficulty up (you level up quicker) but if I came close to dying I'd turn it back down to easy. I really enjoyed the game and it meant the exploring and interaction take priority

[Daragon]

I just hacked everything to death on the easy setting, when I felt it was too easy I'd turn the difficulty up (you level up quicker) but if I came close to dying I'd turn it back down to easy. I really enjoyed the game and it meant the exploring and interaction take priority

This. I only ever play games on tougher difficulties if the game adds extra content as a result. Relying on the player dying frequently is a very lazy way of bulking out a game.

[EvilBoris]

I guess it depends on the game and how it plays, I like the feeling of empowerment that games often give the player, whether it's gunning down 10 men in an fps or crushing puny skeletons with your lightning Bolt. I do like the odd game to really push and challenge me , but this certainly isn't one of those, there is do much to see and do anyway, you don't want to lose a 20 minute chunk of play because you die

[dataDave]

After 12hrs on this I'm still not feeling it. But after blowing $100 on it I'm forcing myself through whilst they sort Skyrim out and I have the stomach to wipe my save files on that to start again.

Also, I think my main quest line is bugged... tried reading guides (friggin' hate doing that, especially with games like this) to see what the crack is and no dice so far, missing NPCs and a dodgy quest marker, will spend/waste another couple of hours tonight trying to fix it. I really don't want to have to torture myself with a restart on this... If I have to I'm ramping the difficulty down from maximum-to-minimum and going for a speed-run using pure destruction magic (The fastest rape-form, I'm presuming).

Oh, Oblivion Gates, they are ****e. I hope I never have to clear another. I do like pushing enemies off the ledges, though.

[prinnysquad]

Pop Bug-Magnet.

[Plough Boy]

Oh, Oblivion Gates, they are ****e. I hope I never have to clear another. I do like pushing enemies off the ledges, though.

Unlucky with that. There's def more than one to clear. 3 maybe 4 from what I recall. It was aaaaaages ago mind. There might only have been two but they were so painful it seemed like 4?!

[dataDave]

I cleared another one tonight... Getting lost on those Oblivion Gate towers makes me feel stoned, as I run around the same pattern of doors over and over and over again.

I sorted my bug out by the way. Found a random dead body with a key, the NPC must have been killed by a wild animal out in the sticks... Nice of it to let me know.