Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

[J0e Musashi]

Took my Oblivion back to GAME under 10-day thingy. Had to argue with the manager as he said the disc wasn't mint. I had to convince him that it was due to the 360 and not me. I'll get Tomb Raider tomorrow with the credit note I guess. Oblivion is good, but just too time consuming for me.

[PeteJ]

Yes I've done that one, the patience puzzle did try my patience

yeah that was pretty difficult, though my jumping skill is so good I just leaped across each one

[Brats]

I only ever have three saves on the go and just save over the oldest one. I haven't had any performance issues except for a chugging framerate in the first two hours of the game. Since then it's been fine.

Maybe Oblivion uses a certain amount of hard drive space for the cache, but any saves eat into that amount?

[Myth]

Took me literally 15 minutes to remove the bastards -_-

Haha yeah took me just as long, I did it last week and have noticed it loads a lot faster now.

[Nijo]

I think I have 70+ saves but it seems all fine. PeteJ, you'd have to come over to check as I have no other system to compare with.

[MonkeyWrench]

Just in the middle of a quest when it locked up and I got a disk read error. Pull the disk and sure enough there's a great wacking scratch right round the middle of the disk! Probably due to when a Warhol print fell off the wall yesterday and clipped the unit the 360 is on. Not happy at all.

[marcus]

This is coming tomorrow for me finally, is there a steep learning curve for it starting from new?

[MartyG]

No, the first dungeon explains what you'll need to know to make progress - the fun part is exploring everything.

[Concept]

Remember, if you've cleared the cache, it has to load everything from the dvd drive again, so you should only ever do it if you're having one of those two problems.

EDIT: Do you happen to fast-travel a lot?

I don't do it every time I play the game. It's been about every ten or so hours since the twentieth. As for fast-travelling? No, I like to explore on foot - that's one of the reasons I've found how parts of the map seem to be better optimised than others when it comes to the severity of the stutters.

As for an LCD - get a Sony screen with VGA - if it's a small one you're wanting, I'd highly recommend the MFM-HT75W (17") and I'm sure the recently announced MFM-HT205W is good too. (20")

If you want larger, that'll be an "S" series LCD, or one of the newly announced "V 2000" displays.

No display is perfect, but after trying many LCDs, overall, the Sony ones are the best you can get, and the price is justified, in my opinion. This isn't brand loyalty - I'd prefer not buying Sony displays, but no other LCD television compares in my opinion. (nothing comes close to Sony for black level performance)

I've been through the popular Samsung and LG models (former has lots of dead pixels, latter developed streaking). Unfortunately, I unwisely decided I'd kill two birds with one stone after falling in love with Oblivion by getting hold of a new tv that would hopefully not have any major issues, and be slightly bigger in size. I eventually plumped for the Acer 32" HDTV (staying away from the popular makes after my experience with two of them) - all I can say is though in hindsight you get what you pay for. It's got both VGA and DVI ports, but unfortunatley the system's colour configuration and lack of sharpness renders the image quality rather ugly - it was quite a comedown from the crisp colour-balanced VGA display I'd grown accustomed on the LG to be confronted with something that barely looks VGA in terms of image clarity on the 360.

This probably doesn't make any difference but it might of. What i do think will have made a difference is deleting the Huge amount of Oblivion save games that i had amassed. i had about 200 saves so i deleted all but the latest 5. Doing this with a reclearing of the Cache has boosted up the performance of Oblivion back to the same as when i first started playing it. Loading is short and Outdoor stuttering isn't so bad

Aye - that's a good idea actually. I've got dozens of saves I haven't wiped so maybe that will clear things up. I'll give it a try - thanks for the suggestion.

Concept - I have the same TV as you and i also so the very faint streaking on the TV. this only occurs when the TV is turned on from Cold. Once my TV has been on for a bit, they completely disapear. They are almost invisible but i most notice them when i hit the guide button on the dash board and the background gets greyed out. Once the TV has heated up, they're gone

Well, ironically, all I can say is the picture quality on the LG in comparison to the new tv (32" Acer) I'm using is streets ahead. The mark on the LG goes vertically across nearly the entire screen slightly high up, so when you're looking into one of Oblivion's epic skies, it seems as if it's suffering from 16-bit esque parallax scrolling.

The Acer in comparison has streaks going vertically down. Two of them to the left, and one of them to the right. Sometimes when a Scart plug isn't wired properly on a CRT (or something is wrong with the pins) you can see lines going down the screen. Basically, it's like that. The LG one is more of a smudge, where the Acer has thin lines (as what I described) that are completely noticeable on videogames with any sense of movement. They aren't too bad on the LG or Acer when watching films or television but on videogames it's a killer. I think the lesson to be learned is to either stay away from LCD (more fool me, I should have waited for Samsung's CRT HDTV) or do what Andrew mentioned, and stick with Sony.

I am being slightly down on the LG though. Take away the ghosting I received over Component and the smudge mark, and the VGA display it offers is gorgeous (especially to what I'm comparing it with now).

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions guys.

[Hohum]

Quick question, where can I buy lockpicks? I've yet to find a vendor that has them really (as in stocks more than just 2 or 3 of them). Forever coming across locks to pick in dungeons etc, but I'm always seriously low on lockpicks...

[Ciaran]

Join the Thieves Guild and your fence's will sell them.

[El Leone]

Okay, this one mission is putting me of Oblivion

->Open Spoiler<-

Its the thief mission where you gotta steal the ring, I have to find the maid of the countless, which is easy, but when I do find her, shes dead. I know that the countess takes the ring of when she goes to sleep, but she doesnt go to sleep! I've watched her for two days where she just keeps eating forever!

I doubt anyone will help here tho

[Kevvy Metal]

The Acer in comparison has streaks going vertically down. Two of them to the left, and one of them to the right.

hmm....those streaks don't quite sound like the ones i have seen. Maybe you LG is defective? I don't know you maybe intitled to a refund/exchange. The streaks are almost invisible on my TV. I'm using my TV right now and there are no imperfection to speak of (apart from one dead pix) as the TV has been on for more than 30mins.

sorry if this is a bit OT.....err......and Oblivion is DEAD good.

Hail Sithis!

[MartyG]

El Leone

->Open Spoiler<-

The countess goes to the bedroom around 11pm, but doesn't actually go to sleep until after the count does - she definitely goes eventually because I stole the ring from the jewelry box

[Jebus]

Just finished the longest quest I've done so far in the game...it was HUGE and fairly difficult...It involved finding an artifact for some countess slut, every time I thought I was gonna get to the area where it would be...there would be another area.

The diary said there was 3 ogres, yet I killed about 10 on the way, including the 3 that all came at once near the ruins.

So I think I've finally done it, only to discover I have an underground area that is (again) massive and full of the undead skeletons of the army who perished there.

That section took over an hour due to the skeletons being numerous and very good at blocking and generally handing out a right good ****in to me.

I figured she'd reward me handsomely yet I get a ring worth 2000...

FIRST time I've been disappointed, I stuck at it through the quest which took me well over 2 hours, I didn't even get a level up from it despite countless improvements.

Nearing the 20 hour mark now I feel I ought to do some of the main quest since I've not touched it yet, still at level 5 and still have about 8 quests not including the main one...can't stop playing this game! Just can't stop.