Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

[Supergoal]

I kind of feel the same way as Concept does about the game.
Though I can't justify spending the amount of time required to get reward out of it, just don't have the time....

[Soi]

As one of the main contributor's to this thread and coming from someone who's logged over a 100 hours into the game....i find that a truly bizarre thing to say!

Seconded.

@Concept: I don't mean to be rude, but play the game or don't play the game. Just please stop posting about how technical issues are "ruining it" for you. I don't need keep reading about them, and they are diluting a very good thread.

[Concept]

Please.

I don't mean to be rude but if you don't like what I have to say, don't read the posts. It isn't hard.

Barely a fraction of my overall discussion in this thread has been on technical issues. The large majority of it has been on how the game plays.

[Keith]

Yeah, come on Concept, stop posting your opinions, and let everyone else get back to posting theirs.

Honestly, you'd think this was a forum for discussion or something!

Won't a cure disease potion do the trick? (before you have fully turned that is...)

Wish I'd thought of that before I'd turned. D'oh!

[weightgain]

Just dipping in to say - wow. First Oblivion Gate encountered.

Just. Wow.

[El Leone]

Anyone know where I can find lots of vampires?

->Open Spoiler<-

Thats right, I got kicked out of the mages guild, even if the ****er attacked me first.

[Daragon]

There's a mine just outside of Skingrad used for a quest - gets filled to the brim of vamps. Not sure whats in it during the rest of the time but it can't hurt to look.

[Ian(not Ian)]

There's a mine just outside of Skingrad used for a quest - gets filled to the brim of vamps. Not sure whats in it during the rest of the time but it can't hurt to look.

Pray tell where to get the quest. I've now done 80 hours and only a few minutes ago faced my very first vampire, hehehe.
The game is so damn big I must've just kept missing them. Also, I have yet to see a minotaur. I remember seeing 2 of the rascals in a trailer, but until now haven't found one. Not that I'm looking for them btw.

[Keith]

Being a vampire doesn't seem that much hassle really does it? I've not noticed anyone treating me differently, and all I've been doing is feeding off of tramps in the Imperial City every once in a while...

[Soi]

Please.

I don't mean to be rude but if you don't like what I have to say, don't read the posts. It isn't hard.

Barely a fraction of my overall discussion in this thread has been on technical issues. The large majority of it has been on how the game plays.

Sorry, I was in a grumpy mood and in pain from a sore neck.

Anyway, I'm still loving the game about 45 hours in. Still done next to nothing (or so it seems), but I've got a pretty tooled up character now.

My only gripe (and Petej mentioned it before) is that you need an Armourer skill of 50 to repair magical items. That has annoyed me the last few hours of play. I even tried enchanting a couple of rings with Armourer +12, but enchanting to over 50 didn't help. Seems I need to get a base skill above 50, but I'm 47 so not far to go.

[Ian(not Ian)]

Concept....

With today's addition of an X1900 Radeon Oblivion now defaults to 'ultra high'*. I missed my chance to post on your PC vs 360 question a few pages back as I was in work and got nobbled by the boss whilst typing. I could've told you about the 360 pad issues and general performance on 'mid range' PCs.

Up until today I was running at medium settings. 1280x768 and had no complaints. The X1900 card has definately upped the stakes, but costs as much as a premium 360. Even now Oblivion is not without performance issues due to (imo) lack of ram, I have 1GB, access times (SATA1) and a mediocre 3.0 GHZ P4 HT at the heart of it.

To those of you who are thinking...Numpty...I live in Numptyland!! and I believe my outlay on the graphics card will come good very soon in the shape of Neverwinter Nights II and Titan Quest amongst others. Also my current games, WOW, DDO etc are now running like ****e off a shovel....And I dont have to pay ?45+ for a game.

You quite rightly say you dont want another Half Life saga, however I think it's worth it. Elsewhere in the forums there is already 360-Dreamcast comments appearing and tbh if the 360 has a probelm with Oblivion this early in its' life then all does not look good for 360 as relatively speaking the XBOX at launch was as good as, or better than most PCs available at the time.




*As opposed to medium auto setting with an X700 256MB PCI Express.

[PeteJ]

My only gripe (and Petej mentioned it before) is that you need an Armourer skill of 50 to repair magical items. That has annoyed me the last few hours of play. I even tried enchanting a couple of rings with Armourer +12, but enchanting to over 50 didn't help. Seems I need to get a base skill above 50, but I'm 47 so not far to go.

I've just hit Armourer level 50 and I have to say that they have misjudged the balance slightly. Getting to 50 was a pain in the arse, but now I'm levelling up quite easily (still takes time, but it is about once per dungeon). I'll hit 75 a lot quicker than it took me to reach 25 to 50 (at a guess). Look forward to getting my armour at 125%, which should have some pretty cool effects!

On another note, I haven't been playing Oblivion much in the past week, not because I don't want to but because I haven't had the time. As easy as it is to get into a quick quest in the game, I'm finding a quick shred on Guitar Hero or a blast on Blazing Angels more appealing after an irritating day at work. Oblivion is just mind-meltingly awesome at making it accessable, but at the same time I just know deep down that a simple quest will turn into a full-on adventure.

Up until now I've had entire days to spend on oblivion, but now my week-off at release has ended I only have two or three hours per evening spare...I've spent this time before in oblivion but I'm achieving very little. Other games have quick rewards, and at the moment this is appealing.

Oblivion is, quite frainkly, in my top five games of all time, but despite the accessablitity I still think it demands more time than almost anything else.

A quick quest is never a quick quest. There is almost too much to do...

Looking forward to the bank holiday weekeend though!

[El Leone]

Concept....

With today's addition of an X1900 Radeon Oblivion now defaults to 'ultra high'*. I missed my chance to post on your PC vs 360 question a few pages back as I was in work and got nobbled by the boss whilst typing. I could've told you about the 360 pad issues and general performance on 'mid range' PCs.

Up until today I was running at medium settings. 1280x768 and had no complaints. The X1900 card has definately upped the stakes, but costs as much as a premium 360. Even now Oblivion is not without performance issues due to (imo) lack of ram, I have 1GB, access times (SATA1) and a mediocre 3.0 GHZ P4 HT at the heart of it.

To those of you who are thinking...Numpty...I live in Numptyland!! and I believe my outlay on the graphics card will come good very soon in the shape of Neverwinter Nights II and Titan Quest amongst others. Also my current games, WOW, DDO etc are now running like ****e off a shovel....And I dont have to pay ?45+ for a game.

You quite rightly say you dont want another Half Life saga, however I think it's worth it. Elsewhere in the forums there is already 360-Dreamcast comments appearing and tbh if the 360 has a probelm with Oblivion this early in its' life then all does not look good for 360 as relatively speaking the XBOX at launch was as good as, or better than most PCs available at the time.




*As opposed to medium auto setting with an X700 256MB PCI Express.

I would disagree. Alot of it comes done to programming and software. First off, This game was being co-developed along with a pc version, if they concetrated on the X360 version only the game would perform better in terms of graphics and have less bugs.

Alot of it comes down to expirence and software of a console, Oblivion has been roughly finished about novemeber and efforts since then have been concentrated on debugging it. Now if you want to go deeper into the matter, final dev kits (which are vastly superior to alpha/beta kits) were only getting relesed about a month before relese (of the X360). I doubt the developer was planning on recoding everything for the X360 while venturing into new hardware (alpha/beta kits did not contain anything near the Xenos (gpu) or the xexon) while optimising and debugging the the PC version.

You could also say that with the PS3/X360, theres so much power that its gonna take awhile for developers to get their heads around it and start producing code that can effectly use all the power that the PS3/X360 host.

Anyway, I don't think Bethesda is known for making brilliant graphics or games that take advantage of a console, they're known for making huge worlds, which Oblivion is.

[PeteJ]

Anyway, I don't think Bethesda is known for making brilliant graphics or games that take advantage of a console, they're known for making huge worlds, which Oblivion is.

I entirely agree. I think part of the problem with the Oblivion engine (as flexable as it is, though likewise breakable) is the amount of middleware applications used. Middleware is the future 'n all that, but I think they've gone slightly overboard.

The result is wonderfully impressive but also slightly limited and, evdiently, unstable for some.

The devs have done an absolutely cracking job, GOTY - ney; GOTD - but technically there is a fair amount to improve on. And I hope they do, I look forward to Elder Scrolls 5 perhaps more than anything else.

[Daragon]

Pray tell where to get the quest. I've now done 80 hours and only a few minutes ago faced my very first vampire, hehehe.
The game is so damn big I must've just kept missing them. Also, I have yet to see a minotaur. I remember seeing 2 of the rascals in a trailer, but until now haven't found one. Not that I'm looking for them btw.

The mine shouldn't be too far away from the vineyard just outside the city gates. As for the quest itself, its from the first part of the vampirism cure quest. Another good dungeon for vamps is Crowhaven which is northwest of Anvil - It'll mark itself on your map after you

->Open Spoiler<-

accept the "Grey Prince" quest from the orc Arena champion