"Oblivion was too wide open and empty! It felt dead! It felt like there was no one there!"
"Fallout 3 is too tight and has too might stuff! It's way too alive! There are tons of things in there!"
I figure by now the Bethesda folks have got to know that there is no way they can win, which is probably
Even if Oblivion was too wide and empty and even if Fallout 3 is too compact, the 2 quotes together are irrelevant once you realize (and I hope everyone would), that Fallout 3 is not Elder Scrolls 5. If they are trying to fix a complaint with Oblivion inside Fallout, then ultimately they are attacking a completely different game in the wrong manner.
Because the same person who could complain about Oblivion being too wide could possibly be the same exact person complaining Fallout 3 is too compact, based on the fact that expectations for the 2 game are going to be wildly different.
How the hell did the Xbox360 version get leaked?
Review copy? I can't believe that anyone working at Bethesda/MS would risk their job to leak it.
I would guess someone who had access to the game let one of their friends or relatives play it. "Don't let anyone know you have this ok?" "Sure...I wouldn't dream of putting this on a torrent site."
Why the hell haven't they started marking review/preview copies in a way they can track the leak? Easy enough to have something hidden in the art files that isn't actually used to identify the source.
Is anyone else facing the problem off wanting to find out everything you can about this game and at the same time wanting hear nothing more about it and be surprised?
Oh yes. And the guide seems to come out six days before the game and apparently it's been leaked.
InitialDK on
"I'd happily trade your life for knowledge of my powers."
-Louis C.K.
0
AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
"Oblivion was too wide open and empty! It felt dead! It felt like there was no one there!"
"Fallout 3 is too tight and has too might stuff! It's way too alive! There are tons of things in there!"
I figure by now the Bethesda folks have got to know that there is no way they can win, which is probably
Even if Oblivion was too wide and empty and even if Fallout 3 is too compact, the 2 quotes together are irrelevant once you realize (and I hope everyone would), that Fallout 3 is not Elder Scrolls 5.
You would think and almost certainly hope that.
Being empty and feeling barren, in a nuclear wasteland is an entirely different concept to a relatively well populated fantasy world.
For the discussion on the 360 version being pirated already, there have been a good few magazines and websites set up over the years as fronts to get review copies. Razor1911 was successful with that for years, but it was eventually one of their fronts that most of their major members caught. My cousin set up his 360 site on a lark. He gets a couple hundred hits a day now, but the site (and his Microsoft MVP status) seems to mean nothing more than a source of free pre-release games to him. He doesn't sell them or leak them to the internet, but he does give them to friends and get them to write his reviews for him.
Hevach on
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited October 2008
The 360 version of Bioshock was pirated before the PC version as well due a similar pre-release leak.
Not really. I pretty much heavily disagree with everything people have said regarding Oblivion in this thread. For me the only problems were enemies and loot leveling with you and a weak main city.
The 'rumours' thing is annoying, but if they removed it, pretty much every NPC in the game still had a backstory of at least 3 lines, and its indicative of an attempt to create a 'society' or cohesive world, and while this attempt fails in some ways, it suceeds overall when combined with all the other social systems in place. I found missions pretty varied and interesting, and dungeons, while asthetically similar in many cases, still had interesting and vivid designs. I could go on forever listing the number of unique, hilarious, dark, disturbing and strange missions and characters in Oblivion. It was a damn good game, its old now, give it a damn rest.
It is in no way as shallow as Spore. Spore is worse than the sum of its parts, Oblivion is better.
I have fond memories of Oblivion, and watching a friend play it recently, a non-gamer friend, pretty much cemented my love of it, its just amazing to see when not taken as a million little mechanics, but instead as an earnest attempt to create a entertaining and real world.
Edit: Fucks sake thinking about some of the missions, off the top of my head I can recall like 30 brilliant ones that Ive never seen matched in any other RPG.
I understand the hate for Oblivion. Im not stupid, I can see its flaws. I just wanna know where the love is? The game is remarkable.
Prohass on
0
NoneoftheaboveJust a conforming non-conformist.Twilight ZoneRegistered Userregular
edited October 2008
Oblivion is the evil clone brother of the best damn RPG ever made, whatever RPG that might be to somebody.
For me it's Fallout, and I judge every other RPG to what I think Fallout did right. But there is a missing element lacking in Oblivion and it isn't any one particular thing that makes it short of greatness, it's a lot of little annoyances.
It's not neccesarily that oblivion is bad, it's just a reaction to all the perfect 10s it got from the new console reviews when it's, in general, inferior to prior games. Also, another problem is that it's practically a different sub-genre of wRPGs than the ones people often try to compare it to (that is, the bioware/black isle tradition of story-based cRPGs)
"Oblivion was too wide open and empty! It felt dead! It felt like there was no one there!"
"Fallout 3 is too tight and has too might stuff! It's way too alive! There are tons of things in there!"
I figure by now the Bethesda folks have got to know that there is no way they can win, which is probably
Even if Oblivion was too wide and empty and even if Fallout 3 is too compact, the 2 quotes together are irrelevant once you realize (and I hope everyone would), that Fallout 3 is not Elder Scrolls 5. If they are trying to fix a complaint with Oblivion inside Fallout, then ultimately they are attacking a completely different game in the wrong manner.
Because the same person who could complain about Oblivion being too wide could possibly be the same exact person complaining Fallout 3 is too compact, based on the fact that expectations for the 2 game are going to be wildly different.
How the hell did the Xbox360 version get leaked?
Review copy? I can't believe that anyone working at Bethesda/MS would risk their job to leak it.
I would guess someone who had access to the game let one of their friends or relatives play it. "Don't let anyone know you have this ok?" "Sure...I wouldn't dream of putting this on a torrent site."
Why the hell haven't they started marking review/preview copies in a way they can track the leak? Easy enough to have something hidden in the art files that isn't actually used to identify the source.
These days the pirates are more organised than that. The game goes gold and it's pretty easy for them to have someone in the chain from mastering to store (heck, from what I understand it's often at the fabrication plant) give them a copy. You're talking about a product that's being produced and distributed in the millions here and people are being told not to release it to the public for any period up to several weeks. There's no shortage of opportunity to get that release out.
Also, I'm pretty certain that review code is marked, at least by the big companies. Usually it'll display a build number and "review copy" text or similar in a corner somewhere. Not sure whether the copies are uniquely identifiable though. Considering how many hundreds of copies they must print simply for review, I doubt it.
The problem i felt with Oblivion was that there were development aspects of it that were badly thought out. Levelling of creatures when you level is of course the most obvious one. Why should a badger be as strong as you? Dungeons were also a bit lacking. Once you had seen one dungeon you'd seen them all. Several times when going through Ayleid ruins i went through the same corridor system, or big chamber.
Armour was also extremely lacking. When playing an RPG i expected to at least maybe find some good rare loot or a nice sword if i had to deal with bad guys. This was sometimes a case in dungeons, but very rarely did this occur. The result was that until about level 10 you always had shit armour ratings, and even after level 10 your armour wasn't overly better. That and there was a distinct lack of lots of designs.
The world was ok but the fast track one click thing also killed it. What is the bloody point of developing this massive lush world if you add in an instant jump button? It kills the immersion and you're more than likely going to use it if it means getting to someplace quickly.
And of course there were the people; virtually stale and with absolutely no life in them. Saying the same things day and day again.
These days the pirates are more organised than that. The game goes gold and it's pretty easy for them to have someone in the chain from mastering to store (heck, from what I understand it's often at the fabrication plant) give them a copy. You're talking about a product that's being produced and distributed in the millions here and people are being told not to release it to the public for any period up to several weeks. There's no shortage of opportunity to get that release out.
Also, I'm pretty certain that review code is marked, at least by the big companies. Usually it'll display a build number and "review copy" text or similar in a corner somewhere. Not sure whether the copies are uniquely identifiable though. Considering how many hundreds of copies they must print simply for review, I doubt it.
Yeah, the mastering house is the most common place for a stray disc to wind up in the hands of pirates. Low wages combined with easy access and knowledge of duplication = what could possibly go wrong?
I can understand some of the complaints about Oblivion... leveling, scaling and omniscient guards being my biggest beefs. Nothing pissed me off quite like deciding to walk from Anvil to the Imperial City (rather than just having Scotty beam me to the Market District) and getting ambushed by highwaymen wearing fucking glass and mithril armor.
Although I don't get the complaints about the dungeons at all. Oblivion is one of three games where I actually enjoy the dungeon crawling (the other two being Fallout 1 and Fallout 2, go figure), and it might be the one I enjoy the most in that regard.
Seriously, how cool is it to actually see the pressure plates and avoid them, or to shoot the tripwire with your bow from fifteen feet away? Or even better, jumping over it, getting some asshole's attention, and then intentionall tripping it on the way back to kill him? That shit never got old for me.
Admittedly, since I'm not a huge dungeon crawler, I never went into more than ten or fifteen dungeons... but if there was a shitload of repetition in those, I didn't notice.
I can understand some of the complaints about Oblivion... leveling, scaling and omniscient guards being my biggest beefs. Nothing pissed me off quite like deciding to walk from Anvil to the Imperial City (rather than just having Scotty beam me to the Market District) and getting ambushed by highwaymen wearing fucking glass and mithril armor.
Although I don't get the complaints about the dungeons at all. Oblivion is one of three games where I actually enjoy the dungeon crawling (the other two being Fallout 1 and Fallout 2, go figure), and it might be the one I enjoy the most in that regard.
Seriously, how cool is it to actually see the pressure plates and avoid them, or to shoot the tripwire with your bow from fifteen feet away? Or even better, jumping over it, getting some asshole's attention, and then intentionall tripping it on the way back to kill him? That shit never got old for me.
Admittedly, since I'm not a huge dungeon crawler, I never went into more than ten or fifteen dungeons... but if there was a shitload of repetition in those, I didn't notice.
I'm in agreement. After my character caught Vampirism I never really saw daylight again - just popping into cities at night to feed and heading back to another crypt / mine etc by day to kill and loot.
And that was as a Khajjit Bowmage on the 360 version (though admittedly I put the difficulty bar down a bit)
(also I just had to add Vampirism and Mage to my Firefox's Dictionary. How sad am I?)
Oblivion touches on problems similar with Spore: breadth but not depth.
While the actual physical world in Oblivion might have been large, the number of different things to experience and encounter was comparatively small.
Small compared to what, exactly?
The game itself, maybe? When you've got such a huge world, you might expect there to be more variety. For example, there were about sixty Oblivion gates in total but only seven different ones.
So it seems like the videos are already being posted. I may have to go on black out here. Plus it's probably best I stop obsessing over this game for the next 18 days as I may be burnt out before I even hit Start.
I'll miss you, F3, till we meet again...
InitialDK on
"I'd happily trade your life for knowledge of my powers."
-Louis C.K.
Oblivion touches on problems similar with Spore: breadth but not depth.
While the actual physical world in Oblivion might have been large, the number of different things to experience and encounter was comparatively small.
Small compared to what, exactly?
The game itself, maybe? When you've got such a huge world, you might expect there to be more variety. For example, there were about sixty Oblivion gates in total but only seven different ones.
Nine plus the story specific ones, but I see your point.
Oblivion touches on problems similar with Spore: breadth but not depth.
While the actual physical world in Oblivion might have been large, the number of different things to experience and encounter was comparatively small.
Small compared to what, exactly?
The game itself, maybe? When you've got such a huge world, you might expect there to be more variety. For example, there were about sixty Oblivion gates in total but only seven different ones.
Oblivion had a big giant world with lots of repeated content, yes. I won't argue otherwise. But I would argue that if you boiled that whole world down to just the unique content it would still be one of the biggest modern western RPGs out there.
Despite redundancy in Oblivion gates and dungeons designs -- yeah, no question they built their many dungeons from a limited number of parts; an Elder Scrolls tradition, that -- there remained a huge variety of things to see and experience, dwarfing the vast majority of games out there. Four complete guild storylines each with a distinct feel and each maybe 10 or so hours long, a variety of quirky side quests from crazy homeless dudes to Lovecraftian villages to ghost stories to vampire hunting to exploration & treasure hunting and more, all those Daedric quests. Lots of stuff.
The vast number of generic dungeons are there for people into exploration and the like, those folks who just like rooting around in cave or whatever. While every dungeon being unique would be nice, it's a pipe dream. No need to explain why that's not going to happen any time soon. It's just not a realistic expectation right now. Scaling things back and going with only a limited number of unique dungeons is doable, but you know what? Then it's no longer an Elder Scrolls game. This is a series partially defined by its vast breadth of content. Make it more limited in scope in order to avoid this complaint and you're making a different game.
I'd argue that this breadth of content is important to the series' feel, too. There may be a fairly limited number of dungeon configurations -- still a pretty healthy amount, though -- but when they're scattered to all corners of the map you might experience Dungeon Bit A way over there while exploring after Quest 2, I might see it outside City G while wandering around, another person may see it over in the far corner of the map, and so on. All that material allows each of us to experience this stuff in a different way and in a different context. Each player is going to approach the world in a different way; having so much stuff, even if repeated, ensures every player will find stuff to exlore no matter where they are and how they're exploring. The repetition only begins to reveal itself when we've devoured a lot of the content.
Heck, even the redundancy in the Oblivion gates ... you never need to go into that many of them, really. There is enough variation that if you do what you need to do for the main story, they don't feel overly repetitive. If you decide to tackle many of them (as I did), then yeah, then they get samey and unfun. I grew to dislike them. But then, I tackled a dozen, maybe 20 of them.
I dunno, when I put over 100 hours into a game I tend to think it probably has enough content. And there was still stuff in Oblivion I never finished, like the quest that started with an ogre I killed out in the woods who had a giant potato in his inventory, I still have no fucking clue what that was all about.
Also, I think Oblivion should get a little bit of a free pass on "boring npcs" whenever you find the floating corpse of a depressed, suicidal troll (ogre?).
...aaaaanyway, this is a Fallout 3 thread. So we should talk more about Fallout stuff. I'll start!
Which Fallout had the deep-fried balls? I can't remember. It was 2, right?
If Fallout 3 lets me wander around a post-apocalyptic wasteland, creating my own fun and wasting time between missions, I'll be pretty pleased with that.
If it also offers a good variety of side quests to do outside of the main story, I'll be even happier.
If Fallout 3 lets me wander around a post-apocalyptic wasteland, creating my own fun and wasting time between missions, I'll be pretty pleased with that.
If it also offers a good variety of side quests to do outside of the main story, I'll be even happier.
Also, I think Oblivion should get a little bit of a free pass on "boring npcs" whenever you find the floating corpse of a depressed, suicidal troll (ogre?).
...aaaaanyway, this is a Fallout 3 thread. So we should talk more about Fallout stuff. I'll start!
Which Fallout had the deep-fried balls? I can't remember. It was 2, right?
Your first sentence reminded me of one more thing I need to get off my chest before this tangent ends. I wish that they had never toned down the Radiant AI thing for Oblivion, it sounded like a much more entertaining game.
Another test had an on-duty NPC guard become hungry. The guard went into the forest to hunt for food. The other guards also left to arrest the truant guard, leaving the town unprotected. The villager NPCs then looted all of the shops, due to the lack of law enforcement.
...
In one Dark Brotherhood quest, the player can meet up with a shady merchant who sells skooma, an in-game drug. During testing, the NPC would be dead when the player got to him. The reason was that NPCs from the local skooma den were trying to get their fix, didn't have any money, and so were killing the merchant to get it.
If Fallout 3 lets me wander around a post-apocalyptic wasteland, creating my own fun and wasting time between missions, I'll be pretty pleased with that.
If it also offers a good variety of side quests to do outside of the main story, I'll be even happier.
That... sounds pretty much like Stalker actually.
As I've mentioned a few times in the Stalker thread, I REALLY want to play that game, but my system appears to be right on the cusp of the system requirements. There is no demo available to give it a whirl, and I'm not going to try other means of testing it out for various reasons, nor will I drop $40 on it blind without knowing if my system will run it.
So, all I can do is see people discuss the game while I look on with envy.
Oblivion was too big, too small, too flat, too tall, too loose, too tight, too heavy, too light, too red, too dotty, too blue, too spotty, too fancy, too frilly, too shiny, too silly, too beady, too bumpy, too leafy, too lumpy, too twisty, too twirly, too wrinkly, too curly, too holey, too patchy, too feathery, too scratchy, too crooked, too straight, too pointed...
Oblivion was too big, too small, too flat, too tall, too loose, too tight, too heavy, too light, too red, too dotty, too blue, too spotty, too fancy, too frilly, too shiny, too silly, too beady, too bumpy, too leafy, too lumpy, too twisty, too twirly, too wrinkly, too curly, too holey, too patchy, too feathery, too scratchy, too crooked, too straight, too pointed...
This is even better when you read it like a Dr Suess book.
Another test had an on-duty NPC guard become hungry. The guard went into the forest to hunt for food. The other guards also left to arrest the truant guard, leaving the town unprotected. The villager NPCs then looted all of the shops, due to the lack of law enforcement.
...
In one Dark Brotherhood quest, the player can meet up with a shady merchant who sells skooma, an in-game drug. During testing, the NPC would be dead when the player got to him. The reason was that NPCs from the local skooma den were trying to get their fix, didn't have any money, and so were killing the merchant to get it.
These sound AWESOME, but I've got to imagine they break the shit out of the game after just a few hours.
It almost needs a 'Crazy AI' mode where things like that can happen, but you run it under the acceptance that the main quest, or any sidequests, are liable to go tits-up at any point.
Oblivion was too big, too small, too flat, too tall, too loose, too tight, too heavy, too light, too red, too dotty, too blue, too spotty, too fancy, too frilly, too shiny, too silly, too beady, too bumpy, too leafy, too lumpy, too twisty, too twirly, too wrinkly, too curly, too holey, too patchy, too feathery, too scratchy, too crooked, too straight, too pointed...
This is even better when you read it like a Dr Suess book.
Posts
I am a freaking nerd.
Oh yes. And the guide seems to come out six days before the game and apparently it's been leaked.
-Louis C.K.
Actually, I think it was the first game using that new version of the SecuRom was the main reason
While the actual physical world in Oblivion might have been large, the number of different things to experience and encounter was comparatively small.
The 'rumours' thing is annoying, but if they removed it, pretty much every NPC in the game still had a backstory of at least 3 lines, and its indicative of an attempt to create a 'society' or cohesive world, and while this attempt fails in some ways, it suceeds overall when combined with all the other social systems in place. I found missions pretty varied and interesting, and dungeons, while asthetically similar in many cases, still had interesting and vivid designs. I could go on forever listing the number of unique, hilarious, dark, disturbing and strange missions and characters in Oblivion. It was a damn good game, its old now, give it a damn rest.
It is in no way as shallow as Spore. Spore is worse than the sum of its parts, Oblivion is better.
I have fond memories of Oblivion, and watching a friend play it recently, a non-gamer friend, pretty much cemented my love of it, its just amazing to see when not taken as a million little mechanics, but instead as an earnest attempt to create a entertaining and real world.
Edit: Fucks sake thinking about some of the missions, off the top of my head I can recall like 30 brilliant ones that Ive never seen matched in any other RPG.
I understand the hate for Oblivion. Im not stupid, I can see its flaws. I just wanna know where the love is? The game is remarkable.
For me it's Fallout, and I judge every other RPG to what I think Fallout did right. But there is a missing element lacking in Oblivion and it isn't any one particular thing that makes it short of greatness, it's a lot of little annoyances.
Armour was also extremely lacking. When playing an RPG i expected to at least maybe find some good rare loot or a nice sword if i had to deal with bad guys. This was sometimes a case in dungeons, but very rarely did this occur. The result was that until about level 10 you always had shit armour ratings, and even after level 10 your armour wasn't overly better. That and there was a distinct lack of lots of designs.
The world was ok but the fast track one click thing also killed it. What is the bloody point of developing this massive lush world if you add in an instant jump button? It kills the immersion and you're more than likely going to use it if it means getting to someplace quickly.
And of course there were the people; virtually stale and with absolutely no life in them. Saying the same things day and day again.
Yeah, the mastering house is the most common place for a stray disc to wind up in the hands of pirates. Low wages combined with easy access and knowledge of duplication = what could possibly go wrong?
Although I don't get the complaints about the dungeons at all. Oblivion is one of three games where I actually enjoy the dungeon crawling (the other two being Fallout 1 and Fallout 2, go figure), and it might be the one I enjoy the most in that regard.
Seriously, how cool is it to actually see the pressure plates and avoid them, or to shoot the tripwire with your bow from fifteen feet away? Or even better, jumping over it, getting some asshole's attention, and then intentionall tripping it on the way back to kill him? That shit never got old for me.
Admittedly, since I'm not a huge dungeon crawler, I never went into more than ten or fifteen dungeons... but if there was a shitload of repetition in those, I didn't notice.
Small compared to what, exactly?
I'm in agreement. After my character caught Vampirism I never really saw daylight again - just popping into cities at night to feed and heading back to another crypt / mine etc by day to kill and loot.
And that was as a Khajjit Bowmage on the 360 version (though admittedly I put the difficulty bar down a bit)
(also I just had to add Vampirism and Mage to my Firefox's Dictionary. How sad am I?)
The game itself, maybe? When you've got such a huge world, you might expect there to be more variety. For example, there were about sixty Oblivion gates in total but only seven different ones.
I'll miss you, F3, till we meet again...
-Louis C.K.
Oblivion had a big giant world with lots of repeated content, yes. I won't argue otherwise. But I would argue that if you boiled that whole world down to just the unique content it would still be one of the biggest modern western RPGs out there.
Despite redundancy in Oblivion gates and dungeons designs -- yeah, no question they built their many dungeons from a limited number of parts; an Elder Scrolls tradition, that -- there remained a huge variety of things to see and experience, dwarfing the vast majority of games out there. Four complete guild storylines each with a distinct feel and each maybe 10 or so hours long, a variety of quirky side quests from crazy homeless dudes to Lovecraftian villages to ghost stories to vampire hunting to exploration & treasure hunting and more, all those Daedric quests. Lots of stuff.
The vast number of generic dungeons are there for people into exploration and the like, those folks who just like rooting around in cave or whatever. While every dungeon being unique would be nice, it's a pipe dream. No need to explain why that's not going to happen any time soon. It's just not a realistic expectation right now. Scaling things back and going with only a limited number of unique dungeons is doable, but you know what? Then it's no longer an Elder Scrolls game. This is a series partially defined by its vast breadth of content. Make it more limited in scope in order to avoid this complaint and you're making a different game.
I'd argue that this breadth of content is important to the series' feel, too. There may be a fairly limited number of dungeon configurations -- still a pretty healthy amount, though -- but when they're scattered to all corners of the map you might experience Dungeon Bit A way over there while exploring after Quest 2, I might see it outside City G while wandering around, another person may see it over in the far corner of the map, and so on. All that material allows each of us to experience this stuff in a different way and in a different context. Each player is going to approach the world in a different way; having so much stuff, even if repeated, ensures every player will find stuff to exlore no matter where they are and how they're exploring. The repetition only begins to reveal itself when we've devoured a lot of the content.
Heck, even the redundancy in the Oblivion gates ... you never need to go into that many of them, really. There is enough variation that if you do what you need to do for the main story, they don't feel overly repetitive. If you decide to tackle many of them (as I did), then yeah, then they get samey and unfun. I grew to dislike them. But then, I tackled a dozen, maybe 20 of them.
...aaaaanyway, this is a Fallout 3 thread. So we should talk more about Fallout stuff. I'll start!
Which Fallout had the deep-fried balls? I can't remember. It was 2, right?
If it also offers a good variety of side quests to do outside of the main story, I'll be even happier.
That... sounds pretty much like Stalker actually.
Your first sentence reminded me of one more thing I need to get off my chest before this tangent ends. I wish that they had never toned down the Radiant AI thing for Oblivion, it sounded like a much more entertaining game.
As I've mentioned a few times in the Stalker thread, I REALLY want to play that game, but my system appears to be right on the cusp of the system requirements. There is no demo available to give it a whirl, and I'm not going to try other means of testing it out for various reasons, nor will I drop $40 on it blind without knowing if my system will run it.
So, all I can do is see people discuss the game while I look on with envy.
White FC: 0819 3350 1787
These sound AWESOME, but I've got to imagine they break the shit out of the game after just a few hours.
Well it is a direct quote from Old Hat, New Hat.
I'm totally serious. We need some Crassius Curio level faggotry.
White FC: 0819 3350 1787