THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => CLIKC => Topic started by: JJMitchell on 17 Mar 2006, 14:02
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Comes out in 4 days (Tuesday the 21st of March).
At least in the US.
Discuss.
My PC doesn't meet the min requirements which are:
* Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows XP 64-bit
* 512MB System RAM
* 2 Ghz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent processor
* 128MB Direct3D compatible video card
* and DirectX 9.0 compatible driver;
* 8x DVD-ROM drive
* 4.6 GB free hard disk space
* DirectX 9.0c (included)
* DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
* Keyboard, Mouse
My processor is a 1.8 I think but need to check since I was excited about it.
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sweet, I can play that no problem
lowest thing is my 2.2ghz processor, but everything else rocks the shit
I will probably purchase it from BTMart.
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Score, I thought I would have to upgrade :)
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I'll probably check this out even though they've gone all EQ2-ish with the graphics. I really enjoyed Morrowind, so hopefully the plasticness of the models won't bug me so much.
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I want to play it, but I've always had trouble with putting the time in to really finish their games. I think my younger brother's going to pic it up for 360, so I'll probably just bum it off him once he's done
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Windows XP 64-bit
Anyone know if there's actually going to be a native binary for x64?
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Oblivion has made me sexually aroused like no other game.
I can't wait to get this game.
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Ive been with the series through Arena, Daggerfall ( <3 ), Morrowind and really wish I could play Oblivion. But I dont have the cash for ram+vid card or an X Box 360 :(
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I never liked Morrowind.
Mind you, that didn't stop me from buying it. Twice.
Its a pretty gawdaweful paperweight too- that game had nothing going for it....
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Welcome to the forum!
Anymore non constructive conversation today? Or have you had your fill?
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I'm happy that I was wrong, my processor will play this but I guess we'll have to wait and see how well.
Tomorrow can't get here early enough.
After waiting for 4 years, one more day won't hurt I guess.
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Hehe, I played Morrowind with a frame counter that never read 5 now matter how few frames you were really getting (I started to think it meant 5 seconds per frame at one point), I don't see why I can't do it again.
Actually, I fit nicely into those specs so good bye social life.
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I'm even going to try and load it on my laptop, the laptop is below the specs but I might be able to turn a bunch of the graphics off and play as long as the install doesn't die.
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all of you should get a 360
I'm getting ES:O for mine, can't wait till I get the cash for it!
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I'm not a console gamer, haven't been since the Nintendo 64.
I have a controller for my PC that I like a ton better than any platform controller I've used yet.
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Shit, it comes out tomorrow?
I'd need to buy a new video card for my computer (mine is shit) to play it. Which just won't fly. So I'll go back and replay Daggerfall or something.
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Daggerfall doesn't work on XP :(
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Hrm. I'll play the game, and if it is worthy, I'll spend my hard earned money on it.
Screenshots looked pretty decent; just need to make sure there is some gameplay.
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From everything I've been reading the game is freaking huge. We are talking huge huge huge huge. Not just huge huge. Or even huge huge huge.
I've read some first impressions that the combat is much more streamlined and magic is easier to use. Another review said that the game crashed only twice on him in 8 hours. Thats a good step up from Morrowcrash (at release).
I have to wait until Friday (damned sensible wife) to buy it.
sigh.
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I got an e-mail saying that my copy shipped today. I'll have to wait until Thursday to play, 'cause I'm a cheap bastard and went standard 3-day UPS shipping, rather than paying like $30 for one-day air... I want it, but not that badly.
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Well, EB games is on the way home... Guess I'll be stopping by.
Edit: Except that the game hasn't arrived yet.
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Nih,
Did you get it?
How is it?
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Wankers didn't have it in stock. Trying again today.
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Morrowcrash
HAH! Even at its worst, Morrowind was more stable than Arena or Daggerfall at the best of times.
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Damnit Nihilist I want a full blown review to hold me over until Friday.
Don't you understand man, you are my salvation ... what with being God and all.
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I have my copy.
First impressions in a couple of hours.
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pasted from from my blog:
I downloaded The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion last night. Unpacked it this morning while I showered, then installed it while I had a cup of tea & got ready for work. I could only play about 5mins of it before heading off to work this morning, as it was raining and I wanted to leave early because for some reason the trains are always late whenever there's even the hint of a speck of water on the tracks. However, I can definitely say that I am officially excited about this game. Unless I find something drastically wrong with the game that can't be fixed by a patch I'm going to be buying it when it's released out here.
The first thing I noticed when I started installing the game is that it doesn't require a cdkey or serial number. This is pretty rare these days, so I fully appreciate this. I don't know how long it took to install, because I was off doing other things. The first thing I noticed when I fired the game up was there was no bullshit cd protection (ie: no SecureROM etc to muck about with), so I didn't need to waste time searching for a cracked exe. I know that this might sound strange to you, but this only serves to make me respect the game creator more, and plays a part in my decision to buy the game. Kooky, huh?
So ok, past all that, the first thing I noticed when I actually started to play the game is that despite all the hype to the contrary, I can run this awesome game on my 3-year old machine. Granted I'm running it at 800x600 with most of the visual enhancements turned off, but I don't care, I can run it. Next thing I noticed was that the opening cinematic (complete with voiceover by Patrick "Jean-Luc Pi-fucking-card" Stewart) is one of the simplest and most effective opening cinematics I've seen. I mean, the opening to The Warriors game is probably the best I've seen for a while, but that's probably because I'm a sucker for nostalgia. While simple, I could see a live-action version of Oblivion's opening being shown as either the trailer or the opening scenes of a movie.
So anyway, enough gushing about that. I quickly made a character (Bretonian dude) and jumped into the game. They start you out in a cell, as per usual. You run through a tutorial, but this time it doesn't really feel so contrived as it did in Morrowind (henceforth referred to as "MW"). Also, this time it seems that running about doesn't drain your stamina, or at least not as much as it did in MW, so maybe now I can play the game without resorting to cheats to increase the absolutely ludicrous "I am a baby with two broken legs crawling through treacle with a sack of potatoes on my back" speed MW started you out on. I'm not gonna spoil any of the storyline for those of you who are gonna play it (I know that Nihilist has already picked it up, and I'm pretty sure Zofia will grab it) but you quickly find yourself in a dungeon below a castle, picking up things and working out the new interface.
I say "the new interface" and I do mean "New". I was momentarily put off by the simplicity of the new interface, but after a short time mucking about with it I could see that while it was probably created in order to make the console version more playable there's not really any functionality missing from MW that I can see. Maybe a bigger MW fan will correct me on this, but on the whole it looks like it gets the same sort of things done with a minimum of fuss. Oh, actually I just figured out something I don't like about it. From what I saw this morning (I'll do more investigation later tonight/tomorrow) the equipment page does not have an armour doll to show you what can be equipped where. I am sure that this will annoy me later on if true.
In the quick game I got to play this morning I shot off a couple of fireballs, hacked at some rats with a katana, shot at a bucket with a bow & arrow (which flopped about satisfactorily) then retrieved my arrow (a feature I love), and rummaged about on several corpses. This was all within the first few rooms, with prompting from the game tutorial. By the time I looked at the watch on my phone and figured I best be leaving I had accumulated a small swag full of items that I'll be wanting to sell once I get out of the dungeon. A healthy collection of starter armour and weapons, as well as a handful of scrolls that I'm sure the tutorial will teach me how to use in good time. I left for the train station impressed by the new Elder Scrolls installment.
Since then I've been checking out a few pages and remembering a bunch of stuff that got me interested in the first game. Those being the spell crafting system, alchemy, enchanting, etc. I've been wondering just how different those systems are in this new game. So far I haven't found a definitive answer to that question. Hopefully once I get time to play through a bit more of the game I'll get to see just how they changed things. In my mind even if they have left things pretty much exactly the same as before I'm totally happy. Any kind of tweaks to make it harder to cheat is very welcome, because if it is too simple then I will wind up exploiting the game's mechanics if given the chance, and I normally regret it later.
One last thing I've just read about that definitely interests me after enjoying playing a rogue in WoW is that they have improved the sneaking system. Apparently backstabbing and attacking with a bow from stealth is now a much more effective tactic than it used to be. This is something that I'm going to have to check into, because a Rogue/Mage combo sounds rather appealing. The article I was reading also says that the magic system has been expanded, and seems to have more depth this time around. I hope that they are correct, because the magic system started to get kind of boring in Morrowind. I pretty much only liked levitating, healing myself and throwing fireballs. I can't remember much else that was useful.
Anyways, I'll update later when I've played a bit more.
If you couldn't be bothered reading all that & have skipped down here then I'll sum up by saying that it seems like a really good game. So far I can say that they've taken Morrowind, tweaked the graphics, added the Havok physics engine and decent voice acting. So if you liked Morrowind then you'll definitely like this one. I'll know more once I've played some more tonight.
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Okay. After playing for about 4 hours, I can safely agree that anyone who like Morrowind will definately like this. Everything seems a lot smoother in terms of the combat mechanics and such. Which is always nice.
I can confirm that attacking with from stealth is indeed a much more viable strategy than it was previously. An arrow to the back of an unsuspecting target's head has a good chance of giving you the satisfaction of seeing someone slump to the ground before they're even aqare of your presence.
There are a few minor niggles I'd like to see fixed however.
1. I had the settings default to Ultra-High, so my pc is by no means crap. Running about outside yields the very unpleasant effect of constantly seeing the landscape draw, with the difference between the drawn and undrawn landscape being quite distinct. This seems like a side effect of Oblivion being co-developed for the 360.
2. The engine doesn't allow HDR lighting and Anti-Aliasing to be enabled at the same time. Resulting in some very unpleasant jaggies if you choose the HDR option.
3. The AI is indeed better than it was in Morrowind. It is by no means as good as they would like you to believe. In the space of 10 minutes, I saw two different NPC's (one friendly and one unfriendly) walk off the spiral ramp around the edge of an inside tower to their deaths on the cold hard stone floor several stories below.
Oh... and some goddamn wolves chased off my horse. Bastards!
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Good review actually. I'm currently downloading it but was at 25% when I had to come to work so I'll probably have the retail version before I get it done.
I've been reading alot of reviews online hoping to find someone who will tell me this game sucks so I won't want to play it. So far the only few complaints I've heard is the distant it draws the grass and undergrowth at and something about the interface.
I can live with either of those if the RP element of the game is as good as many have said. Also I'm excited about seeing the RAI in action since one of the previews I watched showed how if you overheard two characters talking you can speak to one of them and get a quest. That seems much more natural than running around and clicking on everyone in the hopes of maybe getting a quest that sounds insteresting.
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Man, this makes me want to buy this game. I played and beat Morrowind a few times and I really liked it. But I only work off of a laptop and have no video game systems, let alone a X-Box 360. I wish i could afford one.
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I havne't actually had much time to play the game (installed it, then had to take the dog for a walk), but I must say: the HDR graphics are top-notch. I was liking muchly.
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Sweeeeeeeeeeet.
I tossed the DVD in my drive this morning and started installing it. I don't know how long it would take to install, so I figured I'd do it this morning (couldn't do it last night - had a date) to maximize playing time tonight.
These reviews are making me wish I called in sick today. Stupid work.
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A couple of things I've got a problem with:
1. Sure, they've updated the stealing code so that it's harder to steal. However, with the updated physics engine they neglected to tell the shopkeepers that if someone is hitting their merchandise around the corner into a dark place then they are probably trying to steal it. Stole a bunch of stuff this way last night & it's all kinds of annoying that they let me get away with it.
2. The AI isn't as good as they say it is. Sure, people walk around. That's about it though. I've heard people talking to one another, but their conversations are so disjointed and fake that it actually detracts from the game.
Other than that, I'm having fun.
Oh! One last thing I'm waiting for is how the better spells are handled. My main "fire" spell is "Flare" at the moment, and it doesn't obey the physics engine. That is to say that it doesn't arc like an arrow does, it just keeps going. I really want some spells I can lob, because I think that they would look awesome. If the game doesn't have them then I'll be annoyed for a bit, then I'll download the editor and see if I can't figure out a way to make physics-obeying versions of "Fireball" and some others.
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. . . .wish i could afford a 360 or a decent computer. . . .
i will play this game someday. most likely it will be "retro" or "classic" by the time i get to it.
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I played a bit more in some random dungeon this morning. They say they have about 200 random dungeons that get populated with stuff that is a challenge to you, and with a boss that will drop something that would be useful or valuable to someone at your level. If so then that is pretty neat! I wandered about a catacomb this morning throwing fireballs and occasionally swording things, and have picked up a bunch of semi-valuable stuff. It was entertaining, surely. It felt kind of like a better-looking Morrowind dungeon with physics-based traps added (I won't spoil what the traps were, use your imagination or wait until you experience one, they are kind of cool) and that it generally a fairly good thing.
One thing that I am finding useful is hitting things with arrows to knock them off ledges and so forth so that I can get them. I'm pretty sure that this will be un-necessary once I find someone to teach me a decent telekinesis spell, but until then the arrowing thing is kind of fun. Realistic? Not so much! But fun, definitely. I think that if I want more realism in archery I'll have to try to make a mod that adds a certain amount of randomness to where the arrow goes dependent upon your Marksmanship, instead of it only affecting the damage your arrow does (I think).
So far the weapons I've been picking up from fallen mobs have been ok for my level. That's not saying all that much though, as I'm level 1. I remember Morrowind being awesome for the first dozen levels too. I'm hoping that I can control myself a bit better with this one and not cheat at all. A little creative dodginess here and there when it comes to stealing is all in good fun, but straight out cheating is out this time round (hopefully).
I've been thinking about what character class was suggested to me when I first started the game. When it comes time to select a class the dude you're talking to says "from what I've seen, you're a fairly capable X". My "X" was "Bard". I kind of said "screw that" and went all-out Mage, but I do find myself doing a lot of swording and arrowing, with a bit of magic thrown in also. Perhaps a Bard may have been worthwhile, I don't know. I may have to go back and restart as a Bard to see what's up.
Oh, and one last thing: I really hope that they improve on the "AA and HDR don't mix" situation via a patch by the time I get a decent enough card to handle it. I would love to see this game in gorgeous 1600x1200 HDR-lit, FSAA splendour. Even without all that the graphics are very decent. If I could run everything at full-tilt I'd be rather happy.
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Now I am drooling. Unfortunately I will have to get a new comp to play it (mine is 5 years old) which isn't going to happen this year due to other monetary obligations. *sighs*
Oh well ... perhaps I will re-play Morrowind until then...
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I finally got this yesterday, which was one day earlier than I thought.
I had some problems since I didn't have a 8x DVD Player in my main PC. The DVD player in my 2nd PC is 4x appararently and it wouldn't read the disk. Lucky for me my laptop has a 12x DVD so I ended up using ftp to copy the whole disk to my PC from my laptop. The game only took maybe 10 minutes to install off the DVD and much less if you have all the source on your HD. Once that was done I was good to go.(As a side note for est, the game does prompt you for the CD so you must have the cracked version.)
My next problem was that even though my video card met the min requirements, I didn't check the supported cards list so I had to swap mine with the other PCs which happened to be on the support list. That didn't make me too happy but the other PCs video card is newer with the same amount of RAM. Guess the processor on those things really does make a difference.
By now I've spent almost 2 hours getting the game running but all of that was my own fault. Lesson learned: meet the requirements exactly.
I load the game up, the intro is very well done, Patrick Stewart does the voice well enough that most of the time I don't think of him as Professor X. I've only made it a little ways into the first dungeon but I'm really impressed by the game overall. The graphics are very nice even though I'm running at 640x480 and most of the special stuff is turned off.
The gameplay really is incredible. One of the coolest things I saw was when a rat jumped at me I cast Flare which blasted the damned thing out of the air and killed it. Very cool effects.
The RP aspect of the game seems to be excellent, I'd even say its the best RP game so far that I've ever played. I actually listened to what the NPCs were saying instead of randomly clicking through the text until I got a quest.
More to come as I think of it and get more playing time.
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I've been trying for the past hour to get this working, I've solved the issue with the printer, I've solved the issue with the old mpeg2dsomethingorother.ax file, I think I even fixed the annoying sound suddenly goes through one channel thing. Looks like I might have to go back to the official ATi drivers. *shudder*.
(Everything is over the minimum specs and is supported. Mostly into the recommended category)
But from what I've see it's awesome. Kinda simplified on first impression, but still awesome.
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Wow, I cannot say I had any problem with it. Installed, ran, wahlah. This cannot be true; my luck with computers has been shite for a few months now.
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I didn't mean for my post to sound like I had problems with the installation since really the installation ran fine once I had access to the installation files. I'd say they did a good job of making the installation work IF you have the right hardware.
Also of note is that when I tried to run the game with an upsupported video card it didn't crash but all the game elements were white so you couldn't play. The intro ran fine since its a recorded video but when making my first character, the interface items were fine but you could only see pieces of the character face. The rest of the background was compeletely white. There is a KB item on their support page that says this is cause by using an upsupported video card. I almost with it just wouldn't let you play but I'm guessing some upsupported video cards may still work.
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Issue solved (or, more accurately, compromise made). I've installed the newest damn catalysts with that god awful control panel that never worked in the first place. Older dna drivers (from before they too turned to the damn control panel) do not work.
From the 10 minutes I've played it's verry shiny, I'm not sure about the lock picking but whatever, that's what Alteration is for.
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If you do a custom install you can choose to not install that crappy ass control panel thing for the catalyst drivers.
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JJMitchel, the issue is not with the amount of ram the video card has. They just use that as a layman way of saying your video card must have Pixel Shaders which most high end games for hte last few years have had. Pixels shaders all shadows to be cast on partial polygons instead of the whole thing. Alowing for much MUCH smoother gradients on shadows and better water/fire/special effects.
It sucks, I have a GeForce 4 MX Card which is really just a super powered GeForce 2, where as a GeForece 3 Card *does* have shaders. If I actually payed for this video card I would feel way more jewed. But I just traded up my Voodoo 3 for the GeForce 4 MX that was sitting on my buddies shelf collecting dust.
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CURSE BILL GATES AND HIS SEXUAL ABUSE OF WALLETS (and purses for the lady types...... and possibly some guys i suppose O.o)and the fact that given the money i would buy a x360 and oblivion as fast as i could run to a store.
Seriously it doesn't even have to be legal just send the money my way.
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As a side note for est, the game does prompt you for the CD so you must have the cracked version.
I do have the dvd image mounted in a virtual drive, so I guess I meant that even though it might be doing cd checking it doesn't look like it is doing evil cd checking using SecureRom or the like.
Also, I've played this some more, gotten through the first step of the storyline (I guess) and am now kind of just mucking about. I'm still only level 2, so I am thinking that maybe it's time to go into another dungeon, or perhaps travel about from town to town doing odd jobs for people. That would be pretty neat.
One more complaint: the whole "stolen goods" issue annoys me. I mean, how do people know they are stolen? I dropped one of my stolen items in a friendly area where everything is free for me to pick up, and it's the only red item there. I'm going to do an experiment later tonight to see if my fellow Blades attack me for picking up the item I just dropped due to it being tagged as "stealing". If so then that is way lame.
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est what kinda machine you got there?
(i'm almost sure it won't run on my comp but i can dream can't i?)
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The Dark Brotherhood (Assassin) quests are awesome.
That is all.
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The Dark Brotherhood (Assassin) quests are awesome.
That is all.
Quoted for truth.
Indeed, all the guild quests I've done so far (only dark brotherhood and some fighters) are really deep. No more of the "Talk to A, go do B, report back to A" things. The missions evolve.
Gonna try to become head of the thieves guild, now.
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I finally got this game for my 360.
The graphics are amazing and the gameplay shocked me; I hadn't played elder scrolls before. The first surprise was the character customization. I tried to make my Dark Elf look like me, and I succeeded but it freaked me out... so I clicked randomize haha..
I love the first person view, and the third person is useful sometimes aswell, so the ability to switch between is awesome. The combat is very fun and I really like how the way you behave effects the A.I's opinion of your character.
I'm only about 5 hours into the game and I'm already addicted- in Kvash on the count part... won't spoil anything though.
Here's a question, though:
Are horses very useful, or should I put my money towards something else?
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I am just going to stop reading this topic since I am going to cry if I dont play it.
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It's worth assasinating people just for the awesome horse.
(http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/5217/oblivion20060326105151tf.th.jpg) (http://img113.imageshack.us/my.php?image=oblivion20060326105151tf.jpg)
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I highly reccomend that the first thing you do when you first start (apart from save just before you leave the sewers so you can skip that bit when you re-roll) is to head the the Handy Chestnut Stables or whatever the nearby one is and steal a horse and just run. Pick a direction and run. The world looks even more beatiful when it's streaming past you.
The new sneak system is awesome. There's something incredibly satisfying about sneaking up behind someone and cracking them across the back of the head with a warhammer. My assassin isn't subtle.
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est what kinda machine you got there?
Athlon XP 2500+, 1gb ram & a Radeon 9800 pro (128 mb)
I've completed all of the mage's guild Recommendation stuff & have been accepted into the mage's college or whatever it is. I'm only level 4, so I think that I'm going to head out and level up a bit before I start heading into some of the gates to Oblivion I've been encountering here and there. The last one I went into (in Kvetch) was kind of hard in some points.
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Couple of things:
1)The main quest will net you are horse fairly early in the game. I hate it though. Maybe its just my crappy machine.
2)EST, yes having the DVD mounted on a virtual drive fixes the CD checking but even having it on your HD works.
3)This game is freaking awesome. I have yet to run into any quest where I didn't want to do it. Now my problem is getting too many quests and wanting to do them all.
I'm working on the mage guild and fighters guild quests and have done some of the main quest. I would ask that noone post spoiler in this thread for those that don't have the game.
There are tons of places on the intrawebs to post/read spoilers if you want.
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I love how you can coat arrows and weapons in poison. Nothing more satisfying then hitting them in the back for a damage multiplier and then just watching them collapse when they try to chase you.
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Man, this game sucked up my weekend something fierce. I'm part of the mage's guild, busy working on the fighter/thief/assassin ones. Done some of the main quest as well.
There was one weird bit in a quest where I was supposed to talk to Captain Burd, but the conversation option just wasn't there. Drove me fucking nuts.
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This game truly is the best RPG I think I've ever played. Not that its perfect or anything but I can't think of any other game that makes me want to RP my character instead of just leveling and getting cash. Those are just secondary to actually doing what I want.
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I actually got tired of a few quests and wanted them to end early. Also dislike when you need to keep NPCs alive and shit; they just get in the way. (I noticed this specifically when I had to close another Oblivion gate, and had to show Fuckwad Burd how to do it.)
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I do agree that the quests I did where there are friendly NPCs in the way suck.
Its too easy to hit them with a swing or spell. I killed one on accident and had a bounty on my head. What a PITA.
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With my 360 still on the way from an ebay auction, I picked up my copy of Oblivion at the stores so I can check it out the instant my 360 gets in, and I'm looking forward to it. Speaking of 360's - has anyone with one had a problem with the March update I'm hearing about?
Smiley
(And yes, I'm still here for those that vaguely remember me)
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Speaking of 360's - has anyone with one had a problem with the March update I'm hearing about?
I haven't had any trouble at all with it. Goes perfectly.
I did however, have a really messed up lag issue with Oblivion, but I fixed it:
Apparently some sort of cache of load time files fills up on your HDD after playing for a long time, which can cause lag... it's fixed by holding the 'A' button from the time you turn on the 360 to the second Bethesda Software logo. Doing this clears the cache.. Kind of like deleting all of your temporary internet files. So keep this in mind!
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After the inital OMG I've decided it's no Morrowind. It doesn't seem as mature as Morrowind, it's less dark and seems pretty dumbed down, I keep expecting to come across fuzzy bunny rabbits.
Naturally, I blame the xbox release.
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You know what? I caught myself thinking the same kind of thing in a dungeon just now. It went something like "Heyyy, you know what would be awesome? If they re-released the entire Morrowind trilogy with this engine ..."
My guess is that you're right on the 360 thing. They needed to give it more focus or something. Make it less "sandboxy". Simplify things a tad so that the people who were complaining about Morrowind's "lack of direction" can enjoy this release. I appreciate what they're trying to do, and I appreciate some of the changes. However, I still like Morrowind a bit better in a lot of ways. I have a feeling the map system is stuffing things up for me. In Morrowind the integration of instant travel into the game was almost seamless. You had the transports, and you had the mage's teleports. Clicking on a point on the map isn't really the same :(
I'm still very happy with the game. I just hope that some smart people find a way to take the world data files from Morrowind and import them into Oblivion. That would be aces and fucking spades.
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I don't think its been dumbed down all the much. To me all they have removed is the tedious trying to find the correct person to talk to version of quests.
I didn't think I'd like the compass changes since it sounds like too much hand holding but with all the quests it'll still take a huge amount of time to touch even most of them.
I liked Morrowind don't get me wrong but so far Oblivion is getting a better review from me. They fixed some of the things that I got annoyed with in Morrowind.
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I think this game is going to kill me. I played it for sixteen hours on sunday, and another 12 monday (had blackwing lair and onyxia in wow) and I'm heading back in to murder some dudes right now.
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Seriously, Morrowind wasn't better than Daggerfall. There was so much less to actually do, the wildlife was retarded and they cut half the skillset in half and made everyone a mage hybrid. And a lvl 4 could be sporting a full set of Glass Armor, or with the Vampiric Ring(which I got really early by using a summon Flame Atronach scroll to kill the quardians of it) is so rediculously broken that with no enchant skill I could beat the game by killing shit with it then sleeping to recharge the ring then taking two more steps and killing whatever else I see. Then there was the whole amulet that gave 80% Chameleon, wow nothing can see me ever, I win.
Now if your saying Oblivion isn't as good as Morrowind I fucking weep. Then again, this could all be a difference of opinion, and the strengths you see in Morrowind were a failiure to me. I hope its the latter.
But dont get me wrong, Morrowind is the only game of its generation that did what it did and I love it for it. But I was really REALLY hoping Oblivion would do what Daggerfall(and Arena) wanted to do but failed do to bugs and tech limitations(they be OLD)
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It seems like Morrowind was a bigger game, I guess. I dislike the cut-back equipment system. I liked being able to wear clothes under my robe/armour, because it gave me other stuff to enchant :)
I do like the compass thing, but I dislike the instant-movement map thing. I'd much rather some kind of in-game quick transit solution like the walkers in Morrowind. I mean, I guess that I could just ride everywhere if I didn't want to break realism, but that's not the point. The point is that I felt that instant travel was handled better in the previous game.
I'm still loving Oblivion, btw. I'm not saying Oblivion is bad, I guess I am just wishing that Morrowind had this engine (in particular, the Havok physics) so that I could go and play it and enjoy it again.
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Dudes, I am just back from reading the Elder Scrolls forums, so I am really excited. Even though they are basically banned from talking about mods that transfer Morrowind game content into Oblivion people are still talking about it, and there seems to be a lot of enthusiasm for the idea. Alternatively, some people are talking about making a post-Morrowind Vvardenfell, which I guess sounds pretty cool also!
I have a feeling I'm probably gonna be buying both Oblivion and the biggest & baddest Morrowind trilogy box set when I get paid.
Also, what kind of character are you guys playing? At the moment I'm playing a pure mage mostly, wearing light armour gloves, helm & boots and with a little bladesmanship when people get in too close. Next up is gonna be a paladin-aspirant type character. Sword and shield, heavy armour, healing and self-buffing magics. So what do you play as?
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I'm a thief, well, an assassin type turned thief when I couldn't find a Morag Tong type guild (I don't like the dark brotherhood). So I'm lacking the personality and speechcraft skills you need and I've got light armour, marksman and blade skills I don't use. I also have a dude who's pretty much that paladin-aspirant dude you mentioned. The thief is getting all my time though.
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Dark Brotherhood>Morag Tong
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The dark brotherhod are arseholes, the morag tong has honour. Buyt whatever, the Thieves' Guild is the place for me.
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I hated Morrowind, with a passion, it just annoyed me on every single level except character creation, from the travel system to the quests to the combat sometimes.
That being said, I played Oblivion at a friends house, loved it and picked it up for the 360 the same night. I liked how they refined it a bit, made it a bit more accessable, it still has some kinks that annoy but overall, its alot of fun and worth the cash.
I'm lovin playin a Nord Brawling type character (hand to hand, light armour, etc)
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Well, it's good to know that the Thieves Guild is actually in the game. I'll have to go looking for it at some point. I haven't really done anything other than the very first "urgent!" part of the main quest, and now that there is relative safety I've reverted to character, ie: a self-interested mage. I've been travelling from Mage guild to Mage guild doing tasks and so forth, then doing tasks for the academy.
However, as I travel the countryside and rise through the ranks of the Mage's guild though I'm starting to notice more and more of these Oblivion gates, so my character is starting to believe that the (main story) is related to the troubles that the mages are facing, and thus is important enough to warrant his attention.
As a result my dude will probably go chasing up the main storyline soonish, as he joins the pieces of the puzzle together in his mind.
By comparison, I think that when I play my paladin-style character he's gonna go rushing in to the main storyline, as he will be eager to prove his worth to the empire and perhaps earn a place in the guards, etc.
Then maybe I'll make some kind of thief-bard type all-round shady character who just won't give a toss & will do whatever the hell he wants from the time he gets out of prison.
Also! There needs to be a mod that removes magical ability or more seriously hampers it for those who are not magically inclined. I'd love to see what a straight fighter/thief could do with only his gear and possibly some magical items. In Oblivion it looks like you can't even enchant things without doing it yourself, can't even pay someone else to enchant items for you. I wonder if someone'll make a low-magic mod or something. Would be interesting.
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I overheard something about a collector of elven stuff, I think I'm gonna go chase that up just as soon as I finish this report abstract. Or realise that I'm not getting anywhere and might as well be making the same progress while playing Oblivion. A straight thief could do pretty well, the only magic I use is Mysticism (detect life, and in the future telekinesis and detect key) and finding keys isn't hard (head for the head dude of wherever you're breaking in and rifle through his sleeping pockets).
[edit] browsing the manual, there seems to be no detect key, detect magical item, blind, divine intervention, mark or recall or levitation. Come on people, what the hell?
My paladin character is full of self doubt. After having to retreat like a coward from the first oblivion gate he entered (sword snapped, secondary sword snapped, third sword is simply useless) he is training and training and preparing himself to prove his worth.
On another note, I miss short blade and medium armour and unarmoured and spears. I want my spear back.
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I'm playing a darkelf spellsword which is what I've always played since Arena. My character is a loner who has gotten caught up in all the problems facing Tamriel (however you spell it).
I must admit that it seems like the magic is almost too easy to get since the mages guild is easy for anyone to access. From what I've seen any new character can join the mages or fighters guild since all characters start out with simple spells etc. Am I wrong?
I figure the next character I'm going to play is going to be a summoner type. I like the idea of having pets to handle most of the melee.
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On another note, I miss short blade and medium armour and unarmoured and spears. I want my spear back.
They removed unarmored? I knew about the others, but that's kinda weird. Anyway, it won't stop me from picking up Oblivion tomorrow.
I should be looking forward to it, right?
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I've actually been welcomed into the Mage's guild, and just murdered a guy in his sleep for the assassin's guild. I'm working on the thief one right now, and then I'll worry about the fighter's guild.
Busy busy.
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So what I am hearing is, everyone is still a mage, and the only defense comes in the form of armor.
So basically all the skills/equipment are inclined to Mage Warrior hybrids, unless you exert a little self discipline, but of course since nothing else in the game obeys this discipline your fighting and uphill battle?
Well at least it looks cool.
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I just prefer the power that you can harness with a mage. Well, a higher-level mage, anyway. :)
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I prefer being able to cast spells to since they add alot to the game for me.
I don't see them as being more powerful really though since the risk/reward goes up.
Less hp and armor = dead mage faster.
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I think I've found a decent compromise on the instant-travel issue.
http://www.tescreens.be/oblivionmodwiki/index.php/No_Beginning_Markers
That mod will take out all of the instant-travel markers for places that you haven't been to yet. No more jumping about willy-nilly. You've got to get there under your own steam first before you can use the instant travel.
also: Ability to wear a robe over armour
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So what I am hearing is, everyone is still a mage, and the only defense comes in the form of armor.
The character I'm playing right now is ALL stealth. Basically easymode for 1v1 encounters. I one-shot anything my level stealthed with Umbra's Sword of godliness and I can take out as many as three characters before any of them spot me. (level 11, 100 stealth)
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Yes but do all the other mages and theives have armours. Or do they cast shit at you if they see you?
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I haven't played any TES games before Morrowind so I don't know how defense was done before then. In Oblivion your defense comes from your Armour, your skill at Blocking and any magical defenses you've got up at the time, like Shield or Resistance to certain elements. Is that what you mean?
I am really really waiting for a low-magic mod. I opened up the Constructor Set last night and had a bit of a muck about. I haven't really done all that much in it before though, so it's slow going. I was mucking about with the magic settings and saw that some spells you can cast aren't available for enchanting. I made a mod to enable them & was experimenting with the effect/cost ratio but couldn't get them balanced (5 health/fatigue/magicka per tick regen was the lowest it could do. Basically made you invincible, booooo), so I turned them back off.
I'm pretty sure that you could limit the effects of some spells, or perhaps even have all the magic skills set to 0 for people without a specialty in it. How you'd stop them from training it I really don't know. I'm gonna have a look at some of the scripts over the weekend to see if I can figure out which of them (if any) manage the character creation/levelling process and if I can fool them into thinking that they have no magical ability at all under certain circumstances.
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early alchemy in oblivion is ridiculous. I was just raising my skills creating horrible concoctions of stuff I found and stuff I bought from innkeepers. I don't know where you're from, but where I come from a bottle of mutton juice mixed with grape juice isn't called a "restore fatigue potion", it's called disgusting.
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They obviously your not from Canada
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I like to think that you're making some kind of mutton broth, then adding grape juice to it for some kind of weird Tamrielic seasoning.
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i really want to get this game, but i'm afraid it won't run and don't want to risk wasting money and effort on it
:(
DILEMMA
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I just made my first mod for this game. It's called "Ungifted", and is that low-magic mod I was talking about earlier. Basically it removes your starting spells and permanently silences you so that you can play a straight-up warrior or thief-type character without any access to magic.
You can see the thread I posted about it over at the Elder Scrolls forums here.
and if you want a direct link to the mod zip then that would be here.
Please read the ReadMe before using it if you're curious about it. In fact, I'll quote the important bits of it here:
What this mod does:
-----------------------
This is a rather simple mod that put a "Silence" effect on your character, removing their ability to cast spells. The Silence effect will be applied to all characters, even those who are well into the game. If you are starting a new game the mod will also remove your starting spells (thanks to "No Starting Spells" by Toren/TheDCProject for showing me how to do this). Your character will still be able to quaff potions (and indeed, partake in Alchemy in general) as well as cast spells from any scrolls you happen upon in the course of your travels.
But, why would you want to do this?
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Well, this mod is for people like me who would like to try to play a low-magic style character but do not have the discipline to stop themselves from casting a spell every now and then. I know that this mod is almost entirely un-needed if you have enough discipline to stop yourself from resorting to magic, but I am hoping that this is helpful to a few people.
Are there any problems caused by this mod?
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Well, that depends on what you mean by "problems". One thing that this mod does is to place a non-removeable "Silence" ability onto a character. Once applied it cannot be dispelled, which means that in save games after the effect has been applied the Silence will remain on your character even if you turn the mod off in the Data files section. If you are testing this mod out I would advise not saving, or at least not saving over the top of a save game you could use to revert to the un-silenced condition.
*** DISCLAIMER: please don't send me abusive PM's if you've used this mod & then saved over the top of your only save file and now can't revert back to a character with magical ability. I'll repeat myself: The silence effect is permanent in any savegames created with the mod active. If you find that you would rather have your magical ability you will need to turn off the mod, then revert to a savegame created before you applied this mod.
Another thing that may be a problem for some players is that in order to allow the player's Racial powers and those given by their Birthsign I had to set them so that they are not impeded by Silence. Most of them were already marked in this fashion and I don't really feel that this unbalances the gameplay all that much, but if you have a problem with this then perhaps this mod is not for you. I see the Racial powers and the Birthsign powers as inherent abilities rather than magical ones, so I didn't feel that they needed to be stripped out.
man, modding is kind of fun.
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The modding was what made me get Morrowind, and I'd kill to get this too for it.
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I'd love to start using Oblivion mods but I'm still a bit leary of them. I'll probably just finish the game first before I start changing it around.
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I'm starting to get really pissed off at this game. It crashes so damn often that it isn't funny. Or worse, it corrupts the save games, so that you cannot load the last one. I'm going to be uninstalling it soon, methinks. Awesome game, when it runs. Sadly it's not often enough to overcome the frustration.
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nihilist, I had a bunch of problems with the game crashing all the time. I'm not sure if this will work for you, but it certainly solved any problems with crashing I had...
Basically, search windows for a file called - mpeg2dmx.ax
then rename that to - mpeg2dmx.ax.old
Like I say, it's not guaranteed or anything, but it might work.
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I just made my first mod for this game. It's called "Ungifted", and is that low-magic mod I was talking about earlier. Basically it removes your starting spells and permanently silences you so that you can play a straight-up warrior or thief-type character without any access to magic.
First up: This game looks awesome and if I had a 360 or a decent PC I'd be all over it in a heart beat. Sadly I do not :-(
Secondly: A mod like that sounds really useful. I play a bunch of games and I just abuse stuff like that which can ruin the RP aspect of the game.
Thirdly: Yer new avatar is all kinds of awesome. Except the bit that says "P.I.N number" that makes me cry a little on the inside.
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Millerz, I hit up the Oblivion forums to check for any magic fixes. Apparently not. I'm one of the ... 50%? of people who have issues with it.
Still, it's better then Morrowind...
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Ok, I caved in and ended up using a few mods. I'm using mods that play around with the leveled lists a bit more, and a new leveling system. So far I'm still level 1 with my assasin and I've managed to raise quite a few skills but still no level 2.
I also just started the dark brotherhood quests which are proving to be very entertaining.
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I'm currently running an assload of mods. My Ungifted mod (on my fighter), Arriere's Steel Weapons & armour mods, Darker dungeons, Darker nights, Deadlier traps, Faster Arrows (150%), Arcane Velocity (150%), the guild ranking system that only lets you loot certain things at certain advancement levels, the creature behaviour modifier that makes certain creatures more aggressive, or use shields and other abilities more often, a mod that lowers the amount of damage your weapons & armour take during combat (seeing as I'm using my weapons and armour more often), BTMod (extended interface), and the coloured map mod.
I'm pretty sure that I'm using a few more, but I can't remember all of them. I bet that a few of these mods probably clash with one another. I think that I'm eventually going to just put all of my favourite things into the one mod/modpack and fix up the relationship problems in whichever way I prefer it to be.
I know that this seems like I am changing the game in a rather fundamental way, but almost every mod I am using makes the game harder, especially my Ungifted mod and the two arrow & spell speed mods.
Archers and Mages are now straight up deadly. At level 1 you can kill someone in three to four bow shots depending on their armour level, but at the same time every other archer can hurt you just as badly. Add the fact that I can't heal myself without potions and everything suddenly seems Really Fucking Scary. Arrows and fireballs are now very hard to dodge, as magic should be. I was getting really really sick of lazily sidestepping fiery balls of doom, then nailling the mage with an arrow or two because he was too stupid to move. This helps a lot & makes the game more challenging.
I'm thinking of adding in the "random Oblivion" mod so that things are not levelled perfectly for the character anymore, also. When you can walk around and know that everything is pretty much your level it kind of takes away some of the surprise of a real RPG. I want to occasionally turn a corner and find someone who I have to fight hard to kill, or perhaps that I have to run away from until I am a bit tougher. I'm not 100% on how it works though. If it seems like fun then I'll probably give it a go.
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Only mod i'm running is one I happened upon... basically it removes the brassiers of all the women in the game, so if one of them happens to not be wearing a cuirass or something, you get to see the awkwardly sculpted breasts of your female character.
I'm pretty sure that all of the bethesda modelers are virgins.
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Damnit, the more I hear about this game, the more it sounds like I need to be purchasing it. I've never played any other Elder Scrolls titles, and my computer is a little long in the tooth (AMD 2500, 1 gig, Radeon 9700 pro, etc), but all this talk I see everywhere is just getting too tempting. I'm not a biiig fan of heavy RPGs (though I did quite enjoy NWN and both expansions for a time) but this one sounds like a keeper.
Gah. Someone tell me to go get it so I can blame/thank them later. ;)
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Faster Arrows (150%)
The arrows in Oblivion are damn near what my (albeit, kinda weak) bow achieves. Thank you havok.
Solstice: go get it. It will^w should run playable on your machine and it isn't really as heavy a heavy rpg as I was hoping for, think Morrowind (since you haven't played it maybe substitute NWN there) crossed with Fable.
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AMD 2500, 1 gig, Radeon 9700 pro, etc
you just described my rig, except that I run a 9800. You should have no trouble playing this game at around 800x600 - 1024x768 so long as you turn the detail down a little & use no AA.
also, so I guess I just restarted as a Bretonian all-rounder character because I got sick of both my magic-heavy and my non-magical characters. I always do this, btw. I try things out, then settle on a character that does a little bit of everything :)
So now my new dude is a Thievery-specialised Breton, born under the sign of the Thief. Favoured attributes are Strength and Endurance (for the +5 bonuses) and Primary skills are Alteration, Athletics, Blade, Light Armour, Marksman, Restoration & Sneak. With this setup my attributes are something like 45 STR, 50 INT & WIL, 40 AGI & SPD, 35 END, 60 LUCK, 40 PER. So I'm every bit the all-rounder that I want my character to be. Was shooting for a jack-of-all-trades kind of knockabout rogue adventurer.
Modus operandi is sneak-attacking with my bow, or with my blade if I can get close enough. I wear light armour & tend to try to dance about and avoid being hit (rather than blocking), using spells mainly for their utility, not as offense. I still learn and carry Destruction spells though, in case I run into any beasties that can't be hit by my normal weaponry.
Am running with a bunch of the mods I mentioned above as well as a mod that removes all the starting quick-travel points. Having a lot of fun so far, but I think that I am still going to try to merge two of the mods I want to use at the moment. I'm using the steel weapons mod, but the "Faster Arrows" mod makes all bows fire arrows universally quicker. I'm looking at trying to scale each bow so that rusty iron bows are lacklustre & the higher quality bows shoot their arrows faster.
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I finally got Oblivion to run on my laptop by using the 3danalyse tool the boards are always talking about. It actually runs just as well if not a bit better than my PC does. The only issue I have is that water is purple but I can ignore that if I can play Oblivion wherever I go. Sure it may not look as pretty but I don't have a rig that will run it pretty yet.
I made a custom character, going for ranged attacks and summoning. So my primary skills are basically all mage except illusion and throw in marksman.
Didn't make it must past the sewers since it was late, will update with anything interesting I find.
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My last save game? I crash whenever I try to walk out the door of the house I'm in.
The one prior? Is like a whole goddamn quest behind.
Fuck.
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Oblivion is too easy to powergame in. Here's a quick guide to complete invulnerability.
requirements:
any rank in the Mage's Guild
6,500 gold.
5 Grand Soul gems with Grand Souls in them. Alternatively, 5 Black Soul Gems with human's souls. humans are easier to soultrap than actual grand soul monsters. (either requires a soultrap spell)
5 items of any quality that you are able to wear all at once. I chose a cowl, shoes, two rings and a necklace.
1 chameleon spell of any level.
simply take all the items to the chironasum in the Arcane University in Imperial City, and enchant them one at a time with 20% chameleon. When all worn at once, it makes you invisible regardless of any action you make. you can kill guard after guard and they might stop you, but they can't do a thing if you resist arrest.
makes the game too easy, but it's a fun way to cheat without... you know, entering codes.
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See, that's just silly/annoying. I understand what you're talking about, too, because the 20% chameleon enchants aren't all that expensive to make either.
I had to laugh the other day when I saw a forum thread something along the lines of "this game isn't challenging now" and a dude outlining the same thing you just said. My immediate reaction was "well uh, how about you take the fucking things off?"
Morrowind & Oblivion are fantasy-setting sandbox games for the most part. Enchanting a bunch of stuff so that you're invincible is pretty much the equivalent of using pathing problems to avoid police, or using the horse-racing money exploit in GTA. You can do it, but the game gets pretty boring afterwards.
Every game that has such a wide range of possibility will have little things you can do seemingly legally that break the game. I mean, hell, you can leave your character casting the same spell over and over again or swimming into a wall for ages in order to skill up. This is completely legal, but is it fun?
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Having not played any of the elder scrolls titles before, I made some stupid mistakes when building my character (choosing all physical attributes, with nothing relevant to magic), and not focusing on leveling up my alchemy or any magic till I was already twenty hours into the game. Now that I know a little bit about it, I might have to replay the game if I ever finish the current one.
That being said, I'm 41 hours into the game and I've gotten to the point where I absolutely cannot load my saved game on the 360 anymore, I'm going to try clearing out the HD cache this afternoon and hope to god it isn't one of these overheating/freezing issues I keep hearing about.
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PC Oblivion plays like a dream.
Honestly one of the best RPG's I've played in many years.
I need to get a better graphics card but even with the graphics level at low it still is a great game and wonderful visuals.
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I keep getting distracted. I got sidetracked for five hours before remembering to go see the priest about Martin, then for another eight hours before I got around to Kvatch. Joined some guilds, did a few murders and cleared out a few caves, among other things; this game is the utimate ime sink. I like it way more than Morrowind.
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I'm just totally ignoring the main quest for now. My current character is a bit rogueish, and as such he doesn't really give a fuck. He knows that he can't fence the amulet or he'll get caught, but that it's too important an item to just throw away. Other than that he hasn't seen any reason to worry himself with carrying out a request for some old dead dude who put him into prison. I mean, who knows how long we were down there, anyway?
So yeah, basically I'm exploring the countryside and trying to use the quick-travel as little as possible. The Emperor asked me to go west, so I figure that's a bad idea. From the opening sewer I've gradually worked my way eastward to the point where I'm almost at a city, raiding numerous little holds along the way (including one vampire den, which was scary as hell).
Once I get to that city maybe I'll pretend like it's the first time I've hit civilisation & suddenly everyone's telling me news of calamity surrounding the Emperor's death. Maybe after I hit town I'll sell whatever loot I've grabbed, talk to a few people & see if they tell my character any dire news that he would be concerned about. If he's suitably scared by the news he's been given perhaps he'll look into the quest that the old dude gave him, else it's in his best interests to keep on truckin' (where "truckin" roughly equates to "raiding random dungeons and selling the ill-begotten booty").
But I agree about the timesink thing. This game is basically a 1-person MMORPG where the community can develop new content and you get to choose which ones to apply.
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the reward for the main quest-line rules. I'm not gonna give it away or anything, but doing that shit first and foremost has it's advantages.
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So there's a hack/exploit you can use to dupe items on both the PC or Xbox versions.
1. Equip Bow
2. Nock an arrow, hold it
3. Enter inventory
4. Click twice on your quiver of arrows
5. Drop item you wish to dupe
6. Profit
You will spam out a number of copies of the item in equality to the number of arrows in your quiver. Be careful, as this will choke your system if you are too greedy.
Some stuff can't be duped, like nirnroot, but daedric artifacts? Arrows? Potions? Go wild.
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Oh man, I want this game. Nay, I need this game. We went to the store to get it, but they were all out. So we got Black and White 2 instead. Couldn't go home empty handed!
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I'm not sure that B&W2 classifies as not coming out empty-handed...
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My brother plays it day in and day out. He's got fifty pages, FIFTY pages of cheat codes that he uses with his stronger character to go around, kill everyone, and steal everything. It's pretty awesome. There was this one chick we thought was a guy though. Then he took her robe.
I have yet to play it though. I think I might install it on my computer just to go and be at the Coliseum and become Grand Champion. x3
Advice: Don't get turned into a vampire. If you can help it, help it. Being a vampire sucks and it takes up a lot of time. Plus, it makes your chick ( if you have one ) look like a guy, it's not even funny.
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Look, it is this painstakingly transferred FAQ from another forums I hang out in. May it serve you all well.
Where is Oblivion.ini?[/u]
My Documents\My Games\Oblivion
Contents[/u]
1. Crash/lag problems - immediate problems that need to be fixed
-many copies of "ffdshow" slowing down game
-"mpeg2dmx.ax" error message
-keyboard/mouse lag
-sound stuttering
-Oblivion gate lag
-starting dungeon/shiny stuff lag
2. Quality tweaks - make the game look better or run faster or both
-fucked up shadows on people and horses
-distant land looks like crap OR I want to make water look nice
-ugly textures
-FPS-boosting grass tweak
-read this section if you have an Nvidia card
-other Oblivion.ini tricks
3. Other - miscellaneous stuff
-no startup movies
-what video card to buy
-how to drop things
-HDR/AA
-about defragmentation
-what's my FPS
-how do I take screenshots
-where are the new Nvidia drivers
-some links
1. CRASH/LAG PROBLEMS[/u]
This "ffdshow" thing keeps screwing up the game
One of the most common problems is that a program called "ffdshow" will show up and make many copies of itself while playing Oblivion, slowing down performance by a lot. This is caused by DefilerPak. To fix this, either uninstall DefilerPak, or go into Start -> DefilerPak -> Audio Options and disable Oblivion.exe. You need the latest edition of DefilerPak to do this, you can get that here. Click here to see a picture of how to disable Oblivion.exe in DefilerPak.
I crash sometimes and it gives me an error message about "mpeg2dmx.ax"
It's just an old system file. Go find the file (don't know where it is, use Search or something) and rename it to mpeg2dmx.ax.old
This should fix the crashing.
I have keyboard and/or mouse lag
If you're having keyboard lag, go into My Documents\My Games\Oblivion\Oblivion.ini and change bUseJoystick=1 to bUse Joystick=0 (it automatically goes to 1 if it detects a joystick)
If you're having mouse lag, turn off self shadows.
The sound is stuttering
Doing this will manually disable hardware sound acceleration. Go into Oblivion.ini (My Documents\My Games\Oblivion) and change bDSoundHWAcceleration=1 to bDSoundHWAcceleration=0
Some people have reported this fixes the sound stuttering.
Another solution someone has found was renaming the Battle music folder in Oblivion's data files, effectively disabling it. Of course then there's no battle music but then the game doesn't get choppy. Bethesda or Creative or someone should have a fix on this pretty soon.
I get horrible horrible lag if I even so much as look at a gate of Oblivion
This is a temporary fix. Try turning off vsync. This is kind of annoying in some regards but seems to fix it.
The starting dungeon is real laggy
Go into Oblivion.ini (My Documents\My Games\Oblivion) and change bDoSpecularPass=1 to bDoSpecularPass=0. This will turn off the shiny walls in the starting dungeon. This might improve the performance by a lot.
WARNING: This WILL crash the game at some points, such as Jauffrey's House. To stop the crashing, change it back to 1.
2. QUALITY TWEAKS[/u]
Is there a big list of a lot of Oblivion.ini tweaks somewhere?
Yeah check it out.
Shadows look really weird
If you are seeing stripy shadows across the models that look kind of like this or this, then turn off self shadows to fix it.
I can see far away, but the textures are really blurry and everything looks like crap
This isn't a bug or anything, Bethesda just thought it looked fine for some reason and shipped it like that. There's no official way to fix this yet but some smart people have figured out a temporary fix. Follow these instructions and make this look like this (sword not included). Here is a possibly better set of instructions.
Go into Oblivion.ini (it's in My Documents\My Games\Oblivion) and change this line (btw, this increases load times.):
Set uGridsToLoad = 10 (5 by default)
This does mess up water reflections a bit. To somewhat fix the water, change this:
uNumDepthGrids = 1 (it's 3 by default)
By default, the water only reflects the land. Inside the ini you can change it so it reflects all trees, static objects, actors, and other miscellaneous objects (all default to 0):
bUseWaterReflectionsMisc=1
bUseWaterReflectionsStatics=1
bUseWaterReflectionsTrees=1
bUseWaterReflectionsActors=1
You can also mess with the tree settings, changing the maximum distance real animated trees can be placed (the variable is fLODMultTrees). Doing all this will lower your FPS by a considerable amount, it's up to you if you want to do it.
Some textures are strange, like flat white heads or maybe your sword is bright green
You probably do not have enough video memory to handle all the textures. So sorry. To fix this, try lowering the Texture Size in the game options.
I'm lagging outside, and don't care much about what grass looks like
In Oblivion.ini, these are for the grass draw distance (I don't know what this stuff means because I don't have the game but read that guide)
[Grass]
iMinGrassSize=200
fGrassEndDistance=10000.0000
fGrassStartFadeDistance=5000.0000
READ THIS >>>> More detailed grass info here - grass is a big FPS hog so read up <<<< READ THIS
Read this if you have a Nvidia card
You probably want to install Coolbits which is an enhancer for Nvidia's Forceware drivers. Some people have reported that using this nearly doubled their framerates with absolutely no hit in performance. After it's installed, to unleash the awesome power of Coolbits, go into Display Properties (right-click your desktop and click Properties) -> Settings tab -> Advanced -> GeForce * tab -> Performance and Quality Settings -> Additional Direct3D Settings. Set "Max frames to render ahead" to 0 (default is 3).
A PM I got posted:[/i]
Hey, about Coolbits. You should add in that post that you need to turn off Vsync to get that tweak to work. Otherwise it does nothing.
And the main effect that tweak has for me is getting rid of that awful mouse lag, which you may also want to mention.
Other ini things
I don't know if any of these work or what they do, use them at your own risk.
1. Go into Oblivion.ini and look for [OPENMP] and change the values to what you see here:
[OPENMP]
iThreads=20
iOpenMPLevel=20
iPreloadSizeLimit=1000000000
This has been reported to give a small FPS boost. It might be a bad idea to do this if you don't have a lot of memory.
2. This probably only works for cards with Shader 3.0. Anyway, go into Oblivion.ini and find bAllow30Shaders=0 and change it to bAllow30Shaders=1. This means it wasn't using 3.0 before but now is and has been reported to give a major FPS increase.
3. OTHER[/u]
How do I disable those dumb startup movies?
Go into Oblivion.ini (if you forgot, it's in My Documents\My Games\Oblivion) and change these lines:
SIntroSequence=bethesda softworks HD720p.bik,2k games.bik,game studios.bik,Oblivion Legal.bik
to
SIntroSequence=
SMainMenuMovieIntro=Oblivion iv logo.bik
to
SMainMenuMovieIntro=
What video card should I buy? HELP
Click here for a very useful ranking of many many video cards, a much more detailed set of specs, and other miscellaneous important bits of info if you're playing the PC version.
How do I drop things?!
Shift-click in inventory. Shift-clicking does a lot of things you might not expect. Try it in other situations!
Can I use HDR and AA at the same time?
No. It is unknown whether this will ever change. Yes I know rthdribl lets you, but Oblivion won't, we don't know why, stop asking.
update: Ati has released an update that lets you.
Does defragmenting help?
Yes, run a defragment before you play, preferably right after installation. I like Raxco PerfectDisk, it has a 30 day free trial, but normal ol Windows defragment should be okay. Some people have reported that defragmenting got rid of a ton of stuttering, some people say it does nothing. It can't hurt.
How do I find out what my FPS (frames per second) is?
Open the console (press ~) and type tdt and press Enter. Hooray FPS. Also you can use Fraps which is free and does a lot of other things.
How do I take screenshots?
Go into Oblivion.ini (if you forgot, it's in My Documents\My Games\Oblivion) and change bAllowScreenShots=0 to bAllowScreenShots=1 and use the PrintScreen key ingame to take screenshots. Images are stored in the Oblivion directory as BMP files. This may or may not work with bloom + anti-aliasing.
I'm retarded and I can't find the new Nvidia drivers
Click here. Don't worry if Windows says they're not supported, that's just Microsoft being dumb.
Your problem isn't here? Check out these other things by smart people
Here is a link to a useful tech thread on the official forums.
Here is a link to a quick and dirty performance tweaking guide.
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Ah, I need to get this game. I've frittered away so much time on Morrowind, I might as well fritter away a bit more on Oblivion.
I think I'll be...a Bosmer. Good, cute little Wood Elf types who love trees yet are still good in a fight.
I made and played a Khajiit in Morrowind, a decision I regret. No shoes, no full face helmets, and all the other Khajiit are slaves. Bah.
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I'm a Khajiit in Oblivion and they are rockin light armor-types. No such shoe or helmet limitations in Oblivion.
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I never wear a helmet anyway, so I didn't notice that part. I like the Khajiit, nothing looks more civilised that a cat dude wearing an overcoat.
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I hate you, Radeon 9250. For now Oblivion is going to be sitting on my hard drive untl I get a new video card. Maybe by the end of the month.
1. Equip Bow
2. Nock an arrow, hold it
3. Enter inventory
4. Click twice on your quiver of arrows
5. Drop item you wish to dupe
6. ???
7. Profit!
Fixed.
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Daggerfall doesn't work on XP :(
Didn't know that. On the other hand it barely worked at all.
Don't get me wrong--I loved that game. But, man, was it buggy.
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Right now I am a level 6 custom class (all magic, but with a blade proficiency as well) and am COMPLETELY ignoring the storyline. Ive joined the Thieves guild, Mages guild, and Dark Brotherhood.
Also, Being suspended from the Mages Guild SUCKS. I cannot find the herbs they want, and if i teleport anywhere that stupid fuck Erthor will follow me (I got suspended for stealing from him, which was actually an accident. It was a chest in a fucking dungeon. Logic says "TREASURE")
I also killed a few guards in my shack in the waterfront district. It is awesome because I got a silver longsword to match my silver bow, and full legion armor. What is not awesome is that i now have 2 dead, naked bodies in my house, and cannot get rid of them.
Wolves killed my damned horse while i was travelling to Bruma. :(
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I am still trying to play my current character as a self-interested yet mostly law-abiding dude. Haven't started the main quest yet. I'm level 16, Master of the Fighter's guild & working through the Mage's guild.
Next character will probably be some kind of Nightblade/Mage Assassin. Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, steal everything that isn't nailed down, kill anyone in my way, etc.
Either that or I'll finish up the Mage's guild line then do the main storyline, then fuck around some with the Thieves guild & Dark Brotherhood quests.
I like the guild-running options once you become Master of the Fighter's guild, but I don't think there are enough options. I am thinking of some kind of mod that lets you send your people out to dungeons and so forth on behalf of the guild or at least lets you second Fighter's Guild forces for whatever task you're currently doing. The secondment option would be fairly easy, I think. There are already a few "companion" mods knocking about.
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Either that or I'll finish up the Mage's guild line then do the main storyline, then fuck around some with the Thieves guild & Dark Brotherhood quests.
I'd recommend doing this, cause that's what I did but in reverse.. Finished DBH, Finished Mage's Guild, currently working through fighter's and thieves and Main quest.. it's too awesome.. I don't like having multiple characters. I tried it but you can do everything with one well rounded battlemage, which is what I am, so that's what I like to do.
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I tried it but you can do everything with one well rounded battlemage,
This is the main way I think Oblivion is broken. Thief can't kill, warrior can't thieve, mage can kick ass at both
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That is pretty much right. I took almost no damage during the siege on Kvatch as my mage, and have almost no trouble picking locks, sneaking, and stealing.
the only real weakness is the inability to hold most heavy armor without Ease Burden. At least 'til you get to a high level.
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For a lark I turned off my levelled creatures & item rarity balancing mod last night. It was hilarious. The first random dungeon I went to had punk-easy bandits waiting out the front holding elven weapons & wearing mithril armour. I killed them in about 2 secs flat, went inside & found a bunch more of the same kind of deal, including undead holding silver weapons. How the fuck does that work?
Once inside the bandits started dropping glass daggers and bows, so I was like "ok, this is nice & all, but I am only level 15. I am turning that mod back on before really stupid drops". In that little stint I found a glass war axe, some glass daggers, some glass bows & an enchanted glass bow that does 15 frost damage on hit. That last bow is pretty good, because I'd been looking for a frost damage weapon for use inside the Kvatch Oblivion gate.
Also: I just did Azura's quest & got an Azura's star. Goodbye, recharge worries! I can now break out the Staff of Shock I received from the mage's guild & use that to save magicka, then capture a soul into Azura's star & recharge it without wasting precious soul gems.
After I'm done with this character I think I'm going to expand my "Ungifted" mod to include all non-magical NPCs also. Just silence them all so that you don't have warriors healing themselves mid-battle while you're stuck quaffing potions. Maybe it'll also make Alchemy something more than useless for me if I can't cast spells.
One problem though is that the magic system is so pervasive that it affects other things, like enchanting. As far as I can see there is no real way to get around having to know spells in order to create an enchanted weapon, as there is no way to get someone to make one for you. Hang about, now there's an idea for a mod. I wonder how hard that would be? I mean, you've already got a base script to work with in the "make yourself a magic staff" quest. Ok, I'll have to look into this.
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If I wasn't playing on easy (because I suck at games and I prefer the world to the gameplay) I might complain about that too. One of the first things that I did was dive random dungeons around the place and I stumbled upon Umbra. Dammit, I wasn't even level 10 and I've got myself full ebony armour (although I use light) and one hell of a kick ass sword (although it's slowly sending me broke with repair costs). I've stumbled across an 18% constant effect shield shield.
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I found an 18% shield ring & another 12% one. Then I made a bunch of clothing with 10% shielding on them, giving them names like Swordingproof Vest & Brown Trousers. I got it up to about 80% shield.
I am pretty sure that given enough time you could probably find decent % immune to physical damage gear. Let's say an average of 10% for each piece. That gives you a possible 80% resistance to physical damage. Ignoring the whole "100% chameleon" thing, that's pretty neat.
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If I wasn't playing on easy (because I suck at games and I prefer the world to the gameplay) I might complain about that too. One of the first things that I did was dive random dungeons around the place and I stumbled upon Umbra. Dammit, I wasn't even level 10 and I've got myself full ebony armour (although I use light) and one hell of a kick ass sword (although it's slowly sending me broke with repair costs).
the umbra sword is tits. I haven't found a better base-dmg sword, and it weighs nothing. the armorer skill is probably one of my favorites. If you master it, you can repair your shit up to 125% quality, increasing their effectiveness greatly. +25% armor and damage is huge for a combat based character.
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Well, they had a good run but Bethesda have gone and used the sucky (maybe a SPOILERLOLZ, but you probably saw this coming) 'escort critical character and make sure he doesn't die whilst fighting really really big thing' mechanic. Worst move ever, guys, worst move ever.
This is the part of any game that I just can't do, and don't even want to try. I get the impression I'm close to the end of the main quest line (short story?) and it only really got interesting right up near where I'm up to. I'm kinda lamenting the lack of interesting books lying around although not having a character in the mages guild means I dont get to any of the libraries.
Also: Combat when you are in a group with allies is terrible, I usually slay more allies than enemies or just don't attack anything until all my allies are dead. This is like that bit in halflife 2 where you have a couple of turrets and you have to fend off waves of combine; the one bad bit in the game that ruins the entire thing.
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Well if I'm with allies they either dissapear (where the hell did my DB murderer ran off to ?) or kill each other. Or guards start attacking them. Weird shit.
Still, awesome game. Around over 65 hours orso now, about to end main Q. Still got thieves to do. I loved the endings of DB and mages. At first when doing all those recommendation quests you get a bad image of Hannibal Traven, which resulted in a strange love for the char in the end.
Great voice acting, lovely setting. My char is a bit too badass with the full enchanted glass + DB hood look thing. Cast weakness to fire 100%, and either firedmgstaff (80firedmg on strike) or 25fireonstrikedeadrabow. Some things make the game a bit too easy in dungeons like invisibility.
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I've started to get bored with this game. It's extremely easy to power game and if you don't power game it gets almost to difficult very quickly. I've found that you never want to make your major skills something you use very often because you want to control exactly when and where you level so that you can always get the five training points along with the max plus five to attributes. If you don't do this and chose something like sword or athletics as your major skills then you'll shoot up the level charts and hardly ever get more then _1 to any attributes. I wish there was more of a middle ground.
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I've started to get bored with this game.
Me too, which wasn't such a bad thing with playing Morrowind because throwing in a new and exciting mod or two used to be enough to fuel my passion for that game again. But that was only after, quite literally, a year of playing Morrowind. Now it's been less than a month and already I've found myself giving up a level 30 character and starting again. Mainly because of bugs and getting bad endings to quests I really did not like and was sure weren't my fault through any moral misjudgement.
I really don't want to go on about bugs but the major one that really got to me that I found was a Arena Champion bug, which only seems to affect a select few of people. It means that when you defeat the Grey Prince, take his Raiment and talk to the Battle Matron she acts like you've let to yet to battle him. Which is fun.
Luckily I found a mod for that and currently I'm trying to balance out the leveling scale with a mod that gives you +5 multiplyers on anything you'd normally get anything in when you level up. Which at first kinda sounds like cheating but when you consider the ammount of crap you have to go through trying to level up the right skills every level it works out okay. Saying that I've had mixed results with it's affectiveness.
Oh, as for my actual character I'm going with the stealthy, assassin type. The kind that wears an apron for a chest peice apparently, becausse he's cool like that. Like many I'm also putting off the storyline until the end and I know I'm going to regret it when it comes to the Battle for Kvatch. So far I've done the Theives Guild and am working on the Fighters guild. The Mages guild is something that I'm not too keen on but as a note to everyone playing this game, do the theives guild before you do the mages guild. There comes to a point where you need to steal from the mages guild and yes, it's a bitch to get back in once you've done it.
Dark Brotherhood I'm kind of putting off til last, I'm still trying to decide if I can get over the morals of murdering from my character's point of view. A copy of 'Honor Among Theives' is probably the kind of bed side reading my assassin has.
What else? Uh, not using fast travel for the win? I think people would enjoy this game a lot more if they didn't use fast travel as much. I actually get a lot of my pleasure out of this game from just travelling the beaten paths and picking lavender sprigs on the way.
Oh! Yeah, if you're using a PC and haven't already got this mod then you must, in short. Basically it fixes your inventory interface, even if you didn't think you had any problems with your interface you'll soon kick yourself for ever using the default settings.
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There comes to a point where you need to steal from the mages guild and yes, it's a bitch to get back in once you've done it.
I've done that quest and all of mages. You'll get expelled from the guild if you're caught stealing. Didn't get any problems at the university for doing that quest.
Dark brotherhood has the best drama and stuff, best quests. Loved the plot.
Sad though that I can't complete thieves guild quests now (I think I was about 1 from the last one) as no one approaches me, even when standing 2 weeks in Imperial City (had to wait for Champion Armor). Fenced over 1.1k.
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Oh man, I ended up picking Oblivion up for 360. I have a level 20-something Redguard Spellsword who hasn't even made it past Kvatch as far as the story goes.
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Meh, you guys did quests in Morrowind? I spent the entire time Freerunning over everything.
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And now this got rerated to M.
Nice job first time around, ESRB.
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Yep, it's retarded. They couldn't make up their mind after a 60 pages report. They didn't hide anything from the ESRB.
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This doesn't bother me so much anymore now that I'm actually old enough to buy M games on my own. Suckers!
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Wait, people actually don't sell games to kids? I've never seen that happen.
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It's happened to me a couple times.