ES4: Oblivion - Retrospective @ Spawn Kill

What about the hunting? I only remember seeing that strange hunter around Bruma. I wouldn't call one hunter a large source of food for the empire. And stealing food? Really? I have honestly never seen an NPC steal anything and I've put well over 200 hours into Oblivion.

I just did a quick Google and found this wiki page… If this is true then I must be pretty f'ing oblivious to Oblivion.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
1,021
Location
Pearl Harbor, HI
What about the hunting? I only remember seeing that strange hunter around Bruma. I wouldn't call one hunter a large source of food for the empire. And stealing food? Really? I have honestly never seen an NPC steal anything and I've put well over 200 hours into Oblivion.

I just did a quick Google and found this wiki page… If this is true then I must be pretty f'ing oblivious to Oblivion.

I have seen stealing (well pickpocketing) - rather hilarious, with a guy very obviously sneaking in front of guards in broad daylight, and the episode ending with bloodshed and a dead thief - It was rather funny, but not exactly very convincing - rather akward, in fact. I have seen hunters maybe 2-3 times, I think.
I too liked MW >> Oblivion, but RAI was one of the least of my concerns, despite the occasional hilarity or stupidity of it.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
3,508
I have seen stealing (well pickpocketing) - rather hilarious, with a guy very obviously sneaking in front of guards in broad daylight, and the episode ending with bloodshed and a dead thief - It was rather funny, but not exactly very convincing - rather akward, in fact. I have seen hunters maybe 2-3 times, I think.
I too liked MW >> Oblivion, but RAI was one of the least of my concerns, despite the occasional hilarity or stupidity of it.

One of my favorites from RAI was at the beginning of my first character. I was thrown into jail for theft and and broke my lock pick trying to get out. So, I did the logical thing and punched my cellmate. The guard then ran in and beat the crap out of my cellmate, because I punched him, allowing me time to escape.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
1,021
Location
Pearl Harbor, HI
The problem most Codexers/Watchers have with Bethesda are not the games, but the fact that they are hyped for their claims and propaganda, not for their real achievements.

Game development projects are multi-year affairs, during which PR statements may be made that change during the course of it. It's not hype. Hype comes from consumers. If a feature gets canned during development, tough. It happens. Why feel bad?

(I remember how the original Quake by Id Software was... "hyped". Not much of the original description--which was pure awesomeness--remained in the final game. Oh, well.)
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
2,915
Location
The Netherlands
Sorry, but RAI was indeed hyped. By the developers. Consistently through development, and up until and after release. "Revolutionary AI" or something to that effect is right on the box, IIRC.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
3,508
In retrospective, TES4 was a graphics engine presentation. It was a beautiful game but in every angle a weak rpg. Uninterseting NPC's, none you ever felt for. Few and poorly written quests. Awful dialogue. Broken mechanics. Scaling foes/loot that robbed the point with exploration. Awful storytelling, main plot, quest architecture. Meaningless near nonexistant faction system etc. Etc.

Radiant AI was not a new idea and the TES4 version didn't work as intended. Gothic 1 for example executed the same idea in a better way. It was first in F3 i thought it worked.
 
Joined
Oct 26, 2006
Messages
6,027
There's little doubt that the Radiant AI was less than ideal, but I think it's fair to say it wasn't entirely bad.

Actually, I think it's the right direction to move in - because eventually such an AI WILL be convincing "enough" - or at least I think it very well might be.

Bethesda fail in many areas, in my opinion, but in terms of technology - I think they're pretty strong.

They just need to hire some decent animators already ;)
 
In retrospective, TES4 was a graphics engine presentation. It was a beautiful game but in every angle a weak rpg. Uninterseting NPC's, none you ever felt for. Few and poorly written quests. Awful dialogue. Broken mechanics. Scaling foes/loot that robbed the point with exploration. Awful storytelling, main plot, quest architecture. Meaningless near nonexistant faction system etc. Etc.

Radiant AI was not a new idea and the TES4 version didn't work as intended. Gothic 1 for example executed the same idea in a better way. It was first in F3 i thought it worked.

Many things were wrong with it, but I think in terms of scale, immersion, and overall freedom - it's pretty strong.

I'm as much a basher of the game as anyone, but I think it's being blown out of proportion. In many ways, it really did something special - but ultimately it failed due to what I consider a total lack of appreciation for what the genre SHOULD contain.
 
When a geme gets celebrated as a rpg and downscale every possible component important to that genre, then it's ok to comment on it. In the case of TES4 it really did downscale every possible component except graphics.
 
Joined
Oct 26, 2006
Messages
6,027
When a geme gets celebrated as a rpg and downscale every possible component important to that genre, then it's ok to comment on it. In the case of TES4 it really did downscale every possible component except graphics.

I don't recall saying it wasn't ok to comment on it.

But I don't agree about it downscaling everything except visuals - but I will agree that it downscaled NEARLY everything that I, personally, consider vital to the genre.
 
Mostly, agree, JemyM, at least within the TES series, although not necessarily within the context of all RPGs. I disagree on quests, somewhat - these were, individually, mostly an improvement over MW - what was lacking was the overall structure, e.g. the absence of multiple exclusive factions, etc and the loss of the grounding in the world lore. That made it feel like picking one ride after another in a theme park, which I began to hate. But seen by themselves the quests were overall more imaginative, longer, and also provided more choices than in MW, I would say.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
3,508
I think the whole Dark Brotherhood questline was a cut above most quests you find in the typical CRPG.
 
Mostly, agree, JemyM, at least within the TES series, although not necessarily within the context of all RPGs. I disagree on quests, somewhat - these were, individually, mostly an improvement over MW - what was lacking was the overall structure, e.g. the absence of multiple exclusive factions, etc and the loss of the grounding in the world lore. That made it feel like picking one ride after another in a theme park, which I began to hate. But seen by themselves the quests were overall more imaginative, longer, and also provided more choices than in MW, I would say.

There were, with the expansion, two quests that gave you a choice in how to finish or solve the quest. One was the whodunnit part of Dark Brotherhood. The other was the main story in the expansion in which you had to pick sides. Beyond that there were no choices in the game, beyond giving up content (the choice to skip a quest). I doubt MW had that uncommonly few choices.
 
Joined
Oct 26, 2006
Messages
6,027
The RAI worked pretty well i think, i mean in comparison to what's out there.. sure, they didn't really take advantage of all its possiblities that it has, but there are mods that do that.. its really nice and immersive to have NPC's that are adventuring just like you, meeting them in dungeons and either killing them or helping them.

Again, i see their games just as a tiny "demo" of what can be done with the engine. The community then creates how it's really "meant" to be played. Bethesda's games are best played 2-3 years after release (or as long as you can possibly hold out! :D) with 100 or so mods.. usually takes me a week or more to set up everything, but totally worth it, nothing comes even remotely close.

It really puts Bioware and just about any RPG developer to shame, their NPC AI is plain stupid + the NPC's stands in 1 place day and night (oops forgot, they dont even have seamless day/night cycles anymore) - how immersive…
 
Joined
Jul 15, 2009
Messages
673
There were, with the expansion, two quests that gave you a choice in how to finish or solve the quest. One was the whodunnit part of Dark Brotherhood. The other was the main story in the expansion in which you had to pick sides. Beyond that there were no choices in the game, beyond giving up content (the choice to skip a quest). I doubt MW had that uncommonly few choices.

We don't need to argue about Oblivion as a great example for choice and consequence. It is very clearly not. But to be honest, I don't remember a single quest with choice from MW atm.
These are the few I recall from O that had seemed to offer at least some choice on how to proceed through them or (even rarer) how to complete them:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Paranoia
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Corruption_and_Conscience
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Whodunit?
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:A_Shadow_Over_Hackdirt
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Two_Sides_of_the_Coin
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:May_the_Best_Thief_Win

Paranoia was actually my favorite. Also one of the first quests I did, which raised expectations the rest of the game could not fulfill.

No choices but still cool:
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:A_Brush_with_Death
and everybodys favorite, the dark brotherhood questline

I never got the expansions, so can't comment on them.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
3,508
The quest I remember the most is actually part of the fighters guild. I so hated it when I found out the truth.
 
Joined
Oct 26, 2006
Messages
6,027
You guys are going to force me to play it again. Oblivion is like crack for me. I love exploration and alchemy and magic and Oblivion has all of these in spades. It's storylines aren't very good, but I just read the 3400 page Codex Alera series so I'm not hurting for good storytelling at the moment. I like the non-main quests of Oblivion well enough that replaying them is always fun. They're not deep, but I don't need deep.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
8,821
You guys are going to force me to play it again. Oblivion is like crack for me. I love exploration and alchemy and magic and Oblivion has all of these in spades. It's storylines aren't very good, but I just read the 3400 page Codex Alera series so I'm not hurting for good storytelling at the moment. I like the non-main quests of Oblivion well enough that replaying them is always fun. They're not deep, but I don't need deep.

Then, I think the debate is over. I respect this, because Civ2 is the same thing for me. But I can't stand any of Bethesda's RPGs (no, not even Daggerfall) for the love of god. The only exception is Fallout 3, which is bearable.
 
Joined
Feb 20, 2009
Messages
635
Location
Germany
I'm playing it again at the moment ;)

The game is pretty great with the right mods.

I can strongly recommend Deadly Reflex and Oblivion XP - and one of the non-scaling mods, as a basic setup ;)
 
I've always been curious as to how exactly the non-scaling mods work for Oblivion. Do the authors of such mods manually place loot in every chest?
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,129
Location
Florida, US
Back
Top Bottom