The point of this thread isn't to bash Oblivion, trust me. It's a great game, it was the first next generation game in my opinion, and it deserved everything it got. Bethesda doesn't make crappy or sub-par games, period. This topic is more focused on a possible concern and trend that seemed to continue from the existing TES games. None of them are perfect, and they have all had different flaws, but we merely want BGS to maintain what makes TES greater than the rest for millions.

I understand, and I'm not claiming that this thread's purpose is to bash Oblivion. It's just that there are many criticisms of Oblivion being thrown around in this thread, some justified, others not so much. I think a lot of people don't seem to realize that when they call a game a failure it does not make it so! Millions of people have enjoyed Oblivion, sometimes in spite of, sometimes BECAUSE of, these perceived flaws in the game. It's all a matter of perspective!

Not too concerned. Development software and hardware is improving all the time, allowing designers to streamline the creative process without sacrificing visuals or content. Morrowind was huge, yes, but the graphics and animations were actually quite bad. Since we're four years pastr Oblivion, I'm betting the land will be even bigger and have more content - and many many MANY surprises. Hopefully of course hte CS will also be released to the community.

I don't care what millions of people think or thought or how many awards the game got.

Oblivion failed me. That's what I'm concerned with.

I think it does us a lot more good to discuss what we didn't like with each game than to slather pointless praise on all of them.

So has my computer. And yet it still takes the same time to boot up as our old PC with Windows 3.1 back in the early 90's. Funny that, eh? Hardware improves, bloat increases, and the productivity gaps remains the same.

This is a big problem and most people don't realize this is what happens, so in the end when they have extra time or they find something that doesn't fit they can only change programing and all the dialog can't be changed. Though problem is with computer generated voices are that good yet and they don't have the time to create all that programing and the only mainstream generated voice (for both English an Japanese) is Vocaloid 2( with all of I think eleven voices, not enough don't you think?), other than that they would have to make it from scratch and that should be an endeavor that should be made at another time.

The reason Oblivion seemed so barren was because it was more realistic in some ways. You should not come across a place every few feet.

I think a good balance would for the overall worldmass to be about 4X larger than Oblivion's with about twice as many places. The world would seem more barren, but would actually be much more realistic.

I voted no for now. I think the pendulum will swing back towards a Morrowind level of complexity... not all the way back most likely, but somewhat.

I reckon this too. Oblivion was very popular, but also got a lot of criticism and comparisons with Morrowind. I think it's likely the devs have been paying attention to this to see where they've gone downhill and where they've gone up, and with the technology they need already available and a new engine, I think they will have enough time and understanding now to make the game awesome.

We can call Bethesda many things, but I seriously don't think "lazy" is one of them. While we may malign a depreciation in the variety of options available, it is neither surprising nor is it due to any lack of effort. When you consider the amount of effort that would go into a single set of armor in Daggerfall (low-res, 2D sprites and images) as compared to Oblivion (high-res, 3D, with multiple texture issues and things like clipping to factor in, that single suit will have taken perhaps 100 times as long to complete. That the devs include any armor (and other things) at all we may deem extraneous or non-essential while still bowing to the pressures of today's visuals-obsessed gaming clientele is quite the testament to the lengths they go to satisfy our variety for a deep playing experience, if you ask me.

With that mentality I'm afraid you'll be bitterly disappointed when Skyrim comes out. BGS doesn't make games for you, it makes games for all its fans.

I absolutely understand that, but when I'm making suggestions, I'm making them for myself.

I can't speak for anyone but myself, and neither can you, nor anyone else.

And that's why talking down to other people's suggestions is pointless. They'll talk about what they want to talk about. They'll hate what they want to hate. They don't care what anyone else thinks about it, and neither do I. To act as though someone's suggestion is better for the whole as compared to someone else's is hogwash of the highest order.

I'm concerned, of course, but I think Bethesda realise that we don't want reductions everywhere. We want MORE armours, MORE skills, MORE content. The last game (Oblivion) was massivly critisised due to the content cuts. I doubt they'll make the same mistake twice. (Here's hoping for medium armour)

unarmored skill was my favorite...

and look how much less content fallout 3 had compared to oblivion. Yes, i am worried.

The source of one of my biggest concerns is that when this game gets released, it will also be for five or six year old platforms. That certainly isn't going to help it's content.

Not bashing on you dude, but "hogwash" you also say things like, "bah humbug" because the things you say, and the way you say em, make you sound like old Ebenezer himself.

I'd have to disagree with that. I think Fallout 3 (although smaller than Oblivion), had a certain quality of its contents that made it worth it. My previous example of Moria's quest stands as a great point to that end. In addition, the game promoted exploration. Many of its locations had different ways to go, different ways to go about it (like using the defense systems if you were a hacker, lockpicking a door to get around an issue, or go right through it). However, I can see your point about the general feeling that there just wasn't ENOUGH content. No matter how quality a quest is, it isn't fun if its one of a few dozen. You do them once or twice and you've done them a million times. Sometimes its nice just to have such a big amount of things to do that you'll never be able to do it in one file, and if you DO then it takes you over a hundred hours.


Hehe, I suppose so. I enjoy using a large vocabulary to flare my posts up.

I'm 18, by the way.

I think it will be Oblivion to the power of Morrowind.

xD

Meh, I've come to not trust reviewers and awards. Most reviewers don't even finish RPGs (particularly Morrowind and Oblivion, do you think they have the time to extensively test it out?) and need to publish a review fast. So not only are they missing out a lot, but they can't let their experience sink and take a step backward to think of all this, so basically their reviews is merely about first impressions. My first impressions often do not end up being my real opinion afterwards, Oblivion being a prime example. It's not after I played a lot of it that after the first... "wave" of excitement that I started to realize all its problems. Mass Effect 2 too, you just can't effectively judge a game (and several of its features) based on a first playthrough where you barely finished the main quest. Also, it's not because a professional writer reviews Oblivion that he played Morrowind, Daggerfall or Arena, and if he didn't, he can't compare. I know it's a different game, but it's still an Elder Scrolls one, and a lack of depth about a certain element isn't about being different. It's a lot easier to put the game in the perspective of the whole series when you actually played other instalments. As for the awards, they're all easy to guess. Something I forgot is that there's ONE IGN dude reviewing a game, so even if they give 9 it's still the opinion of one dude who has an opinion as valid as yours or mine, and unless it's one of his favourite games and he keeps playing it (because remember, they play games for a living, they might want to not play as much as us outside work), when judging awards most still choose based on the excited first impression. I would be a LOT more merciful on Oblivion if I didn't play it as much as I did. I don't pretend everyone would enjoy Oblivion less down the line, but they'd have a much more realistic point of view than what they publish. Sometimes it takes me a lot of time to really formulate an opinion as I don't know what to think about certain things while I didn't find any problem initially.

I don't see Oblivion as a failure, but I do think they lost a good opportunity on a lot of things (dealing with the Elder council for example, or counts, radiant AI) and that some elements were almost game breaking (level scaling, fast travel. Particularly level scaling), and that they streamlined a bit too much while making a better world at the same time. They tried some things that didn't turn out as expected, and I hope Bethesda will change a lot of things and try to make more content so that the world doesn't feel as empty, so we can have more choices regarding everything.

It's more a matter of immersion and (appropriate) realism than content for me. It not that I need a massive amount of armor/skills/factions etc., I just want to be able to mix and match the pieces of my armor, wear some clothes underneath if i want, and be able to see my damn magical ring glistening on my finger. I want options. I want to have the skills that make sense - there's no realism in "streamlining" - if you're good with a longsword, you are not automatically good with a dagger - they are completely different weapons, with completely different style of use. The world needs to make sense - all factions don't need to have equivalent questlines to Oblivion's, but the world needs to feel alive. There need to be politics between the major groups of power within the world, and some of those may conflict. While Fallout: New Vegas was not developed by Bethesda, it felt much closer to Morrowind in terms of immersion than both OB and FO3. You were given a world to explore anyway you wanted to right from the beginning (I haven't touched the main quest with over 40 hours of gameplay). It did a really good job of setting up a world that felt like it had a hell of a lot going on with it, without much repetition. Skyrim needs to go back to this. The player needs enough options to feel immersed. You cant have 100% completion of quests on the same character. If you choose to side with one faction and they don't get along with another that you are involved with, at some point you will ultimately have to make a choice between the two. You can't be the leader of the mages guild, fighters guild, and theives guild. I just want a game where I have a completely different game experience than a lot of the other people who play it. I want to be able to play my own way, and I need options to be able to do that.

Honestly, you really can't get more bare bones than Oblivion, so I think some new weapons (Speeeeears) and bringing medium armor back (Pleeeeeease) will probably happen. they have had a very long time to work on the game, and they have the technology earlier in development, they can focus more on content this time around methinks.

Very true. I almost forgot how I actually never completed the main quest (I ended up messing it up along the way somewhere >.<) for Morrowind, but I didn't really need to either. There was so much going on, and I had the choice to really do whatever I wanted. That being understood, I did exactly just that and can say I have never experienced a game like that before and probably since. I also agree that it's silly that you can be the arch-mage, dark hand, master of the fighters guild, etc. all at once. There need to be visible consequences for the choice one makes, and Morrowind definitely conveyed that aspect better than Oblivion did. Again, this change from Morrowind to Oblivion could have been because of lack of development time, trying to appeal to a wider audience, or any number of things. I think it's really productive for everyone to tell their own stories and experiences as it really gives one a grasp of what each TES did right and wrong in their own regards for different people.

Very well said. I know I always asked for Skyrim to have more content than Oblivion, pointing out Morrowind numbers, but that mostly comes from this. Like with dungeons, why are there so few types of them? Why is there so limited numbers of artifacts and unique items (hell, unique items are considered as artifacts in Oblivion) in Oblivion? Why aren't those found in dungeons more often? When exploring I should be looking forward finding new areas and new items, in Oblivion, I already knew I wasn't going to find any.

DC Deacon's (pete hines) Twitter:

"Showing Skyrim to Euro staff and some distr. partners today. Very high praise. Couple folks said they were stunned how good it was. Woot!"


The game will be awesome as hell.

I don't really see them bringing back medium armor. Not that I would mind but I also understand their mentality for removing it from Oblivion. Well, I guess there's a lot of factors that could figure in whether or not they bring it back.

Many of the weapon types, however, definitely need to make a comeback. I really miss the throwing weapons from Morrowind. They would have made an excellent alternative to poisoned arrows in Oblivion.