This game overwhelms me in amazement. It's not good, great, or excellent. It's perfect. Even with its flaws, it is still perfect. It gives me so much freedom, so many choices, so much gameplay, so much lore, and so much joy that its flaws vanish from existence. Yes, that does defy the traditional definition of perfect, but this game defies the boundary between games and life by making the two one. It is a portal to a more exciting life. I have to ask, how? How is this stuff possible? The graphics are no less than stunning as is its gameplay. What technology and who can make such a brilliant game that seems like life? Will the next Elder Scrolls game blur the boundary between life and games even more? Think about what I have said for a short moment and you should be able to understand where my question is coming from. Look through your game collection and try to find a more immersive game than Oblivion or another Bethesda game. When I first got this game, I was blown away. No RPGs beside Bethesda's seem to have the same effect as Oblivion. Do I sound like I have played too much Oblivion or is the game really this wonderful? How can such a game possibly be made?

Wow. I'm not sure what to say.

Everything you said is true, as for your question: Yes, the game is wonderful.

My main question is how such a thing is possible. Go back several decades in time and this gam would have been outright absurd to even attempt or think of.

Totally agree. Back in the day, just the idea of a game like this would have people calling you a witch and thrown onto a fire.

This game is from the future.

Considering that this was completely impossible 30 years ago, I can't imagine what will exist in another 30 years.

Sheer force of awesome?
I vaguely recall an interview where one of the devs said they had explained the concept of Arena to some other guys in the industry and had been laughed at and told it would never happen. Just goes to show how quickly the industry moves.

I agree though, Oblivion is incredible.

Yeah, I read that too.

Oh my what elder scroll will that be? Or remade version of the past ones which TESV will be a future one to us now and older later on.

What you are describing is not Oblivion, but Oblivion's effect on you. No game can be a perfect experience in and of itself; its chemistry with YOU as an individual makes it so.

Keep this in mind next time you hear someone criticizing Oblivion and perhaps you will not take it so badly

Outstanding! I think your comment penetrates to the very truth of the matter. It's damn near philosophic, or perhaps it is.

Kudos to you, good sir...or ma'am.

What! No game can be perfect, would that be your opinion?

As long as games are a product of man, no.

I often wonder how Beth can make such a game, and every other dev makes crappy games (imo)

Why must you always say something negative about this game?

I have expressed no negative thoughts on the game in this thread.

Not yet at least. It is my opinion that this game is great. I'll make that clear from now, but I don't want a ton of Oblivion criticism here. Read AlexPej79's signature.

call me a morrowind nazi but....

Oblivion was too simple, what happned to crossbows and thorwing stars? dimplomacy and politics? Multiple ways to complete a quest? Medui m armor and unarmored? what about Spears, or axes now being a blunt weapon? only 4 unrelated guilds, where is the faction rivallialy like that of Great Houses?

Morrowind had the depth, but was hampered due to it's time (graphics, AI)...I hope TES 5 is more like morrowind....


The only thing in my opinion oblivion showed promise with was the AI, graphics and vioce acting (which is a double edged sword as it restricts content).

I have not only read it, I even wrote most of it.

My intention in this thread was only to answer your question, "How can such a game possibly be made?" I am saying that it cannot, but that your experience of perfection is not illusionary, and then explaining how those two facts can be reconciled.

You don't know what is an opinion; arguing or debating on opinions is not right. Pointing negative things from OB is ok, but to say "No game is perfect" is your opinion and not mine, regardless of human made.

This game is a must-have for an RPG player, as I can't imagine that you dislike the game. This game is large, it has lots of gameplay, and it has plenty of lore. Most of what I have said is true. How you perceive the game in terms of just how good it is is your opinion, but would you deny that most RPG players would still love Oblivion?

I don't know if they would. In fact part of my point is that it doesn't matter - your experience with Oblivion exists separately from what others think.

Let me tell you a story and maybe it will come across better.

Way back in the days of NES I had a game called Deadly Towers. I was mesmerized by this game. I had 17 other games and I think I played Deadly Towers more than the rest of them combined. It was a huge, absorbing maze, I would map it and map it and there would always be more. The difficulty level was extreme but that just made the next corner that I hadn't quite gotten past that much more mysterious. Playing the game was like being drunk in the way that nothing totally made sense, like no human could have made the game - it was too chaotic and organic. I still have hand-drawn maps from some of the vast dungeons in the game, trying to make sense of them, delighting that they would never completely make sense.

Fast forward to the days of the Internet. I look up Deadly Towers and I find that almost everyone else hates the game. The reviews are terrible. Of Seanbaby's top 20 worst NES games, Deadly Towers is #1.

Even worse - they hated it for very good reasons.

The graphics were poor even by NES standards. The enemies were badly drawn, about half of them were just blobs. The game was often unfair - you could enter a room and be instantly killed by a monster waiting at the wrong angle, or one might materialize out of nowhere and oneshot you. There was no direction on what to do or where to go. About half the entrences to places were hidden - you could only stumble upon them by luck, and often it was a one way trip.

The learning curve was downright sadistic.

The main character looked like he was shooting daggers from his crotch.

Did all this critcism upset me? No. Because what I revered all along was not the game itself but the experience *I* got from it. That is what is special about single player games, you don't have to share the experience with anyone. The unique and subtle vapors of YOUR thoughts can creep out and completely dominate the mood.

The fact that Deadly Towers was a bad game does not diminish the experience I got from it, even a little.

The experience I got from it does not change the fact that it was a bad game.

My point in telling you this story, is that when you go online and *choose* to share your impression of the game with other people, you should not feel shocked or angry that theirs will differ, even very sharply from yours. And you should not feel like you are being contradicted or attacked if those impressions are negative, because nobody is threatening your experience with the game or telling you not to enjoy it, and if they were they would be asking the impossible. Do not confuse the blissed state of playing a computer game that you love with the code and gif files inside the software. The most important component of Oblivion is YOUR brain and YOUR thoughts and in that sense we are not even playing the same game.

*unsure what to say*

So the review made you hate the game?