Whats up guys, I finally have gotten back into oblivion(xbox 360) after being overwhelmed by a avalanche of games these past years. While playing I noticed some dramatic differences from Oblivion and Fallout 3 (My favorite game of all time). I feel that these differences will in turn help Skyrim.

Firstly I noticed in Oblivion you have a ton of real estate(areas outside of cities), but it really isn't all that populated. Creatures are really scarce in my opinion compared to fallout 3. While roaming the wilderness I encounter one or two enemies every 15 minutes or so. This makes me feel too comfortable. Also I remember walking out as far as I can in the ocean by Anvil with my waterwalking shoes and when I got very far out I took a dive. The water started from a light blue, then turned darker and darker as I descended in the depths. Now at this moment I was freaking out because I could not see anything. Eventually I hit the bottom and swam around. I never did this before so I was hoping that I would be attacked by something in the water to really get freaked out. But instead there was a lot of emptiness. Which leads me to my point, both in water and land I felt too comfortable, but it is the opposite in Fallout. In Fallout you probably encounter multiple creatures around every two minutes, sometimes there are different kinds of creatures or enemies fighting each other(which is enjoyable to watch) and the winner goes after the player. The most I seen in Oblivion was two trolls at the entrance to an Aeylied ruin, or a bandit camp, but just running around from town to town It felt too safe. When I'm picking up plants I should feel uneasy because something may be stalking me.

Another thing that I notice was the lack of purpose for multiple places. In Fallout three you would discover locations that may not be a quest but it still tells stories even if its indirect. For example, the dunwich building in Fallout 3 is not of quest but it feels like one because of the story it has to tell about this really creepy predicament. Also sometimes some locations wouldnt even be marked on the map but it still tells a story. Like this place that looked like a small town inhabited by regular ghouls that tried to kill me. I enter one of the houses and find a pile of skeletons indicating that those ghouls were cannibals and probably tried to kill me to eat me. I dont see that in Oblivion. In Oblivion I didnt feel that extra attention to detail.

In the defense of Oblivion I haven't seen everything in the game so feel free to correct me on some things I touched on. I only brought up only two points because I want other people that played Fallout 3 to add in points too. So in the end I think skyrim will incorporate and expand on those things that Fallout 3 did great with.

Yes. Game developers getting experience with making games improves their ability to make games.

You should play Oblivion with http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2876 Nothing like having to clear an Oblivion gate that hosts 200 daedra.

I agree. Everything in Fallout 3 made more sense and had a greater feel. Skyrim will be even better, I belive.

(Imo damn it.)

Bethesda have really learned from Fallout 3. They now know how to make stuff, and can make it even better in Skyrim.

I think the 5+ years with the current hardware/tech is what will really define this development.

Not only will FO3 help Skyrim, but in turn, Skyrim will help FO4.

I totally agree. There are a lot of small things done in Fallout 3, that were not done in Oblivion, that really improved the game. The little side stories without quests is certainly one of them. There were a lot of places that had built in stories with no quests attached, yet felt so fleshed out. Hopefully we'll see more of that in Skyrim as well.

Yes, but here's hoping the plot story and characters are better than F3.

defiantly :celebration:

I kinda felt FO3 was a bit too crowded with enemies (not for a hostile wasteland, but SK won't be a wasteland [at least not that we know of] ) and there should not be enemies confronting you from every direction.

my experience in OB was different though, I regularly encountered enemies within one or two minutes of each other, in FO3 though its more like every 30 seconds (on average)

Go to Lost Boy Caverns if you want your mini-quest thing. Same with Blackrock Cave, if you can figure out how to unlock the -spoiler-.

I hope the overall writing quality has been increased significantly from Fo3 because for me the dialogue was as puerile as Oblivion's.

It would make sense for elder scrolls forest to be more populated because 1: It's a dark fantasy so anything goes, 2: There is not that many towns or technology to have a impact on the wildlife. In fallout even some towns were overran and deserted because of creatures, so I think it should be more of that in Skyrim.

In my opinion the writing got better in Fallout 3, I think it was more of voice acting, and poor graphics to display real emotion that affected the writing.

even so, constantly barraging the player with enemies around every corner will over all not be good for SK (some people would enjoy it) others would not, maybe the difficulty slider would have an impact on how often enemies occur. but other wise, having walls of areas where it is impossible to pass without enraging an enemy would really hurt the quality of the game play for non combat oriented characters.

Agreed. They made quite a lot of improvements in the feel of the world going from OB to FO3. I hope we see that same sort of progress made in Skyrim.

I had two thoughts after reading your post. First, I don't know what level you traveled and found it empty but at Level 16, I just traveled the road from Chorrol to Bruma and I swear I couldn't travel 10 feet without a bear coming after me. Off the road, it was more bears and in other areas it's Lions. My other thought is that since Oblivion was before Fallout 3, another favorite of mine, you are probably pretty happy about the progression in these games. I see great things coming for Skyrim too.

:tes:

also the armor system in Fallout added things like addons and textures packs to armor so it would have a greater variety
and they introduced shaders that affected the screen

Speaking about armor, you reminded me that in Fallout 3 some armor and weapons were unique and can only be found in some very hard areas. Oblivion does have some unique armor and weapons but I never got the feeling that I went through a lot just to get them. Also you guys tell me if Oblivion had a lot of unique armor and weapons scattered throughout the world because I see the same generic items in dungeons, and it seems like you only gain access to better armor and weapons by leveling up...

Did anyone read my post?

I'm level 10 because I'm making sure I get a good amount of points for my intelligence and willpower because I am playing as a full on Mage. So are you saying there will be more enemy's in quantity the higher I get in levels?

Yeah but I dont think it was 5 years of development, because that would mean they was developing Fallout 3 and skyrim at the same time.

Defiantly? Hahahaha

No, I meant they have 5+ years of experience with the hardware, so they can squeeze more out of the consoles now. Todd said it himself in the Inside Gamer video interview.

Oh yeah and I also heard him say that they felt like even after fallout 3 they felt like they can do a lot more with these systems. When he said that I was like wow because fallout 3 was huge and had a lot of content, so Skyrim is going to be much better and I thought it wasn't possible this generation, or so I thought.