Quasi-related side note: I've been sitting here digging up old soundtracks from Total Annihilation (amazing RTS) and I just found out that the person who did the incredible soundtrack for TA (Jeremy Soule) is the same person who did the soundtrack for Morrowind, Oblivion, AND Skyrim! LOL! Funny, because I thought the Morrowind soundtrack was MUCH better than Oblivions, and I'm a music guy.
I very much agree. I was surprised to learn Jeremy Soule did Oblivion. Morrowind's was definitely superior.
This isn't a complaint so much as a funny conundrum, but when I select the city name they usually respond with "X is doing Y because of Z" but because these are Elder Scrolls names they're a bit hard to understand which leads me to not remembering them, and then forgetting the entire conversation. Obviously when it was in text it was easier to remember and identify.
Yeah, some people are rather boring, and merely talk about gossip around the city. Others give some interesting insight into their lives. While others give interesting insight into the town itself. For example, just yesterday I was playing and spoke to a guard in Leyawiin about the town, he informed me about Torval the Pilot, the High Elf that discovered the Niben, and told me that it was his statue in the Southwest of Leyawiin. I had never known that, as the statue was previously just some Frotto-looking guy. Little details like that can go a long way.
I had forgotten that fight. Like I said, I will concede that Oblivion has Morrowind beat pretty good when it comes to combat. That said, I still maintain, that though that fight was enjoyable the majority was (albeit probably due to other game mechanics and not strictly the story itself) a disappointment.
I can see that. I think the story of Oblivion is really good, especially for those who dig deep and really learn the inner-workings of what is going on that isn't right in the players face, but some of the presentation and other gameplay mechanics can distract from that and make it seem not as good as it actually is. I'm still impressed by it in continuous playthroughs, it's a lot more detailed than it's given credit for.
I actually thought about this, and will probably turn off the voices on my next play-through. Just typing that out is sad. I'm sorry but the Oblivion VO really is pathetic; if you can stand it, more power to you, but I cannot.
Out of curiosity, is it ALL voice acting in the game that you dislike, or just specific voice actors? Personally, I'm not a fan of the voice actor and actress for the Elves, but I think everyone else did a great job. I'm particularly a fan of the male Redguard, who also did the Redguards in Morrowind and Cyrus in TESA: Redguard.
You're right about the hand-holding. I've never used fast-travel as I think it's a terrible mechanic for a single-player game of this nature. I also DL'd a mod to lower the range in which icons for points of interest appear; now I actually SEE the ruins before the neon lights up. The quest marker I largely try to ignore, and if the "Seeking Your Roots" quest removes it, than I shall never finish that quest for that reason!
Seeking Your Roots will add a quest marker once you need to go to Sinderion, but as long as you don't have enough Nirnroots in your inventory to trigger the next stage of the quest, there won't be a quest marker. I personally like idea of fast travel and the quest markers, I can't tell you how many times I wished Morrowind had them (to hell with that Dwemer puzzle box!), but they could have been implemented a little better. I'm glad that Skyrim is including fast travel AND a silt strider-esque method of fast traveling with carriages. Options!
For example, the sewer entrance found near the starting area (exit the jail sewers, turn left, follow the coast and it's close by), I explored that sewer area, and all throughout the sewer there is a ceiling piece that does this number: _--_ (lol) where there's a gap between the top of the wall, and the ceiling because of the shape. Also, in a building (don't remember which) I was leaving I could see the blue of the world through it (not a windowed door, just a gap where the door should be flush with the doorway). There was another in a cluster of rocks somewhere around the starting area as I got close, it just started to tear away and boom, endless, blue nothingness.
Huh, I've never noticed any of that. I'll keep an eye out. In Oblivion's defense, it's incredibly easy to miss those types of things when designing dungeons, as I learned myself when I was modding a dungeon. There were times where I would go long periods of time without even realizing that a giant square of the ceiling was missing any type of tile. It was far more common to have a ceiling tile just slightly off the grid.
I think what you've seen are probably very secluded instances, though, since as I said, I've never even seen any in years of playing.