343 replies to this topic

[Gaius Octavian]

I've had Oblivion for quite some time but in the past few weeks I've really been playing constantly and finished most of the main quest lines with several different characters. It's an awesome game, way up there on the "best" list for me. However, it does leave a lot of things to be desired.

I wish Oblivion...

...had full dynamic lighting. Oblivion is pretty hard to look at after playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I know S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is much newer than Oblivion, but full dynamic lighting isn't. I can see why it was left out on the Xbox, but in hindsight there was no reason not to include it on the PC version with a simple option to deactivate it. Are they so afraid of word getting out to Xbox users that the PC version has an extra feature?

...had a world that didn't seem shallow and lifeless. It's a huge step forward from Morrowind, a game which almost got depressing to play after a while. No speaking, everyone just stands in one spot forever or wanders around without purpose. Oblivion was a big step in the right direction but there's still a whole lot they could have done that really has no excuse for being left out due to technology or something. People miming eating invisible food, sleeping on top of their sheets, no toilets, no children, no baths, no one has a job except soldiers and shopkeepers (everyone else in Tamriel seems to be living on fat pensions, spending their lives eating out, chumming it up with the neighbors and sleeping). It's only by coincidence that I bring it up again, but S.T.A.L.K.E.R. had really awesome AI behavior where factions would invade eachother's territory in large groups. The Bandits would always attack the Loners at the train station and it was cool to watch every time. NPC day cycles would have been greatly improved if they just went to work or did something interesting with their lives. It would have been so simple to include some kind of industry in each town for people to work at like a mill, a government farm...a shovel factory. Just something.

...had more than five voice actors. In all fairness, the guy who does the voice for Imperials is a talented voice actor, but my god, if they don't get at least 20+ voice actors for TES5, I don't know if I could handle it again. Maybe it's KotOR's fault for spoiling me. They could get away with just having a handful more voice actors that had the range of the Imperial guy (from sinister Lucien to comical Sheogorath, the crazy prophet, Pellinal, etc.). All the other voice actors just do the one or two. I was overjoyed to hear a new voice in Oblivion with Haskill.

...had a better character creation system. There are golf games with better options for customizing a face. (Readers of this post: if you link me to Ren's Beauty Pack, I'll cut your face . I'll put it this way: I don't like anime, nor do I create characters with the intention of making them boner-inducing.)

...had more prominent Khajiits. Khajiits own, and they seemed wasted in Oblivion. I can count the important Khajiits in the game on one hand. How awesome, and fitting, would it have been if the gray fox was a Khajiit? Here's to hoping TES5 is in the Khajiit lands. They also seem to have lost the funny dialogue of Morrowind ("he would hush up like fat-belly kitties full of sweet-meats"). I also liked in Morrowind when they purred.

...had area specific music. I thought they would learn this one after how many people hated the constont loop in Morrowind. How awesome would it have been for each city and province to have it's own theme. That's a standard RPG convention that I think they need to pick up on. It would also help if the music wasn't so drab. I'm pretty sure it's the same man who did KotOR's soundtrack and that wasn't a very interesting soundtrack either. Jesper Kyd? That would rock. Or whoever did The Witcher's OST.

...had moral choices and adult themes. Again, maybe other games have just ruined me. I think the days of having good-guy-only main quests in PC-style RPG games ended once Bioware started working their magic. Actually, I don't even need moral choice: just some kind of choice within the story. It's a role playing game afterall. Other RPG developers have discovered that the ultimate RPG experience is having the narrative be what you make of it with your actions. Also, the next game could use some more adult themes. I don't mean pornographic, but just something a little tantalizing. They hinted at rape with Rufio's backstory. I'm not saying I like rape but it was a change of pace and was interesting. I think the series, in all it's aspects, needs to mature. There aren't any motives in the game...I love LOTR as much as the next guy, but it's almost too Tolkien-esque. There are good guys and evil guys, and they just are. One of the best RPG's ever made (and one of only a handful of Japanese console RPG's I liked) Xenogears had such an amazing story because there were motivations for every character in the game, including the bad ones. Being able to know what set them on that path is very interesting, much more so than generic, moustache-twirlling "I'm eeeeeeeeeeeevil! Muah hah hah! Die die die!" and it adds incredible depth to the story.


If TES5 had even a few of those things it would be a huge improvement.

[LoginToDownload]

I'd like to see a broader potential usage of GetActionRef. Put it in a spell script, it will return the caster. On an enchanted sword, in dialogue, etc.

[Abramul]

I've said it before, but it bears repeating:

Only important characters should have voice-acting

OR Include a text-to-speech engine with accents for each race, a decent markup language, the ability to generate files in place (or possibly realtime), and possibly modifiers for class and attribute levels.

[Gaius Octavian]

Oh joy, Microsoft Sam is telling me to go kill trolls. How immersive!

[Stewb]

Personally i'd take microsoft sam talking if it meant i didn't have to worry about all this voice acting rubbish when making a mod, coz now a blank mp3 is need to achieve the correct time for speech. i also found morro's text talking better, means i dont keep the neighbours up all night with my talking to merchants trying to get a good price

I'd also like to see some kind of assasins the player could hire for either people who attack you, i.e bandits, or for anyone. A nice side effect of this being if the person killed the assasin, like a tough guard, the could find the contract then come after the player next time they see them, especially if you dont know wether they fail or not until you visit the person again to get your loot. tehehe....

[madman132]

Some People should play another game. Seriously, Multiplayer mode?

Go play a MMoRPG. I play one, but once in a while i need something different.
In any Kind of Multiplayergame you have to make sure that Players dont do some stuff the werent supposed to, ruining other peoples experience.

If i would join some sort of Multiplayer Oblivion, what would i do? PvP?
That would require some serious updating. First: No 100% Chameleon, because that would be unfair to those you dont have a Char with plenty of dedect life Potions or a high enough Mysticism skill. And even if they had: You would have to do something about those People who would Camp at some Shops killing others just as they enter or Exit the Doors of some shops. Some People could shoot arrows from a Point outside of the Range of "Legendary Life Detection"

First Thing about Multiplayergames: There will be People playing the Game for the sole Purpose of Harrasing others. And thats it. In MMORPGS, there are entire Clans searching for just another Bug, another Exploit, a tiny little Advantage over everyone else.
If there is PvP possible in the Outside World, there will be People who would kill you.
If People cant kill you, they will find other Ways to harass you. They'll break into your Skingrad house and pick it clean. If other People where to join your Oblivion World, they would kill any NPC they could find. If you find something to prevent People from kiling NPCs, they wil find another Thing to work on your nerves. They'll shoot the Books from your Shelf if the cant steal them.

Elder Scrolls is singleplayer. period.
If you make a Multiplayergame out of Elderscrolls, you would have to change nearly everything in the Game to prevent stupid People to ruin other Peoples games.
After you made such Changes, well, you wont have an Elderscrollsgame anymore.

So, save bethesda the Trouble and go play another game.

Multiplayer could be something for modders. It would be nices if i could show Characters or Housing to Friends ingame. If they decide to pick something up, well, that woudnt be Bethesdas fault so they wont have do think of any Measures which woud ruin the Game, but make it Multiplayer accessible.


As of the Companions: Dont.

There is not a single Game in Existence with a flawless Companion. Even Alyx from HL2 gets in may Way from time to time. You can not come up with an artificial Intelligence that isnt basically moronic. Those Companions who arent idiotic suicidal and Annoying are usually very well armed. And armored. Back to Alyx again: she has very much HP. Good, my own Life should be enough to worry about.
Companions with HP as "low" as the Players health, Companions who wont run into the Line of fire, Companions who are rushing blindly into their doom when charging some superior Enemy...
Every single try has failed. miserably.
Whenever i play a game and im told that i have to protect this and that moron, i know its possible that i have reached the End of that Game for me. If the NPC acts up, he will be dead and i have to reload. The Mission isnt to hard for me, i fail because of the stupid NPC.
This means i have to reload time after time until i finally get lucky and the NPC script wont act up, or until i give up on that.
The Mission isnt supposed to be that hard. But it is hard, too hard in some Cases because the Companion doesnt do what he is supposed to do.

Like Farwil indarys, for Instance. The Mission isnt too hard. Infact, its pretty easy. If Indaril doesnt decide to go Lava Swimming. He isnt supposed to do that. But despite the best efforts of Bethesda, he appearantly likes being fried in lava. But, Lucky me, this is only a bonus, not a primary. So i just let the Moron run into his beloved Lava if he wants it that badly.

A real "intelligent" AI hasnt been done yet. It will require much time, much work and money. And then, you still wont have a "decent" Gamesupplement, as harder Missions with this AI would be tedious. I forgot to mention whats "easy" with the Farwil indarys mission: You have to heal him after every single Battle. So you see, even if you manage to write some sort of perfect AI, it would make the Game more tedious. That is, IF (i have to stress this "If") the Code runs, miraculously, without errors.
And it still doesnt end there: to see wether the mission is too hard or too easy would be even more difficult than it already is.
Furthermore, if someone where to make a good script, Players would hardly notice it.
HL2 NPCs step back, if they are in the Way of the Playerchar.
Oblivion chars wont do that. You have to push them.
To make them step back... I'd say... a week work?
And then, i have more than one Companion. One standing in the Way of the other. So i cant get trough,despite the efforts. If theres only one Companion, i can make him step back onto a mine. How stupid is that? After all that work, the Companion is still a moron.

So you see, a decent Companion cannot be done. As i mentioned, even the gigantic Scriptmonster Alyx has its flaws. And she has to be next to invulnerable.
A decent AI script would cost time, work and money. And then it wont work right, it wont be appreciated or even noticed by the players and is, in essence, a waste of ressources.

SO PLEASE STOP TRYING IT!

Make the Quest longer, more immersive, whatever. But please dont make some sort of scriptmonster AI who is despite all efforts, just as moronic as every AI before him. Many have tried, all have failed. And the Harvester in Command and Conquer still gets killed whie driving through the enemybase.
And Again, to let the Message really sink in:

PLEASE STOP TRYING IT!




There are some Complaints from Players who are annoyed by the fact that they have to rescue the World all alone.
Well, there could be missions that have you retrieve this magic Trinket, but the Questgiver could tell you he also needs that other thing, which will be retrieved be someone else.
Or you could have the Playerchar arrive back from a mission "just in time" to help NPC#15 dea with something that has occurred while the PC wasnt there. That would be something new.
Dont let "Something" be some Sort of Enemy. Because then Players would have to deal with moronic AI again...

[evilkoal]

actually, the Multiplayer wouldnt be a bad thing if it had the right rulesets. ex... no killing people in towns, or the guards will pwn you. lose exp every time you die. have to retrieve your corpse. cannot kill the same PC within 20 mins of the first time.
simple things like that.
As long as they dont sacrifice the Single Player element for multi. single player should be the first priority.

but i would like -- MORE QUESTS! MORE IMMERSION! MORE ARMOR! MORE WEAPONS! BETTER AI! NON UGLY PPL!!!! and most of all an option to disable voice acting. fckn hate bugs that make it so you have no mp3's to do the sound so you get .5 seconds to read a full block of script.

[thekid345]

I want more animations for the spells. I know midas adds that, butit would be nice to get more animations with out the mod.

[sta_arc]

I'm from Germany and there's a really BIG problem in the German version: many things haven't been translated properly. Let's hope for a better translation in the fifth part!

But here some more important things: First there should be a kind of condition for the positions in the guilds-->why is it possible in OBIVION to get archmagician(I don't now if this is the right expression for the highest position in the mage's guild, I just play the German version where it's called "Erzmagier") without using at least one spell(if you neglet the magic scrolls you can use for one quest)!!!

[madman132]

I'm from Germany and there's a really BIG problem in the German version: many things haven't been translated properly. Let's hope for a better translation in the fifth part!

But here some more important things: First there should be a kind of condition for the positions in the guilds-->why is it possible in OBIVION to get archmagician(I don't now if this is the right expression for the highest position in the mage's guild, I just play the German version where it's called "Erzmagier") without using at least one spell(if you neglet the magic scrolls you can use for one quest)!!!

Ah, a fellow German, Hello there!

"Erzmagier" means "Archmage". Well, appearantly you have some english skills. Why didnt you buy the english Version? I buy most of my Games in the Original Version. Germany isnt a censor free Country. Computer Games are blamed for just about everything. Therefore, there is a rather Harsh Policy against Violence in Videogames. To get their Games to get our Version of the P-A Rating as low as in, lets say USA, Gamecompanies would change their Game Content. Some German Versions of Games have Purple, Green or otherwise unnatural Colours for Blood, with an Explanation in the Manual that the Enemies here are Zombie-Robot-Vampire-Alien-Werewolf-Ghosts or something.

I suspected some of this Crap and therefore bought a "real" Oblivion Version.
Besides, Localisation is not necesary. At least not for me, as i have some modest english skills which will only increase when i play english games and watch english Movies.
Furthermore, Germany may be the Country with the best Voice Actors. But we also have the most choosy Audience. Me being one of the choosiest.

It seems that i have missed the Topic a bit
Mages Guild Quest. True, the Mages dont care how you solve your Missions.
I find that realistic, as i wouldnt care how you obtained this and that trinket or whatever.
Some of the "Battlemages" dont use too much Magic either. There are at least some "Mages" in the Mages Guild who wont ever use Magic. Alchemists are such "Mages".
Furthermore, you would have to be considered as a Mage by any standards if you use Magic other than Destruction.
With Destruction Magic, you could clear out Cafes, fight Monsters and so on. Destruction magic gives you a means to fight. Illusion magic does not.
How would one make up something some Story where a player has to use Magic? Any Magic. Cant be something like "Summon a faded Wraith here". If a Player wants to be a mage that masters only one Magic school and that would be one that wont help him fight, then Bethesda would want to give him the possibility to do so.
A Quest where you are given a Choice to cast a Spell either of this School or of this or of that would be sufficient, albeit a little obvious.
Furthermore, to what end? If a Player wants to do the Mages Guild Quest for some Reason without being a Mage, why not?
Well, you could always Roleplay magic; Your Muscles are augmented with magic and your Arrows are propelled by unseen Winds. Dont be picky