Hot Topic #1: The dumbing down of Oblivion

[Vagrant0]

Can anyone give an idea on how would you structure a project to make sure you don't end up short upon release?

Your quoting is a bit off...

 

Anyhow, there are really two easy ways to make sure this doesn't happen. First is secure a budget 2-3 times what you think you need to reduce the chances of going over budget and being forced to cut back on things in order to make up the losses*. Second is build the game backwards, start with the ending and work toward the beginning. This way you can't release anything until you've finished, unfortunately this causes its own difficulties (technical and otherwise), but can make things a bit more interesting since you're essentially just explaining how that particular ending happened, rather than starting with a beginning and having some idea where you want to go. Really though, only with proper planning and a team which is productive and capable can anything complete be finished. Without proper planning, you end up spending too much time on one part that you really like, but not enough time on all those other areas (DB quests anyone (dozens of unique items, scripts and dialogues which are cool, but aren't needed)).

 

*Continued from above*Does that strategy ever really work? You'd think that releasing a game before it's finished would do more to hurt sales than setting back release dates another month. People are more willng to wait a month or two (Or years in the case of Duke Nukem fans) more for that game they've seen mentioned everywhere than to deal with the month or two of a broken game that needs some serious bug fixes. Sure, you still get the group of people who just rush out and buy it on release day, but you lose the sales from people who bother to wait till the smoke clears to see if all the hype was worth it.

[crimson.cosmos]

Can anyone give an idea on how would you structure a project to make sure you don't end up short upon release?

Your quoting is a bit off...

 

Yes, it does sound rather strange...I blame the early morning...

 

Anyhow, there are really two easy ways to make sure this doesn't happen. First is secure a budget 2-3 times what you think you need to reduce the chances of going over budget and being forced to cut back on things in order to make up the losses*. Second is build the game backwards, start with the ending and work toward the beginning. This way you can't release anything until you've finished, unfortunately this causes its own difficulties (technical and otherwise), but can make things a bit more interesting since you're essentially just explaining how that particular ending happened, rather than starting with a beginning and having some idea where you want to go. Really though, only with proper planning and a team which is productive and capable can anything complete be finished. Without proper planning, you end up spending too much time on one part that you really like, but not enough time on all those other areas (DB quests anyone (dozens of unique items, scripts and dialogues which are cool, but aren't needed)).

 

*Continued from above*Does that strategy ever really work? You'd think that releasing a game before it's finished would do more to hurt sales than setting back release dates another month. People are more willng to wait a month or two (Or years in the case of Duke Nukem fans) more for that game they've seen mentioned everywhere than to deal with the month or two of a broken game that needs some serious bug fixes. Sure, you still get the group of people who just rush out and buy it on release day, but you lose the sales from people who bother to wait till the smoke clears to see if all the hype was worth it.

 

Well, for a company the size of Bethesda, and with the background they have, I think it's expected of them to be able to plan things down to the last detail. The only logical explanation for some of the areas where the game is lacking is the fact that it wasn't finished when shipped.

Securing a budget that size I imagine would be pretty hard. I mean, you're going to have to convince that publisher to give you a rather substantial sum of money for a game that might, or might not sell. Sure, if you do have a solid background and a fan base the size of TES, that does help, but the budget for Oblivion was pretty high to start with. Then there is the problem of the deadline. You can push it, until you can't push it. I think the publisher is the one that has the biggest say in this matter as well - and when they say we release it next month, and the contract backs them up, you just have to oblige. It's what happened to Gothic 3, and I think it's what happened to Oblivion (to a much lesser extent, indeed).

If you can postpone the release date, then all experience says to do so, rather than ship a bugged game. After all, you only get the reviews from the initial release and losing that chance hurts the overall sales pretty hard.

 

cc

[Vagrant0]

Well, for a company the size of Bethesda, and with the background they have, I think it's expected of them to be able to plan things down to the last detail. The only logical explanation for some of the areas where the game is lacking is the fact that it wasn't finished when shipped.

Nah, my guess is that many of the quests which are lacking details is because they were quests added later and were constricted by both the ideas that were thrown around in one of their brainstorming sessions, and trying to do it in the shortest time possible.

[Twinfire]

Hi All!

 

Re: the dumbing down of Oblivion.

 

One of my first observations about Oblivion would be that, like the containers in the game, it seems to be a world with enourmous capacity, but remarkably little content.

 

Compared to, say, Diablo II.

 

Another observation that I made is that, for all the "magical" sophistication in the game, everything is in ruins. Briefly, the game has magic, but apparently does not have intelligence to go with it.

 

So why wouldn't the "Mages Guild" be out there re-designing and then re-building ruins, replacing ruins with new buildings, touting the blessings received for the intelligent use of magic, etc? They have magical mastery, don't they? One might think that first re-designing, then re-building old ruins would be a trivial task. Why settle for a dismal, ruined past when magical mastery is at our beck and call?

 

Another observation would be how curious it is that gangs of thieves, outlaws, bandits, brigands, cutthroats, etc. would be talking to each other about the blessings that come from the Nine Divines for being virtuous. Yet if we have a bounty on our head the Nine Divines will have no dealings with us at all. Just a wee bit of ...cognitive dissonance, I think.

 

Oh yes. I noticed that the landscaping is often so steep that nature's critters can't climb them. So the poor things just keep spinning their wheels trying to go up a pre-ordained path, getting nowhere fast in the process. They seem to have less intelligence than the Mages. Then again, they are among the "lower" creatures, yes?

 

And, this game has ...serious clipping issues.

 

Well, I think I may have caused enough ...discomfort for one day, so I should quit while I'm ahead.

 

TF

[Vagrant0]

So why wouldn't the "Mages Guild" be out there re-designing and then re-building ruins, replacing ruins with new buildings, touting the blessings received for the intelligent use of magic, etc? They have magical mastery, don't they? One might think that first re-designing, then re-building old ruins would be a trivial task. Why settle for a dismal, ruined past when magical mastery is at our beck and call?

Shoulda looked further... People rarely leave towns so they don't know about all those ruins out there. Also I would suspect that there are plenty of adventurers who would be without jobs should the mages guild go and fix everything.

 

Really the one thing you should have noticed is that 10-12 people manage to grow enough food for the entire empire. Figure that one out.

[ninja_lord666]

...Also I would suspect that there are plenty of adventurers who would be without jobs should the mages guild go and fix everything.

What adventurers? Aren't I the only one?

[Twinfire]

So why wouldn't the "Mages Guild" be out there re-designing and then re-building ruins, replacing ruins with new buildings, touting the blessings received for the intelligent use of magic, etc? They have magical mastery, don't they? One might think that first re-designing, then re-building old ruins would be a trivial task. Why settle for a dismal, ruined past when magical mastery is at our beck and call?

Shoulda looked further... People rarely leave towns so they don't know about all those ruins out there.

 

Hmmm...That would go a long way toward explaining why we are talking about a "dumbed down" Oblivion, wouldn't it?

 

Don't have to fix everything; requiring that we do would be an example of ...dumbed down, non-magical thinking, yes? The cost of adventuring, e.g., could be having to do a "construction engineer's guild" quest before, or after, entering and clearing out, say, an old fort, an eyelid ruin, etc. Might even require getting co-operation from, say, a "quatermaster's guild" in the process. Buying a house already requires getting furnishings from a local ...quatermaster, yes? Use your ...dumbed up imagination. Then we would need to hire, and train, recruits from, say, a "defender's guild" to protect our newly rebuilt estate and keep the bandits, beasties, or whatever from returning.

 

Such ideas, I suppose, don't make a lot of sense in a dumbed down world where all of the baddies level up just because our intrepid hero does. No one in town knows about all those ruins out there, but every baddie in Tamriel knows precisely when and by how much our intrepid hero has leveled up. A wee bit more ...cognitive dissonance, I think.

 

As an aside, Version 1.15 of this game tends to run much better than the "patched" version 1.201, 1.205, 1.207, 1.214, or whatever the latest 1.2 patch happens to be. I have found that with the new "patch" I can't uncheck a mod and expect to go into a city without a ctd...ever. Ruins the immersion rather quickly. Oddly enough, the "patched" game runs fine all over the splendid ruined past of Tamriel. It's just when I happen to decide to go into a city that the game crashes. I won't buy SI because it requires the newest patch.

 

TF

[Crisb92]

A good point, I mean, in terms of the immersion at least, it lacks the sense of a flowing population, where new people are turning up all the time, all on adventures of their own. Surely there must be new prisoners that are escaping when an emperor finds them locked in the cell that he is...

(Maybe I shouldn't go there)

 

Hmm, but at least having randomly spawning adventures, like a few mods in Morrowind achieved would add to the idea that new people are coming along all the time, rather than there being a finite number of people that are going to, well, get older with the player.

[dubista]

Oblivion is a great but I think Morrowind is way better.

 

The armor system is what I really miss - being able to wear different types of armor asymmetrically making you look more menacing, empowering, etc. and thus, making it worth the while to collect the armors. That is what Oblivion lacked, the freedom to dress-up. In Morrowind, with only the main game and Tribunal installed, I was able to make my character look like a samurai without using unofficial mods or plugins.

 

Also, the lacked to 'do-whatever-the-hell-i-want' is also missing in Oblivion. In Morrowind, one can literally kill even the key characters. No "Player X is unconscious poo."

 

And also, Bethesda could learn from other great games like WoW. Now, if a player can contract a disease and then have an epidemic going on - now that is something. Also, crafting weapons and armor yourself would be great to. Adding professions and that. Also, what's the point of placing utensils (plates, mugs, spoons and forks) if you are not pressured to eat (damage maybe, reduced fatigue, endurance penalty anyone?).

 

Another one thing is representing cities in Oblivion as dungeons. I know that it has something to do with software design, scalability issues and to reduce bugs as much as possible but I think there could be a way about it. More dynamic wildlife would have been great too (that's why I downloaded the Natural Environments/Wildlife/Water plugin).

 

The lack of weapons types too is a little bit of a turnoff too. Crossbows would have been great. Also, the lack of knuckle weapons is something irrational. At lease add brass knuckles or something or add attack rating for gauntlets or bracers. And yeah, the reduction of skills is another down point.

 

And yeah, becoming were-animals is another thing I miss from Morrowind.

 

Well, these are my gripes/suggestions/ideas for another TES game. A more dynamic and free-roaming game is always better. And yeah, I love the horses in Oblivion, now if we could have mounted fights. Hehe.

[Povuholo]

And yeah, I love the horses in Oblivion, now if we could have mounted fights. Hehe.

Soon we can.