Twinfire

Thanks for the tip about abandonware. :) I did a google search on "abaondonware" and got quite a few - 3.6 million - hits. Can't wait to try out King's Quest and DosBox on my NT2000 Pro. TF

Hi All! Yes, it is. But I think Oblivion became "dumbed down" precisely because it clearly was not "scaled down." To give an idea of how fast parts of Oblivion can go, after adjusting my .ini file per Adiktive's suggestions, I find that when I go into the "Repair" menu my fps jumps from 35+ [in an interior] to 500+ -- for as long ast I remain in the menu. Likewise when I do a wait. The starting fps in "interior" areas get to be higher than in "exterior" areas, I suppose, because "interiors" are a lot smaller areas to manage. But even "interiors" slow to a crawl when more than 5-10 actors get up close and personal with our intrepid hero. And I have a somewhat "fast" graphics card (Nvidia GeForce 7800 GS). TF

Hi All! Well, I think I may have figured out why Oblivion became a "dumbed down" gane. It may not have anything to do with console vs. pc and the like. The secret is that: 1) Oblivion's graphics are killer graphics -- for as long as we only have, say, 10-15 actors running around all of Tamriel. 2) But as soon as we add more actors to a given load-area, our fps drops to, say, 4-11 tops. So Oblivion had to be "dumbed down" i.e. had to become a vast, empty container, because the "average" CPU + Graphics hardware available today simply can't handle anything more. Even top-notch, super graphics cards will slow to a crawl with more than, say, 25 actors in a given load area. TF

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

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