Character creation: Daggerfall or Morrowind?

[PurpleXVI]

This is from the unofficial FAQ.

 

Quote Gavin Carter from the Game Banshee interview:

“With Oblivion, we’re taking that concept even further. Our character generation sequence takes place as a flight from the emperor’s assassins, and as you play through the opening, you get to experience different aspects of the game before you commit to a character type. Naturally, all the old options for creating your own custom class will be making a return as well, all wrapped up into this fluid experience.”

 

I rather liked the old systems of being able to pick your class by describing how you'd deal with various situations, that sounded fun. But I also liked being able to skip that and just go straight to making my class. Therefore this is pretty worrying. I imagine it might be fun for the first play-through, or even the second, but by the third it could easily get old. Very old.

 

When I played Morrowind, my first, though not biggest(But that's an entirely different debate, not going to argue about which game is better.), disappointment was that character creation was so simplified compared to Daggerfall. I couldn't create a unique character with specialized flaws and abilities, unusual limitations and weaknesses. I could just create a character that could do exactly the same as everyone else, except with a specialization here and there.

 

Part of what I found really fun about Daggerfall were some of the absurd and interesting classes I could make. I could, for example, make a Dunmer that regenerated in water, absorbed Magicka(But didn't regenerate it.) and was damaged by holy ground. Or maybe a thief that was superbly agile, but paid for that by being unable to use any materials heavier than Orcish. Possibly a fighter that had a massive multiplier to his hitpoints, but was highly unpopular and couldn't use heavy armor. All sorts of crazy stuff.

 

So basically, what do you think? Do you think that this comment means we'll just get "all of the old stuff" from Morrowind, or that some of the old stuff from Arena and Daggerfall will be re-introduced? And which do you hope it is? I don't think my answer will surprise anyone.

 

Sorry if this topic has been posted before, but I did a quick search of the Oblivion forums here and didn't find it.

[Stampede]

I actually forgot about those aspects of the Daggerfall character creation. They were pretty cool, I did not feel hard done by Morrowind's.

 

I am always nervous of any sort of change when it comes to game mechanics, it does sound a bit similar to Morrowind in terms of intergrating it into the game. As long as I can create my own custom class, I will be happy.

[VaanicOne]

I thought Morrowind's was best, and I do NOT suck for saying so.

 

I never played Daggerfall, so it's impossible for me to vote any other way.

 

The Oblivion system is different, yes. It has to be, it would get boring otherwise.

[Switch]

Edited the poll. Suggesting people suck for stating an opinion is flame baiting. Please don't do that. :P

[Marxist ßastard]

I imagine it might be fun for the first play-through, or even the second, but by the third it could easily get old. Very old.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The charachter generation sequence has combat and puzzles in it. Both can fail, and, judging by the number of reviewers who got past the newbie dungeon at the X05 event, both are apparently somewhat difficult. Bethesda would have to give the option of saving the game sometime during this process, to appease furious quicksavers.

 

Additionally, a stat review menu will be brought up upon exiting the charachter generation process. As in Morrowind, you will be able to change whatever you please about your charachter, and thus if you save just before this option comes up, you can skip charachter generation in subsequent games.

 

Furthermore, it is highly unlikely that this entire sequence will be hardcoded. Thus, as was possible in Morrowind, mods can be made to provide much faster charachter generation, and a savegame can be created that has the PC at the newbie dungeon exit.

[PurpleXVI]

Edit: Yadda, yadda, yadda. This post has been edited by ghosts because they thought it was a good idea. Horrible, horrible things have been removed. BEWARE MORTALS.

 

Marxist: Doesn't it strike you as a problem that such things might have to be "fixed" by the mod community, rather than the devs just including a simple on/off checkbox somewhere? Including a great editor and knowing that the fans will use it to create content, is no excuse to slack off on the content included right out of the box. Not everyone might have the time or patience* to scour the internet for the mod to disable it, nor might everyone actually suspect that someone might create such a mod and even THINK to look for it.

 

I'm not arguing that the system is a bad idea at all, just that it really should be completely optional. Few things suck more than unskippable tutorials. Not so much due to the annoyance factor, but due to the fact that it's not just a "bug" brought on by an accident, but instead it's laziness, pure and simple.

 

(*It takes a lot of patience to look for mods, really. Half the goddamn Morrowind mods out there are the equivalent of a "Ph4t J4ckz +255 FORK OF LULZ,"-mod where the "swinging sword" FX has been replaced by farting sounds. Unbalancing and badly made.)

[Dark0ne]

Personally I think this is another of these "lose-lose" situations for Bethesda.

 

On the one hand they should be commended for trying to make the character generation process more fluid and realistic. Rather than you just entering in a few stats and clicking OK and becoming this whole new person, Bethesda are trying to deepen the process by providing a pre-play environment that shows how your character gained these stats.

 

On the other hand many people aren't going to want to pre-play their characters and negotiate the same puzzles and passages just to get their character set-up.

 

Personallly it's not going to bother me. If the process sucks I'll download a "Fast Char Gen" mod similar to Morrowind's, if it doesn't, well, kudos to Beth.

[Danathorn.]

tbh i liked them both.

 

Oblivion will be a thousands time better though and i think your all

agree with me there.

[loveme4whoiam]

I never played Daggerfall, but from the descriptions people have given it sounds like I would have liked it's method. I'm not a stats-heavy RPG fan, quite the opposite in fact, but I like the idea of having a completely unique character with wierd traits.

 

I thought the MW one was functional and was good for the style of play that Bethsoft wanted for it - for the game not to be stat-driven. Throughout the whole process we didn't have to tweak the percentage of chest hair our character had (or something) and I hope the Oblivion keeps this feel.

 

Of course, there are hard-core RPGers who enjoy that level of detail who might feel short-changed, but that's the kind of game MW was and what Oblivion is shaping up to be.

[PurpleXVI]

Well, I never thought that Daggerfall's method was too detailed, there were still plenty of pre-gen classes AND the "answer X questions to get a class that sounds like it fits you"-mode. Plus, you didn't have to pick all the wacky abilities and weaknesses you could find, you could just go with messing a bit with the major/minor skills much like you get to do in Morrowind.