First Impressions

[Dilvish]

Well my new character just made his escape from the prison. He snuck and fought and cast his way through the beginning tutorial areas and emerged to the open air and freedom. The sky was cloudy and it looked like late afternoon. The hills were beautiful and lush. Bird songs filled the air and a butterfly was fluttering around.

I still can't wipe the grin off of my face. I think if you loved Morrowind, you'll love Oblivion.

I'm not going to follow the main quest just yet. Think I'll walk up the hill and check out the Imperial City next. :D

[Dark0ne]

Haha, I completely avoided the Oblivion City and went up the other side...saw some ruins! Yipeeeee! Think my character is a bit of an outcast ;)

[Peregrine]

The bad:

 

1) Awful engine coding. Sure, it looks pretty on the top end, but it loses that quality fast if you don't have a good system. I have to scale back the details to looking about the same as Morrowind and only 800x600, just to get a playable framerate. And even then, it's lagging in places.

 

2) Combat is too simplified. I really miss the options of Morrowind. Variable weapon damage, different attack styles, etc. This is going to make it difficult and/or impossible to add some of the things I wanted to do.

 

3) The minigames are stupid and pointless. At least the lockpick one has the roll the dice option, but the way they have persuasion set up, I'll probably never use the skill unless I absolutely have to (and even then, I'd rather cheat and get through it).

 

4) The psychic guards. I picked a lock while out of sight (and didn't steal anything), and walked out right past the shop owner who didn't even notice. But somehow the next guard who saw me came charging out to arrest me.

 

5) NO 3DSMAX PLUGIN. I'm getting really sick of this, and it needs repeating. GET THE ******************* PLUGIN OUT NOW!

 

6) The usual stuff we've all heard before: no spears, simplified skills, etc.

 

The good:

 

1) The added visual detail over Morrowind is nice. Once I give in and buy a new video card, this is going to be a very pretty game.

 

2) The voice acting is a nice addition.

 

3) The more organized inventory/stats system is a very good improvement over the clutter of Morrowind's.

 

4) Sneaking/critical hits have been improved nicely, and are a lot more useful.

 

 

 

I've only played a bit past the prison intro because of the framerate lag. But overall, I'd say my first guess is about right. Oblivion is going to be a good but not exceptional game, that had the potential to be an amazing one. Bethesda had the chance to make a true legend here, but they settled for the console fanboy crowd and fell way short of this potential.

[Adras]

My dad bought it today, but I wont be able to try it until tomorrow. I will update then.

[edstamos1]

Personally I enjoy picking locks the slow way (for the time being). The persuasion minigame is a little weird, but after practicing a bit, it's not bad - an interesting diversion.

 

One thing that bugs me about the voice acting so far - people will have one voice when greeting you, and another during conversation. On a related note, the random conversations are...really weird and unrealistic.

 

Some of the guards look like a guy in another forum I frequent... scary o.O

 

...Throwing things around can be fun :P

 

Oh, and to finish up my little brain excretion here...it's not so easy being a thief anymore - if a person watches you go out of view in their shop/house, they'll follow you, making it harder to steal stuff than in morrowind. Fortunately, they eventually have to sleep ^^

[DEZLOC]

On my system, 4800 x2 and 7800 gtx with 3 g of ram game look insane, dont know about all previous nit picks but so far ive enjoyed the game, have tried the arena and joined the fighters guild, best rpg out there now(atleast until fallout 3)

:D

[Stampede]

Oh, and to finish up my little brain excretion here...it's not so easy being a thief anymore - if a person watches you go out of view in their shop/house, they'll follow you, making it harder to steal stuff than in morrowind. Fortunately, they eventually have to sleep ^^

 

 

Haha, that's a really nice touch, Ultima VII did not even have that, although if you moved something belonging to someone they would start swearing and yelling at you.

 

Oh and we should set up a spoilers screenshots thread.

[edstamos1]

Oh, and to finish up my little brain excretion here...it's not so easy being a thief anymore - if a person watches you go out of view in their shop/house, they'll follow you, making it harder to steal stuff than in morrowind. Fortunately, they eventually have to sleep ^^

 

 

Haha, that's a really nice touch, Ultima VII did not even have that, although if you moved something belonging to someone they would start swearing and yelling at you.

 

Oh and we should set up a spoilers screenshots thread.

 

same here - if you move something around a bit, they start calling you a theif - if you move it too far, they call the guards.

[loveme4whoiam]

Still, that just makes you be more careful. I found in MW being a thief was ridiculously easy; maybe this way it'll actually be a challenge to pull of a great caper.

 

The psychic guards worry me a bit though, as does the simplified combat. I have watched all the moveis that have been put up and I have to say combat does look a mite bit bad. Definitely meatier than MW, but still lacks that certain something. Still, I haven't played the game so I don't know for sure.

[Povuholo]

These threads are killing me. I expect the game in 2-7 days, and i just can't wait! Ofcourse there are people waiting longer, so i shouldn't be jumping up and down that much...

 

I would love robbing a house at that in the middle of stealing this guy comes back... Or that when i walk out of the door he/she just came walking to it. Anyway, my first impressions will be in this post

 

<INSERT IMPRESSIONS HERE>