Hot Topic #1: The dumbing down of Oblivion

[Vagrant0]

At least, it's a decision we'll have to live with when they finally start making games literally impossible to mod. :D

I agree, modding adds so much more life to games. The longer games can be played, the longer they hold interest with people, the more copies get sold. This has been true from its early days when modding doom, quake, and a few others allowed a greater variety in gameplay and appealed to a larger audience. Would Morrowind, Nwn, The Sims and many of these other games have the longevity they've had without the modding community? I don't think so. While yes, modders will always find a way (as proven by fable, diablo, and countless others) to mod the game, any official support in the matter does make modding easier and more common (making communities larger, creating more content). Modders work for free, encourage sales, provide technical support, bug fixes, and yet game companies seem to ignore this.

 

Games don't have to be impossible to mod, it's usually by choice of the companies of what is hard coded, and what isn't that modding becomes impossible. Releasing stripped down tools (if any tools), not releasing rights for various exporters, and releasing overly bugged games however makes it impossible to mod. Look at NWN2, despite the fact that the toolkit was included as part of the game, the fact that the game and the toolkit itself was riddled with bugs, errors, and problems stunted the modding comunity who was ready to move from NWN. Only now that some of the bugs have been fixed is there much momentum. If SI and 1.2 are an example of what to expect in Fallout 3 and TES V, Oblivion might just be the last great modding game in the series (arguably morrowind beats this).

 

My only suggestion with TES V is that Bethsoft remembers the modding community that has made their games what they are, but not insist that we fix their games for them. They have a paid staff who is supposed to be able to release a working game with enough content, but what they give us is a playable beta, a construction set, and suggest that we're the ones who have to finish. As conflicting as this sounds, it's simple, people will always be willing to release additional content, but if we're forced to fill existing (and often obvious) gaps, find ways around problems, and do this all for free, the modding community may not be so willing to do the work. Release a good game, and we'll gladly make it better, release a game with bugs and we'll be spending most of our time getting around them or ignoring the game completely (and suggesting that others do the same).

 

*edit* even allowing for easier retexturing (like the sims has), by making meshes that aren't so specific, or are more modular, would do wonders for the longevity of the end game... Something that was present in Morrowind, and missing in Oblivion.

[SickleYield]

Yea and Amen.

[darwin179]

Oblivion is a great game and will always be fun to play. There are a couple of things that need to improve however. The use of off hand weapons, throwing knives, throwing spears and shurikens would increase realism. The damage done by bows and headshots for one has to be higher. The dead bodies have to look bloodier so you can see the guy/girl is dead for a reason and not peacefully sleeping. The sound of a weapon when it hits flesh has to be different then when it hits armour. There should be thrust attacks for swords and daggers. Perhaps a couple of lethal blow animations would be cool. If your character is an assassin and you sneak behind your target, you should be able to slith his throat. When for instance you are hidden in the dark and shoot someone with a bow, they should not automatically know where you are.

Soul gems should also be filled whith human souls and not only with animal souls. Perhaps the soul of a vampire could make the soul gem turn black and that black soul gems could only be used for dark spells or enchantements.

You should also be able to whistle to your horse in order for it to come to you.

 

 

I have so many other remarks, but please do not misunderstand me: I love this game!!! I'm not a modder myself, but I would like to thank all modders for the extra fun they brought me! THANKS GUYS, keep up the good work!!!

[SickleYield]

o_O

 

There are already black soul gems in default Oblivion that can hold human souls, they're just not that easy to get. If you play through the Mages' Guild questline you can get some. The Deadly Reflexes mod makes it possible to decapitate or otherwise messily slay people as well as adding other combat anims, although I don't think there's a throat-slitting one.

[MastaChucky]

I love the game, of course. but I have one thing that is getting on my nerves. When I ride through the landscape of Cyrodiil and there comes a wolf and starts attacking my horse I HAVE to get of it's back to take my bow and shoot the attacker instead of shooting from my saddle...

[theNPC23b]

Honestly, I can agree with most everything on this list. MW was a good game, and I liked the realism of the quests. However, Oblivion has far better systems in general motions; one example I did not see is that the MW sneaking had the "if you can't see them, they can't see you" mentality - made it too easy to steal everything. However, the skills and quests are seriously limited in OB, possibly due to the amazing graphics.

I have to agree with the sentiment that the game is, in essence, a beta . Addition of Guilds from MW would be great, though no one seems to want to bother. This would really help replay value if they are implemented correctly. I, too had the feeling of "OK, I've done everything, now what?". Also, I do like armors to be more varied, though I believe that we should focus more on adding armors from previous games. Through an enormous amount of scripting it is possible to add skills, and I would be greatly pleased if someone decided to add a set or two of armors meant for medium armor skills. Some of the things people are complaining about are already incorporated into mods (like short blade).

Overall, I'd say that the things that need most to be worked on in OB are the outfits and the quests.

[chris 07]

I never played any other ES game yet but by the way everyone think that oblivion wasnt as good as morrowind I think that it is coming down. If you ask me they spend to much time on making it pretty and too little stuff on everything else. The voice overs were horrible except for martin.

If I was leading the project I would add more people on the team. Some people to make it pretty, some people to make GOOD VOICE OVERS, some people to make and script quest, some people to make the systems like armour and weopon damage, so on and so on. It may cost more but it could be made faster and in better quatlity and therefore more income from people buying the games and mods. Good mods.

Oh, and good expansion packs with patches that actually fix things.

[ninja_lord666]

I say, that Oblivion was a wreck. They ignored the very things that we care about! It wasn't immersive; it wasn't realistic; it had a horrible Fed-Ex main quest; they reduced the number of skills; they had less dungeon types with less differentiation; they had no non-quest related unique items you could find just lying around in some random dungeon; most of all, it wasn't an rpg! However, it did make a pretty good action/adventure game...

Don't take this rant the wrong way; I think Oblivion was good, but Bethesda really crapped out on this. I hope they return to their roots and really think about it before even starting TES V. I want TES V to be the best rpg ever.

[chris 07]

Ninja you should post that in the bethesda forums. Maybe this will make them realize how much they messed up. ;)

[ninja_lord666]

Ninja you should post that in the bethesda forums. Maybe this will make them realize how much they messed up. ;)

It would take more than one deranged lunatic to convince them to spend more of their time and money for a game that we'll enjoy more.