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Oblivion Polymorph Mod
Via Kotaku, a post on the Oblivion forums on a polymorph mod for Oblivion. The Kotaku story has a video attached, showing the shapechanging in action with a rocking musical background. The mod seems awesome, but I'm not sure I agree with poster Eckhardt's commentary: "This could be just the thing for me to forget how unbearably stagnant and boring I ultimately find Oblivion to be: the ability to transmogrify into huge ogres, gigantic walking sticks and carnivorous cephalopods."
until we can expect the mod to support temporarily turning yourself into a newt?
Kent Simon Multitheft Auto
The lack of abilities and spells such as this is what made combat in Oblivion so boring to me. Whereas other RPGS (the BG series will always be my goto example for well done CRPGs) have a variety of attacks and defenses, Oblivions arsenal was decidedly repetitive (the spell library consisted primarily of DD's and DOT's, with a few stun/paralyze type things thrown in, but only a limited variety of those). BG had all sorts of great defensive spells (stoneskin and all the various shields) to go along with a variety of unique transformation spells (polymorph self, polymorph other) and some great AE spells (admittely, you can add AE to Obvlivion spells, but they're still just damage spells, nothing interesting like a mass sleep or web).
Part of the problem is that there's no group to play with in Oblivion, no classes with complementary skills etc. But still, your character can become such a powerful jack-of-all-trades I think it's hard to justify the mundane nature of his/her abilities.
Cool stuff like this just adds a ton of gameplay possibilities, and the designer of the mod knows it. Changing into the rat form, for instance, isn't just some gimmick. You can then sneak into/outof places you normally wouldn't fit. Stuck in jail? Sneak through the bars. Chased by the guard? Sneak through a crack in the wall.
It's surprisngly well done, too. There obviously aren't animations between forms, but the transformation (accompanied by a puff of smoke type effect) isn't too jarring, and the animations once you've changed are all in place. Great to see mods for this game that don't ruin the immersion. I haven't gotten to play with it yet, but hopefully the spells have appropriate costs/requirements associated with them.
At any rate, this is really just a concealed rant against Oblivion's focus on graphics rather than what should have been a really awesome combat system. That and a little thank you to the modders for noting the potential here, and fixing what Bethseda forgot about.
> There is a mod you can get that "un-Xboxes" the UI
BTMod is I think the one you're referring to. A 'must have' mod for Oblivion really.
How long until we hear:
Jack Thompson today decried Oblivion as a "bestial sex simulator" citing a new mod that allows players to polymorph in to horses and then "ride" their existing mounts. Given object clashing, this creates the appearance of two horses getting it on "hot coffee"-style. "Do we really want our children being exposed to this kind of 'conditioning'?" an enraged Thompson asked. "This kind of bestial porn must be reclassified as Adults Only, if allowed for sale at all." Thompson is now reportedly looking for horses that have been sexually abused to represent in a class action lawsuit.
Compared even to Morrowind, the game just felt incredibly flat, bland, and repetitive. The first thing that springs to mind when I try to assign blame is the terrible voice acting--I could go after the reduction in skills, or the blandness of the entirely similar body structures, or the totally generic feel of many of the locations, or the inane interface choices, or the (carried over from MW) completely similar nature of all the spell (effects), but I'll save those for other posts.
If you've played the game, do you remember walking into Edgar's Discount Spells? Talking with that guy was a slap in the face; maybe I just liked the nasal, annoying voice of the Bretons from MW or something. Then I go across the street and talk to--well, to any orc or nord, khajit or argonian. Though I think--not sure--that the VAs for some of those races had been the same in MW, in Oblivion it didn't even seem that they tried to differentiate the races vocally. The actor for the female redguard came off as not even trying, like she recorded her lines at 3AM the day before going gold. I really can't say for sure, of course. One of the things that kept me playing MW was the atmosphere: you were rarely jarred out of the notion that your character was walking around in some completely alien world. Oblivion's extensive VA just lends itself to the kind of stupidity you experience when, for instance, a beggar talks to you in a meek voice, and then suddenly jumps into the same voice that every other Imperial uses.
I'd argue that it has neither. The dialogue is 99% click through (although it is pretty well written and well voiced). Speechcrafting, although interesting, is hardly of primary importance, and can easily be ignored by the player. The trading system has been toned down significantly since TES and now amounts to simply finding an npc with good standing and selling as much as you can to it.
I'd argue that the only gameplay mechanism of any import is the combat system (speech, travel, and trading are all just ways to facilitate combat) and this is where Oblivion falls short. As I mentioned in my original post up the page, the spells are of a disapointingly repetative nature, all that's been implemented is a simple resistence system and a few damage types to get around it. This stuff is simpler than Diablo 2 for god's sake, and most harp on Diablo for its decidedly simple combat mechanics.
Archery, although satisfying to use, offers a similar lack of innovation. You click, you hold, you shoot, the enemy takes damage... and little else happens. The magic arrows and the effects they offer are startingly mundane given the quantity available. Some paralyze arrows, and then a bunch of damage adding arrows, the variety of which is disapointingly similar to the spell casting system. The fun, more creative effects found in deeper CRPGS are not to be found. No multi shot type things, you can't pin your opponent to a wall, spell effects limited to stun or damage, little to no alteration effects, and those that do exist are simply meant to allow you to do more damage.
The melee combat system isn't *bad* but as I went through the game I found that the special attacks were hardly any more effective than the standard attacks. That's fine in a game like Baldur's Gate, when you're also managing spell casters etc. in combat, but if you're melee only it gets rather tiresome not being able to do anything but deal damage (and *occasionaly*, *rarely* stun or disarm).
The sneak system was, IMHO, too powerful, which lead to it being no challenge to use. At high levels you could zoom around the room while crouched, only occasionally being threatened by an enemy..
At any rate, the sum of all this is that combat requires too little thought. Maybe the enemies were too weak, or maybe the fact that you rarely took on more than 2 at a time lead to gameplay limitations. Whatever the case, combat ultimately resulted on clicking on the enemy, dealing damage, and then either fighting or running. You could sneak up if that was your though, or just engage from afar. Better CRPGs allow for more creative solutions to fights, and given the excellent physics system present in Oblvion I was disapointed in the repetative nature of the combat. Every fight in a given dungeon was almost identical, the only difference would be whether you had to chase the enemy (if they were a caster) or they chased you (if they were a melee'r).
The amount of content was impressive, and the amount of repetition in monsters and dungeon types wasn't too distracting (although the auto leveling of the world was rather disconcerting). A lot of the quests were enjoyable, but a lot of them were mundane. Ultimately it comes down to the sub par combat system, that's its flaw.
No. The game IS boring. And it's got nothing to do with what you mentioned. The reason Oblivion is boring (and why I stopped playing after having put about 100 hours into sidequests alone) is that nothing. really. happens. Become arena champion? Mud crabs can still kick your butt (I'm playing that gimp of all classes, archer thief). Save children, families, farms? They briefly will mention it when you come back, but otherwise, nothing. Wipe out entire villages, restore rightful leaders to their position, save entire cities? Some characters might change what they say, but otherwise, nothing. As you get more powerful, your enemies get more powerful, which means you're just as sucky as you were 10 minutes into the game. Except you wear more shiny. And don't get me started on the leveling scheme. The more you advanced, the better you got - until the enemies caught up with you, at which point you sucked again. This was a system that actually rewarded munchkins - no, it basically made it necessary for my poor archer.
Someone likened playing Oblivion to paddling in the middle of the Ocean. You do stuff, you exert yourself, it looks like stuff is changing.... but really, nothing's changing significantly. The reason I loved Baldur's Gate, or even Skies of Arcadia, was that stuff changed. Things got wiped out. Enemies that would chew me up within seconds at the beginning would at some point fall to my attacks. There was a feeling that the world was changing based on what I did. In Oblivion.... well, sometimes guards would attack me. Sometimes they wouldn't. Other than that.... it was like reading a giant book. Where it would take 10 minutes to turn one page, and where each story would be 1.5 pages.
yeah, I plunked 100 hours into a game that I decided sucked. Unfortunately, it took that long for me to realize that the initial problem would never go away. And that the side quests did nothing to help the main problem of pacing and actual story. Yeah, there's some cool moments in there. I'd say I've seen about 30 minutes total of them. That's just too much filler to qualify as a good game.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I guess I'm just the type of person they were targeting with this game, because I absolutely love it.
I just got done with another 2 hour long session... which brings my total game-play hours up to 112! Yes, that's what it actually says on the save game loading screen... I really have played that long, just with one character... and _no_ I haven't finished the main storyline yet (in fact, I didn't start it until I was _90_ hours into the game!)
So what the hell have I been doing with my time? Mostly working my way up through the fighters guild and the mages guild (I'm a custom class WarMage)... and doing every damn side quest I can get my hands on. I've also (of course) fought through the arena. I also enjoy working on obscure skills (alchemy?) and becoming expert/master with all kinds of weapons.
I guess I just love the open-endedness of it all. If I want to run around and pick flowers for a while I can do that. If I want to go climb that mountain over there (and discover another shrine with its own quest line) I can do that too.
I know I'm probably in the minority on this... but I love being able to be a packrat. I have chests _full_ of gear (where it even takes a couple of seconds to open the chest because it's trying to load the list!) and more chests full of ingredients... and still more chests full of books and scrolls.
Sure the NPCs aren't much to talk to, but I do enjoy the fact that they have much more realistic daily routines (sleeping, waking, eating, working, eating, sleeping etc). They might not be perfect, but I believe they add just that little bit extra.
But I'm not going to convince a bunch of people on slashdot.... I just thought there should be someone to post a positive experience with the game.
If you are looking for a world to explore, and love open-ended games then you really should check this one out....
Friedmud
My feeling is that part of the problem lies with the fact that almost from the beginning you have access to the whole map. There is no "new area" to uncover (after the gates are open).
Also, the authomatic leveling of the monsters with the leveling of the player means there are no zones packed with monsters "beyond your level" and you cannot set yourself as an objective being high level enough to get in there.
Also there is not enough variety in weapons and armor - there comes a point when your rewards for defeating a bucketload of monsters is weapons and pieces of armor of the same types you've been getting for the last two weeks (real time).
I other words the quality of the rewards (be it new areas to explore, new weapons or new armor) for achieving something, stops increasing too early in the game.
Which leaves the missions (and especially the main ones) as the only way to actually feel challenged and achieve something. This pretty much removes the fun of going out and exploring outside the missions.
Oblivion, Oblivion. I uninstalled Nero so that I could play Oblivion without it crashing every 30 minutes. And it's a game that needs about 10 mods installed in order to be fun.
I'm still not sure if I love the game or hate it.
On the negative side:
1) Levelling system is one of the worst ever. Your early endurance score matters more than your endurance late in the game, so you have to be careful to crank it up in each of your early levels. Which entails sitting still and letting monsters hit you for half an hour each time you want to level. Ridiculous. Fortunately there's a mod that solves it, by incrementally levelling your stats as you skill up.
2) Combat system is tedious at best. Monsters scale with your level... and since spell damage goes up slower than spell costs, your spells actually do less and less damage as you get higher in level. OOO is a mod that fixes the most major of the scaling problems, and retweaks some things a little bit to make it better.
3) Magic item creation is pretty bad. Most of the options are terrible. Why yes, I'd like to damage myself over time! How thoughtful! Or you can either put a Feather (greater carrying capacity) on an item, or you can put +Strength on an item and get carrying capacity as well as a host of other benefits. And I thoroughly detest charged magic items. I don't care, tone down weapons or whatever, but I really hate the idea of burning through a stack of gold every time I whack a skeleton with my weapon. So I never use magical weapons unless the combat is way over the top. I haven't found a mod yet that makes all magic weapons permanent.
4) Combats are too easy and too similar. Pretty much anything can be beaten by left clicking over and over, mixed up with taps of healing spells on yourself. If you have potions, you essentially have an infinite life bar and infinite mana. How can you lose? The new combat behavior mod helps a little here, though it usually just involves monsters learning to dodge your 5 MPH fireballs...
5) Stealth is ridiculous. You can run a mile away from a monster and hide in a dark cubbyhole but he still can track you down and kill you. I found a mod which lets you re-hide if you break line of sight for 20 seconds, and have been enjoying using that. Also, a mod to do away with the bloody telepathic guards also helps a great deal if you play a rogue type in the game.
6) It's as crashy, if not crashier than any Bethesda game since pre-patch Daggerfall. And I only tip the hat to Daggerfall, since it wouldn't run at all on my Cyrix procesor until about 19 patches out.
On the positive side:
1) It's pretty
2) Okay/decent storyline
3) Has Jean-Luc Picard, the only bright spot in the terrible multiple-personality disaster voice acting for the NPCs (they use MULTIPLE voices on the same NPCs, it sounds like they're crazy).
4) But... best of all... the game is just barely flexible enough that you can do some really cool things with the chaos that ensues. Pickpocket an NPC villan. Stab him. He runs over to a nearby place and picks up a weapon. The owner of the weapons call the guards, who then beat the living daylight out of him. I think my version of the world has a lot more larcenous NPCs than in my girlfriend's... I find dead bodies of NPCs caught stealing all over the place, and from time to time I'll see a thieves guild member run screaming by chased by the guards, but my girlfriend hasn't seen it yet. I saw the guards blow away a guy once for stealing lettuce. Or I delayed completing an escort quest and ended up taking the NPCs I was "escorting" through the Oblivion gates. They come back to life if killed, so they make excellent party members as they fan out and take on the dremoras while I sneak up from behind for the backstab.
I like it... but I'm still looking for more patches to further improve the gameplay. The game design, as a whole, was terribly flawed at release.