:wow:

misconceptions on RPG games:

- stats & leveling make it an RPG: no, it doesn't. each RPG has those of course, but having them doesn't make an RPG.

- i play a role, so it's an RPG: no, it doesn't. each and every game out there lets you play a role, doesn't it? that doesn't make every game out there an RPG.

of course, the above is part of the equation. however an RPG has the following:

- dice: your skills & actions fail or succeed based on 'rolls'. no 'twitchgaming', the computer computes your chance to hit/succeed/whatever. player skill only comes in planning & managing, no aiming in the conventional sense, not clicking faster than light. using the player character skill the game computes everything (fighting skills, persuation, first aid, science,... everything).

- free choice: you have free choice of how you want to complete your goals. this often depends on the role you decide to play: fighter, smooth talker/negociater, stealth assassin/thief,... most quests should be solvable in at least 3 ways. you are also free to go where you please, interact with who you want,...

- player impact on the world: your actions should be reflected in the world around you (often simple good or bad / right or wrong decisions). the world around you evolves & you shape it by your choices, which means you have a lasting influence on the world. (impact in oblivion is restricted to "lol you're a hero!" and "omigawd, you're ev0l!". options of completing quests are "do em" and "dont".)

- interaction: when talking to NPC's you should have sufficient options. this also means that what you say has a lasting influence on the NPC. this is often done by creating dialog trees. (Oblivion has none, it's a nearly straight line not a tree that branches. 90% of the NPC have had their voice done by 2 people: 1 male 1 female, on top of that all have nearly exactly the same dialog. they'd have been better off without voice, but with just a few more alternative conversational options)

it's of course deeper & more complicated than this, but i dont have time to type more than this (at work). if you want a taste of what a true cRPG is, check out Fallout 1 & 2, Planescape: Torment or Arcanum. Hell, even Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines was ten times more an RPG than Morrowind & Oblivion will ever be...

it is safe to say both games contain RPG elements, but thats not enough to qualify. sadly, good cRPGs are extremely hard to find, which is also the reason why many people (such as myself) get pissed off when the media (and marketing whores) once again mislabels games. most truely memorable RPG games are 7 to 12 years old now.

that clears sounds all very reasonable to me, the Oblivion does do away with the classic "roll of dice" instead replacing it with a more active way of fighting, which does not please everybody of course.


at what detail settings can you run Oblivion on P4 and 6800GT?

runs very reasonable imo. (keep in mind this is a non-HT 533fsb P4, 1gb mem, 6800GT. all on stock atm)

res: 1280x1024
texture size: med
fade: all on highest
distances: all on highest
all on/off options: on
all shadows: off (dont like em much anyway)
water: all on highest
water: all on
reflection: all on
details: highest
AA: off

runs like this, damn smooth, high fps, without any tweaks in the gamefiles or whatever.

too bad i dont like the game much ^^

your definition of "damn smooth" might have to be looked at ;)

i'm talking 60-ish fps without stuttering or heavy drops (which i find pretty damn good for an old rig in an eyecandy game), not some craptic 20fps like in the test (and certainly not 8fps).

i dont really have an explanation. i suppose shadows & texture size have something to do with it.

those are at max detail; textures does do a lot, and shadows even more, especially when you enable filtering, that will kill performance:)
I prefer 1024x768 with more eye-candy compared to 1280x1024 with less:)

it seems for Oblivion you're best of with X1800XT price/performance wise

combine http://www.oblivionsource.com/?page=...project_id=191 with too much time on hands and get http://img103.imageshack.us/my.php?i...nshot236pq.jpg

lol.....get your mind out of the gutter jmke

luckily (or not) it's no my pic, saw it another forum