The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Page 2

jmke · 4th April 2006, 10:53

Quote:

Daggerfall is the largest Elder Scrolls game to date, featuring a game world estimated as being roughly twice the size of Great Britain, with over 15,000 towns, cities, villages, and dungeons for the player's character to explore. According to Todd Howard, Elder Scrolls programmer, the game's sequel, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind is 0.0001 percent the size of Daggerfall. Vvardenfell, the explorable part of the province of Morrowind in the third game has 10 square miles, including all of the delta regions on the fringes (the mainland Vvardenfell is about 6 square miles). The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has approximately 16 square miles to explore. In Daggerfall, there are 750,000+ non-player characters (NPCs) for the player to interact with, compared to the count of around 1000 NPCs found in Morrowind and Oblivion.

4th April 2006, 12:47

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.

jmke · 4th April 2006, 12:52

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?

4th April 2006, 18:34

Quote:

Originally posted by jmke
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 ^^

jmke · 4th April 2006, 22:52

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

5th April 2006, 07:35

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.

jmke · 5th April 2006, 08:51

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

jmke · 6th April 2006, 23:07

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

7th April 2006, 06:35

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

jmke · 7th April 2006, 08:20

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

4th April 2006, 12:52	#13
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,021	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? __________________

4th April 2006, 22:52	#15
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,021	your definition of "damn smooth" might have to be looked at __________________

5th April 2006, 08:51	#17
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,021	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 __________________

6th April 2006, 23:07	#18
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,021	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 __________________

7th April 2006, 08:20	#20
jmke Madshrimp Join Date: May 2002 Location: 7090/Belgium Posts: 79,021	luckily (or not) it's no my pic, saw it another forum __________________

4th April 2006, 12:47	#12
SuAside Posts: n/a	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.

5th April 2006, 07:35	#16
SuAside Posts: n/a	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.

7th April 2006, 06:35	#19
goingpostale1 Posts: n/a	lol.....get your mind out of the gutter jmke

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