3/22/06 - The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (PC, X360)

[Lantyssa]

I had a guard teleport into a locked room during part of a quest.  The second I saw it I downloaded that mod.

[Riggswolfe]

Speaking of the Daedric shrines quests, there is a nasty bug with one of them, at least on the Xbox 360. It's the one where you are asked to get the Umbra sword. When you return it the game freezes, whether you give it to the shrine or not. Total lockup. The work around appears to be to get the sword first, then go to the shrine. (The lockup has to do with an item the shrine puts in your inventory if you go to the shrine before having the sword.)

[Ironwood]

I am loving all the stories of crashes/bugs and lockups on the 360.

More pls.

[Signe]

I'm surprised that there are so many issues with the game and the 360.  No where near as many as the pc, but I can't remember a game crashing or freezing on any of my consoles for years.  Maybe I've just been lucky....

[Ironwood]

I'm not.

If there was ever a software company or a game that was going to fuck up consoles, this was it.

[murdoc]

I fixed my 360 crashes/freeze-ups by reset the HD cache.

Oblivion uses the Xbox 360 hard drive extensively to cache (copy and
reuse) game data. This is done to optimize all loading the game does. It
has been found in rare cases on some Xbox 360s that the cached data can
get overly fragmented. This exhibits itself by the game taking a long
time to load anything from menus, dialogue, sounds, objects, levels, and
more.

To solve this problem, reset your Xbox, and hold down the A button as
the game is booting up. If any button is held while Oblivion is loading,
it will clear its hard drive cache, and create a new one.

Once you see the "Bethesda Softworks" logo video, the game is already
loaded, and the cache should have been cleared.

Note, this does not effect your game in any way other than loading. You
will not lose any saved data.

Runs smooth after I did that.

[schild]

Yup, I've started doing that every time I boot up. No problems thus far.

[Gong]

The fix I've been waiting for has finally arrived! Two modders have released some great stuff that fixes the abominal texture "soup" that the game uses for distant land.

Here's a set of "before and after" screenshots for the first fix.
http://www.tessource.net/files/images/Landscape%20LOD%20Texture%20Replacement-3.jpg
http://www.tessource.net/files/images/Landscape%20LOD%20Texture%20Replacement-4.jpg

Combine the higher resolution textures for distant land with the second mod (which improves normal mapping/shadows for distant land) and you get the following screenshot.

http://img2.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/a19c8d2f1a.jpg

I didn't take any performance hit, though loading times have increased marginally. It increases the amount of memory used by the game, but as long as you have ample memory (I have 1GB) then your performance shouldn't suffer at all.

Here's the links to the two mods.
http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=328524
http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=330112

[Yegolev]

I fixed my 360 crashes/freeze-ups by reset the HD cache.

This was an issue with TESIII on Xbox, but manifested itself as an empty minimap.  The fix on Xbox was to boot three other games.

I love Bethesda but Ironwood is right.  They always bite off way more than they can chew.  Still, not too many other teams are doing stuff like this.

[Riggswolfe]

Resetting the crash won't fix this particular freeze issue unfortunately, it's a bug in the quest.

[Trippy]

Pimp your (Oblivion) ride

Do you have a horse in ‘Oblivion‘? (The answer is yes if you completed the first main quest) If so, you can now download a horse armor pack and get your ride looking sharp. This will cost you 200 points, and is only available in US, Canada, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand.

[Ironwood]

Shadowmere is a fucking great horse.

Mostly because I've 'killed' it twice now on rocks and he just won't die.  He goes unconscious instead.  He also kicks fuck out of Skeletons.

[Sairon]

Pimp your (Oblivion) ride

Do you have a horse in ‘Oblivion‘? (The answer is yes if you completed the first main quest) If so, you can now download a horse armor pack and get your ride looking sharp. This will cost you 200 points, and is only available in US, Canada, Great Britain, Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Australia and New Zealand.

Can't say I'm informed about the xbox 360 but this right here is great material to discuss. Is it reasonable to pay 2,50$ for 2 extra models and textures? What do you think the future holds for this kind of business model? Just as they mentioned in that thread it's very likely that it's better $ for the companies to cut down on content at release just to release it through this model, at which they get many times more $/work. Sure you don't have to buy but if it becomes profitable you will still suffer. Probably should get an own thread.

[Murgos]

I don't see anywhere to actually get that or any 'official' mention on Bethesda's web site.  Is it an X-Box only thing?  I know that BethSoft promised horse armor sometime shortly after launch but is this actually that or is it the demented blogging of some crazed fanbois?

[Trippy]

I don't see anywhere to actually get that or any 'official' mention on Bethesda's web site.  Is it an X-Box only thing?  I know that BethSoft promised horse armor sometime shortly after launch but is this actually that or is it the demented blogging of some crazed fanbois?

Yes it is for Xbox Live. I don't know if it is made up since I don't have an Xbox 360 or Oblivion and if it is true I have no idea if that sort of thing is going to be made available for the PC. In other words I'm mostly useless.

[Dren]

Ok, I completely ran into the wall of disparity between levels and skills and stats last night with my pure mage.  I'm getting two-shotted by the vampires now with all their uber equipment.  I'm starting over with a more planned out template to keep my stats/skills more balanced throughout leveling.

Normally this would make me not want to play the game.  This one is so good, I'm actually looking forward to it.

I'm so screwed.

[Signe]

TWEAKGUIDES has finally come out with their guide which has some useful info to get the most out of the game.  It's safer than perusing the cesspit they call the official board.  Not that it does me any good with my crashing all the time.  No... I'm just doing this to be nice, you know.  So don't you men whine that I'm trying to make you read something that sounds like a manual. 

[Murgos]

Ok, I completely ran into the wall of disparity between levels and skills and stats last night with my pure mage.  I'm getting two-shotted by the vampires now with all their uber equipment.  I'm starting over with a more planned out template to keep my stats/skills more balanced throughout leveling.

Normally this would make me not want to play the game.  This one is so good, I'm actually looking forward to it.

I'm so screwed.

Enchant your robes with sheild spells and cast a shield spell/drink potion before combat.  Works better than armor (except for when you enchant armor with shield spells..)

[Shockeye]

Horse armor will be available for the PC version for $1.99. Yes, mods are costing money for the PC version as well now.

Linky Dinky Doo

[Sky]

Goddamned micropayment crap. Don't support that garbage! 

At level 4 I got a damage reflection ring. It's pretty minor, but last night I went to grab a cold one from the fridge and when I came back there was a rat, dog, and bandit laying dead at my feet. I got a chuckle out of that.

Then I saw my first keystone cops moment, reminding me of Thief 3: three imperial huntsmen were chasing each other around the woods outside Bruma, shooting arrows at each other.

[Sairon]

I'd like to point out that the horse armor aparantly adds nothing in forms of armor, it's only a new model with a new texture. Now Oblivion is a good game with very high production value, but I still think they should fix up the game first before they start to charge for extra crap. Yes I know that the modelers/texturers doesn't do programming work anyway, but there's aparantly less items in Oblivion than there were in Morrowind, and most of it is only reused stuff from Morrowind anyway.

[Yegolev]

Given the choice of optional pay-per-download items or in-game advertising, I'll take the $2 horse armor.  Anyway, this is the way of the future.  The people with 3D modeling skills are making money already in games like The Sims and potentially TESIV via TESCS+<3D prog>, so why would the developer avoid that revenue stream?  Sure it sucks that they won't be giving away free stuff, but you could say that about any company/product.

[Yoru]

Speaking of damage reflection, anyone know where to find cheap damage/spell reflection spells for purchase? I can only find the uber ones that require Expert/Master to cast.

[Rasix]

Ok, I completely ran into the wall of disparity between levels and skills and stats last night with my pure mage.  I'm getting two-shotted by the vampires now with all their uber equipment.  I'm starting over with a more planned out template to keep my stats/skills more balanced throughout leveling.

Normally this would make me not want to play the game.  This one is so good, I'm actually looking forward to it.

I'm so screwed.

Heh, was that in the quest to get the Daedric artifact?  For some reason the two orc vampires with 2 handed weapons were goddamn near impossible to beat even getting in 6x sneak shots and breaking their weapons.  Not enough room in the cave to kite them either.  Three to four shots to take me down.  Yeesh.

I had to turn down the difficulty for that one.  I've been gradually turning it back up as the only things that give me trouble are brutish melee chars.

Things should go a bit smoother as I've finally found out what those stupid sigil stones are for.  Hooray for free enchants.

Anyone figure out how to repent your sins?  Being the thieves guild's master makes the altars not like me and I can't seem to find the herbs to make a restore willpower potion.

[Yegolev]

Speaking of damage reflection, anyone know where to find cheap damage/spell reflection spells for purchase? I can only find the uber ones that require Expert/Master to cast.

This seems to be hard to do via alchemy, even, so maybe there isn't one.  Or maybe I just haven't traveled to the right region and found the right (abundant) ingredient.

[Bunk]

Ok, I completely ran into the wall of disparity between levels and skills and stats last night with my pure mage.  I'm getting two-shotted by the vampires now with all their uber equipment.  I'm starting over with a more planned out template to keep my stats/skills more balanced throughout leveling.

Normally this would make me not want to play the game.  This one is so good, I'm actually looking forward to it.

I'm so screwed.

Heh, was that in the quest to get the Daedric artifact?  For some reason the two orc vampires with 2 handed weapons were goddamn near impossible to beat even getting in 6x sneak shots and breaking their weapons.  Not enough room in the cave to kite them either.  Three to four shots to take me down.  Yeesh.

I had to turn down the difficulty for that one.  I've been gradually turning it back up as the only things that give me trouble are brutish melee chars.

Things should go a bit smoother as I've finally found out what those stupid sigil stones are for.  Hooray for free enchants.

Anyone figure out how to repent your sins?  Being the thieves guild's master makes the altars not like me and I can't seem to find the herbs to make a restore willpower potion.

My sneaky guy found a way to take that Orc Vampire out - I beleive it was a combination of Fire Salts, Spidal Sticks, and Nightshade. Fire damage + Health Damage makes Vampires cry. Shot him with the poisoned arrow and ran. Took five minutes to find where his corpse dropped.

I beleive that is the quest for Azura's Star btw.

Oh, and try a Way Shrine in the wilderness to cure those diseaes. The Way Shrines don't seem to care about your sins.

[Sky]

I haven't found the orc vampire yet, but I find some of the summon scrolls come in handy now and again with tough fights.

[Rasix]

I haven't found the orc vampire yet, but I find some of the summon scrolls come in handy now and again with tough fights.

Heh, this bitch two shotted a summoned daedroth. She was just mean.  Fortunately, that's the only time where I've been completely overwhelmed in combat.

[Yegolev]

Recently I was completely and repeatedly azzraped by a mountain lion just east of the Imperial City.  I am not even sure it really happened.  That is one badass mountain lion.  The best part is how it disengages from the NPC to run me down.

[schild]

Yea, there's a mountain lion up by the Azura daedra shrine that rocked my ass shortly before I put the game down.

[Lantyssa]

Mountain lions are nasty.  Do not let them rear back and charge, or dodge it if they do, as it does a lot of damage.

[Yoru]

For those situations I made an Illusion spell. Calm Creature Level 12 on Touch for 30 seconds. I call it "Nice Kitty".

[Bunk]

I had a brown bear attack me at the Azura shrine. After it ate one of her followers, it went after me. I kited back and forth at least five minutes while the NPC's bashed away at it, me periodically stopping to shoot. It would have annhilated me if I had tried to melee it.

[Shockeye]

Me thinks they should police their forums better.

[Trippy]

Me thinks they should police their forums better.

Heh, that link is getting pounded right now.