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

[Toast]

This is the best single player game i have played on PC in a long time. I really enjoy the quests. They are surprisingly good for a world that is sandboxy. I'm having a good time, and I haven't started delving into any of the guild quests or into alchemy/enchanting.

I'm playing on an aged system with a radeon 9800, and I get decent performance on lower res settings. I was having a couple of odd graphical glitches, but they turned out to be due to having old video drivers.

Great game. This should be a lock for game of the year, jaded, hardcore morrowinders notwithstanding.

[Signe]

Yes, I played Morrowind and that used to be the buggiest game ever.  Now Oblivion is.  I'm sure all their games will be in the future, too.  They're on a roll.

[Bunk]

I installed the latest beta drivers for my 660GT and it imprved the frame rate greatly. Not only that, but I have not had a single crash going to the map interface since I upgraded (was happening once every hour or so before).

Just became a Vamp at lev 14. Glad I'm a Dunmer with inherent fire resist. The Dark Brotherhood quests are a blast, as was the one Schild is avoiding mentioning in Anvil. I'll admit Schild, I had to turn down the difficulty slider to finish it, after 30 minutes of doing laps and not managing to kill the bastard.

Ultimately, I may have to kill every high elf in the game, they just creep me out.

Poisons were a huge improvement to Alchemy. Finally earned my way in to the University, and I like how they handled enchanting and spellcraft. Sure it was fun to make uber stuff before, but I prefer this slightly more balanced method.

I've become insanely good at sneak - I have successfully backstabbed people in the front! Oh, and I actually opened a Hard lock for the first time. Only broke 54 picks in the proccess - I actually yelled out loud in triumph (and quickly hit save) when I succeeded.

[Murgos]

set bDoSpecularPass = 0 in "My Documents\My Games\Oblivion\Oblivion.ini" (turns off shiney hair and other stuff, hardly noticable, big increase in frame rates on older cards like my 9800SE).

Apparently this is bad advice.  If you do this there is a chance you will have reproducable CTD's in certain areas.  So, if you have flipped this flag and are experiencing a CTD that you can reproduce there is a chance fliping this setting back will fix it.  I ran into this earlier today.

[Rodent]

set bDoSpecularPass = 0 in "My Documents\My Games\Oblivion\Oblivion.ini" (turns off shiney hair and other stuff, hardly noticable, big increase in frame rates on older cards like my 9800SE).

Apparently this is bad advice.  If you do this there is a chance you will have reproducable CTD's in certain areas.  So, if you have flipped this flag and are experiencing a CTD that you can reproduce there is a chance fliping this setting back will fix it.  I ran into this earlier today.

Was playing aorund with this before and it didn't cause any ( more ) CTD's then normal. But it did remove underwater effects. So I turned I switched it back real quick.

[Kitsune]

It's still a dumbed down Morrowind and suffers accordingly.

I don't get this.  I've seen similar sentiments on the Bethesda message boards.

Combat is more complex with the various attacks and blocks and dodges.  The directional swings in Morrowind only affected the damage dealt, and blocking was automatic.  I had more challenge and more fun fighting a bandit with a big axe in Oblivion than I ever had in any fight in Morrowind, which went along the line of 'run up, click mouse a lot, loot body'.

The minigames for lockpicking and speechcraft are a sight more complicated than Morrowind's versions.

The NPCs aren't all standing around like mannequins.

It's trickier to steal everything in sight from shopkeepers who move around and keep an eye on you.

The new mapping and travel functions, while they eliminate a lot of tedium when you just want to go from point A to point B, aren't mandatory; walking still works fine.

The loss of some of the weapon types is regrettable, but doesn't really impact the game that much.  If anything, Oblivion's requirement of one-handed weapons for sneak attack damage makes things a lot more different than Morrowind's weapons, which only varied in durability, damage and weight.

Oblivion has poisons for weapons.

Morrowind did, admittedly, have more 'armor slots', but I can't really say that my gameplay is impacted by things like having sleeves come in pairs.

Having to drop into the character menu to change spells and weapons being used in Morrowind was only an inconvenience, not really a feature.

I'm having a very hard time coming up with any feature in Oblivion that Morrowind did better.  I've heard people say that Morrowind had more quests, but a lot of Morrowind's quests were frankly lacking.  'OMG, %name, %NPC has stolen my %item!  Talk to %NPC2 and kill %NPC and bring my %item back!'  The only quests I performed in Morrowind were the ones necessary to advance with factions.

Morrowind's great houses were nice, and it's a shame that there aren't equivalent factions in Oblivion.  But since you can just buy housing in all of the towns, there's not so much need to have your own place built.  In the middle of nowhere.

[schild]

There might be a conversation to have about Morrowind and Oblivion. But really, the newer one is so vastly superior to Morrowind it's pointless. As you'll see in my review, I'm no lover of Oblivion. I've logged a lot of hours and I enjoyed some parts while some stuff drove me to stop playing. On the other hand, I didn't last more than an hour in Morrowind. It was just a horribly boring game. Also, it was ugly and the world wasn't compelling. Oh, and the interfaces were confusing and combat sucked balls. Terrible balls. Seeing someone say Morrowind is better is just plain crazy talk.

[NiX]

For all you thief/sneaky types: There's a shring of Nocturna (or something like that) NE of Leyawiin that gives a quest. You need to be level 10, but the quest is easy and you get a "Master Key" as the reward. Essentially it's an indestructible lockpick that gives you +40 to security. I'd opened many very hard locks before getting it so I didn't feel it was ruining much for me.

[schild]

Review link here, sorry for unnecessary confusing linkage. Didn't think the forums part through.

Edit: It's rather impossible to say everything I wanted to say. It would have gone on for pages and pages and pages and I still wouldn't have said everything. For those that are too lazy to read it, let me sum it up here:

I don't like Oblivion because there aren't other people.

I don't like MMORPGs anymore because they aren't as fleshed out as Oblivion.

I guess I'll go eat worms.

[Bunk]

It's a fair revue, and I can see where you are coming from. I'm 30 hours in, and I expect it will hold my interest for another 20 maybe. My hope is that I can drag myself through the majority of the game before I become bored. Why? Because I want to experience as much of the game properly before I dive in to the TES tools. Mods are a passion for me, and nothing is more fun to mod than a giant sandbox game.

Yes, I would give my left nut if they could make this in to a multiplayer game, but we all know thats not happening. So I'll take my 50+ hours of entertainment followed by countless hours of building cheezy castles and such in the editor, and I'll say I'm happy.

Backstabbing people in the front is a true joy.

I really do wish that the Orcs didn't sound like used car salesmen though.

[NiX]

I stopped caring about the storyline at the exact same point and I only run up to Oblivion Gates to get a quick travel point in between towns just in case a new quest sends me near there seeing as my horse fucking vanished and the message that told me where it was decided to show up in the midst of 5 other notifications so I didn't catch it.

This truly would be 100 times better with other people in it. While walking through Anvil I realized how much more alive the towns would feel if other adventurers were running about doing other things. As much as they touted this grand new AI it still feels horribly scripted and it removes any life from them that they tried to instill. The biggest culprit in this is triggers. There's a Dark Brotherhood quest where you're locked in a house and have to kill people. I killed the first 2 unnoticed and in places no one else went and yet the entire group of living NPCs automatically knew of the other two being dead. That still bothers me.

Great review schild, right on the money.

[schild]

Yea, I mentioned that quest, "Whodunit." I loved it. I filled bedrooms with bodies. And got the last guy to kill the second to last girl with an uppercut to the jaw. Easily one of the bestest quests ever. But yea, triggers are all the stupid.

On another topic, things to note:

Steal something from a guard. Train all of them into an Oblivion gate. They will fight your fight for you.

Suck blood, steal one item. Steal one item, suck blood. Never steal two items or suck blood twice. Repeated efforts wake people up.

The moment you hit level 10, do the Nocturnal skeleton key quest. You can brute force through any lock, though you won't have to. Also, lockpicking is fun.

How Locking picking works. Also known as - IT IS NOT RANDOM, NOOBS. I've opened Very Hard Locks with a 5 in the security skill with one lockpick. Here are some instructions:

• Click the pin up multiple times.
• Notice the pattern. After every time it drops quickly, it stays up.
• Guaranteed after the quickest drop of a given pin (it's tempermental and switches between 4 levels of dropping quickly), the longest hold will stay there.
• Click your action button on the push up after the fastest drop when it reaches apex.
• If these directions made sense to you and you don't play games with boxing gloves on, it'll work every time.

Also, there is an unimportant asshole in the Imperial City who is not tied to a questline. In the release version of the game (I'm sure this will be patched), you can kill him, loot his corpse and keep looting the money. It doesn't disappear. Just don't hit "loot all" or your game will crash. This also might be a 360 only thing.

Do the Azura daedric quest at level 2. it's the earliest one you can do. The reward is a grand soul gem that's reusable.

Go dungeon spleunking at least once per play session. Those glowy things in the torch holders are luv. Especially the expensive version (a white crystal), it recharges all of your magic items, save them for long quests through the night time (in game night time that is).

The moment you can get magic items readily (level 10-12), start dungeon spleunking and bandit raiding on a regular basis. Very soon all of your enemies will be things that are LOTS EASIER with magic weapons. Particularly since you can't use regular weapons against them.

I think that covers it.

[Murgos]

You do know you don't have to be a vampire, right?  Complaining about being a vampire seems kind of childish in an "I opted to do this thing and now I don't like that option and even though I don't have to keep it I will keep it and continue to complain about it" sort of way.

edit:  I'll expand this into a general sort of post just because I don't feel like working.

Combat is more fun, to me, in 3rd person than in first person.  The rest of the game is better in first person though, except for horse riding that's better in 3rd person too.

Do retaking Kvatch earlier rather than later, by the time I did it the town was filled with Frost Antronachs, Clanfear (full grown ones) and Daedroth, maybe a more dedicated combat or magic build can handle 7 Clannfear at a time, my light armor stealth type can't.  If you do get into that type of a situation the difficulty slider is awesome, drop it all the way down and become a whirling blender of death.  Obviously, an AE damage attack would have worked wonders here.

NPC's will walk off with 6000 gold piece staves that you leave lying around (When I find out who took it they are so going to be my opening into the dark brotherhood.)

Jauffre getting the Amulet of Kings stolen out from under his nose is a pretty heavy handed plot device, poorly done, and smacks of Deus Ex Machina.  I'll still come back to the main quest pretty shortly but I want into the Arcane University first.

The scaling to your level aspect of the game is both good and bad.  I like that I won't walk into a dungeon and find it populated with rats and iron weapon level loot.  I dislike that I won't walk into a dungeon and find it way over my head, that said there is sometimes a boss style mob in a dungeon that I have to struggle with, again probably mostly an artifact of my character build.

Crashes have been very rare and the random ones are obviously a result of a mem leak (I'll take Allocation errors for 1000 Alex) but fortunately are hours and hours apart.  Other than the Specular Pass bug I mentioned earlier I have run into no other reproducible crashes.

I am right around 20 hours of gameplay in and will be lucky to get another 8 in this week, one dungeon crawl and/or a minor quest a day is about my pace for this game, hopefully at that pace I won't burn out too quickly.  I should be playing this for months to come.

[Ironwood]

I WANT to use some of my valuable time today to respond to Kitsune and tell him exactly how I feel, but for the mo I'm just going to say this :  Having 3 pairs of radiant AI characters fucking talking over the top of each other so you can't actually make out what the fuck the important quest guy is saying is really, really, really, really fucking annoying.

I'm also really concerned about this whole 'loot levelling' thing that's hitting the boards.  I'm not far enough to notice, but I think that's going to suck mightily.

Azura's Star at level 2 ?  What the fuck ?  In Morrowind you had to duel Golden Saints for that shit.  Not that it matters, since you can't enchant until you're a magey God anyways.

Arg.

[Ironwood]

Here we Go : 

Combat :  It may be more involved, but right now I don't feel the love.  It feels horribly consoley.  duck, block, dodge, hold forward fireball and whatnot.  Be aware that this is NOT a deal breaker because I am mostly a marksman and don't get in close much.  Combat may be more enjoyable.  The perks look cool for it, but I ain't there yet.  Fair enough.  Couldn't be worse than Morrowind really...

On that note,  Marksman:  Holy Hell, it's overpowered.  I'm sneakily one shotting everything.  And while that empowers me with a wealth of cool, it feels wrong.  Compared to Magic, I feel like putting my Ace of Spades on the goblins and announcing 'I AM GOD'.  Could do with toning down a tad I feel.

The Mini Games for Lockpicking and Speechcraft :  Are Wank.  Pure wank of the highest order.  It triviliases my characters skills and makes it dependant on my skill.  Fuck that.  It's meant to be an RPG.  What happened to the fucking Role ?  If it was easy to move the goddamn mouse without jerking on my lockpick like a priest at an altar boy convention, I would hit 'auto-resolve' every time.  Speechcraft is a FUCKING JOKE.  I have to say 'your hair is pretty, two men walk into a bar, I am a great lover and GIVE ME EAT' every time I want to talk to someone ?  Why the fuck ?  It makes no sense.  More console Wank.

The NPCs :  Sure, they aren't all standing around like mannequins, but see above :  just as someone is going to whisper the secret of the heavens into your ear another FUCKING DUMBASS GUARD WILL WALK UP TO YOU AND SCREAM 'GREETINGS DUNMER' RIGHT IN YOUR FUCKING LUGHOLE.  Not Clever.  Oh and what's with me breaking into a shop and walking up to the guys bedroom, waking him up and have him serve me pie ?  Where's the fucking outrage ?  On the Mountain Lion quest, I INTERRUPTED THE GUY FUCKING HIS WIFE IN BED AND HE SAID 'I'LL GET MY ARMOR; LET'S GO'.  If I'm fucking my wife and one of you come in and start blathering about Mountain lions, you're getting a board with a nail in it, I swear to God.

Stealing :  It may be trickier to steal stuff.  Until you realise you have a RUN key.

Mapping and Travel Keys :  Suck Ass.  Horses suck ass too.  Especially the first time you fast travel and park yours in the fucking lake.  Gimme a break.  Hard to steer and less controllable than my wife.  Sure, you can walk everywhere and, frankly, that's the preferrable option.  The immersion totally goes with fast travel and it's only use is to keep you away from the stupidly retarded Oblivion gates everywhere.

Weapons and Armor :  You cannot begin to comprehend how much I hate the new system.  3 weapon types.  2 armor types, no clothing of any type.  It's just again a total immersion breaker for no good reason whatsoever.  I LIKED the fact that I could co-ordinate everything in my character later on.  That shirt went with that breastplate, went with that axe.  Now, let's face it, the drive to Min/Max is much much worse.

Poisons :  Are Cool.

UI - OH MY GOD MY EYES AND HEAD.  One quick one ;  why can't I right click to remove alchemical ingredients ?  Why do I have to tap two seperate mouseclicks because I fucked up and put down horsefeathers instead of horse scrotum ?  Why ?  because it was designed for a fucking joypad.  Why oh why when I do a quest does it come up

THIS SIZE ON MY SCREEN

It's totally unneccesary.

Houses :  Not got there yet.  But the customisation of items is apparently fucked up because you can't really place things properly.  If you could see the screenshots of my pad in Morrowind, you'd know what I was talking about.  Sigh.


This is not a good game.  I hold out hope that the modders can make it a good game for me.  So much hope, so little survived.  Please feel free to polish your armor with my tears.

[Glazius]

Despite what the strat guide tells you, lockpicking is really easy once you get the hang of doing it by sound.

A pin you can't lock in place: tap, tink
A pin you _can_ lock in place: tap, scrape-tink, mouseclick

Just that little second of the pin slowly sliding up is enough of a cue.

--GF

[Ironwood]

So I've been told.  Making the mini-game even more pointless and detrimental to immersion.

[Soln]

So, worth buying, but not worth loving?  I'll buy, play it, and expect nothing more.  Cool.  Thanks for a good write up.

[Murgos]

The one shot kill with Marksman goes away pretty quickly.  It's an artifact of there being two damage mods for marksman from the bow and from the arrows and then multiplying it.  Once things start to have more than a handful of hitpoints the one shot kill goes away.  Marksman is still very useful though because if you are fast and accurate you can stunlock most mobs and get four or five critical hits in a row either killing it outright or leaving it very weak for melee.  YMMV against multiple mob encounters, I suggest running and it is usually possible to 'peel off' a mob from a group and deal with them serially.

[Dren]

I've played quite a bit over the weekend.  I have 3 different characters going now (pure mage, thief, knight.)  I'm sticking with the pure mage more for the vast magic system the game has.

I'm a bit opposed to Iron's issues, but to each their own.  I haven't run across the crossfire type conversation stuff yet, but I'm not really very far into side-questing yet.  I think you can turn on subtitles in the settings to avoid that issue.  Yeah, immersion killer, etc.

The insta travel worried me at first, but seriously, it takes some of the drag out of the game.  You still can't insta travel to places you haven't been, so you have to go to the nearst spot and then walk/ride there.  Yes, horses are a waste of time.

Summary:  I really really like this game.  Love?  Not there yet, but maybe.  I agree with Schild and others.  This would be very nice with others around.  It would also suck with others around.

I think there are two reasons other people would be nice to have in Oblivion:

1. The immersion of having an active crowd in towns is always nice.  Of course they ruin that as soon as you seen their names and what they have to say, but just the visual of people running back and forth doesn't make you gameplay seems so solitary (which it is) or stale (which it is.)

2.  Bragging or just talking about the game to others.  Most of the time I find something cool or get a new neato item and I can't do anything about it.  Telling people on a board is just stupid because it doesn't matter to them.  We aren't in the same "world" so who cares?  I can't buy it from you.  I can't be hurt by it.  You can't give it to me. It won't help us while we hunt together.  Items and accomplishments in MMOG's seem so much more impressive because they affect other in one way or another.  In single player, it is you.  And the NPC's staring blankly at you saying the same thing over and over.

The only solution I can think of is to have a game like Oblivion, but make it a MMOG with HEAVY instancing or something.  I don't know.  Maybe this is a puzzle that can never be won.

[Calantus]

I'm also really concerned about this whole 'loot levelling' thing that's hitting the boards.  I'm not far enough to notice, but I think that's going to suck mightily.

I feel like clarifying this issue just so you guys know whats up ahead as the misinformation is pretty thick. Only guards, bandits, and 8 specific monster types (I don't know which, but imagine it would be golden saints and daedric lords... the highest level creatures basically) scale with your level (plus maybe humanoid NPCs, not sure tho). All the rats and wolves and suchlike you'll be able to pwn with easy if/when you run into them. Other creater types simply get replaced by higher version exactly the same as in morrowind (like how rats were replaced by the dog thingies in MW, and daedra kept going to the next highest type). The loot leveling system is basically the same as it was in MW, only it seems there aren't any really unique items lying around in dungeons for players to find.

To me it is going to make it much more fun when I get my char to uber levels simply because I wont be 2-hitting the hardest mobs in the game (oh, and the first hit knocked em down, so they prettymuch do nothing to me) before I put on my uber enchants. I'll also be able to ignore certain quests/questlines as I go and yet be able to go back to them and still have a challenge. Gonna be weird seeing bandits in full daedric... but I guess I can wrap my head around that. I'll miss the unique items for display in my house but again it's something I'll get over eventually. What it's gonna hurt is anyone who doesn't keep their combat abilities/stats/gear/spells up to date with their level. In morrowind you could overcome it by rapidly overleveling your enemies, now you have to be aware of it at all times.

Most of the complaining is due to misinformation "zomg liek lvl 23 rats will be killing me?!!?". But yeah... rats don't level with you, so they are grasping at reasons to hate the system. Only problem I have with it is too much scales down. Some things I'd like to have to go away and come back when I'm higher level. Throwing in some unique loot in dungeons wouldn't hurt either. I could say the same for more unique enemies in dungeons, but MW had the exact same problem.

Azura's Star at level 2 ?  What the fuck ?  In Morrowind you had to duel Golden Saints for that shit.  Not that it matters, since you can't enchant until you're a magey God anyways.

I recall getting my Azura's Star at level 1 at one point in MW. Gotta love alchemy. I could have just levitated above them and shot em with a bow, but I never was a fan of that method.

[Sky]

I got a lot of time in over the weekend, maybe 10 hours. My take on the game is pretty simple: best rpg I've played since Ultima 7.5. One of my top ten games of all time. This game sets the bar for all future rpgs.

No crashes, no bugs for me so far and it runs /great/ on my two-year-old pc. I'm amazed, after hearing doom&gloom...then I remembered...lolinternet.

I've been playing a Knight. Need a bit better of a heal spell, but otherwise blocking + melee has served me just fine. Melee isn't very viable without good blocking, though, because of the way you can be set back on your heels.

I can think of no quicker way to ruin this game than adding some frothing mmogtards. No thanks. I can't wait until all is right with the world...when Schild finished Oblivion and gets back to his normal console japarpg of the day.

The only downside to Oblivion I can think of is that it will be years before Bethesda puts out the next Elder Scrolls game. Well, there are a few invisible walls in the game, but it's almost a non-issue. I had to reach for a con to the game, it's all pro for me.

[Ironwood]

Sky has found the Unicorn.

[Fabricated]

For me Oblivion's main problem is the same one that Morrowind had, if you call it a problem (I do, some feel otherwise).

It's more fun to just fuck off and do whatever you want than do any of the main quest line. I'd rather break into people's houses, pickpocket strangers, raid caves and forts, search for all the various hidden goodies tucked away in the corners of the world, than plod through the main quest.

[Lum]

Re schild's review and the note about Dark Brotherhood not being evil enough...

Someone didn't get to PURIFICATION.

(Plus, even before that. Come on. The orc freakin brags about choking six year old girls. I'm not sure I'd WANT more evil in my NPCs, thanks...)

[Sky]

I guess I just don't see the problem with the Blade GM losing the amulet. Maybe it's because I'm reading through GRR Martin and people are always moving their quests forward only to be set back again. Taking Martin to the Blade HQ was cool, felt almost like Batman Begins when they go to the Temple. I just get a really nice vibe from the main quest...though if there are any more sequences where I need to fight alongside NPCs, I REALLY need to grab a Heal Other spell...

[Valmorian]

Re schild's review and the note about Dark Brotherhood not being evil enough...

Someone didn't get to PURIFICATION.

(Plus, even before that. Come on. The orc freakin brags about choking six year old girls. I'm not sure I'd WANT more evil in my NPCs, thanks...)

I was more surprised that it was compared to FABLE as being "less evil".  Having my character grow horns is evil.. I guess..

[Khaldun]

I'm enjoying it a lot so far. No bugs here after a weekend of play except for one weird falling-through-the-world thing when getting on a horse near the borders of the map.

About the only thing that I thought was superior about Morrowind is that the art design for Morrowind gave you a slightly more spine-tingling sense of being in a strange place. (Disclaimer: I haven't gone in the portal to Oblivion yet, I'm still messing around exploring before I advance the quest line further). Also I liked the music and voice work for Morrowind in that respect--that kind of alien, lilting sensorium of the game. In this context, I don't especially care for the way high elves and such look in Oblivion--they frankly look like humans with a bizarre deformity. I also wish, very much, that they had a smarter way of creating borders--I really dislike riding up to a river valley and just being told I can't go any further. Immersion breaking--say, have the Nine appear to me and say, "If you break the bonds of destiny, then death will take you now" and kill me if I keep riding in that direction. I dunno. Something other than hitting an invisible wall.

But otherwise, it's much better than Morrowind. The little quests are just great. The dynamism of NPC movements and dialogue is often great. Every once in a while it's stupid, like when I was hiding in that bandit cave near the Imperial City listening to the bandits talk about the weather or about the kinds of animals that appear on the Blue Road and so on. Guys! You are a bunch of bandits hiding in a shitty little cave near the capital city. Surely there are bandit-like things you can talk about, eh?

Here's a question, though. Is there any way to make time pass faster besides going to a bed you're allowed to sleep in? I had to watch over a shop in Anvil last night waiting for some guys to rob it, and I didn't want to miss out on the attempt, given the time-dynamism of the game. I wasn't allowed to sleep in the bed (despite the fact that I had the shopkeeper's permission to be there) so it was a bit annoying to dawdle and wait for the attempt to happen.

[Toast]

Hit T to wait. That works like rest.

[Dren]

I guess I just don't see the problem with the Blade GM losing the amulet. Maybe it's because I'm reading through GRR Martin and people are always moving their quests forward only to be set back again. Taking Martin to the Blade HQ was cool, felt almost like Batman Begins when they go to the Temple. I just get a really nice vibe from the main quest...though if there are any more sequences where I need to fight alongside NPCs, I REALLY need to grab a Heal Other spell...

That and the fact that those guys seem to jump right in front of me when I cast a spell or shoot an arrow.  Or the archers stand in the back and shoot like crazy hitting everything in front of them including me!  So far, I've avoided having ANY help from NPCs.  Hiding in the back until they die and picking off easy targets has been my best strategy so far.  I suppose healing them would be the next thing to try.

Damn those arrows hurt.

[WayAbvPar]

Here we Go : 

Combat :  It may be more involved, but right now I don't feel the love.  It feels horribly consoley.  duck, block, dodge, hold forward fireball and whatnot.  Be aware that this is NOT a deal breaker because I am mostly a marksman and don't get in close much.  Combat may be more enjoyable.  The perks look cool for it, but I ain't there yet.  Fair enough.  Couldn't be worse than Morrowind really...

On that note,  Marksman:  Holy Hell, it's overpowered.  I'm sneakily one shotting everything.  And while that empowers me with a wealth of cool, it feels wrong.  Compared to Magic, I feel like putting my Ace of Spades on the goblins and announcing 'I AM GOD'.  Could do with toning down a tad I feel.

The Mini Games for Lockpicking and Speechcraft :  Are Wank.  Pure wank of the highest order.  It triviliases my characters skills and makes it dependant on my skill.  Fuck that.  It's meant to be an RPG.  What happened to the fucking Role ?  If it was easy to move the goddamn mouse without jerking on my lockpick like a priest at an altar boy convention, I would hit 'auto-resolve' every time.  Speechcraft is a FUCKING JOKE.  I have to say 'your hair is pretty, two men walk into a bar, I am a great lover and GIVE ME EAT' every time I want to talk to someone ?  Why the fuck ?  It makes no sense.  More console Wank.

The NPCs :  Sure, they aren't all standing around like mannequins, but see above :  just as someone is going to whisper the secret of the heavens into your ear another FUCKING DUMBASS GUARD WILL WALK UP TO YOU AND SCREAM 'GREETINGS DUNMER' RIGHT IN YOUR FUCKING LUGHOLE.  Not Clever.  Oh and what's with me breaking into a shop and walking up to the guys bedroom, waking him up and have him serve me pie ?  Where's the fucking outrage ?  On the Mountain Lion quest, I INTERRUPTED THE GUY FUCKING HIS WIFE IN BED AND HE SAID 'I'LL GET MY ARMOR; LET'S GO'.  If I'm fucking my wife and one of you come in and start blathering about Mountain lions, you're getting a board with a nail in it, I swear to God.

Stealing :  It may be trickier to steal stuff.  Until you realise you have a RUN key.

Mapping and Travel Keys :  Suck Ass.  Horses suck ass too.  Especially the first time you fast travel and park yours in the fucking lake.  Gimme a break.  Hard to steer and less controllable than my wife.  Sure, you can walk everywhere and, frankly, that's the preferrable option.  The immersion totally goes with fast travel and it's only use is to keep you away from the stupidly retarded Oblivion gates everywhere.

Weapons and Armor :  You cannot begin to comprehend how much I hate the new system.  3 weapon types.  2 armor types, no clothing of any type.  It's just again a total immersion breaker for no good reason whatsoever.  I LIKED the fact that I could co-ordinate everything in my character later on.  That shirt went with that breastplate, went with that axe.  Now, let's face it, the drive to Min/Max is much much worse.

Poisons :  Are Cool.

UI - OH MY GOD MY EYES AND HEAD.  One quick one ;  why can't I right click to remove alchemical ingredients ?  Why do I have to tap two seperate mouseclicks because I fucked up and put down horsefeathers instead of horse scrotum ?  Why ?  because it was designed for a fucking joypad.  Why oh why when I do a quest does it come up

THIS SIZE ON MY SCREEN

It's totally unneccesary.

Houses :  Not got there yet.  But the customisation of items is apparently fucked up because you can't really place things properly.  If you could see the screenshots of my pad in Morrowind, you'd know what I was talking about.  Sigh.


This is not a good game.  I hold out hope that the modders can make it a good game for me.  So much hope, so little survived.  Please feel free to polish your armor with my tears.

This was art. I like the game a lot more than you do, but I still literally shook with silent laughter until I had tears in my eyes reading this. Well said, sir.


I am pricing new video cards atm. My 6800 is getting pwned- I had to drop down to 800x600 to get decent frame rates. I might try the new beta drivers to see if they help too.

[Rasix]

I am pricing new video cards atm. My 6800 is getting pwned- I had to drop down to 800x600 to get decent frame rates. I might try the new beta drivers to see if they help too.

My 6800 appears to be doing just fine.  How do you check your frame rate in the game anyhow? 

By the way, what is the goddamn advantage to light armor beyond being.. well.. less heavy? People hit me hard! Doing the a certain quest (don't want to spoil it), I found it near impossible to go toe to toe with people in heavy armor. I resorted to bow kiting.  The last guy was in dwarven armor and when I looted him the guy had over 15 steel arrows in his carcass.

[WayAbvPar]

Choppiness and stutters in the video. I had to drop to the lowest resolution (even though the game auto-detected me for a higher setting). Since ranged combat/magic is so twitchy, I need things much smoother than they are.

It is very similar to the problems I have had since the Bf2 patch, actually. I wonder if it is a driver thing? My drivers are only like 3 months old...

[Rasix]

Choppiness and stutters in the video.

Ohh, thought there might actually be a console command to show your FPS.  There probably is.. but I am lazy.

[Bunk]

There is a console command for it, but I don't have it handy. Do try the beta drivers, they made a huge difference for my 6600GT.