So, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Is Coming Very Soon

…March 20th to be exact (6 days before my birthday!). What are you guys and girls looking forward to the most about this title (I won’t bother linkined to the several new previews that have popped up recently)?

I hope for these things mainly:
a) fun combat (unlike mw’s boring combat)
b) good NPC AI (unlike mw’s completely ridiculous actions)
c) good enemy AI (unlike mw’s dumb straightforward AI)
d) good monster designs (unlike mw’s mostly human/badly designed enemies)
e) good enemy variety (unlike mw’s mostly human/badly designed enemies)
f) a more filled world both in terms of things to see and go to as well as the present wildlife (unlike mw’s mostly empty sections of vast terrain)
g) well made stealth gameplay, similar to the Thief series

And I hope for these things as a bonus:
a) a variety of mounts, not just the displayed horses
b) more straightforward dialogues, not every NPC should speak as if he has a local lore handbook imprinted into his brain
c) an easier to follow main plot (the above should help with that)
d) more variety in the available quests, not just “fetch this” and "kill that"
e) consistent art quality, mw had some great stuff but also a lot of ugly things
f) a better toolset so that more good quality mods will be created
g) consistent performance (even if my pc can’t handle it well, I want it to atleast have a consistent frame rate, not random hicups that don’t seem to have anything to do with what’s going on around you)

There’s probably more in my lists but that’s what I could think of at the moment.

I’ll love it no matter what. There’s not a lot more that I can say. I’m really excited about using the horses though.

I can’t wait either , just Wandering around will be a pleasure in this game

I haven’t played any Elder Scrolls games before but I’m looking forward to play Oblivion.I just hope I like it.From what I can tell people often ad a lot of mixed feelings concerning Morrowind…

It’s the type of game that you either love or hate, and will always be that way. Just like Shenmue.

That’s because Morrowind had a journal that didn’t have any organisation whatsoever, was full of bugs and was damned repetive. I have it on good account that these things are fixed for Oblivion.

Yeah my first post shows all the things I thought were wrong with MW too…

I really tried to like Morrowind, but my gameplay experiences of it always amounted to wandering into dungeons that were too tough for me, and getting eaten by fish :confused:

As a big fan of Morrowind (yeah, I know it’s got lots of flaws but if your able to just accept them, the game has a lot to offer to make up for them), I’m really looking forward to Oblivion - unfortunetly, it looks like it could be quite a while before I get a 360 (no money) so it’ll be a lot longer than i’d like before I get to play it. :anjou_sad:

Get it for PC…

Preordered the Collector’s Edition today! Now all I need is a 360…

I think Oblivion would tire out the hamster that run my processor :P. Serriously, this computer hasn’t been upgraded in years. I tried to get Morrowind on it (for the MODs, n’stuff), but it would crash nine times out of ten on the title screen, and played like a slide show. :anjou_sigh:

I do intend to get a new computer sometime, but that brings me back to to my earlier point: no money.

Edit: Collector’s edition!? Dammit, not buying it is getting harder by the minute.

I couldn’t agree more. Liking Oblivion will entirely depend on whether or not you like open-ended RPGs with almost no boundaries.

I can’t wait to lose myself (and get lost literally) in the world Oblivion has to offer.

Many people like those games but disliked Morrowind because of its flaws. I’m one of them. If one of the main things I do is fighting, I want that fighting to be fun for example. Looks like Oblivion fixes that up nicely among other things.

Not knowing where to go next can frustrate a lot of people, which is why they prefer walking in straight lines from one place to the next or be herded in one direction all the time like in many RPGs (and other types of games) today.

That was why Baldur’s Gate 2 jettisoned the map exporation of the original game while keeping the side quests that created the illusion of a non-linear game.

Even though I had issues with Morrowind, I will be getting Oblivion. It looks impressive from the videos that I’ve seen, and the developers seem to have eliminated most of the problems from the previous game from what I hear.

I played Morrowind for a while on the Xboxm but eventually veered away because of many points you state Al3xand3r, mainly the plot was kinda disjointed and hard to follow.

I am eagerly awaiting Oblivion as well though, it seems as if Bethesda is a coming that really takes heed to what people say about their products, this in part has to do with what a large following the game has.

It’s been said before by many people around the net, but at the cost of sounding derivative I still will, this game and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter are the first games coming out for the 360 that truly seem next-gen.

Morrowind wasn’t perfect, but it was perfect.

Wait… Makes no sense.

Seriously though, it was a great game if you understood what it was about… I bought it because all my friends played it, then let it down for like 2 months, disappointed… then I picked it back up, and couldn’t let it go for hundreds of hours of gameplay (4 serious characters) afterwards…
What’s really rewarding is when you start a game and think: “I want my character to have this career”… yeah that’s right, career. It allows me to build, not only my own game, but my own story… alright then my character is an elven sorcerer. Is he telvanni or in the guild? or both? if so, what is his real allegiance? make yourself a path, think about your character and, well, roleplay the game while you play it. be the character, not just the player. That’s what morrowind is about for me.
Of course, it graphically wasn’t the best (but I don’t care about graphics), and had many other flaws (see Al3x’s first post), mainly the frequent crashes, but Oblivion will more than make up to that. Truly a next-gen title. And Morrowind will stay a classic.

So, who here has played this game?

I hear there’s been a few issues with the game, especially with the PC version running under various configurations. It sounds like as with Morrowind, given the complexity of the engine, the game isn’t going to run perfect all of the time on most systems. The 360 version also apparantly has a few werid glitches, but overall it’s supposibly pretty good.

Someone on the Elder Scrolls boards posted of an issue where the game’s cache sometimes won’t clear out on the 360’s harddrive, even if you turn off the console. But this can fixed by holding down the A button when the game starts up. I haven’t tried it myself, but it sounds useful, so I thought I’d post it!

I haven’t played the game yet so I’d be interested in hearing some impressions, both from PC and 360 owners. Does it live up to the hype?

…Just played it on my friend’s Xbox 360.

Impressive. The first section in the dungeon is the tutorial section of the game. I won’t spoil the story, but eventually you make it out of the dungeon and enter the outside world. Inside, the framerate is excellent, next to no slow down except when you switch from your weapon to your torch (the lighting causes the game to freeze slightly).

Outside, the game world is impressive… the richest game graphically that I’ve seen or played, EVER. Once you play this, you’ll just want to run towards those lush hills covered in vegetation in the distance… and, you can. However, the amount of loading times once you reach the outdoor areas is quite horrific. Although the framerate is smooth, the game seems to load almost every 10 seconds or so. So, although you can walk anywhere, you won’t be going far without the game pausing (Halo style, but much much more frequently). A real shame for an otherwise smooth and graphically amazing game. I’m not sure if the cache on the harddrive fixes this if you return to the area later or not (the version I played was using the HD though).

Can’t say too much else about the game so far, as I didn’t play very far after I reached the end of the first dungeon. The combat is awesome though - fast, fluid, and far more natural than in Morrowind. Oh, and the game allows heaps of character customisation at the start, almost on the same level as The Sims.

One other thing… once you arrive on the “outside world map”, a compass appears on the screen, with a red marker which marks the direction that you have to go for what I assume is the current quest. Less of a chance of getting lost, which is handy.

Overall, I don’t think an hour or so of play time is really enough time to give a solid opinion of the game. But, apart from the loading issues in the 360 version, I’m rather impressed.