Oblivion: Actual Mileage May Vary

4

4too

Vault Senior Citizen
Oblivion: Actual Mileage May Vary




I have no PC hard drive space zeroed or one-d by Bethesda- Zenimax products.
No emotional attachments to B - Z products.

No fiscal - consumer interests.
In terms of what type of RPG is in the box, the allegations of this and other 'bait and switch' issues does not concern me.

Great that y'all found a game in the box, In these days of ''evaporation ware"" [ 'EVAPO-WARZ'? ] once the cork is pulled and the NEW smell is gone, nothing is left. Glad to read there is substance, some sand, in the molding of this tidally (temporally) challenged, sea front castle.

How the game was advertised, how the game was promoted by (likely) third party, online game reviewers (after a minimum play time), does not concern me.

After a patch or two, there is no implied publisher's - buyer's social contract. Each player of Oblivion is responsible for their own experience.


And after the -- thrill is gone -- how much 'play time' was on the chronological odometer? There's a timely MOD!

There's a timely MOD!
Could include a repetitive motion alarm to curtail carpal tunnel syndrome AND a diagnostic tool to measure one's level of attention deficit disorder by the number of times a motion, a quest stereo type is repeated.

I can relate to repeating, that's like chanting a mantra. Did y'all know how transcendentally meditating that can be? Might see god. Might wake up in the '60's. Might become a bliss ninny for the greater glory of Bee - Zee.


Step up, 'stand and be true' , how much actual game time has been devoted to Oblivion since it was purchased and installed on your platform of preference.

How accurate was the 'promise' of 200 hours of game play?

When does ' the morning after ' begin?

When does this construct become 'pounding sand'? Or, rolling a stone up hill ...

OR, when did you roll away the stone defining your mortal tomb, and see god in entertainment software?


This thread asks: How many hours in OBLIVION?



........................................

Me?

ZERO.

Still a Wasteland wanderer ....

..................



I'll repeat the final question for those of you on drugs ...


How many hours in OBLIVION?





4too
 
Not on drugs. 4 hours by now, too soon about making any bold statements beside that i really dislike the UI, and the graphics are nice on my poor 6600gt, although the faces are beyond ugly.

Interesting architecture though.

So are you going to make a definite Oblivion review or not, 4Too? Still on Mac only diet?
 
20 to 25 hours.

did my best to like it, to find some redeming feature. to prove to myself that there was hope.

started over trice.

no such thing to be found.

damn glad i didnt buy it...
 
About 5 hours... then I uninstalled it. I'm going to try again in 6-12 months when it's (hopefully) been patched and some decent mods are out.

Same as I did with MW, basically
 
Desert Sand Horizon

Desert Sand Horizon




How many stars in the skies, how many grains of sand in your des(s)ert?

Is there a point, or points, like an hour glass, in the time dimension, when the Oblivion exploration sandbox runs out of sand?


....................

At 17 hours:
http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=11823&start=0

EvoG:
...The whistle of the arrow through the air is sweet, and duration of the 'pull' seems to affect damage like Fable, so you do have to keep moving and wait for the meaty shots, as quick ones are flaccid looking(arc straight to the ground) and do no damage. ...
Click to expand...


At 42 hours:
http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=11924&start=0

EvoG:
...I'm 42 hours in, level 13 and have yet to do the first quest in the Main Story. I've almost now completely resigned myself to do nothing but the bidding of the thieves guild as the storyline is compelling enough(and seemingly endless) to ignore all of the plethora of side quests tossed at me, except one. The opportunity to hunt vampires. Nothing terribly involved nor resoundingly complete, but its vampires, and I only encounted one lone one early on and it was ancillary to my end goal. ...
Click to expand...



At 75 hours:
http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=12117

EvoG:
... In all fairness, you touch Oblivion for the first time, and its impressive and your mind reels at the possibilities, until 75 hours in, and you realise that all those possibilities were imagined (justifiably) and the game runs out of steam. *cough* ....
Click to expand...


........................


EvoG appeared to have fun with his positive views because he explored Oblivion on his own terms, on how he wanted to 'role play' in an action RPG. Did what he wanted and bailed out.




The play value of Oblivion appears less than the 200 hours as marketed. That aspect could be, should be made clear if anyone hopes, wishes in one hand, that quality entertainment software be possible for any future Bethesda title.

If I would want to lay down a single agenda in my hand, that card might be the true appraisal of Oblivion as entertainment software. The end of superlative adoration and the revelation of marketing forces that have been budgeted for this product. The Marketing, PR, were time and money not spend on the game itself, but on some mystical, philosophical absolute, floating in the advertising ether. The fruit of this bad seed, the unrealistic expectations and cruel disappointments of more than a few.

Why would one want to support the world view of the Marketing -PR mindset?

Why would one want to encourage similar wasting of resources on any future title?

A potentially clear indicator of the play value of Oblivion is the rate the it runs out of sand.

Runs out of (play) time



.......................


Briosafreak. Got a Mac. Got a PC that might load Oblivion. Got a '93 Toyota that needs a tension pulley bearing replaced on the power steering. Got to fill the cells in my 2005 tax software too.

So, with this extra daylight from the clock's change, I'll avoid .... taxes ... by ...

.... drawing a line in the sand ...

.... when Mac Oblivion appears on my event horizon .... I'll review that ...

now I'm off to the ... Toyota, after i do spell check, and mail check, and ..

....................


The thread question continues: How many hours in OBLIVION?





4too
 
Just hit 60, finished the main quest and the thieves guild quests today. I'm probably going to finish the dark brotherhood because they and the thieves guild have the best quests in the game. Just going by the blank areas of my map, places I've run by but never visited, and all the people I haven't talked to, I'd agree that there's probably at least another 60 hours worth of game there if I wanted it, but I don't know if I'm going to bother. I had fun with it, and the Dark Brotherhood quests should be fun, but at this point it's just more of the same. There's content there, but I'm not feeling much incentive to continue.
 
96 hours...

Level 34?

Finished: Dark Brotherhood storyline (the best quests so far, IMO). Thieves Guild storyline. A bunch of Main Quest missions. A crapload of dungeons (there are really a lot of those)... Quite a few "random" quests. Closed ~10 Oblivion gates?

I've still got two guild storylines to even start, the main quest to finish, a bunch of dungeons to conquer, lots of random quests, and quite a lot of landmass to explore.

Items stolen? 4000; and I'm trying to limit myself. They mostly come from the Merchant District of the Imperial City... and other random buildings around the game world. I don't dare to imagine how many total items there are in the game world (not unique items, just items in general).

The game's not half bad with a bunch of mods. The content IS there... too bad that it's got many other faults. Yeah, it's hack & slash, and dumbed down... but I quite like this type of gameplay every once in a while. One part of the year I'll probably be playing my RPGs, then another part of the year I'll be playing my action-adventure games, then another part of the year I'll be playing my tactical shooters, et cetera. Not in any particular order, though.
 
The game is quite fun as long as you stick to the combat, however if you, god forbid, try to roleplay your enjoyment level drops significantly (a mistake I made to begin with that's left a sour taste in my mouth). I now spend most of the time in the game just looking for new dungeons to conquer. Like I've said, it's certainly playable, more so than Morrowind was, but it is an action game.
 
Forty eight hours, I have finished the Fighters Guild quests, and I believe I am close to finishing the Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild quest series as well. Not terribly far along in the main plotline or the Mages Guild, but I think I have finished most of the city quests and have beaten the Arena.

It has been enjoyable for a long while, but I am having a hard time continuing at this point, for all the freedom, there is really is not much to do. Besides having new NPC dialogue enter the common pool, there is not much of a reaction to anything that goes on. The dungeons are very repetitive; the only templates seem to be caves, Imperial ruins, Ayleid ruins, and Oblivion. There really isn't point in exploring random dungeons, as they are practically all the same, there aren't any special items to find. I feel no incentive to explore on my own, as many of the graphics seem endlessly recycled and there isn't anything interesting to find. I suppose I will finish up the quest series, and then be finished with the game.

It was fun enough for the first forty hours (as an action game that is, not as a RPG), but lately it has been a slog. It was never brillient, simply enjoyable for that amount of time.

By the way, I wonder if this is a problem with my computer, or something more general. The vertical sound drop-off/detection system seems none existent. If I am in a building with two floors, and two NPCs are having a conversation directly above me; it sounds like they are standing right next to me. In dungeons, if again there are two floors, NPCs will hear me if I am directly below/above (even if there is a significant gape between the floors) them and call out (again sounding like they are right next to me.). It is quite odd; I don't think I've encountered its like before.
 
A couple of more hours into the game and Oblivion feels more and more like "Shenmue3", uninteresting characters running around in a world filled with boring arcade minigames. Geez, i really hope it gets better, in the next levels, but since everything levels up with me i just can't get the point of leveling up in this game, so i don't know what to do...


I'm not happy with this game, and i wasn't someone with some bias against the game from the start, i could have my doubts about Fo3 but i really thought they were going to do something interesting this time, but it just feels like they took the good stuff in Gothic2 and took a few steps back, in order to create a Shenmue "eXperieeence".

I'm certain that the Bethesda boys and girls, giving all the rave reviews they are having with the game, will repeat the formula with FO3, wich means we're definitely screwed.

Oh well
 
Briosafreak said:
A couple of more hours into the game and Oblivion feels more and more like "Shenmue3", uninteresting characters running around in a world filled with boring arcade minigames. Geez, i really hope it gets better, in the next levels, but since everything levels up with me i just can't get the point of leveling up in this game, so i don't know what to do...
Click to expand...

That's the problem with the scaling system.

Even Gold Box had it done better. The encounters were balanced towards your party depending upon what elevel you were, but there was some difficult areas that weren't as scaled to the same level of progression, because you were supposed to gain experience and strength and then tackle those obstacles they represented. And feel good about it for the accomplishment, especially if you did it earlier in level than you're supposed to.

That is the entire point of having a character system, to have some differing degrees of difficulty that both challenge the player if they so wish (like taking on a shadowbeast in Gothic when earlier they were pretty much your death), and also provide for some progression level in the game. You don't want a level 1 character going to advanced areas in the game, so the enemies would be quite lethal to anyone at that level.

And, more importantly, give some sense of achievement. Instead, Bethesda's design has made the experience seem like ProgressQuest mixed with a really shiny but budget version of Gothic that you can mod the crap out of. Except, in Bethesda's poor planning, the game is more lethal to a level 15 than a level 2, if you happen to rely on NPCs without any scaling armor on them.

Wonderful of Bethesda, as a supposed "CRPG Developar", to fail to understand basic RPG concepts.
 
For a game bent in giving the best imersion experience possible putting everyone with great armor and powerfull weapons and almost exterminate half of the low level fauna in a split second after leveling up wasn't probably the best idea.

But they are getting away with it, so everything we say it's pointless. Just like it will be regarding Fallout3.
 
its not immersive, its not involving. the best quests are the evil quests which none of the major " devs " had direct activity under.

it blows. the levelling schema sucks very badly. the monsters going off your level rather than area levels, is very bad idea.

beth really dropped lots of balls on this one. this strays so far from what the RPG ideal is, its not even funny.
 
Briosa, since you're playing it anyway try the Dark Brotherhood quests and let me know what you think. To start them off, kill some innocent person without getting caught - if you did it right you should get a message saying something like "Your act has been noticed by unseen forces".

Kotario and anyone else who finished them, I'd be interested to hear your opinions as well. Out of everything in Oblivion they are pretty much the only set of quests and NPC's that give me some hope for Fallout 3 (as far as writing and atmosphere goes, at least).
 
I'd like to think that the DB quests show hope for the future, but while well done it was also pretty short, and the later missions really seem to turn into "Go here, kill, get paid". Most of the characters were actually kind of annoying, but that was probably just because they all had the same goddamn voice as everyone else in the game. But they were fun missions, and putting whoever responsible for them on the Fallout 3 team will hopefully help.

Hopefully.
 
TheWesDude said:
beth really dropped lots of balls on this one. this strays so far from what the RPG ideal is, its not even funny.
Click to expand...

It couldn't have been said better. Said developers I pointed this thread out to seem to be lacking anything in that department to give a decent, honest answer. Funny, they loved to say a lot when it involved hype, and you practically couldn't shut them up. Now you can't get them to speak to give a straight answer, as presumably they are working on making Dog Armor for $3.50.

About the DB quests, again it has to be noted that none of the major developers touched them (presumably because Todd becomes just as spineless about evil as he is about boobies), which is why they probably don't suck compared to the rest of the game.

It would be like having another New Reno. About the only bright part through being halway decent in design, doesn't seem to fit the rest of the game's design (and in Fallout 2's case, the setting), and the rest of the game is rendered questionable in many ways. It does give a shred of hope of at least part of Fallout 3 not sucking as much ass as the rest.
 
if i was beth and really cared, here is what i would do:

have every dev make up a quest they think rocks.
give them 1 week to do it, then it goes QA and bug testing.
then release them as one addition with instructions on how to start each one.
then allow people to give feedback along multiple lines like inginuity and such.
 
Roshambo said:
About the DB quests, again it has to be noted that none of the major developers touched them (presumably because Todd becomes just as spineless about evil as he is about boobies), which is why they probably don't suck compared to the rest of the game.
Click to expand...

Didn't know that but it's pretty disappointing to hear and kills whatever optimism they started to give me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top