Not only do the devs call it a CRPG but the gaming press are too stupid to even call them on it. Gamespot lead with the headline "One the best RPGs ever made", ehh, that's interesting considering it's not even a damn RPG! The gaming press really are ignorant, and the world would be a better place without the majority of it.
Oblivion out today
- Thread starter brandons1313
- Start date
SimpleMinded
Vault Fossil
Whether or not they should call it an RPG can be debated... but the best one ever? Dear lord... someone caters to the hype machine.
That's one thing that really bothers me about gaming press and game companies: stat system = RPG. I can understand it in a way, but really, if the majority of the gameplay involves action then it's an action game. If Valve took Half-Life 2 and created a mod or something that added a level-up and stat system to weapon usage, HEV suit efficiency, jumping and sneaking, but changed nothing else about the game - would that make Half-Life 2 an RPG? No, absolutely not. What if they changed it so that instead of Barney or Alex or whoever talking to you automatically you had to prompt them to talk to you, but other than that change they say the same exact things - does that give it a "dialogue system" and make it RPG like? Again, no. It adds a layer of complexity to the action, it adds a layer of depth to the game, but it in no way changes the fact that it's an action game.
Back to the game. I just finished the first big part of the main quest. It was pretty tough, but made even tougher by having people fight with me. "Allies" are horrible - they run twice as fast as you, block your target, and more often than not run right into the center of your crosshairs just as you're swinging. I took ten times as much damage because of them and ended up having to kill everything myself anyway. I hope there aren't many more sections where people decide that they want to "help me".
Back to the game. I just finished the first big part of the main quest. It was pretty tough, but made even tougher by having people fight with me. "Allies" are horrible - they run twice as fast as you, block your target, and more often than not run right into the center of your crosshairs just as you're swinging. I took ten times as much damage because of them and ended up having to kill everything myself anyway. I hope there aren't many more sections where people decide that they want to "help me".
check ctraltdel about the radiant AI 
yeah, fighting with allies is horrible. being an archer sniper marksman medieval-awpwhore really sucks in those sequences. out of frustration you just end up shooting 1 arrow, drawing your sword & charging.
funny how often they dodge your ranged restoration heals, but they fail to clear a path for an arrow...
hell, even the archers that help you suck... they enjoy charging ahead of everyone to run past 3 enemies and then start shooting point blank. of course, it also happens they do stay back for once, and practise accupuncture on your behind. i'm unsure about which is worse...
havent had a healer squadmate yet, but judging by Martin's behavior in combat, it's not much better.
yeah, fighting with allies is horrible. being an archer sniper marksman medieval-awpwhore really sucks in those sequences. out of frustration you just end up shooting 1 arrow, drawing your sword & charging.
funny how often they dodge your ranged restoration heals, but they fail to clear a path for an arrow...
hell, even the archers that help you suck... they enjoy charging ahead of everyone to run past 3 enemies and then start shooting point blank. of course, it also happens they do stay back for once, and practise accupuncture on your behind. i'm unsure about which is worse...
havent had a healer squadmate yet, but judging by Martin's behavior in combat, it's not much better.
The thing is I'm not telling you to enjoy it, but many of you say it sucks before you even played it.
Also the only way again you would think it sucks is if you expect an RPG.
In my opinion if this was never advertised as an RPG and it was just a game that was released you people would like it.
Sure there maybe bugs with the AI, but all huge games have bugs.
I mean surely you must remember Ian in Fallout who would either kill you or you would kill him due to the bad AI. I understand that it's 2006 and not the 90's anymore, but seriously AI hasn't come that much farther.
Also the only way again you would think it sucks is if you expect an RPG.
In my opinion if this was never advertised as an RPG and it was just a game that was released you people would like it.
Sure there maybe bugs with the AI, but all huge games have bugs.
I mean surely you must remember Ian in Fallout who would either kill you or you would kill him due to the bad AI. I understand that it's 2006 and not the 90's anymore, but seriously AI hasn't come that much farther.
Banko said:
So...the countless times it was called a CRPG by Bethesda and the newssites covering it count for nothing?
SimpleMinded
Vault Fossil
Banko, not everyone here is saying it sucks. Simply because people criticize aspects of the game doesn't mean they think it's terrible.
Also, you have to remember, people are evaluating the game not only as an Elder Scrolls game but also as a representation of what may be to come for the Fallout series.
Also, you have to remember, people are evaluating the game not only as an Elder Scrolls game but also as a representation of what may be to come for the Fallout series.
I can't stand this argument. We have a *lot* of information about the game, from official press releases, reviews, previews, comments from others who enjoy CRPGs so we have a good view of what it is, and frankly it's the only view we can get short of going out and buying the game since *there is no demo*.Banko said:
Eh? No. The only way we can think it sucks if we don't like the kind of game Oblivion is. This has nothing to do with what we expect from the game, but what we like in games in general.Banko said:
Banko said:
Created In Their Own Image
Created In Their Own Image
SimpleMinded:
Montez:
In the spirit of agreement.
Word meaning can have a continental drift paced change in usage, unless there is a political, and, or, commercial agenda.
Defining the terms, steering the semantics holds the leash in the discussion of issues, gains the high ground in web debates, game reviews, horse shoes, hand grenades, and sh't fights.
There is an unconscious, and a CONSCIOUS effort to redefine the buzzwords that support ideologies, increase eye ball time [ad value] for related game media, shelf space in store fronts, brand merchandising, and game sales.
Consider it applied ""Double Speak"' or used car marketing savvy, the RE-defining of RPG becomes an exercise in thought control. The qualifiers, the good, the bad, the Fallout, become givens. Options become limited.. Choices denied. Unclean Opinions become imbecilic diddling. Hold outs and fence sitters are bitch slapped: must join the mob of socially engineered expectations. Ultimately, the 'creators' in their own image sayth the command line, the SHOULD is invoked. Whatever is extruded when the property 'goes gold', well sonny, that's just what you're lookin' for .... all you evah really wanted.
Whether one's world view is intelligently designed, savagely darwinian, or random [''it's a wonderful day in the neighbrhood ''] warm and fuzzy,
there is a consequence to the marketing manipulation, and the hype of fellow travelers.
It's unconsciously implied in cynical responses to superlatives, and consciously manifested in the openly combative debate on how to define the genres of RPG's.
.......................
SuAside:
Holy St. Ian that's friendly fire!
And with Radiant AI, no time or space to strafe to stage left or right, for a clear Line Of Sight?
Whiney blue grass lyric? --- ""Ah Feel Yo Pane"" ---
[Jangling banjo here.]
"Can't be flowers, if there ain't no rain, can't be pleasure if there ain't no pain. "
''Slings and arrows in life's pursuit, pin cushion m-ah tushy in love's refute.''
[Banjo strings break here.]
Sad when 'friendly fire' has a nostalgic pull on one's heart ....
Wonder if in the ecology of Bethesda Software evolution, if there is a mod yet to throttle this for the magical fantasy fan base?
4too
Created In Their Own Image
SimpleMinded:
Montez:
In the spirit of agreement.
Word meaning can have a continental drift paced change in usage, unless there is a political, and, or, commercial agenda.
Defining the terms, steering the semantics holds the leash in the discussion of issues, gains the high ground in web debates, game reviews, horse shoes, hand grenades, and sh't fights.
There is an unconscious, and a CONSCIOUS effort to redefine the buzzwords that support ideologies, increase eye ball time [ad value] for related game media, shelf space in store fronts, brand merchandising, and game sales.
Consider it applied ""Double Speak"' or used car marketing savvy, the RE-defining of RPG becomes an exercise in thought control. The qualifiers, the good, the bad, the Fallout, become givens. Options become limited.. Choices denied. Unclean Opinions become imbecilic diddling. Hold outs and fence sitters are bitch slapped: must join the mob of socially engineered expectations. Ultimately, the 'creators' in their own image sayth the command line, the SHOULD is invoked. Whatever is extruded when the property 'goes gold', well sonny, that's just what you're lookin' for .... all you evah really wanted.
Whether one's world view is intelligently designed, savagely darwinian, or random [''it's a wonderful day in the neighbrhood ''] warm and fuzzy,
there is a consequence to the marketing manipulation, and the hype of fellow travelers.
It's unconsciously implied in cynical responses to superlatives, and consciously manifested in the openly combative debate on how to define the genres of RPG's.
.......................
SuAside:
Holy St. Ian that's friendly fire!
And with Radiant AI, no time or space to strafe to stage left or right, for a clear Line Of Sight?
Whiney blue grass lyric? --- ""Ah Feel Yo Pane"" ---
[Jangling banjo here.]
"Can't be flowers, if there ain't no rain, can't be pleasure if there ain't no pain. "
''Slings and arrows in life's pursuit, pin cushion m-ah tushy in love's refute.''
[Banjo strings break here.]
Sad when 'friendly fire' has a nostalgic pull on one's heart ....
Wonder if in the ecology of Bethesda Software evolution, if there is a mod yet to throttle this for the magical fantasy fan base?
4too
Abe Lincoln
First time out of the vault
Beware, do not buy the game just yet, wait for some patches. It is extremely unstable. The first few days I had it, it played pretty much fine, a few CTDs, but then it started rebooting my computer, and it did it about ten or twelve times. I've read it's an issue with the game not getting along with certain sound cards, but nobody is quite sure, and bethesda refuses to help except for to say "update your drivers". I and many others on the Elder Scrolls forums can only play for about 30 minutes at most before it reboots the computer. It was clearly made for the Xbox 360, and ported badly to the PC.
I understand that a lot are using this game as Bethesda's Fallout 3. Though from other people that have played all the Elder Scroll series (I haven't) they resemble each other with the same style of this so called "RPG".
I'm just hoping if they can make each sequal be true to the prior games, maybe just maybe they can make Fallout 3 to be a true sequal to both Fallout and 2?
I'm just hoping if they can make each sequal be true to the prior games, maybe just maybe they can make Fallout 3 to be a true sequal to both Fallout and 2?
zioburosky13
Vault Senior Citizen
SuAside said:check ctraltdel about the radiant AI
Link
Banko said:
Why we are worrying....
Proves that Todd's programming skill and design much more appeal to console.
For Fallout 3:
Best case scenario: Bethesda somehow combines what they have, ignore the console, and make a game close to being true to the original.
Worst Case Scenario: We get Fallout 3
OS.
What will happen probably: something along the lines of Fallout Tactics, or a little worse.
Best case scenario: Bethesda somehow combines what they have, ignore the console, and make a game close to being true to the original.
Worst Case Scenario: We get Fallout 3
OS. What will happen probably: something along the lines of Fallout Tactics, or a little worse.
for the friendly fire thing:
it's clear in fallout 1, it wasnt working as intended. i believe NPC followers werent in the original design of the game & they were added later on. however, it was pretty easy to avoid.
in fallout 2, the NPC followers were tweaked & sometimes still shot you in the ass, but that was mostly intended by design. it relied on NPC settings, NPC attitude & your own location. there were easy ways to make sure you almost never got clipped (hehe, welcome to the real world).
in ES4:Obl you have a praised AI, no settings, no communications. you'd expect it to work right away when you look at it on paper. ofc, reality is much different. the least they could do is make the archer yell sorry & relocate. however, now he just continues to fire arrows up your ass until you move. the melee NPC's expect you to relocate as an archer as well, they stay where they are. annoying, especially when the NPCs begged for your help, but end up just running around in your way. if you want me to help, make way ffs! making the PC strafe isnt much help in such situations really tbh, since seconds later the NPC will be back in the line of fire before you can fire a single arrow (or like how it usually goes: you fire, the NPC moves right into the line of fire & catches the arrow in the head or torso, just great).
how hard can it be to make a little conversation dialog? options: 1) melee covers the archers/ranged casters if mobs get too close, ranged does the bulk of the work. 2) melee charge! archers in support, but watch your fire. 3) stay until i tell you to move in, i'm gonna stealthkill some motherfuckers... 4) i'm going in solo, wait here until it's clear 5) free for all!
with such a praised AI & hyped gamedesign, that shouldnt be too hard should it?
PS: you're comparing FO NPC's with ES4:O Banko, 90's vs 2006. YES, AI has come A LOT FURTHER. think & compare ffs! you sound like a 12 year old that was too young to remember the difference...
it's clear in fallout 1, it wasnt working as intended. i believe NPC followers werent in the original design of the game & they were added later on. however, it was pretty easy to avoid.
in fallout 2, the NPC followers were tweaked & sometimes still shot you in the ass, but that was mostly intended by design. it relied on NPC settings, NPC attitude & your own location. there were easy ways to make sure you almost never got clipped (hehe, welcome to the real world).
in ES4:Obl you have a praised AI, no settings, no communications. you'd expect it to work right away when you look at it on paper. ofc, reality is much different. the least they could do is make the archer yell sorry & relocate. however, now he just continues to fire arrows up your ass until you move. the melee NPC's expect you to relocate as an archer as well, they stay where they are. annoying, especially when the NPCs begged for your help, but end up just running around in your way. if you want me to help, make way ffs! making the PC strafe isnt much help in such situations really tbh, since seconds later the NPC will be back in the line of fire before you can fire a single arrow (or like how it usually goes: you fire, the NPC moves right into the line of fire & catches the arrow in the head or torso, just great).
how hard can it be to make a little conversation dialog? options: 1) melee covers the archers/ranged casters if mobs get too close, ranged does the bulk of the work. 2) melee charge! archers in support, but watch your fire. 3) stay until i tell you to move in, i'm gonna stealthkill some motherfuckers... 4) i'm going in solo, wait here until it's clear 5) free for all!
with such a praised AI & hyped gamedesign, that shouldnt be too hard should it?
PS: you're comparing FO NPC's with ES4:O Banko, 90's vs 2006. YES, AI has come A LOT FURTHER. think & compare ffs! you sound like a 12 year old that was too young to remember the difference...
Banko said:
Or if they desire something with quality behind it.
It's still no Daggerfall, either.
Wow, welcome to the shredding of just ONE of many "fabrications" of Bethesda's hype. Did anyone ever tell you that a game doing well or not is determined by how much hype and promises they spew, then how well the game actually does? Morrowind was crap, but it had some good points. Oblivion looks to be a bit better, but a lot crappier all around in regards to the attention paid to the design of the game, and it's obvious they didn't have a single brain to pass out amongst all the QA department.
Perhaps for an OCD monkey, but some of us actually like decent, coherent design.
With quantification like that, who can argue?
If you want hours of frustration dealing with the CRAPPY AI and other superflous attempts to bypass real design to do as little work as possible to cash in on console trash, play this game.
Really? Please name whom hasn't played it, or hasn't seen enough of it played to form an intelligent design evaluation. Or at least a more competent one than you are capable of.
Straw man argument again.
We were expecting:
1. A TES sequel.
2. For Bethesda's hype to live up to how badly these cretins were shoveling out the truckloads of bullshit wholesale from their PR department.
Instead, they failed on both accounts and delivered a Morrowind sequel, not a TES sequel.
Well, you must have missed all the times they have said it was going to be a CRPG, was going to be innovative, bent over double to suck themselves off right in middle of the interview, how the interviewer was trying to suck them off as well, etc., etc., etc.
As others have pointed out...I will now take an exerpt on how the X-Box 360 has led to Bethesda to adopt even shittier QA standards. You know, the whole "release and grab money now, patch later" mentality that people should be mailing Todd back actual feces-filled boxes in reply to.
Brothar said:
Now that Bethesda can rely on the players to QA their game, again, they can be lazy shits and rely on the XBrick 360 to patch their ass out of their laziness. A game-killing bug on a CONSOLE.
I really feel for those who were suckered for the XBox 360 release of this game.
Well, if you count "feeling no pity" as an emotion.
What the hell is it with the BioWare mentality with kids today? Okay, to put it lightly, not everyone you pick up is going to be a super-dooper munchkin god like you and equally useful to the party.
Ian was just a poor shot and a poor combatant, as was per his design. Other characters didn't really have that problem unless you handed a tribal an SMG or an overzealous super-mutant a laser minigun. So if Ian shoots you, it's obviously bad AI!
Tycho, on the other hand, has enough skill that his shots are far more controlled.
Child, do not even presume to speak about AI algorithms or heuristic logic in my presence. You do not want to go there. AI can go as far as the designers are able, if they have some sense of real design. In terms of real design, Todd Howard has even less clue of how to develop a CRPG than Feargus Urquhart.
Mind not typing with a developer cock in your mouth? Thanks, it makes your sentences far easier to understand. Now, I'm certain you meant that a lot are using this game as an estimation as to how Bethesda will make Fallout 3.
Well, no shit. If they treat their own IP and main breadwinner this badly, then Fallout 3 = fucked. They can't even properly take care of their own franchise, and somehow we're supposed to expect they are going to pull a REAL CRPG from their ass, when they haven't done anything similar, EVER?
No...Arena and Daggerfall resembled each other, as they were how TES started. Again, I am not surprised that you don't know any basis of what you are attempting to talk about.
Morrowind was crap, and Oblivion is Morrowind 2. Shinier, a bit more able on the technical side, maybe a bit more refined in some ways except for the interface, but still the same shit smell as it was obviously squeezed out from the same asshole, Todd Howard, then overhyped to death.
Don't quit your day job, kid. Actually, with this kind of mentality, I'm fairly certain nobody pays you in any capacity involving your brain, or for that matter, anything productive.
SuAside said:
So...Bethesda can't program a simple range and LOS check, a blocking and threat check, and a predicted resolution check.
Three very simple steps in any simple attack algorithm, any of which would prevent this problem, and yet their ally AI is worse than how Ian was designed to suck, simply because the logic is fucked on a technical level.
Yet they want to boast about the AI. Unfortunately, I think they are a little ways away from developing an AI that will competently develop a game for them, much less write itself for them.
Briosafreak
Lived Through the Heat Death
There's a nasty bug that has appeared in the last couple of days
http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=293533
http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=293533
Briosafreak said:
Yikes, hope they get that fixed soon. It's kind of a funny coincidence though: I put mercantile as a major and it's gone up exactly once in about 12 hours of playing. I was thinking it was a bug until last night it finally went up by one point - it could be that I don't trade enough, but after reading that post I'm back to thinking that it might just be broken.