Oblivion First Impressions

[Hassat Hunter]

Quite frankly, to me it seems you're making stuff out to be as bad as humanly possible, to the point where you are starting to make things up, just to slag on the game.

 

Trust me, I wish I WAS making all this stuff up. I am starting to get pretty bothered with the quality of Oblivion IMO, yet I always return saying to myself "even the MW-haters like it; it SHOULD turn better soon"...

 

PS. Health display is above the cursor....

Edited March 26, 2006 by Hassat Hunter

[LoneWolf16]

And on the technical issues:

Above my hardlocks I now had 2 CTD's, a blue screen of death with immediate system termination and a monitor reset to 320x240

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Can you do me a favor?

 

Go to My Documents\My Games\Oblivion and send me a PM with any and all items found here?

 

Additionally, are there any .dmp files in your main Oblivion installation folder?<C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion> If there are tell me.

 

I was going to PM you with this query, but this goes to anyone who experiences a crash or hardlock.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I've crashed a few times. Mostly in a certain DB mission

Faking the one guy's death when I tried to wait the time out in town, rather than leave like the quest said.

And when I ALT-TAB out and stay out for a little. or click on something, if I come back, the game's always locked up. So if I get a pop-up...have to restart.

[Judge Hades]

Don't get a pop up.

[Shadowstrider]

And on the technical issues:

Above my hardlocks I now had 2 CTD's, a blue screen of death with immediate system termination and a monitor reset to 320x240

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Can you do me a favor?

 

Go to My Documents\My Games\Oblivion and send me a PM with any and all items found here?

 

Additionally, are there any .dmp files in your main Oblivion installation folder?<C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion> If there are tell me.

 

I was going to PM you with this query, but this goes to anyone who experiences a crash or hardlock.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I've crashed a few times. Mostly in a certain DB mission

Faking the one guy's death when I tried to wait the time out in town, rather than leave like the quest said.

And when I ALT-TAB out and stay out for a little. or click on something, if I come back, the game's always locked up. So if I get a pop-up...have to restart.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'll look into the crash in this mission.

 

Alt+tab crashes aren't unheard of in any game. Its pretty much caused by memory thrashing, I believe.

[mkreku]

I have only had perhaps 5 crashes to desktop. This is what I consider very little, especially if you take the complexity of the game into consideration. Arena was unplayable for me, Daggerfall became playable (almost) after the last patch, Morrowind was playable but highly unstable for the first bunch of patches, but became stable after the expansions. Oblivion is by far the most stable of the Elder Scrolls games to date for me. And it's not even patched yet! Good job, Bethesda (and Shadowstrider)!

 

I am thoroughly impressed by this game, and I have to review it next week. It will be a disgusting fanboi review, I can feel it..

[karka]

So is it better than Gothic?

[Meshugger]

I played for 4 hours today and then i had to stop, since the damn game crashed on the Xbox360. Lucky me, there auto-saves.

[Shadowstrider]

Good job, Bethesda (and Shadowstrider)!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

As much as I would like to take credit for Oblivion, I really had little to do with it. I joined Bethesda in January, and did aid in the QA effort, but in reality the other QA guys, all of them, do a great job finding, tracking and documenting bugs. The artists, designers, producers, programmers, and QA guys on the project put a lot of work into the game, and I, personally, think it shows. I have the utmost respect for everyone in the company.

[karka]

Good job, Bethesda (and Shadowstrider)!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

As much as I would like to take credit for Oblivion, I really had little to do with it. I joined Bethesda in January, and did aid in the QA effort, but in reality the other QA guys, all of them, do a great job finding, tracking and documenting bugs. The artists, designers, producers, programmers, and QA guys on the project put a lot of work into the game, and I, personally, think it shows. I have the utmost respect for everyone in the company.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

What is your next project? F3?

Edited March 26, 2006 by karka

[Shadowstrider]

What is your next project? F3?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Can't say.

 

I played for 4 hours today and then i had to stop, since the damn game crashed on the Xbox360. Lucky me, there auto-saves.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

If you would like, you can send me a PM with a description outlining what you were doing when you crashed. If you were transitioning between two areas, if you could tell me what you were doing just prior to transitioning and the to/from areas, I can look into it.

[alanschu]

Anyone know of any other fences aside from Ongar?

 

As for CTDs, I always seem to get them when I quit the game. Oddly enough, I don't find it to be much of an inconvenience

[Meshugger]

What is your next project? F3?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Can't say.

 

I played for 4 hours today and then i had to stop, since the damn game crashed on the Xbox360. Lucky me, there auto-saves.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

If you would like, you can send me a PM with a description outlining what you were doing when you crashed. If you were transitioning between two areas, if you could tell me what you were doing just prior to transitioning and the to/from areas, I can look into it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Not necessary really. It was the "Fighters chance"-shop in the Imperial Capital where it suddenly crashed when the shopkeeper was about to bid farwell(The disc was left spinning for 30 seconds and then the screen went blank). It worked flawlessly again after a reboot.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Does anyone know if increasing the "Speed" trait allows you to attack faster in melee? Or does it just allow you to run faster?

[Shadowstrider]

Weapon size and strength determine your attack rate.

[Llyranor]

Alright, finding the 4th star map was much more enjoyable than the other ones. That was a fun mission, actually. Good sense of urgency. Next up, some sort of ceremony. I'm not sure how far I am in the storyline, but perhaps there isn't that much left to it? Either way, I'll go finish the Dark Brotherhood quests first, just in case.

 

Of the DB questline, here are the additional ones I've done:

1) Investigation

 

As mentioned before, find some dude in city. I found someone of the same race, gave some

hot sweaty loving

, then found out his location. Stays at some inn with his lover. Met her, gave some

hot sweaty loving

, then found out he's a skooma addict and likes to stay at an abandoned house. Standard rampant murderer fare from then on.

 

 

2) Poison

 

Old man, sick, relying on meds. Infiltrate, switch meds for poison, escape. A standard stealth mission. Enjoyable.

 

 

3) Manor

 

This is the current one I have. Go to a manor where 5 other guests are. Kill them off one by one.

 

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

And on the technical issues:

Above my hardlocks I now had 2 CTD's, a blue screen of death with immediate system termination and a monitor reset to 320x240

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Can you do me a favor?

 

Go to My Documents\My Games\Oblivion and send me a PM with any and all items found here?

 

Additionally, are there any .dmp files in your main Oblivion installation folder?<C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Oblivion> If there are tell me.

 

I was going to PM you with this query, but this goes to anyone who experiences a crash or hardlock.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I've crashed a few times. Mostly in a certain DB mission

Faking the one guy's death when I tried to wait the time out in town, rather than leave like the quest said.

And when I ALT-TAB out and stay out for a little. or click on something, if I come back, the game's always locked up. So if I get a pop-up...have to restart.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I'll look into the crash in this mission.

 

Alt+tab crashes aren't unheard of in any game. Its pretty much caused by memory thrashing, I believe.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

yup, you gotta pretty much destroy and reload the entire games resources, tand setup the GFX card again.... The input devices, the sound card... It's a nightmare! Though I would guess that the coders at beth's will have an extremely ingenius system for this.

 

It's a bad idea to alt-tab out of any game! Thankfully DX10 will pretty much in 99% of circumstances do away with the need for this process.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

Anyone know of any other fences aside from Ongar?

 

As for CTDs, I always seem to get them when I quit the game.  Oddly enough, I don't find it to be much of an inconvenience

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

No, but it points to some sorta sloppy garbage collection.

[Judge Hades]

Yep. It will crash the game on its own.

[alanschu]

Anyone know of any other fences aside from Ongar?

 

As for CTDs, I always seem to get them when I quit the game.  Oddly enough, I don't find it to be much of an inconvenience

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

No, but it points to some sorta sloppy garbage collection.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I suppose they could use a garbage collector for the end stuff. I suspect they don't during the gameplay, as I find they are too slow (relatively)

 

 

The Elven Longsword looks really cool, and I'm working on improving my Illusion skill to gain some useful spells such as Chameleon and Invisibility.

 

Thank god for instatravel, as I think Ongar is the only fence (and therefore my sole way of making money).

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

Anyone know of any other fences aside from Ongar?

 

As for CTDs, I always seem to get them when I quit the game.  Oddly enough, I don't find it to be much of an inconvenience

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

No, but it points to some sorta sloppy garbage collection.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I suppose they could use a garbage collector for the end stuff. I suspect they don't during the gameplay, as I find they are too slow (relatively)

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I was thinking more of general cleanup than a "garbage collector".

 

Something is probably not being closed correctly, and the like. Hence sloppy shutdown procedure, could be anything.

[Jedihuh?]

Does anyone have the 360 version? Mine loads every freaking 10 steps my guy takes. Its LLLAAAAMMMMEE

[alanschu]

Well, since ShadowPaladin can provide a good avenue for feedback, I thought I'd point out an interesting "quirk" with the selling system. I understand that the gold value is the maximum trade I can make. It should probably be addressed for multiples though. I couldn't sell 2 items at 90x2=180 gold, because the merchant was only buying 100 gold transactions. However, it had no problems when I sold them separately. IMO it should check the individual sale price, rather than the final sale price.

[Llyranor]

Wait, you've got the wrong Shadowfax, alanschu.

[Cantousent]

Yes, well this game causes all sorts of mayhem on my system when I start it. However, it hasn't been all that bad so far. Nothing I can't fix just by openning the cd tray at startup.

 

So far so good. Just a quick note: Save the vampire ashes.

I finished the Brotherhood quest, killed that sorry, wretched vampire, and then sold my stuff before I visited the New and Improved Brotherhood only to find out that my friends at the Brotherhood would have given me a healthy reward for my efforts. BTW: I knew who the real vampire was by the end of the first conversation with him. That's the sort of lame surprise that I don't like. On the other hand, I was quite happy with the quest overall, so no real complaints.

 

[mkreku]

Weapon size and strength determine your attack rate.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Tell me about it! Earlier in the game I was using a glass longsword (weighs 40 something) and I was doing fine, until I met a ghost. The damn thing wasn't hurt by my beautiful sword, so I quickly changed to the only thing I could think of that would hurt it: the Daedric dagger.

 

It was insane. Suddenly there were 2 billion daggers flashing on the screen in front of me and it took less than a second to kill the poor ghost. I then proceeded to clearing the whole dungeon with the damn thing, everything from wraith's to will o' wisps fell for my little dagger, ugly as it was. Unfortunately, it also meant that my blade skill went from 70 to 80 in a heartbeat before I managed to work my way up to a Daedric shortsword and then a Daedric longsword again (which I think weighs 48 somethings..).

 

I prefer the longsword (unless I can find a Daedric katana, which would be awesome) because I use the tactic that I run in, hit the enemy once or twice, and then quickly back up. If it's a fast enemy, I back up with my shield up, but mostly that's not necessary. I almost never get hit anymore, which is bad for my light armour skill (only one left under 70 I think).

 

Oh, and my game also has a habit of crashing everytime I quit it. But I don't count those crashes as they really do not bother my gaming experience. I have stopped sending the error report to Microsoft at least )