RenegadePacifist said:
2012 Wont Happen said:
Whether you think the original game is or not, that doesn't take into account that fact that I even advised player mods enhancing immersion and role play because the game can be improved in those areas. Really though, saying Oblivion isn't a role playing game is just fetishization of genre. I like metal. I dislike Metallica- but I'm not going to say they aren't a metal band. They're just a bad metal band (not so bad on their first album, but never great in my opinion.)
I like horror movies. I dislike the Halloween remakes though. I won't say they aren't horror though- because they are. Really, really bad horror.
I like fantasy novels. I dislike Twilight (yes, I actually read it). I won't say its not a fantasy novel though, because it certainly fits the "fantasy" label on more than one level.
I like sit-coms. The entire sit-com line up on the Disney channel is utter concentrated mediocrity. They're still sit-coms though.
My point in all this is to say this: If you think Oblivion is an awful piece of shit, that is your opinion, and it is equally as valid as my opinion that Oblivion is a good game. However, saying that oblivion isn't a Role-Playing Game throws any sort of accepted categorization of the genre, just to crucify the game for perceived shittyness. That seems a pretty irrational approach when, instead, you could just point at something (in this case Oblivion for you), say "this is shit" and move on.
Sure - Mod Oblivion out the backside and it might be alright. That's not saying a lot for the original game, though, which is the only thing that can be spoken about.
My point was nothing to do with Oblivion being bad, however, but to point out that Oblivion is not a roleplaying game; it's a hack 'n' slash / hiking sim. It has the same 'RPG' depth as Diablo. You're given no choice to play a character out and nobody in the game world cares if you do play a character or not, thus playing the knight in the coma ward (also a jab at how lousy the AI is.). Nobody cares, it doesn't affect anything and it's the wrong place to do it. Might be fun, sure. Fun in the same way that pretending the footballer you're controlling in FIFA is a raging alcoholic and has a fetish for tackling the keeper 85 minutes in every game.
You can choose to play certain character types, and perform certain kinds of moral actions. These don't tend to have large overarching effects on the game play, but there are consequences to actions in a sense (murder a person, go to jail, that person disappears from the game space), and the ability to be good or evil as you choose.
It doesn't have a system of exact labels for your morality as do some other games (Fallout 3, anything by Bioware), but that might even be a strength in its role playing. In a game I had once, I played a chaotic-good character type, and would ambush Imperial Guards alongside the road as they patrolled the wilderness, take their things and sell them to give money to beggars and buy food, potions and arrows. In a game with a specific good-evil counter, I would have gotten evil points for killing a guard, but in Oblivion I could play my chaotic-good character without the game breaking my role-playing by saying "no, you're evil!".
Sure, there's nothing stopping you from playing all the available quests, playing both the noble Fighters Guild warrior and the Dark Brotherhood assassin, but that's up to the player. If the player wants to throw out all the roll-playing available to them by say, becoming the hero of Cyrodill then going ahead and completing the Thieves Guild missions wearing the Imperial Dragon Armor, that's their business. For people like myself who actually enjoy role play however, you can do that quite well. Your options aren't unlimited in the original game, as is true with all games. Which is why I strongly suggest player-made mods.
