Who ISN'T looking forward to another Elder Scrolls game?

[ElTigreSantiago]

yeah, well reviewers also say that Super Street Fighter IV is the best fighting game in years. You can't trust em.

Wow. So every single reviewer in that page-long list was simply wrong? There wasn't a single major review (American, European, Japanese) that didn't like this game. And there are legions of fans that completely agree. The game just wasn't for you, which is understandable. Plain and simple.

I'm confused. If you people didn't like Oblivion, what game were you playing that replaced it? It's the only game that even attempts to do what it does, and I for one think that it does a damn good job.

Say what? Morrowind did everything Oblivion did, and did it better. Not only were the environments in Oblivion boring as hell (one square piece of land copy/pasted a million times), but the gameplay was dumbed-down to the point where a mentally handicapped six-year-old could complete it in ten hours.

Morrowind was made by the same developer, so what I'm saying is Bethesda is the only team to achieve what it has. And when I said "what game were you playing that replaced it", I meant this generation. If you want to go back to last generation and it's horrendous graphics, be my guest. I didn't find the environments to be boring. And give me an example of how badly they dumbed it down. I had no problem with that, and there is a difficulty setting. Plus, one of most people's complaints was the leveling system that made things harder.

And yeah, you could rush right through the main quest, but the whole luster of Oblvion was all the extra stuff that you could do.

 

[omicron1]

I'm confused. If you people didn't like Oblivion, what game were you playing that replaced it? It's the only game that even attempts to do what it does, and I for one think that it does a damn good job.

Say what? Oblivion was one of three "open-world RPGs" released in the 2005-2006 window: Oblivion, Gothic 3, and Two Worlds. Disregarding respective quality, they are pretty darn similar. True, they each went about making an open-world fantasy RPG in a different way - but they had the same core principles behind them.

Two Worlds was unplayable (Seriously, did you even play it?). Possibly the worst game of that entire year. And I just searched Gothic 3 and I see that it also received some horrible scores. And neither of these games have complexity and open world to the extent that Oblvion had.

Why, yes, I played Two Worlds. It's not particularly compelling, true - and the voice acting is horrendous - and when you get down to it it's really just Diablo-lite... but it's still a large-scale open-world RPG. And playable enough, when you get down to it.

Likewise, you're dismissing Gothic 3 without knowing much about it. It's got mediocre scores because it was buggy as aught when it came out. There followed a series of official and unofficial patches, rendering it into a very playable, quite fun game. And yes, it's similar in design to Oblivion: open-ended "go where you will" adventuring.

My overall thoughts on the three are:
* Two Worlds was Diablo lite in an open world - all about the loot.
* Gothic 3 was a handcrafted open world with more of a hardcore bent to it.
* Oblivion was open-ended wandering with "pocket adventures" all over the landscape.
The common thread? "Open."

 

[Computer-Noob]

Never played one, but assuming that they made one better than the last I would most likely take a stab.

 

[DustyDrB]

At first I was happy, but not too excited.

Then they said they wouldn't be using the Gamebryo engine.

Now I'm super-duper excited.

Sir, you can thank me for that. I know this because I said on this very forum that a new Elder Scrolls game should not be on Gamebryo. Then what happened (no, I can't prove this. But it's 100% true nonetheless) is a Bethesda employee browsed around on The Escapist forums and saw my post. The employee took it to the higher-ups and realized it was the most brilliant idea in gaming ever, and developed a new engine for Skyrim. All thanks to me.

So would you like my address so you can send the copy of Skyrim to my house when you preorder it for me?

 

[ElTigreSantiago]

The common thread? "Open."

Open, yes. Open and complex to the extent of Oblivion, noooo.

Two Worlds was absolute garbage. It was "open" in the same sense that games such as Red Faction: Guerrilla are open. Not nearly as deep as Oblivion. Spend some time reading the endless cpages of this Wiki and you have your proof. http://www.uesp.net/ There's soooo much going on that you don't even realize.

Right you are about Gothic, I have never even heard of it until now. And that tells me that it is nowhere near as good as Elder Scrolls, because I am no stranger to videogames. I'd be willing to bet my life that it's world is not a deep and complex as that of Oblivion.

 

[brant0]

Oblivion... I hated it thje first time I played it, everything just seemed shallow and everyone talked unrealisticaly retarded to me. Then I gave it another chance, and it's one of the better games ever for me. I am excited for Skyrim.

And please, don't even try to play Gothic or Two Worlds... seriously. Maybe Two Worlds 2 is good, still...

 

[omicron1]

The common thread? "Open."

Open, yes. Open and complex to the extent of Oblivion, noooo.

Two Worlds was absolute garbage. It was "open" in the same sense that games such as Red Faction: Guerrilla are open. Not nearly as deep as Oblivion. Spend some time reading the endless cpages of this Wiki and you have your proof. http://www.uesp.net/ There's soooo much going on that you don't even realize.

Right you are about Gothic, I have never even heard of it until now. And that tells me that it is nowhere near as good as Elder Scrolls, because I am no stranger to videogames. I'd be willing to bet my life that it's world is not a deep and complex as that of Oblivion.

Oblivion is wide, not deep. I've played it, and a heckuva lot of mods for it, and the best analysis I can figure out for it is swiss cheese. It's a flat surface with a bunch of holes in it, but those holes don't go very deep. You have so many quests, and so many dungeons, but they're just disconnected miniature activities you can go on.
It's sad, because there's the potential for so much more. There's an apple press near one of the cities - it has the interface hooks to be a usable object, but you can't use it. It's representative of the economy and "real world" elements that could be in Elder Scrolls 4, but aren't. You can't live in Oblivion. In the end, all the little storylines and dungeons boil down to your standard questing fare - just more of it than normal. And that's what makes it a sadly deficient game in my view.

The Gothic series, as a whole, are handcrafted in a way that the Elder Scrolls series can't touch. Sure, there aren't two hundred little caverns and dungeons in the world, but everything that's there has been placed by a designer. It means that whenever you go off exploring and find something, that something is going to be interesting and unique.

Anyway, I'm not going to be able to sway your opinion here. I still hold that Oblivion is nothing unique (Although it so easily could have been); and you surely still hold that it's the only real open-world RPG of the last five years. (or whatever it is that you're saying) And I'm sure we're both looking forward to Skyrim. That is all.

 

[Lullabye]

You know what? I just want 2 things outta Skyrim.
Magic akin to Dark Messiah of Might and Magic usefulness.
And a better combat engine overall.
I can deal with the terrible stories and lack of depth. I made my own stories in oblivion(like how my hand to hand teacher turned out to be one of the Dark brother hood people I needed to kill. You couldn't write a better drama)
Just focus on the world and gameplay. Everything else will fall into place.
In fact, it would be nice if they didn't have a main quest for once. Just a whole ton of side quests. Really really good fun sidequests.

 

[ElTigreSantiago]

Oblivion is wide, not deep. I've played it, and a heckuva lot of mods for it, and the best analysis I can figure out for it is swiss cheese. It's a flat surface with a bunch of holes in it, but those holes don't go very deep. You have so many quests, and so many dungeons, but they're just disconnected miniature activities you can go on.
It's sad, because there's the potential for so much more. There's an apple press near one of the cities - it has the interface hooks to be a usable object, but you can't use it. It's representative of the economy and "real world" elements that could be in Elder Scrolls 4, but aren't. You can't live in Oblivion. In the end, all the little storylines and dungeons boil down to your standard questing fare - just more of it than normal. And that's what makes it a sadly deficient game in my view.

The Gothic series, as a whole, are handcrafted in a way that the Elder Scrolls series can't touch. Sure, there aren't two hundred little caverns and dungeons in the world, but everything that's there has been placed by a designer. It means that whenever you go off exploring and find something, that something is going to be interesting and unique.

Anyway, I'm not going to be able to sway your opinion here. I still hold that Oblivion is nothing unique (Although it so easily could have been); and you surely still hold that it's the only real open-world RPG of the last five years. (or whatever it is that you're saying) And I'm sure we're both looking forward to Skyrim. That is all.

I guess in the end it's a question of quality or quantity. I love that there's still stuff in Oblivion that I haven't done. I don't mind if there isn't Krod Mandoon's Flaming Sword of Fire awaiting me at the end of every dungeon, I'm just glad to explore. I wouldn't expect every little area to be a super unique place, that's unrealistic. And yes, I still stand by the Elder Scrolls having the only open world of it's caliber. (I'm not saying it's the only open world, just the best ). And to say that Oblivion is nothing unique is mean to poor old Bethesda. Like I said to the last guy, all the critics agree with at least that. But whatever.

Like you said, we shall both look forward to Skyrim, which is the whole point of this thread! So mission accomplished and congratulations to us !

 

[omicron1]

Oblivion is wide, not deep. I've played it, and a heckuva lot of mods for it, and the best analysis I can figure out for it is swiss cheese. It's a flat surface with a bunch of holes in it, but those holes don't go very deep. You have so many quests, and so many dungeons, but they're just disconnected miniature activities you can go on.
It's sad, because there's the potential for so much more. There's an apple press near one of the cities - it has the interface hooks to be a usable object, but you can't use it. It's representative of the economy and "real world" elements that could be in Elder Scrolls 4, but aren't. You can't live in Oblivion. In the end, all the little storylines and dungeons boil down to your standard questing fare - just more of it than normal. And that's what makes it a sadly deficient game in my view.

The Gothic series, as a whole, are handcrafted in a way that the Elder Scrolls series can't touch. Sure, there aren't two hundred little caverns and dungeons in the world, but everything that's there has been placed by a designer. It means that whenever you go off exploring and find something, that something is going to be interesting and unique.

Anyway, I'm not going to be able to sway your opinion here. I still hold that Oblivion is nothing unique (Although it so easily could have been); and you surely still hold that it's the only real open-world RPG of the last five years. (or whatever it is that you're saying) And I'm sure we're both looking forward to Skyrim. That is all.

I guess in the end it's a question of quality or quantity. I love that there's still stuff in Oblivion that I haven't done. I don't mind if there isn't Krod Mandoon's Flaming Sword of Fire awaiting me at the end of every dungeon, I'm just glad to explore. I wouldn't expect every little area to be a super unique place, that's unrealistic. And yes, I still stand by the Elder Scrolls having the only open world of it's caliber. (I'm not saying it's the only open world, just the best ). And to say that Oblivion is nothing unique is mean to poor old Bethesda. Like I said to the last guy, all the critics agree with at least that. But whatever.

Like you said, we shall both look forward to Skyrim, which is the whole point of this thread! So mission accomplished and congratulations to us !

Uhh... isn't the whole point of the thread not to look forward to Skyrim?

 

[RUINER ACTUAL]

Me! I think Lord of the Rings is cool, but otherwise I'm not into the whole elf, orc, midevalish fairyland magic stuff. So count me out. Also why I don't like WoW.

 

[Cazza]

I'm not. I ever got into the series.

 

[ElTigreSantiago]

Uhh... isn't the whole point of the thread not to look forward to Skyrim?

Shhhh. Let's just pretend that it's not.

Morrowind was made by the same developer, so what I'm saying is Bethesda is the only team to achieve what it has. And when I said "what game were you playing that replaced it", I meant this generation. If you want to go back to last generation and it's horrendous graphics, be my guest. I didn't find the environments to be boring. And give me an example of how badly they dumbed it down. I had no problem with that, and there is a difficulty setting. Plus, one of most people's complaints was the leveling system that made things harder.

And yeah, you could rush right through the main quest, but the whole luster of Oblvion was all the extra stuff that you could do.

Well I'm not a graphics whore, but obviously you are. Need to get your priorities straight.

And I'm sorry, but as good as Morrowind was, that one achievement will not carry Bethesda forever. They can't continue making shallow games like Oblivion and Fallout 3 and expect that they can keep their entire fanbase.

Just because I don't want to play last generation games doesn't make me a graphics whore... and you still didn't explain what was so dumbed-down about Oblivion. But whatever. Obviously something has made you hate Fallout 3 and Oblivion, two of my favorite games of all time, and nothing is going to change that. Let's just hope that Skyrim is less "shallow".

 

[ElTigreSantiago]

snip.

You talked about the shitty voice acting (which I agree about) breaking immersion. Well, to me, (in games where I care about immersion) bad graphics destroy any chance of immersion. I'm not a graphics whore, you misunderstand me. I've been playing games since the NES, and I still play plenty of games with dated graphics, just not games like Oblivion.

It seems to me that you think Oblivion is bad mainly because of how good Morrowind was, which is understandable.

And I get what you're saying about the character creation, but I must say that I can understand why Bethesda did that. If they designed the game soley based on grizzled veterans, than no one else would be able to play it. They had to make some sacrifices. You can't please everybody. And to me, I really don't think that was a game-breaker. I'm sure there's a mod out there that can help, too.

I agree somewhat about New Vegas. The new features were fantastic. But the bugs it had at the time of release were absolutely inexcusable. And the story kind of sucked. You're right, though, that's a story for another day.

 

[WorldCritic]

I'm not looking forward to another one because I never played the other four. Yeah, I'm deprived.

 

[maturin]

Yes, Oblivion was bad in terms of Morrowind. That's what 95% of people who played both games mean.

It ran away from the RPG genre and the creativity of the Elder Scrolls universe as fast as its Xbox interface could carry it. There's not really anything more to it than that.

 

[RatRace123]

I'm anxious, I love me some swords and sorcery RPGs, but Oblivion bored me, and I hadn't played Morrowind, which a fair amount of people claimed was actually better.

Still, I do love me some swords and sorcery RPGs, so I'll see if Skyrim can do better than its predecessor at impressing me.