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NidPuterGuy
Fearless Paladin
Joined: 08 Jan 2003
Posts: 237
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| Is this Morrowind with a facelift? |
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It sure sounds like it? Is the story captivating? Do you feel drawn to complete the main quest. Do you effect the game world? Or is it like Morrowind, which I like, but you don't really seem to change anything. I'm just curious as I don't have a computer that can run the game yet. |
Fri Apr 14, 2006 4:20 am |
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Danicek
The Old One
Joined: 15 Dec 2001
Posts: 5922
Location: Czech Republic |
I think it is a way better than in Morrowind. But every so open game suffers from kind of weaker drive in main story. The linearity makes it much easier for a game. |
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Fri Apr 14, 2006 7:04 am |
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Dhruin
Stranger In A Strange Land
Joined: 20 May 2002
Posts: 1825
Location: Sydney, Australia |
This is surprisingly difficult to answer. Before I start, I should say I'm not much of a TES fan - take that as you will.
The combat is vastly improved, which makes a massive difference in my opinion. A little while ago I loaded up Morrowind again (played 30-40 hours first time but didn't really grab me) with a whole stack of mods. I found everything vastly improved but the combat was so bad I quickly gave it away. The combat is still a long way from the best but much, much better than Morrowind.
Surprisingly, I find the quests are the strongest part of Oblivion. There are some very creative quests with interesting mini-stories. They're nearly all entirely linear, which is disappointing, but they are interesting. NPCs are certainly better but not of the quality of the best in the genre.
The main quest (what I've seen of it) is pretty terrible and there are no real choices that change the course of the game. I didn't like MW's story much but I think it better suited this style of open game.
MW also had more factions and more diversity - both locational and cultural.
OB's leveling and scaling system is dreadful out of the box - simply awful. Altogether, I guess OB is better out of the box but mostly because of the combat and the NPCs and quests are better. However, some quite simple mods can tidy up the leveling/scaling issues as well as other minor things and OB quickly becomes much better. The only advantage MW continues to hold (and it is important to some players) is the greater diversity.
To answer your specific question - yes, it still feels a lot like MW and you don't really change much.
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Editor @ RPGDot |
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Sat Apr 15, 2006 2:45 am |
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InsaneOrc
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 16 Jun 2004
Posts: 27
Location: Germania |
Well, let me describe it this way:
While trying to make a good looking face-lift, the surgeon unfortunately hit the brain. So the face looks good now and is smiling, but it's kinda numb and the intellect of the "person" that was treated is like that of a 6-year-old (though it didn't decrease much)
So it's good for a one-night-whore but don't expect to get happy with it on the long term. |
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Tue Apr 18, 2006 12:21 am |
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Oric
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Posts: 49
Location: Zamek Malbork |
quote:
Originally posted by InsaneOrc
Well, let me describe it this way:
So it's good for a one-night-whore but don't expect to get happy with it on the long term.
OMG, what an analogy!!! 
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Here, take these potions, they might come in handy!!! |
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Tue Apr 18, 2006 6:08 am |
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Oric
Eager Tradesman
Joined: 18 Feb 2006
Posts: 49
Location: Zamek Malbork |
Like you said NidPuterGuy, its MW with a facelift. And combat is rather good aswell. 
_________________
Here, take these potions, they might come in handy!!! |
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Tue Apr 18, 2006 6:13 am |
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Danicek
The Old One
Joined: 15 Dec 2001
Posts: 5922
Location: Czech Republic |
quote:
Originally posted by Dhruin
NPCs are certainly better but not of the quality of the best in the genre.
In some way it is quantity for quality, however I find it difficult to think of any other RPG with better NPCs. I mean, there are certainly some annoying things such as repetitious dialogues. However so many NPCs with so many faces, voices, sentences, quests, personalities...
Yes, it is possible that some game (BG2?) had several better NPCs. This is probably the quantity for quality problem. |
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Tue Apr 18, 2006 7:22 am |
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Zaleukos
Village Dweller
Joined: 14 Mar 2006
Posts: 7
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I predicted a dumbed down Morrowind about a year ago and must say that I got it partially correct. Some of the changes:
The good:
Dungeons that at least I feel are better.
Some nice quests.
Better combat.
NPCs now have schedules
The AI when it works allows for some neat things, like killing animals by feeding them poisoned food.
Fast travel to locations that already have been visited.
NPCs that are slightly less generic, say things that make more sense, and are voice-acted.
Horses make overland travel faster.
Neat physics system that should have been used more.
The bad:
Less replay value due to:
Fewer factions.
Fewer quests.
Fewer skills. (I dont understand why as they did make the weapons play differently, it wouldnt have hurt to just add a skill for axes and one for daggers for instance, forcing the player to choose what to focus on early on)
Fewer weapon types.
Quests are more linear than in Morrowind.
The voice-acting uses too few voices and sometimes sound very silly (an NPC with different voices, two persons talking to each other with exactly the same voice and tone).
The new "flee" AI tends to flee all across the map, attracting lions, boars and whatnot. This is very frustrating if you are on a quest to kill that last guy.
Quests rely on a compass to tell you where to go. You can mod the game to get rid of that compass, but then some quests become impossible as there arent enough clues ingame to solve them without the compass. This gives a diablo-esque quality to the quests.
Loot and enemy scaling is roughly the same as in Daggerfall (and much more extreme than in Morrowind). This is supposed to keep the game challenging but has some very weird effects on gameplay. MODDABLE
Too many escort missions that become very tedious due to the crappy AI, especially when you cant tell a char to "wait here".
Bandit caves and such dungeons respawn, making all dungeons of one type identical in terms of combat and loot.
The same
Horrible combat pathfinding AI. Allies tend to get in the way of your power-striking claymore.
Some quests are poorly scripted and can be broken by doing things in the wrong order.
Too little people in the world (there must be a mod for this somewhere?)
To sum it up: The game is much shorter than Morrowind. They should have thought more about the allied combat AI (heck I've seen guards get in each others way while hunting and assassin and proceed whacking each other). If this is too hard to code then they should have made the NPCs immune to friendly fire or somesuch, now it detracts from gameplay as I either let my allies die on their own due to their kamikaze tactics, or kill them myself because they run between my enemy and my hammer. Diablofying the quests is however the big killer that makes this feel more like Bards Tale (the new one) than a proper RPG.
EDIT; I forgot a few things. Oblivion is MUCH more stable than Morrowind. And on the minus (definitely consolish) side you cant name save games, and the default interface is a low-resolution tabulatory nightmare). And the tutorial dungeon is WAY too large (think Chateau Irenicus or bigger), but that can luckily be modded away.
I ran Morrowind with one unofficial mod (no-glow), but to enjoy Oblivion I need quite a few fundamental game rebalancing mods (Oscuro being the most notable one). |
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Wed May 03, 2006 2:42 pm |
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