News The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim announced

Brilliant news, I don't like fallout, fallout 3 was ok but 90% boring with all the long walks lol.
Shame next gen consoles aren't around yet, so we will get similar experience to oblivion I think, not that that's a bad thing though, keen to see the new engine though, hopefully it will involve realistic animations .

 

Looking forward to this!

However, I do agree with the comments that Morrowind beats Oblivion. Oblivion was good but I did find it really conventional as a world and as a story -- it felt like everyone else in it was very settled and there was no real tension (the Cthulu style 'demonic hordes' thing was straight out of the rpg text book).

By contrast Morrowind was fantastically alien - none of the human colonists really seemed to belong, the indigenous dunmer were both unsettling and sympathetic at the same time, and the environments were really compelling: I remember a storm halfway up the mountain when the sky turned red and there was so much rain, wind and dust that you could barely see the beasts attacking you. Whereas Oblivion felt like visiting France -- A lovely country, but not exactly 'edge of your seat' exciting.

So fingers crossed we get a swing back towards TES3. Given the name, perhaps it will pick up where the Bloodmoon expansion left off (at least in terms of mood/themes)?

Jhng

 

Exactly the points I wanted to make!

I do get rather fed-up when people go on about how 'bland' the game looks, when it was breath-taking, (and system crushing) at the time.

Oblivion wasn't without it's faults, (as everyone has already mentioned) and yes, in many ways Morrowind was better - but I'm still hugely excited to see how they'll be moving the game along more than five years after the last one.

Hehe, remember that well!

I was thinking that too...

 

Name one that did ALL of those things better in combination, in a single game. That's my point. Plenty of games are better in specific ways, but Oblivion stood alone as a game that offered everything and actually delivered on most of it. The only RPG I've played with a similar level of freedom and non-linearity is Morrowind, but the combat in that game is absolutely terrible, as was the draw distance.

 

like already mentioned, oblivion was a ground-breaking experience, in the woods, forest or mountains.
I hope they can make such another ground-breaking experience but thats a tall order and no new consoles for the big bucks. I didnt mind i had to get sli to run it well. If same happens again, i'll be more than happy to see pc gaming progressing further albeit making nvidia richer

 

Yet Morrowind was better in every other aspect. There are lots of games that offered what oblivion did, how long you been gaming? gothic 1 and 2, ultima, morrowind, etc...... Off the top of my head. Oblivion didnt innovate squat, just made everything easier, and more shallow and watered down. Its laughable you mention draw distance considering the old tech in morrowind, and really irrelevant. Gothic 1 and 2 blow away oblivion, too bad they ruined the gothic series with 3 and arcania. Hell, with patches Gothic III was better. Baldurs gate was very open and was ten times the rpg as oblivion.

 

To be fair, combat has little to do with the age of the game. I 100% agree with you, things like graphics and limited voice actors are limitations of the time's hardware and were great for their time, but more basic game design can be created generally at any time.

As a big Demon's Souls fan myself I agree that the combat in DS is far better. It was just designed better than Oblivion, imo. Nothing to do with age or hardware limitations. The side-stepping/rolling is much better (God of War had good rolling on the PS2) and the variety of attacks makes the combat more diverse. Fights feel more immersive compared to Oblivion's run up and start swinging method.

Oblivion's fatal flaw combat wise, again imo, was being so heavily first person based. Third person or at least over the shoulder are much less clunky for combat. God of War in 2005 and Assassin's Creed in 2007 both make great use of a smooth third person camera and are from roughly the same time.

Needless to say, my hopes for Skyrim are a better third person mode.

 

I couldn't agree more. I don't actually know Demons Souls but I play lots of RPG's and also MMORPG's. To me Oblivion is like a totally second rate MMORPG with nobody to play with, a fraction of the loot, a fraction of the content, a smaller world, less locations, less unique dungeons, basically just inferior in absolutely every single way.

The only reason it's popular is because it had killer graphics and because it's so simple, anyone can play it.

Well most MMO's do everything Oblivion does but 10 times better. And I can think of some old RPG's that do everything Oblivion does but better, and lots of RPG's that maybe don't do as much in one game, but do most things far better.

I wish Bethesda would finally up their game, or be punished. It won't happen, but that's my wish.

 

Better in every other aspect? Really? I wasn't a huge fan of Morrowind's voice acting, I have to say.

There were loads of other rubbish things about it that were fixed in Oblivion too, though nobody ever seems to mention the stuff Bethesda got right. Everyone complains about the dull leveled world, but I remember well the 100% static world of Morrowind that had very little replayability because everything was the same the second time through. You could even remember where you got something cool and go pick it up. There was a sword in one of the watch towers in Balmora that you could flog for some cash as soon as you start playing, and the Amulet of Shadows (which made you practically invincible) was in a pond by the side of a road north of Ald Ruhn, I believe. Once I'd played through once I lost any real desire to explore the same world a second time.

Oblivion has random enemies and random loot, so you never know what you'll find. Granted, the vanilla version of the game was far too limited in terms of item and creature level variation, but this was easily fixed by the modding community not long after launch. It could never have been made the game I'm playing right now without the underlying systems Bethesda created and allowed the modders to tweak.

All those games you mentioned are great, I'm sure, but they're irrelevent. I was trying to explain why Oblivion was and is popular. Those games are all really old and ugly, lets be honest. If you're looking to be immersed in an RPG it's much harder when you're constantly thinking "my God this is ugly". Oblivion still looks gorgeous with a couple of mods (though requires SSDs in RAID to load all the textures without any pauses) and that's part of the reason it's popular. Like I said, people like it because it does everything. It might not do specific things as well as older games but they are all missing something else that Oblivion has, I can guarantee. Where is the voice acting in the Gothic series? Where is the first person 3d perspective in Baldur's Gate?

RPG doesn't have to mean a complex system of die rolls, but to me it DOES have to mean a completely immersive world. Oblivion does that the best, so far, because it has everything you need. It's huge, it's pretty, it's first-person, you can go anywhere and do whatever you want in whatever order you like, you have a decent enough combat system, a decent enough magic system, challenging enemies, NPCs that talk to you with real voices, plenty of quests with pretty good writing in many places, NPCs that walk around and seem to have lives of their own... and that's just the vanilla game. Yes it could be improved massively in many areas and Bethesda should indeed look to the classics of the genre for inspiration on how to do this, but I honestly believe they are on the right track. They have the makings of an incredible game already in Oblivion and I think we should all be hoping that they don't get scared by everyone saying "Oblivion sucked!" and return to the days of weapons that constantly missed due to invisible dice rolls or NPCs that don't speak because that way you can't tell they've only got half a dozen voice actors available.

Oblivion was a massive leap forwards and I think people should appreciate that!

@Sloth: Yes I just looked at some videos, it looks very good for combat. I'd want to stick with first person for immersion reasons, and I imagine that's why they have problems with the third-person mode: first person gets in the way, but it's what most people will use and therefore takes precedence. I think we can all expect a better combat system from this new TES engine as they've had 5 years to work on it already!

@Sausages: I've never seen or played an MMO that comes close to Oblivion in terms of graphics, player perspective or combat. They all seem to be third person RPGs from 2002 with horrible horrible lag every time you tell your character to attack because it's all turn-based underneath. Also, there's a monthly fee. I paid £12 for Oblivion in 2008 and haven't paid a penny more since. If you can't enjoy games that aren't multiplayer that's fine, but I generally prefer a single player story driven experience. Usually when I play with people online they just annoy me so much I go play something else; such was my experience with Guild Wars and Eve.

You are exactly right when you say other games don't do as much in one. I can't grab the story from one game, the combat from another and the magic system from a third. Oblivion does almost everything well, even if it's beaten by other games on specific points. When you average the whole experience out it's one of the best RPGs I've ever played and without question it is the most immersive, due to the focus on first-person gameplay in a gorgeous world.

 

I will admit, Oblivion isn't the greatest game ever, but it is still one hell of a game. Plus I love the literary references.

As for the combat, Improve it in the 3rd person, add all the stuff cut out from Morrowind, and make horse combat possible.

In fact just make TES:V have all the features of a fully modded Oblivion with FCOM and Deadly Reflex mods, that coupled with a non-Gamebryo Engine would be brilliant.

 

pc's got 5 years of hardware improvements. who needs next gen?

 

@wgasa

Big jumps in PC game visual quality tend to come with new console generations, I think that's what Waynio means.

 

finished venetica and I felt like someone punched me in the face.. I mean it could have been beaten in a coma! like I was the console retard ha.. I will never doubt joe's numbers on his game reviews again

liked oblivion and the expansions.. should be fun- mass effect 3 looks good too from the trailer

oh here's some screenshots that sum up the console gamer very well courtesy of venetica

 

Imho Morrowind was far better than Oblivion:

- Far bigger, more diverse world map

- Much more immersion, the world seemed to be more open, the main storyline was obscure... Oblivion was a sandbox but there was a clear path to follow from the beginning. In Morrowind, you could choose to follow many different paths, there were more guilds, much more side quests on each guild...

- No incremental / balanced enemy level please (in Oblivion, I saw a farmer with a daedric armour... crap). I want to become super-powerful and come back to that scary middle-of-the-game enemy race and destroy it with a finger

- You could literally become a demigod in Morrowind. The level system and enchanted items that you could find or create allowed you to reach tremendous levels of power.

- Levitation: a total plus!!!! I enchanted my boots so I could keep flying all the time during my travels... that was soooo coool...

And a side note: please no MMO nor multiplayer...

 

Cant take anyone serious when they say "oblivion was a massive step forward". how? It did zero new, only did what was previously done much worse. Oblivion is like marijuana, its a gateway RPG, its easy for non rpg's to play, but once you get into them there is much better around. Prob the worst levelling system, loot scaling (No random loot like you said, its scaled), worst dialog, lack of choices and consequences, terrible dialog, worst ever mini game (Speech). The world is being invaded and everyone walks around saying the "Fighters guild is hiring". Game is shallow tripe.

 

Immersive world? Like every dungeon being the same with every bandit having daedric armour killin any reason the find rare loot? World being invaded and people walk around like nothing happening? You might want to re-look at your claim oblivion was great because of immersion. Things that break immersion are at every corner, like the worst robotic animations I have ever seen.

 

I see why you like Oblivion so much "Its huge, pretty, lots to do", LMAO, that does not a great RPG make. Its a RPG for COD gamers. Oblivion bets immersion? LMAO, hardly.

 

Woooooooooooooooooooot!!

DX11 Goodness

Will be building a new PC for Nov next year then.

 

Yeah & to be honest Two worlds 2 on PC looks & plays freaking gorgeous with max settings so I suppose pc games aren't entirely reliant on new consoles IF the devs cater properly .

 

Morrowind was my absolute favorite single player game of all time. I hope to hell that they make Skyrim more like Morrowind and less like Oblivion.