Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion interview

man.. all i know is with rumors of x360 shortages I'm starting to plant the seed in my head of waiting in line for an x360 8 hours prior to stores opening on nov22. I know it doesnt have much to do with this game.. but its slightly related and the only thing thats been on my mind the past couple days

This game and kameo are the 2 I am looking forward to most... cant wait to see them on my big screen. Hopefully gamestop will be able to fill my pre-order.. but I'm starting to think thats unlikely.. Going to break out the tent and get ready to camp in front of wal-mart early morning Nov22.

 

God damn it! I really need a job. The backlog of stuff that i want to buy is getting utterly ridiculous now.

 

The HDR looks absolutely superb - the game looks very dreamey.

 

Geee i announce those videos more then a week ago.
I get 3-4 responses!!..

/me curses front page postings.

 

Hi, Slashdot!

The game looks gorgeous, I've been waiting so long and I just want it NOW, dammit

Exactly the same here. I played well over 200 hours of Morrowind before I even got started on the main quest, and then there were still so many other things to distract me...the scope of Morrowind was truly terrifying, and even quite daunting in places - it's the one thing I hope that can change *slightly* in Oblivion, I don't want to lose the expansiveness but I'd like to be kept on track a little more.

EDIT -

Er, really? TBH I'd put it as one of the most graphically advanced games of its time. Those water effects blew me away on a GF4, and they look even more impressive now. And the game is still a bit of a system hog. Modest isn't the first word that comes to mind

 

confessions of an eve addict, probably 15 hours a day weekend, 6-8 hours per day weekday....

 

Well, it certainly deserves credit for the shaded water effect, which took until Unreal Tournament 2003 and Halo PC to beat. However, I was personally dissapointed in how it handled everything else; it used vertex-based lighting exclusively, (no projectors) and also had no effects applied to anything else. At the very least, I would've personally liked to see the use of transparent/alpha layers more, as well as sphere-maps, namely on the weapons/armor.

 

True enough, and the people/monsters did look horrific occasionally, but the landscapes could be utterly breathtaking. About the first thing I did after getting the game was stand on top of the lighthouse in Seyda Neen and watch the sun set, and it was gorgeous.

 

I can't tell you how many hours I played this game... it was the reason I bought a GF6 6600GT vid card (dispite that there was 0 performance increase from my Ti4200)... I never did finish the game, probably never even got close... I just got lost one day and spent the next who knows how long just walking around and enjoying the scenery... the few beefs I have with the game was:

1. the main city was just too damn big, and you could not find anything in it

2. you could get too powerful too easy...

3. everyone and everything talking to you... LEAVE ME ALONE!!!

4. being able to walk into anyones house...

aside from that... I so can't wait for this game.

 

Really??? nothing to say about watching the twin moons roll across the sky??

I think the night sky was the best of it all

 

How silly of me to forget the sky! It's been perhaps too long since I last actually picked up Morrowind. The Construction Set just doesn't show the sky, which is a bit sad...

What I found really sad is that upon closer inspection, the landscape detail in Battlefield 2 is virtually identical to that of Morrowind; it just has use of SpeedTree added, and a couple of other shaders here and there. I'm still not sure if this is a testament to how detailed Morrowind was, or how lacking BattleField 2 is.

 

Oooh yeah, the night sky was fabulous when it wasn't cloudy

I thought it seemed awfully familiar in some way... At any rate, I think from the screenshots and videos it's very much certain that any issues we might have had with the graphics are going to be well and truly things of the past. Oblivion looks like one of those games that will make people buy hardware to get it looking its best.

Oh, and welcome to bit-tech

 

Oh, and as I forgot to mention in any of the threads on this article, my personal thanks to Da Dego for asking what you did. I am quite possibly among the people who've invested the most interest into the technical specs of Oblivion, and I was quite pleased to see an interview like that; thanks.

Au Contraire, I thought it was best during a thunderstorm at night. Though I was a little dissapointed at how it never got truly dark, the lightning and thunder effect was truly spectacular. I am one of the (likely majority) that can say they were startled the first time they heard thunder in Morrowind.

Indeed, I've been floored by the appearance of the game from day one. In my case, I can't necessarily afford new hardware, but it makes me glad that I do have nice stuff already, even if it's not as nice as what some other people might use. (Athlon64 2800+, X800XT AGP)

Drat! My latest attempt to infiltrate a forum foiled.

At any rate, thanks. I visit a lot of forums in my Internet research, and I occasionally join them, namely when I have comments to make; I usually stick arround for more than that, though. As would be fairly obvious, I came here after jumping a link from the official Elder Scrolls forums.

 

wow I am gald this interview covers dual cores, I was worried that it wouldn't support it

just gives me some more reasons to get a 3800X2

 

Elder Scrolls. I spent ages with Morrowind. I played it for years. I know all routes, and most of the secrets. Hell, is that game huge. 200+ hours, sure.. Then I decided to trash the CDs I had (yea, the expansions too).. There is no good way to stop playing that damn thing.. When you did go up in ranks to top of the most groups/houses.. Be a mage, a knight and anything between, or all at one.. When you seek a trader some ppl talk about, and after weeks find the speeking crab (whitout knwoing it is a speeking crab).. Do the main quest... Stard out with the TES thing... Ahhh. total overflow.. I think I need a far better computer and lots of holiday, when Oblivion comes out... damn it

 

Guess he hasn't seen "City of Villians", as it uses the aforementioned engine...!

 

You're quite welcome...thanks for taking the time to read it and post! I'm glad we were able to bring some new information out! I hate asking the same old humdrum questions...half the sites that previewed the game look like they copied and pasted from each other. I wanted us to be different, and we hope to bring you guys more interviews like this in the future. Actually, that reminds me...if anyone has a game they particularly would like to see something similar to this for, feel free to PM me.

And for all of you who joined up to comment (as I see a few new faces), welcome to bit-tech! Hope you'll stick around and see all we have to offer.

Yeah...there are also other games using Novodex. I'm surprised that with even Epic on board, that a game world as expansive as Oblivion would look past this. But as Gavin said, Havoc has certainly been proven time and time again, and they've been able to modify it well for their purposes. I'll just have to trust their judgement on this one.
We also have to remember that when the team first started development on this, more was known about the 360 hardware (among devs, at least) than about the future of computer hardware. PhysX wasn't a reality yet, even in prototype...

 

Well, it got my mouth watering. Never played the series but meant to pick it up for a long time... maybe I'll have to.

The info is great, I'm glad to hear it'll be threaded. With the x360, I'd imagine most new games will be Regardless I'm getting to a point where I'm starting to want to go back to my old RPG habits. Back before all it took was a 2000dpi mouse and way too much practice with the m4... I've just been avoiding them because of RPGs, most are MMOs, and there's just one that I know of (GW, of course) that doesn't charge monthly, something I flat-out refuse to do.

I'm thinking bestbuy should update their release date.. it says 11/21/05 That or we're in for a surprise...

I wonder what playable specs will end up resembling... and whether the game supports widescreen resolutions on PC (x360 of course will, with it's 720p minimum or whatever). I don't know what's been bothering me more recently... the fact that lots of new games won't run 16:9 or 16:10 or the fact that those same new games are only borderline playable for me at 1280x1024 or lower, when before I could run 1600x1200 (or 1680x1050) easily. Bah, I hate having the best, because then I need to keep at it. Of course, overnight I went from high-end to positively midrange graphics...

Anyways, just watched the 720p official trailer, I'm impressed. Lighting looked a little... hazy is probably the best word, but overall quite the eye sex.

 

I was considering not upgrading for another while, maybe not until mid-late next year, but then I realised I had better do for oblivion, and I will only be back in the states to buy bits once before its released. An opteron 165, sli-dr Expert and 7800GT later...

 

300 hours, weak dude

lol 300 hours is nothing!! when i first bought my xbox i was pissed there were no good RPG's then i caught wind of TES3 morrowind. I think it was released late 2001/2? about 2 weeks after i lost my job and man i hit that game so hard, my first go lasted about 10-12 hours [no joke] i played the game solid for almost a year and regularly for about 3. so ive clocked up well more than 300 [hmm sounds pretty sad when i read back] i've had many chars but have 8 permanent chars and would confidently say ive been every where!

I stood in line for my 360 for 9 hours only to regret it a few days later, i love the console but the games suck big time [unfinished messes] geomerty wars is the best game on it, and thats an arcade game! While on my friends PC i put it on e-bay an done a bit of surfin when i came across OBLIVION and oh my god i almost instantly got wood took it of e-bay and have been dyin of antisipation ever since!!
This game has got me hooked already lol! It is the definative game for the 360, and im a big fan of FPS an RTS nothing this year will compare!!
Bring it on... please no longer than march .. i dont think i could survive ...


...wow that was pretty long...

[TES3 had its problems, but i got a big imagnation an thats all you need ]
looks like we wont need any for TES4