Some forumposters and myself were just talking about Oblivion another thread. This grew out of a discussion of the changing dynamics of newer RPGs. I decided to move my responses and a summary here, as we were getting a little off topic. (If this is bad form, then I apologize.) This is extremely long, but hey, it's not like I'm forcing you to read it. Would you rather have this, or "omfg obilivion suckss"-type posts?
Story - You are told that there's a demonic invasion hell bent on devouring the land and that you must find Martin immediately...yet nothing happens if you don't. The demons just wait at their little gates waiting for you to close them.
RobbieH1234
In all fairness, this happens in some games. I always thought it was a little odd I was going on all these sidequests in Baldur's Gate II, while I was supposed to be dying because Irenicus stole my soul. Of course, Morrowind justified all of its side-questing by having Caius Cosades simply say, "You need to get stronger before you can do what the Emperor wants. Go join the army." There's no reason they couldn't have had a little contrivance like this in Oblivion, then later have Oblivion gates pop up that actually do ravage the countryside. Of course, you don't need to get stronger in Oblivion, because of...
That god****ed scaled leveling - This breaks the game, simple as that. You will never find an area where you find your character being destroyed, no will never find unique loot. Isn't it a tad game breaking that the armor you grounded your character to get is being worn by lowly bandits? Or how someone can become the most powerful fighter in the land at level 1? Or can stop a demonic invasion at level 2?
RobbieH1234
This largely mirrors my feelings. The scaling is my biggest complaint about Oblivion. I don't think it breaks the game, but it makes the act of leveling itself irrelevant. The only thing that makes you more powerful is equipment. This isn't to say that magical weapons and artifacts shouldn't play a role in an RPG, but character level should be potent as well. The scaling goes a long way towards breaking immersion in the game, along with...
NPCs - Not one person in Oblivion, apart from the main characters, have a personality between them. They're voiced by 7 people who utter the aforementioned crappy dialogue which essentially makes every NPC the same person, just with a different face.
RobbieH1234
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Dialogue/Voice acting - Oblivion features some of the worst dialogue I've ever come across. "I saw a mudcrab the other day" is uttered 700 times. After that you're treated to dull, repetitive drivel that takes itself far too seriously. Want some humour or personality? Look somewhere else.
RobbieH1234
I never understood the reason for the paucity of voice actors in Oblivion. Voice samples take up the same amount of space on the disc whether there's one person or 50 doing the recording. Would it have been that expensive to bring in a few more people? At least give key characters, like Baurus and Jauffre unique voices. Christ, games almost a decade ago had more voice variety than Oblivion. Just look at Deus Ex. It's not just NPCs voices that make them bland...
Radiant AI - The eternally hyped radiant AI system is ****. NPCs walk to the store, look at the wall for 6 hours, utter broken dialogue to each other (oftentimes the same voice) then go home.
RobbieH1234
I can only assume Bethesda was under release date pressure when it came to the Radiant AI. Would it have been that hard to have NPCs actually do stuff? There's a few actions, like eating and raking leaves, that they actually do, but would it have killed them to have a smith actually banging on an anvil? A jeweler checking out gems with a loupe? A clothier sewing? Innkeepers baking food? You get the idea here. It's easy to criticize Radiant AI, because it set its goals so high, but it seems to me the game could have used a little more development time.
Moving on to my second biggest complaint about Oblivion: The lack of consequences. Oblivion's full of choices you can make, but none of them have any consequences. I'm not the only one who sees this.
This is why Fallout, Baldur's Gate, or Mass Effect are, in my mind, great roleplaying experiences than Oblivion could ever hope to be. They are packed with small details and firm choices. You either take this NPC, or that. You say this in conversation, or that and both have drastically differing outcomes depending on your stats and character build.
In Oblivion everything you do is independent of everything else. Want to join the fighters guild? Awesome. Board? Want to join the assassins guild? Thats great too! I know, why dont you join allll the guild!? Yay! Forgive me, but that's for special people who can't make a choice. Spoiled if you will.
diablobasher
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Choices and consequences - Oblivion does not feature meaning choices and consequences. Whenever the player should be able to make a choice, the game either A) Doesn't present it or B) Makes it for them. You know the rules of the Dark Brotherhood? If you tell someone about it they'll kick you out? Well you can't, even if you want to. You cannot choose to join enemy factions, you cannot choose to talk to enemies, you cannot choose to solve a quest peacefully.
Nothing matters - In the grand scheme of things, nothing you do in Oblivion has any consequence whatsoever. You can join every guild and no quest overlaps, you can kill everyone (not really since certain people can't be killed) and nobody cares. Seriously, go kill everybody in Chorrol and serve your jail time. Then talk to a random NPC and see what they think of you. If you kill a child in Fallout you're labeled a child killer, bounty hunters will then be after you for the whole game and people will be reluctant to give you quests. That's choice and consequence. Nothing you do in Oblivion affects the game world. Nothing.RobbieH1234
I feel exactly the same way. My comments in the earlier thread:
There are no story consequences for anything you do in the game. This even bothered me back in Morrowind, where you can join the Imperial Cult and the Tribunal Temple, becoming a very important person in each organization, when they have incompatible philosophies. Here in Oblivion, you can join every faction, even when it makes no sense. Factions should be mutually exclusive, or at the very least, quests should be. Imagine how much more interesting the game would have been if: I'm a high-ranking member of the Dark Brotherhood and the Fighter's Guild. I accept a contract to kill somebody important. Shortly after leaving the Dark Brotherhood lair, I'm greeted by a courier from the Fighter's Guild, who says that I am charged with protecting important somebody, who has been targeted for assassination. At that point, I actually have to make a decision, a concept lacking in Oblivion. How much more interesting would the factions have been if you could infiltrate one of them on behalf of another, and play a double or even triple agent? Alas, no; in Oblivion, I can be as morally schizophrenic as I please.
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A lot of these points are made very eloquently (and humorously) in an RPG Codex review of Oblivion.
Wrapping this up, I don't think Oblivion is a terrible game at all, but I certainly don't hail it as one of the greatest Occidental RPGs ever made. I think Oblivion receives a great deal of popular praise, because people have never played anything like it before, as stated here:
Oblivion is...a lazy mans RPG...and the only reason people are so up in arms about how amazing they are is because the majority (not all, but the large majority, and however much you want to argue this, it's true) had never played anything like it before on a console because they were too young to have played any of the old st*yle proper RPGs, and now the complete reverse of everything I have stated is ingrained into their minds. If these games were not released on a console they would never have received so much praise, but because neither genre had seen much activity when these games were released to the console market it was like cavemen discovering fire.
diablobasher
Emphasis mine. :lol:
The point of my thread here is not to mindlessly blast Oblivion, but to point out that it's only one game in a sub-genre that has many titles, many of which are preferred by people who have played these games for a long time. To anyone who's a long-time fan of this genre, Oblivion has some serious flaws, flaws that are often ignored in the community at large.
And I'm thoroughly impressed if you read all that.
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