GameArena have a preview of the anticipated PC and Xbox 360 title Oblivion, the fourth in the ever-popular Elder Scrolls series of RPGs:

The immediate opening to Oblivion is stunningly engaging - you're met with the booming, commanding voice of Patrick Stewart who plays the emporer before discovering that you are locked up in a cell in the city's dungeon. From the outset you create your character with a barrage of options - here alone it's possible to spend a few hours getting everything just right.

Soak it up.

Bring it on!

Is this game for xbox 360 only? Or is there a standard xbox version too?

360 and PC only.

And wireless devices.

Only thing I'm disapointed about is that I go back to work the day it comes out, so I won't be able to partake in it's goodness until 4 days later...damnit!!!

roffles, ive taking the thursday and friday off work just so i can play this, going to be sweet fun.

as if you would take days of work to play games. retards

I would if I wasn't the boss =)

as if you would take days of work to play games. retards

gotta use your time off todo something, might aswell do something you enjoy.

I love Patrick Stewart

oblivion ftw. yay 3 days to go

2 days u mean

depends if you count today.

http://i68.photobucket.com/albums/i31/xlaxxlv/churchsign.jpg
lol?

last edited by fpot at 19:36:50 20/Mar/06

LOL

haha

haha nice

Looks really good...i've never been into these types of games...but from what i have seen of this game and for $49.95 I think I might just have to buy it!

HAH ! i wish it was $49.95

you must be one of those people who view eb.com and actually think its australian.

Nah i'm in Canada man... http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0665000FS10071938&catid=11126#

I'm watching the 12hr oblivion marathon here (copy and paste into your browser): mms://a812.l1165445721.c11654.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/812/11654/v0001/reflector:45721 just passing the time till it comes out :P

There is a 12 hour oblivion marathon happening at my house right now.

In my pants.

haha thats cool, thanks for the link, arena fighting looks wickid

So this is just live streaming of some guy playing? That's pretty cool

its a gamespy thingo but it f**ks up the buffering and the video stops playin all the time for me and my mate at least.

must a bazillion ppl watching it

haha it ended with a fire alarm going off and he had to get the f*** out of there. that rocks.

I haven't been reading much about gameplay so is this like Warcraft where it will be online only? Looks like it will be good although my machine would have serious issues running the thing. Need a new CPU and mobo.

Its single player only rev with no multiplayer option. And yeah, it looks like the graphical requirements are going to be pretty hefty.

Voodoo Extreme have a story on the fact that you can purchase the digital version online right now in North US.

You know, even though Steam cops a lot of s*** from people it does have its merits. Imagine if we coud have been able to pre-load Oblivion like Steam games and then simply unlock them on release day. No trips to the shops and paying crazy prices etc..and we could be playing it right now. I hope that Games Warehouse gets my copy to me tomorrow.

If for some reason the release was delayed I bet you could hear fpot screaming fom where ever you are in Brisbane.

Wow....all the copies in stores over here sure were snapped up fast....saw alot of people just then on my way home from work on the street with their copy of the xbox or pc version...

Wont bother with this if it's only single player. It's heaps more fun when there are "real" people in the game world.

I'm sure you guys will have fun with it anyway.

8-)

YYUMMMMMMMMM Milkless coffee.. :/

Also, I want to play this game now.

It's heaps more fun when there are "real" people in the game world.

Heh, real people don't inhabit MMORPSHGSSS's.

i played it at eb today on xbox360, its rather lush even on letter box pal, draw distance wasnt a big problem, it just has low res textures in the distance which you dont notice to much as you dont require details for somethign so far away.

This is for those who will be playing this on their xbox 360, apparently an issue with long pauses during load times has been address on the Bethsheda forums.

Oblivion uses the Xbox 360 hard drive extensively to cache (copy and reuse) game data. This is done to optimize all loading the game does. It has been found in rare cases on some Xbox 360s that the cached data can get overly fragmented. This exhibits itself by the game taking a long time to load anything from menus, dialogue, sounds, objects, levels, and more.

To solve this problem, reset your Xbox, and hold down the A button as the game is booting up. If any button is held while Oblivion is loading, it will clear its hard drive cache, and create a new one. Once you see the “Bethesda Softworks” logo video, the game is already loaded, and the cache should have been cleared.

Note, this does not effect your game in any way other than loading. You will not lose any saved data.

This has been a public service announcement....

last edited by Psycho! at 15:11:13 22/Mar/06

Man I am so excited just one more day*(&!(*&!#(*

f*** i hope this runs decent on my pc i dont intend to upgrade at all

Its going to run so smooth on my baby, I checked my order status and its already shipped from Games Warehouse express post should have it delivered tomorrow in the morning...by some stroke of luck I am home. :P

Heh, real people don't inhabit MMORPSHGSSS's.

computer generated characters don't call you "degenrate sorry excuses for mentaly retarded humans" when you crash their funeral though

got mine tonight (Wednesday) at 10pm from eb at toombul. I had to battle it out with several large sweaty people who were there for xbox. suckers.

lots of ppl got it at eb city tonite apparently, while waiting in line hiding as 360 buyers :P

Nvidia have released some beta Oblivion optomised drivers Voodoo Extreme is reporting feedback from people is that the 84.25 beta driver does improve performance in the game.

Just got me the PC version, looks fookin' nice, however I gotta goto work so I wait till get home.

delivery guy just arrived, time to install and see what all the fuss is about.

:)

Installing NOW!!

mmmmm collectors edition in my hands...
but damn have to go to uni first

mmmmm collectors edition in my hands...
but damn have to go to uni first

Me hugs laptop work lent me while it installs Oblivion, Ouch it's hot!

oMG i AM PLAYING IT NOW i AMS TERRH exICTED!!!

where is the thieves guild in the imperial city?
also, becoming arena grand champion was too easy :( The guy playing the 12hour marathon sucked extremely hard at this game :p

w00t!

Less excitment, more reviewings!

ok psycho where are you >>_<

For all you dudes in need of a vid upgrade for Oblivion, come and check out the BulkBuyer website.

They are trying to get a bulk buy of XFX Extreme Edition 7900GT cards up and going, for the total bargain price of $375 delivered. But lots of orders are needed to get the order happening, so tell ya friends. Regular price is something like $600+ so this is a crazy bargain.

last edited by orbitor at 14:39:33 23/Mar/06

I just need a PCI-E mobo. Which means buying a whole lot more crap.

Here's a useful link with some tweaks for those playing Oblivion on the PC:

Editting the Oblivion ini file for improved graphics (especially Level of Detail) etc.

Thundercracker: fund it with the savings made by getting that vidcard ;)

Nordic Warrior ftw!

I made him look like He-Man :D
Please excuse my rusted armour, I just got back from slaughtering the whole bandit encampment.

http://strex.ausgamers.com/oblivion/strex-oblivion01.jpg
http://strex.ausgamers.com/oblivion/strex-oblivion02.jpg
(frolicking naked in flowers NSFW)
http://strex.ausgamers.com/oblivion/strex-oblivion03.jpg
http://strex.ausgamers.com/oblivion/strex-oblivion04.jpg
http://strex.ausgamers.com/oblivion/strex-oblivion05.jpg

Runs smooth as silk on my rig, but it wont let you run AA and HDR at the same time :(

f***ing awesome. Its been a long time since I have played an RPG and I am obsolutely loving this.

last edited by StreX at 15:45:30 23/Mar/06

holy crapcake! thats cheap orbitor i think theres no excuse not to upgrade now

lol damn, the horizon textures look really s***ty.

last edited by ravn0s at 17:03:09 23/Mar/06

Yeah the LOD drops sharply, but you can tweak it using the instructions in the link I gave a few posts back (provided you have the graphics grunt to handle it).

Not like you can't overlook such a petty thing in a game like this though really.

re the XFX card Orbitor mentioned earier, I have two XFX 7800GTX's and I can heartily recommend the companies build quality on their cards. Notice quite a few gamers over at OCAU get them aslo, the ones I have are the factory overclocked ones at 490/1300 and they havent missed a beat yet. From memory the GT got good reviews.

This game runs like a dream on my system, looks SOOOOO sweet, and on my 32 inch LCD...Whoa!!

Night Elf Scout FTW!!!

Just wish I didn't have to go to work now, I just got out of the sewers.

psycho what do you think of the game?

Mate I havent go out of the dungeons yet and its sucking me in bigtime...a breath of fresh air for me...wait till I get well into it..but so far I am enjoying it very much.

p.s cant play for too long as I cant sit at the computer for very long at all now because of the back/neck probs. :( But doing it in half hour goes...it will take me years to finish at that rate.

:P

last edited by Psycho! at 18:33:20 23/Mar/06

last edited by Psycho! at 18:33:32 23/Mar/06

What's a Night Elf tk? :P

Dark elf, you know damn well what I mean =)

apparently theres some glitch to get unlimited gold:

Ok my friends, i just found an amazingly awesome glitch. Go to the Talos district of the Imperial city, find a house owned by a gentlemen named Dorian, it will be "Dorians House" of course, it's in the SE section of the Talos district. Anyway, break into his house, find him, when he tells you to leave kill his ass dead. Loot his body, click on the gold he's carrying and keep hitting A like you normally would, over and over, it will keep giving you gold, the number of gold pieces left will freeze when it gets to 8 gold pieces and it won't go any lower, it will just keep giving you all the gold you could ever desire. I have loaded it and tried it twice to make sure it's not a fluke, and it's not, i just keep getting as much gold as i want. Make sure you get the amount you want before you back out cause it won't do it again. It's awesome!

Actually, on second try, you can back out of his bodies inventory and go back in and keep getting as much gold as you want, i just checked it again, omg this is so friggin awesome!!!

thread is here, i only read the first page, i assume it works on the pc version too

sif cheat

haha money cheats on an RPG. may as well not play the game.

also i can't find this video card deal, am i missing something?

http://bulkbuyer.com.au/community/forums/4170/ShowPost.aspx#4170

It all happens in the forum on that site, there are links to the current threads on the front page under "Potential BulkBuys".

noob question here..but is this game a single playe RPG or is it more like WoW?

single player.

ok apparently the dude that runs the video card deal is MrWorf which runs the gameserve / siege thingy lan ... and i ended up buynig the game at lunc tithiemn about to intall and run it now heh

ok so now I have this really wierd problem, it happened a short time after I started playing. My movement simply goes into ultra slo mo mode almost like 'bullet time'...wtf? I restarted the game and it was fine again, normal movement..I use the right mouse button for forward movement. Just started playing again and its ok for a few minutes and then bam I suddenly go into ultra slomo mode..

I am not in stealth mode, its a mouse issue Im sure because when I zoom out into 3d view I can see my character slipping round ect..like he is sidestepping..just really really slow?

any ideas people?

using a Logitech G18 gaming mouse


last edited by Psycho! at 23:26:59 23/Mar/06

in morrowind you had stamina, perhaps you've run around too much and its at nothing?

I might have thought you were stealthed and had turned off running?

noob question here..but is this game a single playe RPG or is it more like WoW?

Think of WoW, only better looking, better game play, no d*******s to annoy you and with no server problems, and then you have Oblivion.

I dont think so nF, if I stand completely still and go into 3d view I can see my character just sliding ever so slowly arround like hes on ice...very wierd. Might have something to do with the variable mosue speeds u can set with this gaming mouse?

FIXED IT!

Doh

FAQs

OBLIVION : WINDOWS XP : RESOLUTION 23527
Q: I am experiencing keyboard input issues in Oblivion.
A: Keyboard input problems could be the result of a control peripheral. Editting the Oblivion.ini may correct this issue. The Oblivion.ini file is located in the My Documents\My Games\Oblivion directory. In the [Controls] section, change the "bUse Joystick=1" setting to "bUse Joystick=0" or simply disconnect the peripheral. Make sure the settings are saved. Note, changes to the Oblivion.ini file will not be saved if Oblivion in running when the changes are made.

It was the damn logitech joystick I have connected suddenly taking over during gameplay...edited the Oblivion.ini and all is good again.

Installing NOW!!

I need better hardware :(

It's still runs pretty good on my low spec pc, but I yearn for more eye candy!!

p4 2.26Ghz 533fsb
asus p4b533-e
1gb pc 2100 DDR
Gef6600GT

The level of detail is awesome, I spent an hour just designing my characters face, lol.

Man this game is awesome.

as awesome as the beatles?

no

powah, ive played about 7hours worth and ive completed the arena and a few other side quests and have only now started todo the main story, im gonna jump off the main story when i have to start going to daedric temples and go back to quests and dungeon hunting again.

im playing it on the xbox360 just in pal and it still looks great, id say it looks better then the screens strex posted. load times getting annoying on horses though, when running randomly about the country side and tends to load and then load and then load and then load.

im suprised at how good it feels playing on a controller, at first it felt a tad strange but as soon as i was out of the starting dungeon and felt normal and havent had any problems with it.

PC > 360 :P

my interzone load times are completely seemless - doesnt miss a beat.

my 'new region' load times are 2-3 seconds on average.

runing 1024*768 max detail.

I havent started tweaking the .ini file yet im waiting for more people to find out what settings work best in terms of longer draw distances / fix that LOD.

as far as the game goes, i've done about 8-9 hours. was sticking mostly to the story, but its led me back to the imperial city so im doing the arena while im back here, then i think i might take a break from story and go get 'recommendations' from all the Mage guilds.

oh yea, Breton char born under The Mage. I made a custom class with most of the magic schools + light armor and swords.

yes am enjoying it and am amazed at the scope of the thing...s*** I was lost for an hour or so wandering the country side tonight. :)

The Nvnews forums have a pretty good tweaking thread up and running. It continualy being added to my the moderator as people discover various tweaks/optomisations etc.

how do yu take a screenie anyways..Im running it at 1280x1024@100hz ultra settings and its very nice, zone loading does nothing?? I didnt even relise it was loading areas on the fly. Looks like they did a s***load of work on this game.

Melee combat would definately work on the xbox controller (from what ive seen playing on the PC) But I think I would find bow work a bit tough... with the framerate a tad s***ty it makes hitting a big f***er eraticaly charging at you hard to hit sometimes...

In other news I think ive played about 10hrs total now and Ive only done the first step of the main quest. Ive been clearing random dungeons the whole rest of the time and im still having fun. Really awesome moment was first coming out of the 'great forest' which was all very low lying with lots of gullies and things, very thickly folliaged (though not as thick as screenshtos ive seen) and then coming up a hill and as I went over the rise suddenly being in this awesome grassland which was a giant change, being able to see into the distance. The wind suddenly cranked up and it was sunny and it really felt like I was up on top of a hill in the wind on a sunny day... the change from a dark ass forest made it pretty immersive. Im super impressed with this game :P

Enemies encountered here vary. In an open-ended game like Oblivion, it's impossible to predict exactly when a player will take on any given quest. For instance, many players come sraight out of the starter dungeon and start on the Mian Quest right away. In that case, you'll find lots of Scamp Runts - the giant Rats of the Daedric world, here. Nevertheless, methodically clear them out - partly for the experiance and partly just to avoid nasty situations where a bunch attack at once.

But many players go off and find their own adventures, coming to the Main Quest later with an improved character. To provide a suitable challenge for that advanced character, enemies in Oblivion have been "leveled." That is, the enemy you face in any given combat is adjusted to your character's current level. So, as you go up in level, the Scamp Runts turn into Clannfear Runts - little Daedric dinosaurs with spellcasting ability. At higher levels, you may run into the Scamp Runt's big brother, the Scamp, or a Flame Atronach, or the Clannfear's big brother. And so on.

Ok, I took that from the Oblivion Game Guide. I think this is pretty good, and what it means is that you're constantly challenged and there is no powerleveling crap going on. Where else can you buy a house, or become a vampire? Not WoW thats for damn sure!! I can't recommend this game enough.

Got an athlon 64 3000+, 1Gb DDR400, but my R9700 Pro just doesnt cut it anymore :( gonna have to upgrade to the 7800GS (AGP) :D

The forests flog my current system (10-15fps...)

Game is awesome nonetheless.

My character is Caeldrim (means arrow flyer) a wood elf archer. Can take out most people with one shot :D

I jumped right into the story line and its awesome. Since my character is only a noob it did start to get really hard at one point, so I'm thinking of spending some time levelling up, joining a guild and randomly exploring the country side. I do have a horse and some decent armour now due to the main storyline so that should be handy.

I finally figured out the trick to lockpicking and I am now the lockpick master

threedee ive got a 9700pro a 3ghz p4 and 1.5gb ram and it runs ok, but thats at 1024x768 medium settings ;( so .... yeah i think ill be upgrading my pc to do the game justice

and this is what ive done so far ... got out of the dungeon, finished the last beer of the 6 pack of cascade i bought, explored every square inch of forrest around the monks place, stole one of their horses so some dude started chasing me, outran him

got off my horse and then it got attacked by a pack of wolves. being the animal lover that i am i jumped in to help him out, a rat appeared out of nowhere and was attacking as well. one of my drunken swipes ended up landing on my horse so i had a pack of wolves, a freakin rat and a horse trying to kill me :(

lol

f*** this game owns.

post some pics of your characters, i want to see what y'all created.

my pretty boy nordic warrior is now in the fighters guild. i am being very noble and good, not breaking into ppls houses and stealing their s***. and not dabbling in that black magic nonsence... its so dark sided. DARK SIDED!!! I REBUKE IT IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!!!

im at work now ;( thinking about just disapearing for a few hours to play more didnt get enough of it las tnight

and yeah the only thing ive stuck to so far is swinging ma sword around into things, oh and stealing all the silverware and tupaware that people have, it sells well you know

How do you take screenshots? Print screen isnt working for some reason :(

I've got AMD 64 3500+, 2gig corsair and 9600xt. Running on 800 x 600 with ass settings :( Still looks good althoug I kinda with I had a CRT so native wasn't an issue :(

i just use fraps for screenshots. there is plenty of apps out there..

post some pics of your characters, i want to see what y'all created.

I would but that would mean I'd have to stop playing it :(

Oooh. To enable printscreen you've just gotta edit a config file.

Go to your Oblivion folder find the file Oblivion_default.ini

Search for the line bAllowScreenShot=0

Change it to 1 and printscreen will work.

w00t!


Also, I must say, the Dark Brotherhood quests kickass. You can just kill the person however you want, but if you do it in certain ways, you get rewarded with special items. Like the first one, this dude sits in his arm chair every night between 8 and 10, so you go up to the room above and into this 'secret' crawlspace and loosen the fastenings of a Minotaur head that sits above him. Then BAM, minotaur goes down, old mate dies. hehe. tt's like Hitman

last edited by reload! at 13:31:46 24/Mar/06

I'm still pretty early into it, I just came out of the prison sewer and now I'm exploring the bandits tombs across the river from there, I keep getting overencumbed though and I've got heaps of gems and s*** I wanna sell, but I don't know where to go to do it?

Run or use the map to travel to the nearest town and sell all your stuff at a store.

Think of WoW, only better looking, better game play, no d*******s to annoy you and with no server problems, and then you have Oblivion.

Must be awesome fun playing in a huge gameworld with no other people.

8-)

It is. Don't worry Rev, this will probably be like WoW for you, you'll get into it just as everyone is sick and tired of it. =P

C:\Documents and Settings\Nick\My Documents\My Games\Oblivion

Edit the ini file there instead of the default one, otherwise you'll root something up like I just did!! Can someone email me the default ini file pls.
nix 686 at hotmail.

My Dumner (dark elf) NightBlade :D

http://images.ausimages.com/upload/2006-03-24/TN_ScreenShot6.jpg

http://images.ausimages.com/upload/2006-03-24/TN_ScreenShot2.jpg

http://images.ausimages.com/upload/2006-03-24/TN_ScreenShot1.jpg

sent ini file to your hotmail and optusnet addy.

cool elf

last edited by StreX at 14:53:47 24/Mar/06

Thanks Strex!

Yeah even though my LOD is set to medium it's still awesome visuals and the screenshots just don't do the game justice.

haha money cheats on an RPG. may as well not play the game.

If only there was a cheat that lets you skip to the end credits. Then we wouldn't have to sit through a hundred hours of this "gameplay" crap! ;-)

I'm so tempted to get this game now. My system specs are good, apart from the FX5200 video card. :-/ My LAN rig has a 9800Pro but I'm not prepared to cannibalise that and I'd probably need something faster anyway. *sigh* *argh* *sigh* *argh*

here's my wood elf char
i started again with a different face etc.
only been playing in the out in the open for about an hour
linkies

EDIT ** how do i buy a horse?? I went to the stables outside the City but none of the chaps there had anything to say about buying a horse!?

last edited by thre3dee at 18:51:09 24/Mar/06

if its anything like WoW then you have to be a certain Level before you can buy one.

a review said u can get one almost as soon as u start

Heres my redguard brother. Only just started cause work and s***.

http://images.ausimages.com/upload/2006-03-24/TN_inala1.JPG
http://images.ausimages.com/upload/2006-03-24/TN_inala2.JPG

theeres some city thats populated by monks, its the town where the uriel dude tells you to go get some info, well thers 3 horses there and i comandeered one from there

I have to admit, i wasnt 'that' excited about the game before playing it, i played Morrowind for a little while back in the day which didnt result in any fond memories, but i have to admit, im pleasently suprised. :) Oblivion ftw +++

I got a horse from Skingrad. The City one wasn't selling em for some reason.

How much easier is it to kill peoples now?! (rhetorical Q) Morrowind was miss, miss, miss, miss, hit, miss, miss, miss, miss, hit, hit....

Ive got difficult just a little under midway and i can take out most beings with 1-2 well placed arrows.

http://images.ausimages.com/upload/2006-03-24/TN_strecker-far.jpg

http://images.ausimages.com/upload/2006-03-24/TN_strecker-near.jpg

I got some cool magic weapons too. frozen swords, flaming bows...
f*** this is the geekiest i have been in ages :D

someone make a nord called William Wallace!

This game looks so gay...so where can i download it?

im having trouble with the fighters guild quest :( after killing the mountain lions outside of the city i gotta follow this lizard lady and catch her doing something ... well ive been following her for the past 45 minutes nad ithink iom going to throw my computer out of the balconny !$!@

hmm i wasnt at all interested in this game but after hearing you fellas get all jizzy over it im getting excited.
mite give it a try next time im down at some game shopizzal and hand over some shizzal

Captain America, I just walked out the back of the house with the lion problem and saw the woman there putting meat on the ground, I then confronted her about it, then reported back to the old woman in the house (I lied saying she wasn't responsible) then scored some free acrobatic training.

yeah i read on the forums that she only drps the meat at night :( so yeah ... took me a while to figure that one out heh

game guide rocks, i picked it up when i grabbed my xbox360 and im glad i did, i manage to get through most stuff by myself, the quest system has improved so much since morrowind, generally finding that my compass knows more then i do *yay for markers on the compass* but yeah game guide is good for letting you know what times todo quests so you dont have to guess all the time.

im plugging my way through the fighters guild quests and staying to stay good too, however im going to do the thieves guild inition so i can get cheap lockpicks. not that you cant find them everywhere or anything, just handy to have a place you can buy em.

http://images.ausimages.com/upload/2006-03-25/TN_1.jpg
http://images.ausimages.com/upload/2006-03-25/TN_2.jpg


:( I want a new video card!

Here's my WoW character. Lvl 44 pally.

8-)

http://www.members.optushome.com.au/gpahl/wow.jpg

WoW... *yawn*

Hahahaha

What? And Oblivion is some great and all-mighty game that is totally in a world of it's own. FFS, it's not even multiplayer.

f***ing *yawn* for f***s sake!

haha wouldnt know about Oblivion, havent played it. Played WoW though, so i will *yawn* thankyou

Hehe

I've been up all night playing WoW. Anyway, I still find it hard to believe this game is not multiplayer. It's just crazy.

8-)

I just did some prison time...so I coulf join the fighter guild. Im an ex-con. cool.

But at the mo I cant fight for s***, although I went to get Martin and when I had to fight those three imp thingies I used my summon skeleton dohicky they these two skeletons appeared and help me own them.

I think I might be starting to 'get into' this genre...fells like I am in a awesome world. Running 1280x1024 on autodetect ultra settings. Havent done any of the LOD tweaks yet but it looks very very nice.

Good to hear you're liking it dude. You should try World Of Warcraft if you're getting in to this. Plus, WoW is actually populated by living people.

8-)

wow also destroys lives

Not nessercelery!

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/learn.html

You're an idiot if you think that WoW is so much better because it has "Real life people that will f*** you over any chance they get".

Yeah, much better..

Rev, multiplayer doesnt automatically make something better.

Instead of investing money and time into multiplayer they used that time and money for more single player goodness.
Single player certainly has its place.

have you got a 60 yet rev?
if not you'll have fun untill then
the huge urge to get 60 will drive you onwards and keep you entertained/obsessed

rev looks hot
do ppl give you free stuff cuz ur a hot looking chick?

i played morrowind on an underspecced machine, looks like i'll also be playing oblivion on an underspecced machine:(

last edited by partyhat at 12:45:08 25/Mar/06

Just got back from EB with my copy, installing now

rev looks hot

Damn straight nigga!

The best thing about playing a chicky babe is dressing them up in skimpy armor. I remember Gimpy making some emo thread about choosing female characters in WoW if you're a guy. Well to answer his question. If I'm gonna be playing the same character for months on end, I'm gonna be the hottest motherf***er in the field.

8-)

Gimpy can have his f*****ry male character.

lol rev ... just like thanaka said, you were bagging wow before it came out and got into it once everyone got over it and now its this :p

youd love oblivion rev, your just bitter cause you cant keep up with the trends.


also note oblivion was designed single player in mind, the game feels very interactive so you dont feel like "hey i wish i could be doing this dungeon with my buddies", though co-op over the xbox live would be cool.

You're an idiot if you think that WoW is so much better because it has "Real life people that will f*** you over any chance they get".

Yeah, much better..

I may not get along with Mak, but I have to agree with him. Rev, on my next day off dude coma around and I'll show Oblivion to you, and the next stop will be EB so you can get your own copy guaranteed!

Hehe

No way I'd buy it dude. I would if it was mutliplayer. Thing is, I lose interest in most games very quickly. The thing I like about WoW is there are always people around to help out or to chat. That gives me the motivation to keep on playing. I'm sure Oblivion is good but I would just end up tired of it and use cheats.

LOL

I'm sure Oblivion is good but I would just end up tired of it and use cheats.

LOL

So what, you're 8 years old?

Yeah, i'm f***ing 8 years old.

8-/

there are always people around to help out or to chat.

Then play Oblivion and call up a sex chat line, they'll help you out.

Yeah, i'm f***ing 8 years old.

Oh okay LOL

Are not being able to cheat, having a chat feature equivalent of #hopelesspreteens and being able to "help out" randoms really the reason you're drawn to WoW and stupidly bagging oblivion?

E: you can play dolly with female toons in oblivion too

last edited by Hashy at 16:04:01 25/Mar/06

The gamespot xbox360 review has been released scoring a 9.6, Pc review is still pending.

"The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is simply one of the best role-playing games ever made."

linky

linky

last edited by Hashy at 17:36:56 25/Mar/06

Hashy, dare I ask are you playing Oblivion your self?

Anyone done "tears of the savior" quest? I found my way to the glade and the forzen knight but where are the tears? (I tried looking in hashy's posts but they weren't the right tears)

Theres 5 tears just lying on the ground around the frozen guy

Hashy, dare I ask are you playing Oblivion your self?

I would; it sounds pretty cool and my friend (who actually has good taste in games and was apathetic about morrowind as me) is pretty absorbed in it but I don't feel like running it on my aged rig. I'm waiting on an upgrade, or at least a demo.

it ran surprisingly well on my pc

p4 2.4 @ 2.7, 6600gt and 1 gig of ram, left everything on default settings and its more playable than morrowind was when it was first released thats for sure

so give it a go

You won't get a demo.

Also thanks Resonate. What is your xbox live nick?


last edited by fpot at 22:01:09 25/Mar/06

i dont have one :)

I didn't like Morrowind, so I knew I wasn't going to like Oblivion - I tried it anyway and guess what, I didn't like it.

I think the graphics are overrated.
I think the interaction with the environment is horrific.
I think the combat is dull and boring.
I think the draw distance - even when set to maximum is pathetic.

I think the fact that you can just "warp" from place to place ruins any kind of involvment with the world, or the character that the Developer might want you to feel. However it's actually necessary when the alternative is to run across miles of boring countryside.

I'll try to play some more, as so far I've only played for about 2 hours. It feels like a chore though, so I don't know if I will keep playing.

last edited by Tim Tibbetts at 00:02:18 26/Mar/06

I think the combat is dull and boring.

It's a damn site better than WoW where you just click once and stand there.

I think the fact that you can just "warp" from place to place ruins any kind of involvment with the world, or the character that the Developer might want you to feel. However it's actually necessary when the alternative is to run across miles of boring countryside.

You still have to run to the various places in order to have them appear on your map. And the countryside isn't boring, there are bandits, old forts and caves to explore, plus the many oblivion gates you can find (and close).

It's a damn site better than WoW where you just click once and stand there.

WOW is alot more than just click once. Oblivion is like a hack and slash without actually being frantic enough for it to be interesting.

You still have to run to the various places in order to have them appear on your map. And the countryside isn't boring, there are bandits, old forts and caves to explore, plus the many oblivion gates you can find (and close).

I suppose I don't like it because it's so meaningless....why is why I didn't like Morrowind either. It's too open ended for me, I feel so insignficant. I want to be the protagonist. I want everything that I do to have major consequences, I want to be saving the world the entire time, not fighting f***ing bandits.

I want to be saving the world the entire time, not fighting f***ing bandits.

Then all you need to do is stick to the main story line.

WOW is alot more than just click once. Oblivion is like a hack and slash without actually being frantic enough for it to be interesting.

As you gain skill levels with your weapons, you can pull off special moves like dazing opponents, disarming them etc. I personally find the combat more exciting than WoW.

I would have to agree with Tanaka here. The combat feels involved. You seem physically part of the action.

Killing mobs in WoW is an exercise in hitting the right ability at the same time for every mob you kill and is about as involved as watching grass grow. You find the right order to cast stuff and do the same thing over and over and over until you either level up or attack a new mob, and even then the routine changes by a minute amount. I ground my way to 60 with my priest and quite often I could browse the web or watch TV while doing it. It was so repetitive.

The quest gameplay is head and heels above anything an MMO could dish out. Quests contain storyline and variety. Quests are not "collect x items". They involve interesting plots, characters and places which draw you in. They involve interesting protagonists and multiple solutions for the one problem. You can actually use the strengths of your character to overcome a problem instead of it being a race to collect as many things as possible.

Spellcasting and hand to hand combat feels like it has power. Sure my level 60 priest can cast a mean mind blast but in oblivion running up to a skeleton and blasting the f*** out of it so its bones scatters across the floor to me is a s***load more fun than pressing a button and watching a big number pop up over the monsters head.

You complain about killing bandits to save the world. This is pretty funny coming from someone who is playing WoW. How many crabs, lions, dogs, raptors, goblins and various other boring and average mobs did you have the pleasure to kill in you quest to hit 60?

Let's all go and pwn syndicate members for 20 red bandannas!

I just turned into a vampire.. this game owns.

my observations... well, more like my list of complains. but there are some good things too!

- besides the main storyline, the game is pretty much the exact same as morrowwind only with prettier graphics. also far as ive discovered, there is only 1 new guild addition. the blades. apart from this far as i can tell all the old guilds are still here (fighter, mage, thief and assassin guilds) which is a real big shame. was hoping i could join the necromancers or some other evil guild in an anti-good quest line sort of thing. help them distroy the world instead of save it.

- once you finish (at least the assassin guild line) the guild quest lines thats it. you never get to work for them again. go find something else to do. i was expecting a massive number of jobs to do for each guild. or at the least a simple "go kill/protect/find this person" type thing that never ended. or better yet, you make jobs for your followers to do.

- f**king mountains! EVERY single god damn quest that involves a fort or a temple is somehow up the top of a mountain that takes you 20 friggin minutes to climb! argh!

- you can become a vampire (joy) but not a warewolf. perhaps they were saving this for an expansion pack.

- from what ive seen so far, no new armor or weapons that waren't in morrowind. again read #1

- the "jobs" ai paths set for the npcs are really quite nice. though you do get the occasional stuck npc.

- all players faces look fugly, and IMO the orcs hardly look menacing like they should

- the combat system is pretty cool i think. none of this auto dodge/block crap. if i wanna block i need to time my sword attacks so i can hold my shield up.

- the durability system is crap. items wear out to fast imo.

- the enchant system is horrid, annoying, god awful and costly. if im only going to get 30 enchanted attacks with my Blade of Woe, i dont want it to cost 6500 gold to get it recharged idiots.

- no little children running around the towns. seems everyone in oblivion world are born as adults. i wanna walk through a town setting children on fire watching them crackle and sizzle like burning rats. not have some bum chase after me with a rake because i set him on fire breifly.

- something i quite like is the glossy look to the weapons and such. gives the game a nice touch in the areas you want it. however in the wrong areas it just looks plain bad.

- and last but not least, there isnt a fame or good/bad system like there was in fable. that was just so awesome to be loved of feared depending on how you played. would of suited this game so well. when i slaughter 50 city guards, 20 civilians and a small kitten, i dont want to zone out and have everyone act normal around me.

overall id rate it an 8. not the groundbreaking, awesome game i thought it would be but a damn good hoot to burn time on. however if you didnt like morrowwind you wont like this. considering morrowwind was like 1.2gb, it seems all their work went into the grapics engine and designing new areas. forgot to add guilds, weapons, guild quests and such. still, all that said im not about to stop playing it soon. my Lv 5 spellcaster aint gonna become an arch mage mage and lead the guild on his own.

You complain about killing bandits to save the world. This is pretty funny coming from someone who is playing WoW. How many crabs, lions, dogs, raptors, goblins and various other boring and average mobs did you have the pleasure to kill in you quest to hit 60?

When did I say that I was playing WOW? I didn't compare the game to WOW. You just assumed that because I defended it's combat system. I'm not playing WOW. I'm not really playing any PC "RPGs" at the moment because there's nothing there.

Also, as DM pointed out this game is essentially the same as Morrowind, just with prettier graphics. Everyone swarmed over this game because of the graphics, not because it offered something new, or something different. The game is average if you want to just playing the main storyline, it's only good if you like to wonder around doing menial quests that are just there to increase the playtime for 15 hours to 500. Also, lets all take a moment to think about the really sad people that don't use the teleport system...oooh, scary.

last edited by Tim Tibbetts at 09:15:18 26/Mar/06

Well I'm enjoying this a lot more then I enjoyed morrowind. They've appeared to address all the gripes I had with morrowind.

there is only 1 new guild addition. the blades.

you worked for crassius/cassius in morrowind so you were pretty much a blade anyway.

- besides the main storyline, the game is pretty much the exact same as morrowwind only with prettier graphics. also far as ive discovered, there is only 1 new guild addition. the blades. apart from this far as i can tell all the old guilds are still here (fighter, mage, thief and assassin guilds) which is a real big shame. was hoping i could join the necromancers or some other evil guild in an anti-good quest line sort of thing. help them distroy the world instead of save it.

Have you even done any of the guild questlines yet? They are so much more varied and involved than morrowind. Actually try the dark-brotherhood...

Yeah just joined the dark brotherhood and did my first contract killing.

- besides the main storyline, the game is pretty much the exact same as morrowwind only with prettier graphics. also far as ive discovered, there is only 1 new guild addition. the blades. apart from this far as i can tell all the old guilds are still here (fighter, mage, thief and assassin guilds)

Blades was in morrowind. The new guild in oblivion is as qmass said the dark brotherhood, which is evil.

- from what ive seen so far, no new armor or weapons that waren't in morrowind. again read #1

As you go through the game, you'll find heaps of new unique weapons that weren't in morrowind that aren't the standard iron/steel/silver/glass/ebony/dwemner/glass/ebony/daedric variety.

- the enchant system is horrid, annoying, god awful and costly. if im only going to get 30 enchanted attacks with my Blade of Woe, i dont want it to cost 6500 gold to get it recharged idiots.

Exxplore ayelid ruins for eleven power crystals that will recharge your weapons.

- no little children running around the towns. seems everyone in oblivion world are born as adults. i wanna walk through a town setting children on fire watching them crackle and sizzle like burning rats. not have some bum chase after me with a rake because i set him on fire breifly.

They wanted to have children but didn't due to the fact censor people would have a cry that people could kill children in the game. f*** Censorship.

- and last but not least, there isnt a fame or good/bad system like there was in fable.

Check your stats menu. Fame/Infamy rating.

I think the draw distance - even when set to maximum is pathetic.

Are you f***ing kidding me?
http://pcmedia.gamespy.com/pc/image/article/697/697547/the-elder-scrolls-iv-oblivion-20060321074304324.jpg
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/696/696104/the-elder-scrolls-iv-oblivion-20060315105959774.jpg
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/image/article/695/695763/the-elder-scrolls-iv-oblivion-20060314020608317.jpg

Those bottom two are xbox360 as well, it's better on PC.

last edited by reload! at 19:49:28 26/Mar/06

fairly sure the dark brotherhood were also in morrowind (atleast in one of the expansions), i know because they used to attack you when you were sleeping. presumably because you had a contract on your head or something. i never got far enough in to work that out.

You could never join the dark brotherhood, you joined the morag tong who were sworn enemies of them.

The dark brotherhood attacked you in the tribunal expansion to trigger dialouge that enabled you to travel to mournhold.

:D

haha fpot knows his s***
http://img61.imageshack.us/img61/7854/17ug.th.jpg
http://img61.imageshack.us/img61/3015/29vy.th.jpg
w00t~!

Oooh, let's look at the fantastic graphics - the draw distance is great, pity it looks like s*** after 3 feet.


http://www.gaminginmypants.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/ScreenShot2.jpg

http://www.gaminginmypants.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/ScreenShot1.jpg

http://www.gaminginmypants.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/ScreenShot0.jpg


last edited by Tim Tibbetts at 20:31:43 26/Mar/06

What game does it better?

That looks awesome! I gotta get out of this dungeon thingo and start playing this properly!

EDIT: Replaced 'wow!' with 'That looks awesome' incase someone thought i was talking about that f***** game.

last edited by natslovR at 20:48:34 26/Mar/06

What game does it better?

I think Far Cry did the whole distance scenery thing better. Personally I would prefer good looking graphics close up and good looking scenery far away then - awesome looking graphics close up, but s***ty graphics far away. Obviously everyone else seems to disagree.

erm maybe its your puter.. mine looks like pure sex from close up and far away.

Hay Timmy, have you done a little research and read about modifing the .ini file? In it there are settings for draw distances for the grass and whatnot, you can bumb it up as far as your puter can handle it I'm pretty sure.

Also, there is ALOT of gameplay in this game, not just the pretty graphics. If you dont like to explore on your own terms, and need someone to tell you exactly what to do all the time, then why did you buy oblivion?

erm maybe its your puter.. mine looks like pure sex from close up and far away.

Can you take some screenshots? Mine is up as a high as it goes in pretty much everything.

As far as the gameplay goes, I do recognise that some people like open ended gameplay. I didn't like Fallout, but I appreciated that it was a great game - it was funny, the combat worked and it was open ended. I don't appreciate Oblivion in that same way though - maybe because it's been hyped so much, I don't know.

then why did you buy oblivion?

It's hard to blame him, I almost confused this game's release for the second coming of christ from the hype on this forum alone. Had my sins absolved and all.

not just the pretty graphics.

Thank god, no game could stand on graphics with art direction as Bryce3D as oblivion's

Anyone know where I can buy some lock picks I've run out and can't seem to find anywhere that sells them.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0761552766/104-0676881-7377506?v=glance&n=283155

Official Game Guide

If you're really getting into the game and wanna get the most out of it maybe this guide is for you. Tanaka Khan had a similar one for Warcraft he lent me and had detailed maps of each area and what enemies and quests were there plus heaps of other info.

Extremely handy if you're getting stuck or just looking for new places to go.

8-)

last edited by Reverend Evil at 22:40:04 26/Mar/06

I gotta say, I felt the same way as Tim when I first came out of the dungeon, regarding the draw distance etc. I thought that I had missed some graphic sliders.

Gameplay is where it counts though and I'm really having a hard time seeing what the hype is about. NPC's on schedules? Ultima 4+ had that, open ended gameplay? Fallout and others have done that.

I guess its just nice having a game that does most things well in the one package. Oblivion has just made me realise how jaded about games I am when I have trouble getting into something that obviously so many others are enjoying :)

6 or so hours in, I'll keep plodding away when time permits and see if I can change my opinion.

Anyone know where I can buy some lock picks I've run out and can't seem to find anywhere that sells them.

I would also like to know.

If you are in the dark brotherhood the grumpy cat at chendalyth or whatever the crap sells them.

Thief guild fences all sell lockpicks. I have no idea where else you can get them apart from random dungeon mobs that you kill and loot.

Gameplay is where it counts though and I'm really having a hard time seeing what the hype is about. NPC's on schedules? Ultima 4+ had that, open ended gameplay? Fallout and others have done that.

I guess its just nice having a game that does most things well in the one package. Oblivion has just made me realise how jaded about games I am when I have trouble getting into something that obviously so many others are enjoying :)

6 or so hours in, I'll keep plodding away when time permits and see if I can change my opinion.

Same with me mate, the starting sequence with the dungeon etc was pretty cool, although a few hours into it, the first oblivion gate was kinda cool but i was getting pretty sick of it by the time i got out, and went up the coast by the time i reached the blade's stronghold.. and just haven't felt like loading it up again.

http://members.iinet.net.au/~namatanai/Oblivion/oblivion1.JPG

http://members.iinet.net.au/~namatanai/Oblivion/oblivion2.JPG

http://members.iinet.net.au/~namatanai/Oblivion/oblivion3.JPG

http://members.iinet.net.au/~namatanai/Oblivion/oblivion4.JPG

Yea Rev I bought that guide when I picked up my game (was like 10% off at EB)

For lock picks you can buy them from Armand Christophe, located in the Waterfront District in the Imperial City WHEN you start the quest to join the thieves guild, or at any of the fences such as Ongar the World-Weary in Bruma.

It looks like this game is going to be going down the same path as morrowind; devout fans and equally devout haters. I am okay with that because I am still enthralled with the game :D

I guess when you enjoy something so much you can't understand how someone could hate it!

I used to be pissed off that I simply couldn't get into WoW. I tried properly twice and couldn't get past level 20 :(

w00t!

EDIT: OK wtf.. in the dark brotherhood quest where you follow the retired guard captain til he takes his armor off, he doesn't go into the water for me... he comes out, sits in the shack all day, then leaves and goes straight back into the city :S It is so damn frustrating!



last edited by reload! at 02:08:20 27/Mar/06

the chick painting the lighthouse is pretty cool. Does she actually paint it or does she move the brush over a completed work?

to qmass - yes i have finished the dark brotherhood guild quests. that was the first guild i joined and finished all the quests. im over half way through the thief guild missions and mabye.... half way or so through the wizard ones (got kicked out cuz i was being cased by guards, and stole a guild members horse) havnt even touched the fighter missions

EDIT - also yes i know that there is a fame/infamy rating but thats not quite what i ment. for people who havnt played fable, people will avoid you, run away screaming, abuse you as you pass if you are evil. if your good they all cheer you, gather around and just generaly fall in love with you (literaly. you can go into a bad and have 4 chicks fall in love with you from a simple tango) thats kind of what i hoped to have in here.

Last Edit - reload, he doesnt go into the water until night time. at least for me. i speed traveled there and when i followed the green arrow he was already in the water (was around 11 - 1am ish i guess)

last edited by DM at 02:41:00 27/Mar/06

last edited by DM at 02:43:03 27/Mar/06

for people with draw distance issues:

http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=66785

I played it for a few hours last night, and I must admit I'm starting to enjoy it more. I've just gone for a solid warrior type class.

ill be getting this today, i havent been able to buy it the past few days since i had no money, need a new fix ever since i quit world of warcrack...this looks like just the rite fix.

I don't quite understand how the spell resistance stuff works, and the effect a shield has on touch spells. Sometimes I run up to a mob and zap him with my top freeze spell and it takes off a massive chunk of his health. Sometimes it does sweet f*** all damage. Is there any way to find out what the resistance of a monster is, without consulting a strategy guide (i.e. some spell that will tell me)?

I also noticed that shields are good for blocking ranged spells but I'm not sure if I should be waiting for an opening before going in for the kill with a touch spell or if the touch spells ignore shields.

*spoilers*

I get the feeling I'm not doing terribly great, I've done a bit of the story, got the heir to the cloud ruler temple, and then did a few missions in the town outside there, bruma, closed a couple of oblivion gates and raided a few tombs, but I'm only on level 3, I haven't done half the things you guys have, I'm only just joined the mages guild, and apart from doing a mission to get a recommendation, I don't see what else you can do with them?

I've basically been playing it like the thief games, bow and arrow and stealth, only using my katana on those big hard dudes in oblivion itself

wet - eaisest thing to do if you think your underleveled (i think i was around 10 when i got to where you were. i did a LOT of side quests) is to abandon the main quest for awhile and do some guild quests. as for the recomendation, you need to go to EVERY mage guild in the game (around 5 or 6 i think) and get a recommendation from them all. sounds long but its not really. after that then you get into the real quests that are fun. however due to you being a thief class, its prolly better you join the assassin or thief guild but thats just my idea. keep with your bow, it get real strong when you get an enchant on it. mine does 14 base dmg with a 15 dmg lightning enchant on it. sneak attack that and i do around 90 dmg 1st hit. quite strong

Be warned. The difficulty of the main quest line missions scale with your level. People are reporting that they hit level 15 and do the very first story line mission and can not get passed it because the people that assist you don't scale with the level and end up getting killed on the spot, leaving you to deal with 5 or 6 angry level 15 mobs.

hmm ... I havent started the main quest at all, then again i havent had the time to play it that mujch, up to level 6 i think so far but am enjoying it a lot

i've joined up with the fighters and mages guild, about to join dark brother hood as well (hope i dont get kicked from fighers from assasinating) and also joining up thieves guild, going to meet first contact

i'm a warrior/crusader so get to swing my swords around while being able to throw in a few damage and healing spells here and there

The only thing that is really annoying me is how I can't pick up half the arrows I use (the ones in dead bodies).

yeah that pisses me off as well! Maybe they're broken (although thats debatable since half of them are pickupable)

the arrow thing annoyed me too at first, but now I'm finding I have way too many arrows and now I'm just using them constantly because I know I won't get half of them back

the deadra arrows work at taking out ghosts too I found out

are some of the oblivion gates placed at random? because the following happened to me which made me think they were, I was on horseback travelling to that capitol city place from bruma and I'd got to a certain point and a wolf came out, so I natually got off and started attacking it. It was attacking my horse which proceeded to pissbolt, so I chased after it, and eventually lost it, I reloaded and did it again, but this time just ignored the wolf and kept going and came across an oblivion gate at the fork of the road which wasn't there before. Am I dreaming or are some of them random? I've found at least two already which seem deliberately placed atop of mountain tops, and one right near the cloud ruler temple

bethesda explained the not being able to pick up all arrows thing as some of them would become broken.

spose that sounds reasonable

oblivion gate at the fork of the road which wasn't there before

Might be a time of day thing?

hmmm the time difference would have been minutes at the most, but that's quite possible

maybe they're part of some sort of randomized sieging of Cyrodiil that bethesda chucked in there

Oh man I have levelled up and now the monsters are owning me :(

*turns skill level down*

my heroic warrior has been turned into a gay-assed vampire :(

its taking way too long trying to complete all the quests to get the cure. i only have one grand soul gem that i found in a heavily guarded mine. are all the other soul gems in random mines throughout the countryside? or are they generally around a specific region?

i miss sunlight :(

how did you get turned? so I can avoid repeating yor mistakes :P

*SPOILER*


In the dark brotherhood, the guy who gives you your first contracts is a vampire,
and offers to make you one after you're finished your contracts with him.

I too got turned to a vampire, although the new skills etc are good, not being able to be in the sun sucks teh fat one.

EDIT: If you find a way strex to get those grand soul gems, let me know ^^

*SPOILER*



last edited by Makaveli at 18:50:33 27/Mar/06

There are heaps of grand soul gems laying around in the arcane university but you need to complete the recommendations quests at all the mage guild outposts before you can get in there.

And it is so easy not to become a vampire. When you are in the early stages of vampirism you contract a disease called polyorphic something or other. A cure disease potion/spell/scroll will fix you right up when it is in that stage.

last edited by fpot at 20:08:33 27/Mar/06

vampirism

becoming one - you can contract this disease through random vampire infested caves in the world, through the dark brotherhood quest line (you get a chance to turn) and from another quest that takes place in the imperial city with vampire hunters. when you get attacked/bitten you will contract a disease. you sleep for 3 days and you wake up as a vampire. however if you get this disease and you dont want to turn, you should drink disease curing potions like mad or casts disease cleaning spells.

info - as you should guess, you need to drink blood if you want to stay as human as possible. the longer you go without blood, the more you turn into a monster until people wont deal with you at all and can call guards on you. this also has a + side though. this confused me for awhile but i finaly figured it out. the LONGER you go without drinking blood, the more of a monster you become. as such you gain more vampire skills until you are at 100% power. you gain massive stat boosts (+20 to all stats and your major skills it seems) 4 abilities and you take 8 damage from the sun per second. as said though people will refuse to deal with you. i found this to be fun at first but just downright annoying later on. on the flip side, the more you drink blood the weaker you become. you lose your special skills and stats (for the most part, stat bonus goes down to +5)

hope that helps a bit.

as for grand soul gems, every mage guild SHOULD sell 1 which seems to come back each week. just speed travel to each guild shop and you should be able to get them from the alchemist.

She is meant to get it, then you follow her on the way back and pick pocket it from her ;)
Double the thiefy-ness!
EDIT: omfg fpot ninja

last edited by reload! at 00:45:07 28/Mar/06

Be warned. The difficulty of the main quest line missions scale with your level. People are reporting that they hit level 15 and do the very first story line mission and can not get passed it because the people that assist you don't scale with the level and end up getting killed on the spot, leaving you to deal with 5 or 6 angry level 15 mobs.

heh, i'm still at lvl 3 can i can cast summon some evil s*** like a deadra spider & frost anatorach (that ice golem thing)... just kept on casting and only slept 5 hrs in the whole game (2hrs were for getting the dark brotherhood to come get me). I'm so gonna pwn the main quest ;)

its taking way too long trying to complete all the quests to get the cure. i only have one grand soul gem that i found in a heavily guarded mine. are all the other soul gems in random mines throughout the countryside? or are they generally around a specific region?

or you can steal them from the various mage guilds...

She is meant to get it, then you follow her on the way back and pick pocket it from her ;)
Double the thiefy-ness!

If you are talking about the first thief guild test, then you can get there before her as well.

I just went into her house to get it :P

ok heres something for all the heavy plate wearing sword people out here. if you wanna find this for yourself then dont read past here. oh, and dont do this if your trying to get a no murder record as this counts as a murder.

*sort of spoilers*

Full Ebony Set and Umbra Sword

Go to the Arena and get a few claymores. if you want bring a lot of potions and some hard hitting enchanted stuff. also, you might even wanna turn the difficulty down for this lol. i got wholloped on medium. now go to the Imperial Waterfront (fast travel, its much eaiser), and go directly south over the water. you will reach a place called the Old Bridge. now start going west and follow the road until you reach a ruin that starts with the letter V. i cant remember the exact name.

go inside and kill all the annoying monsters in the next few rooms. after a small trek inside you will find a girl called Umbra. be prepaired for a fight. There is one broken pillar in this room. Use the bench next to it to jump on top of it and then stand at the edge. Use a bow or spell attack to have her start attacking you. now take out the claymore and just start hitting her. She has a lot of health and does a lot of damage. she kicked the crap out of me a few times until i turned it down to the lowest setting there is and even then barely won (i was Lv 4 on my new character doing this) dont fall off the pillar. If you manage to pull this off (with this method or not) you will be treated to her full ebony armor set and her brutal sword. the main reason this seems to be tough is that she does a lot of power attacks that send you flying backward. if your unlucky enough she will chain attack you with these, stunning the crap out of you until you cant do anything but stagger back and die.

just to give you an idea of this swords strength, at level 4 i have a mace that does 6 dmg. Umbra's sword does 12. its enchanted to cast soul drain on hit for 120 seconds, and has around 120 charges. oh and its nearly all black with a purple enchant glow ^ ^

enjoy

maybe a ****spoiler****?

did anyone find the mission where you have to rescue the painter difficult? i was level 5 i think and damn it was hard till i figured out you can just run up to the paintbrush while youre getting chased by 4-5 of those things and just try to outrun them the whole time

How the frack do you level up in this game, or is it supposed to be really slow. I've done a fair bit of killing, and I'm only level 2 :(

I went up 2 levels last night just from sleeping, I slept for 6 hours or something because I had to meet someone at a certain time and didn't want to wait around, leveled up when I awokeand was still a bit off so I slept for another 2 hours and went up another level afterwards

so you have to sleep after you've done a few quests to level up

first time i think i was level 2-3 and the trolls were fairly easy when you use the terpentine - at level 5 i had to drop the skill a fair bit.

to level up you need to advance in your major skills - shouldn't take too long if your skills & class are in sync with how ur playing the game

On your stats screen, one of the tabs will have a 'progress to next level' bar thingo. When that is full you need to sleep in a Bed and you will level up.. I hear it is best to not level up as soon as you can tho :/

SO ADDICTED!!!

Anybody who doesn't play a thief in Morrowind or Oblivion is a noob.

Mine's a Breton Thief Agent dudette

How do you recharge enchanted weapons?

Soulgems with trapped soul and or the elven stone thinigies and at an enchanter.
In morrowind I had an awesome trick with that re-usable soulstone (forget what it's called) Azura's somthing.... Then had a Ebony longsword with soultrap on strike, and just kept on recharging the sword with the stone over and over....kicked ass!!

Umbra was in Morrowind it had similar properties. You killed an Orc who wanted to die to get it. The re-usable soul stone is called Azura's Star.

anyone getting crashes when going to a certain area? I went to the Weynon Priory outside area but after grabbing some priest dude to go back to it whenever I enter the area that has the weynon priory building nearby it crashes to desktop! I can go to the in-town part right next to it but when try and go out of the town to the area just outside which has said priory, it ctd's.

apparently if u do a windows search for mpeg2dmx.ax and rename all instances to mpeg2dmx.ax.old it fixes it and people have said it worked but my comp doesnt have this file!

apparently if u do a windows search for mpeg2dmx.ax and rename all instances to mpeg2dmx.ax.old it fixes it and people have said it worked but my comp doesnt have this file!

I was getting crashes pretty much whenever I loaded a new area. I upgraded to the beta nvidia drivers and renamed that file and now it seems to be pretty good. I still get a few crashes which s***s me.

specs to compare just incase (amd64-4000, 7800gtx 2gigram, audigy2zs)

Guys the FAQ on the Bethsheda site is pretty good and does cover the types of crashes you mention etc..

Is anyone shooting through the theives guild missions? Wherer the bloody hell is old mate hiding out when all the guards are in the water front?
Or who do I talk to so I can find out.

The mission where you knock off the the bust statue.

Those graphics are as bad as CS

here is a pretty good review http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/03/24

Wow those Penny Arcade just just did it again .... so funny I think I just s*** my pants

well been playing the game all morning and well im happy with my video card for running it soomthly at high res...the game its self seems good..if i could only figure a few things out i think i could get addicted to this game just like world of warcrack..i cant seem to figure out how to show the enemy's lvl..or my lvl for that matter..also i went swordspell or something and i have to say the interface isnt the best having to remembers all the hotkeys and only haveing 8 hotkeys just isnt enough i got so many spells and i cant link em all to hotkeys.

would be nice if the interface was more like wow so i could have all the spells infront of me. also where do u go to get a horse?

you can buy one from a stable, or if you do a couple of the story missions you will get given one

also to show your stats, hit tab to bring up your inventory, then select your health bars on you HUD down the bottom, as for enemies lvls, as far as I know you can't

i stole a horse right at the beginning of the game o_O

Become silencer in the dark brotherhood for uber horse.

where can i get a goddam horse...i am at the town that is rite outside the tunnel from the begginning of the game?

Buy one from stables, or do the main quest and you get a free one (it's s*** though)

I got silencer and said i got the horse, but i can't see it, i just have that s***ter one from main story..

It's just outside the dude's hideout unless you have encountered a bug.

When I got it my paint horse walked away really slowly with it's head down all sad and stuff :(

well started playing last night
its not to bad.

started playing with video settings 10 minutes ago and want to take a screenshot

Q: How do I enable screenshots in Oblivion?
A: In order to take screenshots from within Oblivion, you will need to edit the Oblivion.in file. This file is located in My Documents\My Games\Oblivion.

Open the Oblivion.ini file in notepad, and find the line that reads: bAllowScreenShot=0
Edit the line to read bAllowScreenShot=1
Save the file and exit, and launch Oblivion.
You can now take screenshots using PrtScrn.

thats great and all, but where are they saved?
no screenshot seems to paste into paint so what am i doing wrong?

all i need to do is press the 'printscreen' button yea. the one above insert...

press printscreen and all the SS's you make get saved in /programfiles/oblivion or whereever your oblivion folder is at.

hmm yea checked all the folders, nothing there.
gay, changed both profile ini and default ini still nothing.
when i press printscreen the game doenst halt even for a msecond so im thinking its something to do with the ini file being in cache or something.
eh i'll look into it tomoro

It should say where it saved it up in the top left corner and yes it should halt for half a second

Arn't the screenshots saved in \\My Documents\My Games\Oblivion

???

screeen shots are saved in the root directory of the game.

Update** also for those guys on the previous page suffering from crashes a snippet of info from the guy who runs Voodoo Extreme web page

3,000,000 hours into Oblivion and still finding new stuff to do. I can't remember the last time I played a single player game this long. I also cranked up the graphics a bit to 1280, which to my surprise offers around the same fps as 1024. Haven't had the game crash on me since Saturday, so I think the bugs are behind us. As stupid as it sounds, setting the desktop resolution the same as the game fixed all my crashes.

So it seems setting your game res to the same as your desktop res might be worth a try if you are still getting crashes.

last edited by Psycho! at 11:01:59 30/Mar/06

last edited by Psycho! at 11:02:47 30/Mar/06

is there a way to take bounty off your head without paying the fine? iwas doing the assasination thingo for dark brotherhood where you have to take someone down in the jail and i couldnt figure that one out other than by running in there and getting a bounty on me in the processs

ok how do you sell items? this is pissing me off i cant sell anything to anyone cant seem to find a sell button

When you talk to someone that buys/sells, there will be a little icon down the bottom, hard to explain it, but under the chat dialog options. Once you open that up there will be 2 bags towards the buttom, the left one is your own inventory, the right one is his.

Hope this helps.

ahh ok thanks..yeah i know the button your talking about i have clicked it just couldnt figure out how to sell my stuff.

is there a way to take bounty off your head without paying the fine? iwas doing the assasination thingo for dark brotherhood where you have to take someone down in the jail and i couldnt figure that one out other than by running in there and getting a bounty on me in the processs

To to armard christophe at the imperial city waterfront area. You will probably have to join the theives guild first though.
He takes away the bounty for half price.

Sif you'd get caught on that jail mission get some skills :P

i finally got the cure for vampirism last night after prancing around in the meadows like a f***** for hours trying to find a specific type of flower.
now the game is fun again and i can resume ogre smashing.

try and avoid becoming a vampire, it really does suck wangs.

Tell me now, if I goto sleep I become a vampire, cant do s*** about it I guess.

That dark brotherhood guy is the problem.

How many hours have you guys clocked up in this game? 52hours 26mins here :D

How do you check the hours you've played? Or can you only find out if you have played the Xbox version?

well i didnt get caught ... i outran them but the bounty was still on me :( could have killed them for no witnesses but the mission was for no guards to die

How do you check the hours you've played? Or can you only find out if you have played the Xbox version?

When you load up a save game, the save game icon has the hours... I think.
According to that Ive played just under 20hours.

anyone know how to display fps in game?

bring up the console and type tdt

Also, lvl 19, 23 hours playtime.

last edited by reload! at 20:07:25 30/Mar/06

I am currently a nigga vampire, its a bit of a c***. Bit of googling and this has been a little help. Soul gems are piss easy to get, pretty much any mage guild has 3 of em, just use awesome theif skills and flog them. http://www.xboxcircle.com/content/view/1183/55/

where the hell can I buy some lockpicks? I keep running out and I just wanna buy a ton of them

ok this was weird, played a bit last night with my items left in a locker at a fighters guild bedroom thingo, went there the next day and all my items were gone :( .... shouldnt have been such a cheapskate and bought my own house

I've checked out the elder srolls forum for an answer to my own question, apparently any of the fences in the thieves guild (like ognar in bruma) will sell you lockpicks, and there's apparently also one behind the stables in the imperial city.

Haha, Tell me about it Strex.

Somehow I contracted the vampire curse at lvl 1. I'm level 10 and still have it. If you munch on a person you can walk around in the daylight for a while.
I'm still gathering greater soul gems, I have heaps of lesser ones :/

The extra stats and whatnot dont go astray tho :D

I started playing this game the last 2 nights and have only clocked up 1hr30mins playing time but i have no idea what is going on. The world is just too massive, i need some strong goals fast or i can see this game getting boring really fast.

I'm still gathering greater soul gems, I have heaps of lesser ones :/

Thats easy s***, mages guilds and alchemy shops have s*** loads. I had harder times finding the garlic and nightshade.

you need to set your own goals, decide what you want to do, or just follow the story path if you can't decide

Ok I still need help in recharging my magical weapons. Keeping in mind I'm more of a warrior that dables in magic (Restoration mainly), I have a certain number of soul gems, do I require a certain spell as well? And once I've done what ever it is that I have to do with the soul gems, what do I do next?

Explore elven ruins there are stones in there (I forget their name but they are worth 1000) that will recharge all your items back to 100%

But to answer your question the spell you need is soultrap which is a mysticism spell. Cast that on a monster before you kill it and it's soul will be captured into a gem. Keep in mind that certain souls require a certain strength of gem.

Once a soul is captured into a gem just click on it in the inventory and it will give you an option to recharge a weapon.

last edited by fpot at 14:13:18 31/Mar/06

Thanks fpot, most appreciated.

my screenshots still isnt working, ive edited both the mydocuments and the root directory ini files.
when i press 'print screen' nothing at all happens. ive rebooted etc.
ive searched faqs etc but anything screenshot related refers to enabling it in the ini files, which ive done. o well.
o well i give up

im running it in 1920x1200 and gets abit chuggy in huge open spaces, in the citys it good tho, 4xAA aswell makes it look swish.
noticed the bumpmapping which works pretty dam well gives great texture, finally a game where some stuff looks pretty dam real

try R, might save your screenies

What are the chances of the game running on the following pc setup: AMD 2500+, 512mb Corsair Twinx, Radeon 9600 pro?

No chance?

Looks really fun, really want to give it a good crack.

it will run but it will look totally s***core
textures and everything will just be a joke you might as well use a piece of cardboard and crayons to draw the frames yourself


also Makaveli R changes from 3rd person to 1st person

What would be holding it back, just the graphics card and the ram?

Pretty much that whole setup will be holding it back, but mainly the gfx card.

I'd get 2 gig of ram for starters.

I'd get an xbox 360 for finishers :D

I'd get an xbox 360 for finishers :D

Been hearing to many bad things about them to even think about getting one.

Heard it has s*** games. Haha, I was at EB and saw this dude getting one with q4, I wanted to tell him, but oh well.

ran across a bug which killed my horse, I went inside a farmhouse, leaving my horse outside, did the mission inside and then came out, horse was fine, went back in, went down to the basement and then came back outside again and my horse collapsed and died, and unfortunately I had saved after raiding the basement of loot, so now I have a save game where my horsey dies forever :(

the prior dude won't be happy

lol its times like these i like to read the bible
what would jesus do?

It wasn't the farm house with the 3 chicks who tell you to take all your clothes off is it?

yup, that's the farmhouse I was in

If more farm houses were like that, the government wouldn't be having problems right now with everyone leaving the bush.

Overall, I was a bit disappointed in Oblivion.

As much as I liked Daggerfall and Morrowind, I felt a bit disappointed while playing Oblivion. It still wasn't a bad game, though, but personally I didn't feel like it was as open and free as they touted it as going to be. Hopefully with a bit of patching and an expansion or two it will shine a lot more like Morrowind did, not to mention the modding communities stepping up a notch or two.

the prior dude won't be happy

Isn't the prior dude dead? That's why you were able to get his horse without "stealing" it.

...though, but personally I didn't feel like it was as open and free as they touted it as going to be

What isn't open and free about it?

You're presented with a "main quest" which you can do at anytime. You've got quests everywhere, which you can complete (if you want). You have various guilds you can join (if you want). You can murder, steal, haggle, become famous (or infamous) - it's about as open ended you can get whilst still being an actual game.

Also, why are all the guards gay. They keep going - "ooh look that those muscles" - Scary.

last edited by Tim Tibbetts at 09:53:25 02/Apr/06

Also, why are all the guards gay. They keep going - "ooh look that those muscles" - Scary.

At least they don't say "I think you and I are about to become VERY close" anymore.

lol Tim Tibetts one day you're saying it's s*** and now you're defending it ;)
Go team oblivion!

just finished the main quest, is there much better armour to find then what u get from beating the quest?

what level are you? You are open to better armour as you level up i believe

lvl 13

Light/Heavy Armor-

Fur/Iron........Level 1
Leather/Steel...Level 3
Chain/Dwarven...Level 6
Mithril/Orcish..Level 10
Elven/Ebony.....Level 15
Glass/Daedric...Level 20

last edited by Tanaka Khan at 23:34:41 02/Apr/06

Plus I am sure there are unique pieces of armour out there that kick arse.

lol Tim Tibetts one day you're saying it's s*** and now you're defending it ;)

I admitted the wrongness of my ways :P

Having high level conjuring as a weak little mage is great. I can practise my blade skills while mr bad dude beats on my poor summoned skeleton.

I just started one of the kilrathi lookin thing's as a thief [forget race name].
Bow sneak attacks ftw.

I raided and completed the dungeon thingo across the river from where you first come out of the sewers, got a few items (one worth $1k and another worth a few hundred)... But in town that $1k thingo was only worth like $488, I was muchly disappointed :(

I killed some imperial guard on a horse in the middle of nowhere with no witnesses, stole his horse and ditched it somewhere, map travelled to imperial city and they magically knew it happened and I had done it and arrested me :(

Then I got busted stealing s*** and had a 1 gold bounty then got the invite to thieves guild, lollers.

Definately alot better than morrowind.

I decided to give this game a go, considering how much fun I've had with single-player RPGs in the past (Baldur's Gate, etc). Not having to pay a subscription nor dealing with e-penis-stat-showing wankers online, having the world 'pause' for you and letting you play casually without any pressure was also a plus.

It's quite fun actually. I like the fact that everything you do has real consequences. I accidently mounted Martin Septim's horse instead of my own and everyone started attacking me. Nice to know you're allowed to deviate from the main story.

Knowing that Sean Bean does Martin's voice, and Patrick Stewart did Uriel's is pretty cool.

Too bad it runs like s*** on my system. Can't really work out why. When I'm on horseback, riding through the forests ... it drops to 2-5fps regardless of whether I have it on 1280x1024 or 640x480. Dropping to Low texture detail makes very little difference either. It's mainly horseback and creature-heavy dungeonish scenes that do it.

Barton 3200+/6600GT(AGP)/1GB memory with Oblivion.ini grass/grid/cache modifications made, HDR/Bloom off, v84.45 nVidia drivers.


last edited by parabol at 12:05:21 03/Apr/06