Oblivion

[Tapewolf]

Okay, I finally plucked up courage to install Oblivion.  One graphics card later, and it's happily chugging away.

As with Morrowind, my immediate problem is getting enough gold to be able to afford things like training and repairing my sword (thank the gods he still doesn't need to eat).  However, I do have one question.

Basically, I was in Skingrad doing a mission for some fruitcake who told me to spy on some woman, in the hopes of getting some coin.  She went to till the fields, I watched her for a bit, got bored, whipped out my sword and began killing the sheep.  Unlike the stables, where slaughtering their prize steeds seems to evoke no reaction whatsoever, everyone freaked out and I had about half a dozen guards on my tail in very short order.  While trying to evade them I ran head-first into the force-barrier from Zardoz with the message "You cannot go that way.  Turn back."

Is this some kind of plot-protection, e.g. "You must not go there yet," or just laziness on the part of the designers, i.e. I've hit the edge of the world?

[Reese Tora]

lesse, from memory, Skingrad is just north of the border...

Were you headed south?

yeah, edge of the world.

[Tapewolf]

Were you headed south?
yeah, edge of the world.

Shame.  It looked quite pretty down that way and the water would have been useful for losing the guards.

I notice that the woman is currently attempting to till the pavement.  Either that or she's using a hoe to sweep the floor.

[Cogidubnus]

Were you headed south?
yeah, edge of the world.

Shame.  It looked quite pretty down that way and the water would have been useful for losing the guards.

I notice that the woman is currently attempting to till the pavement.  Either that or she's using a hoe to sweep the floor.

The Island of Morrowind is an Island, so you have a handy boundary that way. Cyrodiill is landlocked, though, so I can see the dillemma Bethesda had there. Either make all of Tamriel, or make an invisible fence...

One thing about Oblivion - the gameplay is better than in Morrowind, but it lacks the heart that Morrowind had. The little details, and the sheer atmosphere of the game. Of the two, Morrowind is still higher on my list.

[Tapewolf]

One thing about Oblivion - the gameplay is better than in Morrowind, but it lacks the heart that Morrowind had. The little details, and the sheer atmosphere of the game. Of the two, Morrowind is still higher on my list.

I dunno about the gameplay... so far, it just seems to be a bit prettier.  Unless you turn on HDR, in which case you get these fugly halos around candles etc.

What really cracked me up was the fact that the NPCs wander around babbling inanely to each other.  In Ultima 7 (1991) you had NPCs trysting who got pissy if you tried to spy on them.  In Thief, Deus Ex, Ultima 9 etc you had NPCs making sensible conversation.

In Oblivion you get this:
http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=060511

I'll admit I've only been playing since Saturday, but IMHO there's definitely something missing since Morrowind.

And oh god, the wolves.  A cave with a door on it.  With wolves inside.  A giant pack of about two dozen adult wolves, no cubs, no food source.  They're just... there.  Not afraid of fire.  Not afraid of a 6-foot jaguar with a f___-off big sword.  For the sake of my sanity I think I'll have to see if there's a patch for that.

[bill]

The combat is actually pretty much the same as Morrowind, despite what people say. Only, instead of missing with a sword at short range, you're doing a tiny amount of damage with it.

And yeah, the setting is pure D&D Castles n' Elves. Disappointing, since the region was actually written of as a jungle in a book in Morrowind. Now that would have been interesting. (Though the Shivering Isles are also really neat, and probably what Oblivion should have been)

[bill]

Awful creatures.

[Ryudo Lee]

You're also going to want to get the patch called "No psychic guards".  It's a real pain in the neck to be all rogueish, break into someone's house when there ARE NO GUARDS AROUND ANYWHERE in the middle of the night and try to grab something, and all of a sudden a guard is behind you, having appeared out of thin air.  Makes being a thief very very difficult.

But once you get past the little nuances, it's a very fun game, especially when you grab the official add ons.  I particularly like Frostcrag Spire, myself.

EDIT: You'll also want to find the Unofficial Patches.  They fix a whole bunch of little annoyances that Bethesda never bothered to fix.

[bill]

Oh yeah, I forgot the lack of the lovely "Break into peoples houses and kill them without anyone noticing" part of Morrowind. I'm pretty sure that you can rob a house when you enter it, as long as you're in stealth mode when you enter (why crouching and entering a house with nobody looking, and just breaking in with nobody looking is a mystery to me), but attacking the owner always gets the guards pissed.

Really, the problems I have are all small ones (other than the level scaling, do not level up without also leveling up your combat), but there's so many that the game just is nowhere near as satisfying as Morrowind.

[Tapewolf]

Really, the problems I have are all small ones (other than the level scaling, do not level up without also leveling up your combat),

I've noticed.  How do you level up your combat?

[bill]

Really, the problems I have are all small ones (other than the level scaling, do not level up without also leveling up your combat),

I've noticed.  How do you level up your combat?

Either train, or just fight things a lot. The more fighting skill points you earn, the more you can increase your strength when you level up.

Or, you could do what I personally recommend, and get a mod that fixes the shitty leveling system. 

[Tapewolf]

Either train, or just fight things a lot. The more fighting skill points you earn, the more you can increase your strength when you level up.

Ah.  I haven't been able to afford training until recently, and I seem to lose most of my fights.  That said, I have a few more coins now and I'm looking to get trained.
I've also installed Natural Wildlife 1.3 which seemed to have stopped the wolves going into a psychotic frenzy the moment I walk past.

[bill]

Really, the leveling system is broken, and not in the fun way. You can try to play around with it, but I'd recommend modding it out.

[techmaster-glitch]

If you need patches or information or such, I suggest the Unofficial Elder Scolls Pages. This has detailed files on just about everything Elder Scolls. Saved my butt quite a few times in Morrowind.

[Tapewolf]

The Island of Morrowind is an Island, so you have a handy boundary that way. Cyrodiill is landlocked, though, so I can see the dillemma Bethesda had there. Either make all of Tamriel, or make an invisible fence...

Or surround the thing with mountains and put the invisible barrier on them so they can't be climbed.  Putting it in the middle of a field is just mental.  Though apparently it can be disabled through the config file.  I might try that sometime...

[Reese Tora]

Really, the leveling system is broken, and not in the fun way. You can try to play around with it, but I'd recommend modding it out.

I suppose it depends on what you do...

I tend to get myself 3x or 4x on the stats I want to improve, and stealth + Alchemy is GOD, so I've never had much trouble...

The only mod I've used is the mod to change khajiit night eye from a 1 minute buff to a toggled permanent effect, because there are some situation where it's annoying to have to refresh (like right beore you loose an arrow at a far away opponent) and there are situations where you need it turned off (like when you are trying to stealth and need to know where the blasted shadows are!)

Of course, once I got a ring with the night eye effect, I just used that as easier than the toggle anyway...

[Dagardo]

The Island of Morrowind is an Island, so you have a handy boundary that way. Cyrodiill is landlocked, though, so I can see the dillemma Bethesda had there. Either make all of Tamriel, or make an invisible fence...

Or surround the thing with mountains and put the invisible barrier on them so they can't be climbed.  Putting it in the middle of a field is just mental.  Though apparently it can be disabled through the config file.  I might try that sometime...

There are ways to get through them without messing with the game itself. My brother done this for me with the Skyrim border, although after you get through the border, however you do it, its just randomly generated terrain, and eventually, (at least with Skyrim) you'll fall down a big square hole or something, (the Skyrim one nicknamed "the great crack in Skyrims ass" ) and die, and all your efferot would have been for naught. And also you can leave the main cities like Skingrad and them without leaving through the main gates and everything is effed up, you can pass the borders this way too but it's kinda less satisfying. You'd have to scour places like Youtube or something for vids on how to do it, cuz I cant explain it.

[Tapewolf]

And also you can leave the main cities like Skingrad without leaving through the main gates and everything is effed up, you can pass the borders this way too but it's kinda less satisfying. You'd have to scour places like Youtube or something for vids on how to do it, cuz I cant explain it.

Cool... I'm sure I can figure something out.  I've broken out of Ultima 8 and 9 in a similar manner.  Also Deus Ex and Thief.

I'm running low on funds again, though - suggestions for making money would be appreciated.  In Morrowind I used the Ring of Toxic Cloud to kill Ordinators and sell their armour.  I doubt that kind of strategy will work as well here 

[Dagardo]

If you're looking to make money you could always go on a dungeon romp or two, then go back to town and sell whatever you pick up, but I guess that's the obvious choice, if you do theifing you can pickpocket people, although they usually don't have a lot of money, you might could try the counts and countesses, if you can get outta sight... but about the best thing you can do is sell armor of marauders, or go through alyied ruins and take the welkind and varla stones. That's all I can really think of, I never really have monetary problems with this game. Or you can find a weightless item put a fire damage enchantment on it and reverse pickpocket someone, then wait a bit and they will put it on and eventually kill themselves. This also works well for quests wherre you have to kill someone but don't want to join the Dark Brotherhood, AKA, the Assassins Guild. Hope it helps.

[Tapewolf]

If you're looking to make money you could always go on a dungeon romp or two, then go back to town and sell whatever you pick up, but I guess that's the obvious choice, if you do theifing you can pickpocket people, although they usually don't have a lot of money, you might could try the counts and countesses, if you can get outta sight... but about the best thing you can do is sell armor of marauders, or go through alyied ruins and take the welkind and varla stones. That's all I can really think of, I never really have monetary problems with this game. Or you can find a weightless item put a fire damage enchantment on it and reverse pickpocket someone, then wait a bit and they will put it on and eventually kill themselves. This also works well for quests wherre you have to kill someone but don't want to join the Dark Brotherhood, AKA, the Assassins Guild. Hope it helps.

I'd be interested to find the Thieves' Guild.  That would open up a lot more possibilities, but I'm not quite sure I want to join the assassins.  If I want to go around killing people, it'll be because I want to, not because I've been told to

There's loads of stuff that used to belong to a couple of now-dead NPCs, but I don't think I'll be able to hock it because it's hot, even though the owners are dead and gone.

The 'dungeon romp' thing looks like the way to go for now, assuming I can turn a profit - so far, wear and tear seems to outweigh the proceeds.  Selling bandit pelts (fur armour) only seems to get me so far...

[Janus Whitefurr]

Or you can find a weightless item put a fire damage enchantment on it and reverse pickpocket someone, then wait a bit and they will put it on and eventually kill themselves. This also works well for quests wherre you have to kill someone but don't want to join the Dark Brotherhood, AKA, the Assassins Guild. Hope it helps.

There's a mod that makes the Blackwood Ring from the Fighters Guild quests a zero-weight item. If you can get that far, it's frightfully fun and efficient.

[Tapewolf]

There's a mod that makes the Blackwood Ring from the Fighters Guild quests a zero-weight item. If you can get that far, it's frightfully fun and efficient.

The animal logic always bugs the hell out of me, but apart from that I'd prefer to keep the game mostly stock.  Though I may well go haywire on the mods when I run out of stuff to do in the game itself.

[Dagardo]

If you're looking to make money you could always go on a dungeon romp or two, then go back to town and sell whatever you pick up, but I guess that's the obvious choice, if you do theifing you can pickpocket people, although they usually don't have a lot of money, you might could try the counts and countesses, if you can get outta sight... but about the best thing you can do is sell armor of marauders, or go through alyied ruins and take the welkind and varla stones. That's all I can really think of, I never really have monetary problems with this game. Or you can find a weightless item put a fire damage enchantment on it and reverse pickpocket someone, then wait a bit and they will put it on and eventually kill themselves. This also works well for quests wherre you have to kill someone but don't want to join the Dark Brotherhood, AKA, the Assassins Guild. Hope it helps.

I'd be interested to find the Thieves' Guild.  That would open up a lot more possibilities, but I'm not quite sure I want to join the assassins.  If I want to go around killing people, it'll be because I want to, not because I've been told to

There's loads of stuff that used to belong to a couple of now-dead NPCs, but I don't think I'll be able to hock it because it's hot, even though the owners are dead and gone.

The 'dungeon romp' thing looks like the way to go for now, assuming I can turn a profit - so far, wear and tear seems to outweigh the proceeds.  Selling bandit pelts (fur armour) only seems to get me so far...

If you wanna join the thieves guild then you have to go to jail, you can also do the Bruma quest "two sides of the coin" to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. But the reward for said quest is like abysmal really. But you gotta be sent to jail and I think you can break out or serve your time, as long as you go to jail, I'm not sure, then wait for a Dark Elf chick to find you, (Imperial City is quickest, just wait there, in the waterfront district is even quicker) then she'll give you a note, and the beggars can help you from there, it shouldn't be real hard to decipher what they say. You'll get access to fences who will buy your stolen goods, but you'll get less money unless they like you or you're mercantile is high or both. But there are some nice items you can get from going through the Dark Brotherhood quests. And the Orc there may be amusing to listen to. As for selling light (bandit) armour heavy (marauder) armour of any kind sells better.

[Tapewolf]

If you wanna join the thieves guild then you have to go to jail, you can also do the Bruma quest "two sides of the coin" to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. But the reward for said quest is like abysmal really. But you gotta be sent to jail and I think you can break out or serve your time, as long as you go to jail, I'm not sure

Cool.  I may do that.  I just want access to the fence network, really.  As for getting jailed, I'm sure I can think of some way to do that.  There's a few people I dislike, or failing that, attacking the mounties' horses when they go off to kill a pig or something really upsets them.  Or I could get started on the sheep again 

As for selling light (bandit) armour heavy (marauder) armour of any kind sells better.

That may be, but since I can't find anyone with heavy stuff, it kind of makes it a moot point 

[Dagardo]

As for selling light (bandit) armour heavy (marauder) armour of any kind sells better.

That may be, but since I can't find anyone with heavy stuff, it kind of makes it a moot point 
[/quote]

If you know where to look marauders aren't real hard to find, The best, and perhaps only place to look would be old fortresses, they're all over the place, like fort homestead i think, which is just south of the imperial city waterfront district. You could also try vampires but they're a mix of all kinds of classes so you'll never know what you'll find, but they're really your best shot at a helmet outside of a shop. Best place to look for them would be old forts and caves. Sorry for not being specific earlier.

[Tapewolf]

If you know where to look marauders aren't real hard to find, The best, and perhaps only place to look would be old fortresses, they're all over the place, like fort homestead i think, which is just south of the imperial city waterfront district.

Cool, that should help.  I think I'm just strong enough to hold my own in that regard, so I'll look into it tonight.

[Dagardo]

Yeah, lets hope you are, but it might help to know that the armor they wear is supposedly "leveled." It's in the instruction manual but the Armour levels are as follow:
     
      (Heavy), (Light)
      1-2 Iron, Fur
      3-5 Steel, Leather
      6-9 Dwarven, Chainmail
      10-14 Orcish, Mythril
      15-19 Ebony, Elven
      20+ Daedric, Glass

Like I say it's in the instruction manual, and they will also wear armor that is 2 levels below current Armour level. Lower if it's enchanted. And If you're really close to death and have no items or magicka to use you can do what i do and turn down the difficulty, but that's cheating. But it also works so I don't complaim.

[Tapewolf]

Yeah, lets hope you are, but it might help to know that the armor they wear is supposedly "leveled." It's in the instruction manual but the Armour levels are as follow:

Interesting.  I'll have to go over the thing again - apart from an initial scan through, I've mostly been consulting the manual when I'm stuck with the UI, and even then it hasn't been greatly helpful.

As for the armours, I've only recently reached level 3, so most of the people I've met have had iron and fur armour.  I get first dibs on the steel stuff, though!

[Dagardo]

You can buy a steel cuirass, and boots i think, and maybe a shield early in the Imperial City Market District from the stores "The Best Defense" and "Stonewall Shields" respectively Although you can't buy fifth and sixth level Armour at all , you're only option is to go and find them. You can find Ebony Armour from an Alyied ruin I think is south west, but you shouldn't unless you want to be completely murdered. If you go looking look for Vindasel, But said ruin is also part of a Deadra quest that you cant do until level 20. The person wearing the armor is non-hostile so it counts as murder unless you're on the quest, Her sword Is the second strongest in the game I think, and is also the object of the quest, just some advice though, do not give up the sword, it is extremely unwise, even if you don't use swords, although the enchantment is somewhat useless. But if you want to fight her early, you may want to wait till level 15 so the armor is at full strength, but you may either have to use Goldbrand, from Boethia's quest or turn down the difficulty. No you cant make Goldbrand Eltonbrand in this game... If you want me to shut up just tell me and I will.

[Tapewolf]

You can buy a steel cuirass, and boots i think, and maybe a shield early in the Imperial City Market District from the stores "The Best Defense"

Yeah, it's just out of my price range at the moment.

If you want me to shut up just tell me and I will.

I think you might be going a little further into spoiler territory than I'd like.  But yeah, I'll give this a go when I get home.