Heh, I wonder if they shot the German localisation towards the Netherlands again. I love it when software companies think our German is better than our English.
Nothing surprising in this thread. Quite frankly, I don't think many NMA users are approaching this with an open mind, nor is the Codex. I would, but my computer couldn't possibly handle such a monstrosity (which is what offends me the most. I hate jacking up processor speed only to handle useless game tidbits).
What I find more shocking is that the tide of hype seems to be slightly broken on the shores of major gaming sites.
(on that note, I can't believe the way this game starts. By this point I'm so fed up with unoriginal starts, I could just THORP SMASH!)
IGN:
PC:
"Because honestly, every fight is pretty tough. You'll be backing up a lot and swinging like crazy before the enemy finally goes down (although this may only be a symptom of having a low-level character)."
"Overall, though, I found the inventory interface to be a little problematic. There are no tooltips to pop up and tell you what you're actually looking at. If Dan hadn't been looking over my shoulder at one point, I probably would have had to dig into the manual to figure out how to open the map. This kind of thing should be easy, but Oblivion's multitude of icons combined with a lack of tooltips can lead to quick frustration. Instead of words like "weight," "value," or "durability," you get a feather symbol, a face symbol, and a heart symbol. I understand this makes localization easier, but I wish that didn't come at the cost of forcing the user to dig through the manual so he can do things like swapping his bow for a sword, removing an item from his inventory, or setting up a spell on a hotkey."
360:
"Though we experienced some odd loading issues when first starting out on the X360, we thereafter had no problem running through environments and hot-swapping weapons. The game does major loading sequences at town doors and entrances to larger areas, which seem to last between 10 and 30 seconds. While running through open wilderness and fields, the game will briefly pause to load in new grass. On the Xbox 360, these minor outdoor loading sequences mean the game will stutter for a split second. On the PC, this stutter wasn't so apparent." [note; this makes the choices high-end PC or 360. Personally I haven't bought a console since the PS 1 and the only console I still play regularly is the Sega Megadrive (Genesis), I have no intention to pick up the 360. I really hate the pushing graphics trend]
"Graphics are far from the only aspect of a title as massive as The Elder Scrolls IV. I started out as a magic focused character with a blade skill, and have so far had no trouble hacking every enemy in my path to pieces. This was even true when I entered the first Oblivion gate early on in the storyline. Beyond the gate was the Oblivion dimension, which looked very cool, filled with jutting dark rocks, blazing fires, pools of simmering lava and sinister, towering spires. Inside, the foes shot fireballs, conjured daedra and hit me with savage maces. I was able to survive rather easily, however, by using a few of the numerous potions I'd picked up on the way. Being a High Elf, I had a ton of Magicka. When in a bind, I was able to run away from battle and use spells to heal myself, then come back with a flurry of fireballs." [note: this means balance problems. One guy desperately has to back up to even survive, the other guy can walk around like a demi-god. Hello, bad balance of gameplay]
"Though I started out strictly following the storyline, I found myself starting to wander around rather quickly. Tagging along was an NPC I was supposed to bring to a certain village. I neglected to at first, and soon found out that he was much more powerful than I was. So as of right now, I haven't brought him where I'm supposed to as he's helping me wipe out enemies from some of the random caverns and ruins." [note: this is a dumbass RPG mistake that experienced CRPG designers should not be making. Do. Not. Give starting players access to high-level NPCs freely. Gothic made the same mistake at times, but with them it was lack of experience]
"In a few cases, dead foes would go tumbling down a hill after the final blow was struck. Trying to fight in third person mode was, unfortunately, very unintuitive. Your character seems to float over the ground when the camera's pulled back, making it difficult to tell exactly where you're firing arrows or magic blasts. Even though you might like the look of your fighter in third person, you're going to want to snap the camera back to first whenever an enemy comes near." [Note: Pete Hines: Yes, you can play in 3rd person freely! Sure, Pete, if you don't mind the game *sucking ass*]
"You'll want to save a lot in Oblivion, since things can quickly go wrong. The game occasionally autosaves, but you'll need to stay conscious to save as often as possible." [note: I don't like save often games. I like games that are challenging overall, not those that occassionally throw a challenge that requires lots of reloading. Lots of people say "Save often" for Fallout, too. I generally never do and never did, since Fallout didn't require a lot of saves. Generally mistakes you could make would make sense and be easy to prevent, or else after making them it would open up a new world of trying to fix it or going with it.]
Gamespy:
Gamespy seems to be more caught up in zombie-mode, "Durrr, good game, duurrrr." They mostly talk about beautiful scenery. 'cause obviously that's what a good game is about. Beautiful scenery. Yeah. Gripes; loading times and framerate. On the 360.
Most major sites seem to be still playing it.
What I'm mildly surprised by, visual gripes asides because that was quite predictable (what with the 360 not being all it promises to be and most PCs not being up to Oblivion-level), is that IGN, in a few hours of playing, already stumbled upon such apparent glaring design-flaws.
I mean, that they're positive overal isn't surprising. They didn't have any choice. No major gaming site is going to dare to be anything but positive overal about this game. The fact that they found anything to gripe about in the first place is what surprises me.
PS: to make this post more long-ass, here's Dhruin's first impressions. Respect the Dhruin:
Might as well provide some actual impressions, cross-posted from elsewhere...
Really quick impressions from two hours play...
Seems to perform quite well on my P4-3Ghz, 2Gb RAM, 6800gs...detected as "High" settings, first dungeon ran very well and outside seems fine most of the time, although the grass texture on the hills opposite the river look pretty plain.
The graphics are...great and underwhelming at the same time. The textures are nice and things like sword hilts and so on are incredible but the dungeon internals tend a little to shiny plastic and the faces are god-awful.
First dungeon gameplay is fun in an action/RPG way. I didn't think the physics were as solid as HL2 but it is an RPG, so no problem. Enjoyed archery and fireball throwing quite a bit but melee didn't feel that much better than Morrowind at this early stage (probably just me).
I dislike the interface and it annoys me that PC interfaces are dictated by consoles. I'll get used to it but the icons are meaningless at the moment, there doesn't seem to be any tooltips and it doesn't use the screen real estate efficiently because it was clearly designed for consoles - not a big deal in the whole scheme of things but a AAA product of this magnitude should be better, IMO.
I was asked on another board to articulate my concerns with the interface, so here goes. I don't want this to look like a big whine - it's one element out of the whole game...
- UI doesn't scale. Everything is within the "journal", which is the tabbed box you've seen in screens. It's only about 40%? of the screen area, so lots of scrolling regardless of your super 1920x1600 resolution or whatever. Things you might want nice and large, such as inventory or map, all fit in this box.
- Because of the lack of space, there's a dozen tabs and you have to switch between 4? screens just to get complete character info, let alone spells, inventory, etc
- Everything is indicated with icons - no text and no tooltips. Few of them made any sense at first glance until I had experimented or checked the manual. They look very stylish but aren't intuitive to me.
- As far as I can tell (and I'd love to be wrong) there's no hotkey access to specific screens - I can't hit "M" for map or "I" for inventory...hit TAB for the journal and navigate the tabs. Did I miss something here?*
- Journal seems pretty basic (although there's a map reference, which is nice)
*Turns out the F1, F2 etc keys go straight to the map etc but that simply isn't in my manual. Surely "M" for map and "I" for inventory are RPG standards? Anyway, I was incorrect on this point.
Nothing surprising in this thread. Quite frankly, I don't think many NMA users are approaching this with an open mind, nor is the Codex. I would, but my computer couldn't possibly handle such a monstrosity (which is what offends me the most. I hate jacking up processor speed only to handle useless game tidbits).
What I find more shocking is that the tide of hype seems to be slightly broken on the shores of major gaming sites.
(on that note, I can't believe the way this game starts. By this point I'm so fed up with unoriginal starts, I could just THORP SMASH!)
IGN:
PC:
"Because honestly, every fight is pretty tough. You'll be backing up a lot and swinging like crazy before the enemy finally goes down (although this may only be a symptom of having a low-level character)."
"Overall, though, I found the inventory interface to be a little problematic. There are no tooltips to pop up and tell you what you're actually looking at. If Dan hadn't been looking over my shoulder at one point, I probably would have had to dig into the manual to figure out how to open the map. This kind of thing should be easy, but Oblivion's multitude of icons combined with a lack of tooltips can lead to quick frustration. Instead of words like "weight," "value," or "durability," you get a feather symbol, a face symbol, and a heart symbol. I understand this makes localization easier, but I wish that didn't come at the cost of forcing the user to dig through the manual so he can do things like swapping his bow for a sword, removing an item from his inventory, or setting up a spell on a hotkey."
360:
"Though we experienced some odd loading issues when first starting out on the X360, we thereafter had no problem running through environments and hot-swapping weapons. The game does major loading sequences at town doors and entrances to larger areas, which seem to last between 10 and 30 seconds. While running through open wilderness and fields, the game will briefly pause to load in new grass. On the Xbox 360, these minor outdoor loading sequences mean the game will stutter for a split second. On the PC, this stutter wasn't so apparent." [note; this makes the choices high-end PC or 360. Personally I haven't bought a console since the PS 1 and the only console I still play regularly is the Sega Megadrive (Genesis), I have no intention to pick up the 360. I really hate the pushing graphics trend]
"Graphics are far from the only aspect of a title as massive as The Elder Scrolls IV. I started out as a magic focused character with a blade skill, and have so far had no trouble hacking every enemy in my path to pieces. This was even true when I entered the first Oblivion gate early on in the storyline. Beyond the gate was the Oblivion dimension, which looked very cool, filled with jutting dark rocks, blazing fires, pools of simmering lava and sinister, towering spires. Inside, the foes shot fireballs, conjured daedra and hit me with savage maces. I was able to survive rather easily, however, by using a few of the numerous potions I'd picked up on the way. Being a High Elf, I had a ton of Magicka. When in a bind, I was able to run away from battle and use spells to heal myself, then come back with a flurry of fireballs." [note: this means balance problems. One guy desperately has to back up to even survive, the other guy can walk around like a demi-god. Hello, bad balance of gameplay]
"Though I started out strictly following the storyline, I found myself starting to wander around rather quickly. Tagging along was an NPC I was supposed to bring to a certain village. I neglected to at first, and soon found out that he was much more powerful than I was. So as of right now, I haven't brought him where I'm supposed to as he's helping me wipe out enemies from some of the random caverns and ruins." [note: this is a dumbass RPG mistake that experienced CRPG designers should not be making. Do. Not. Give starting players access to high-level NPCs freely. Gothic made the same mistake at times, but with them it was lack of experience]
"In a few cases, dead foes would go tumbling down a hill after the final blow was struck. Trying to fight in third person mode was, unfortunately, very unintuitive. Your character seems to float over the ground when the camera's pulled back, making it difficult to tell exactly where you're firing arrows or magic blasts. Even though you might like the look of your fighter in third person, you're going to want to snap the camera back to first whenever an enemy comes near." [Note: Pete Hines: Yes, you can play in 3rd person freely! Sure, Pete, if you don't mind the game *sucking ass*]
"You'll want to save a lot in Oblivion, since things can quickly go wrong. The game occasionally autosaves, but you'll need to stay conscious to save as often as possible." [note: I don't like save often games. I like games that are challenging overall, not those that occassionally throw a challenge that requires lots of reloading. Lots of people say "Save often" for Fallout, too. I generally never do and never did, since Fallout didn't require a lot of saves. Generally mistakes you could make would make sense and be easy to prevent, or else after making them it would open up a new world of trying to fix it or going with it.]
Gamespy:
Gamespy seems to be more caught up in zombie-mode, "Durrr, good game, duurrrr." They mostly talk about beautiful scenery. 'cause obviously that's what a good game is about. Beautiful scenery. Yeah. Gripes; loading times and framerate. On the 360.
Most major sites seem to be still playing it.
What I'm mildly surprised by, visual gripes asides because that was quite predictable (what with the 360 not being all it promises to be and most PCs not being up to Oblivion-level), is that IGN, in a few hours of playing, already stumbled upon such apparent glaring design-flaws.
I mean, that they're positive overal isn't surprising. They didn't have any choice. No major gaming site is going to dare to be anything but positive overal about this game. The fact that they found anything to gripe about in the first place is what surprises me.
PS: to make this post more long-ass, here's Dhruin's first impressions. Respect the Dhruin:
Might as well provide some actual impressions, cross-posted from elsewhere...
Really quick impressions from two hours play...
Seems to perform quite well on my P4-3Ghz, 2Gb RAM, 6800gs...detected as "High" settings, first dungeon ran very well and outside seems fine most of the time, although the grass texture on the hills opposite the river look pretty plain.
The graphics are...great and underwhelming at the same time. The textures are nice and things like sword hilts and so on are incredible but the dungeon internals tend a little to shiny plastic and the faces are god-awful.
First dungeon gameplay is fun in an action/RPG way. I didn't think the physics were as solid as HL2 but it is an RPG, so no problem. Enjoyed archery and fireball throwing quite a bit but melee didn't feel that much better than Morrowind at this early stage (probably just me).
I dislike the interface and it annoys me that PC interfaces are dictated by consoles. I'll get used to it but the icons are meaningless at the moment, there doesn't seem to be any tooltips and it doesn't use the screen real estate efficiently because it was clearly designed for consoles - not a big deal in the whole scheme of things but a AAA product of this magnitude should be better, IMO.
I was asked on another board to articulate my concerns with the interface, so here goes. I don't want this to look like a big whine - it's one element out of the whole game...
- UI doesn't scale. Everything is within the "journal", which is the tabbed box you've seen in screens. It's only about 40%? of the screen area, so lots of scrolling regardless of your super 1920x1600 resolution or whatever. Things you might want nice and large, such as inventory or map, all fit in this box.
- Because of the lack of space, there's a dozen tabs and you have to switch between 4? screens just to get complete character info, let alone spells, inventory, etc
- Everything is indicated with icons - no text and no tooltips. Few of them made any sense at first glance until I had experimented or checked the manual. They look very stylish but aren't intuitive to me.
- As far as I can tell (and I'd love to be wrong) there's no hotkey access to specific screens - I can't hit "M" for map or "I" for inventory...hit TAB for the journal and navigate the tabs. Did I miss something here?*
- Journal seems pretty basic (although there's a map reference, which is nice)
*Turns out the F1, F2 etc keys go straight to the map etc but that simply isn't in my manual. Surely "M" for map and "I" for inventory are RPG standards? Anyway, I was incorrect on this point.
