Can Oblivion be as good as Morrowind?

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

I wonder. MW not only was a very impressive game that gave us all a
lot of flexibility in how we roled played it, but MW is kept vibrant by
all the user mods that keep coming out. I'm not sure the mods have
peaked yet. MW_children, Wizard's Island and Constance--for
example--have only recently come out. Want something a little
different--then you can try one of the mechanics altering mods.

Thoughts?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

DeAnn wrote:
> I wonder. MW not only was a very impressive game that gave us all a
> lot of flexibility in how we roled played it, but MW is kept vibrant by
> all the user mods that keep coming out. I'm not sure the mods have
> peaked yet. MW_children, Wizard's Island and Constance--for
> example--have only recently come out. Want something a little
> different--then you can try one of the mechanics altering mods.
>
> Thoughts?
>

Personally, I would like it if they returned to the Arena and Daggerfall
way of doing things. I dislike the way that almost All of the artifacts
of the Empire are available in one small area, that obtaining them is
trivial, and that once you have them, you have them forever. In Arena
obtaining one artifact was a major accomplishment. Also obtaining a
full set of good armor was another accomplishment. You could not go
into tomb X and obtain a full set of ebony armor. You had to go to a
very large number of stores buying it piece by piece.
The graphics in Morrowind are much better, but that isn't enough. There
needs to be randomness so when you play you don't automatically go to
tomb X and get ring Y, all at first level. I loved having to find the
rumors of someone who may know something about an artifact. Then having
to find the map to the actual location of the artifact. It could take
hours of playing to get an artifact, rather than minutes. And you had
no idea what artifacts, if any, you could find.

 

[sarah]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

"Michael W. Ryder" <_mwryder@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:LNcGe.503848$cg1.176670@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...

> In Arena obtaining one artifact was a major accomplishment. Also
> obtaining a full set of good armor was another accomplishment. You could
> not go into tomb X and obtain a full set of ebony armor. You had to go to
> a very large number of stores buying it piece by piece.

That's one thing that wasn't so great about Morrowind. Part way through the
game, you can practically ignore loot because there's so much of it.

> The graphics in Morrowind are much better, but that isn't enough. There
> needs to be randomness so when you play you don't automatically go to tomb
> X and get ring Y, all at first level. I loved having to find the rumors
> of someone who may know something about an artifact. Then having to find
> the map to the actual location of the artifact. It could take hours of
> playing to get an artifact, rather than minutes. And you had no idea what
> artifacts, if any, you could find.

A certain degree of randomness would be nice. Bethesda tends to recreate
the wheel with each game based on comments about the previous one. Usually,
some things are improved and others are worsened. Daggerfall players
complained that the dungeons were too random (a valid complaint) and that
magic was too overpowering (another valid complaint). So with Morrowind,
they cut down on randomness and gimped magic. Now the pendulum will swing
back a little in Oblivion.

Can Oblivion be as good as or better than Morrowind? Yes--I hope it is. I
love Morrowind, but there's room for improvement.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

On Thu, 28 Jul 2005 22:15:07 GMT, Michael W. Ryder
<_mwryder@worldnet.att.net> wrote:

> DeAnn wrote:
>> I wonder. MW not only was a very impressive game that gave us all a
>> lot of flexibility in how we roled played it, but MW is kept vibrant by
>> all the user mods that keep coming out. I'm not sure the mods have
>> peaked yet. MW_children, Wizard's Island and Constance--for
>> example--have only recently come out. Want something a little
>> different--then you can try one of the mechanics altering mods.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>
> Personally, I would like it if they returned to the Arena and Daggerfall
> way of doing things. I dislike the way that almost All of the artifacts
> of the Empire are available in one small area, that obtaining them is
> trivial, and that once you have them, you have them forever. In Arena
> obtaining one artifact was a major accomplishment. Also obtaining a
> full set of good armor was another accomplishment. You could not go
> into tomb X and obtain a full set of ebony armor. You had to go to a
> very large number of stores buying it piece by piece.
> The graphics in Morrowind are much better, but that isn't enough. There
> needs to be randomness so when you play you don't automatically go to
> tomb X and get ring Y, all at first level. I loved having to find the
> rumors of someone who may know something about an artifact. Then having
> to find the map to the actual location of the artifact. It could take
> hours of playing to get an artifact, rather than minutes. And you had
> no idea what artifacts, if any, you could find.

I must say that the toolbox that came with Morrowind have proved really
useful. But I also agree that the game lacks randomness. In Daggerfall
especially, it would not be possible to write a traditional walkthrough.
You could do that with the main quest, but the main quest was such a small
part of the experience. And you could make the most improbable characters,
like a linguist with an allergy to certain metals but able to learn new
skills at triple speed...

In a way, the Elder Scrolls construction set for Morrowind is necessary to
bring back some of the randomness that was in the earlier games. And I
must admit they've done some really impressive things with it. In fact, I
am worried that having Oblivion come out this soon may put a stop to the
Morrowind mods, and then we will have to start from scratch again with
Oblivion. Hopefully this will be the last in the series, as it was
planned from the very beginning. For that reason, I had actually expected
- even hoped - that they would take some more time making it.

--
"When someone starts bragging about how much debt they have, it's not a
good sign." -G

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

It's all up to you and how you play the game though. If you go consulting
game guides then you will soon find that the games will get too easy.
Morrowind had a random item generation in chests and different objects I
believe? Perhaps this will be incorporated into Oblivion in some manner.
Also, you do not want rooms/dungeons to be forever changing. One thing that
I couldn't understand in Morrowind the first time I played it was that when
I killed a creature, went out of the building to heal and then went back in
to gather items, the creature was alive again. "How could this be? I killed
it." I found myself asking. I am very interested to see what Oblivion will
do, but won't be surprised if they do it all over again.

Morrowind was also created so that people could play it the way they wanted
to, and at their own pace. Oblivion is going to reflect that as well. For a
game such as Oblivion, which has been under construction for a while now, we
can only trust that the game developers have learned from their mistakes and
have listened to comments of improvement. I wouldn't worry about such a
small thing as this, the game should work around it somehow. And if not then
wack yourself over the head with a frying pan, you might just forget where
to find item 'Y' or 'X'...




> > In Arena obtaining one artifact was a major accomplishment. Also
> > obtaining a full set of good armor was another accomplishment. You
could
> > not go into tomb X and obtain a full set of ebony armor. You had to go
to
> > a very large number of stores buying it piece by piece.
>
> That's one thing that wasn't so great about Morrowind. Part way through
the
> game, you can practically ignore loot because there's so much of it.
>
> > The graphics in Morrowind are much better, but that isn't enough. There
> > needs to be randomness so when you play you don't automatically go to
tomb
> > X and get ring Y, all at first level. I loved having to find the rumors
> > of someone who may know something about an artifact. Then having to
find
> > the map to the actual location of the artifact. It could take hours of
> > playing to get an artifact, rather than minutes. And you had no idea
what
> > artifacts, if any, you could find.
>
> A certain degree of randomness would be nice. Bethesda tends to recreate
> the wheel with each game based on comments about the previous one.
Usually,
> some things are improved and others are worsened. Daggerfall players
> complained that the dungeons were too random (a valid complaint) and that
> magic was too overpowering (another valid complaint). So with Morrowind,
> they cut down on randomness and gimped magic. Now the pendulum will swing
> back a little in Oblivion.
>
> Can Oblivion be as good as or better than Morrowind? Yes--I hope it is.
I
> love Morrowind, but there's room for improvement.
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

On Fri, 29 Jul 2005 21:40:20 +1000, "Sabeth" <Sabeth@goaway.com>
wrote:

>I killed a creature, went out of the building to heal and then went back in
>to gather items, the creature was alive again. "How could this be? I killed
>it." I found myself asking. I am very interested to see what Oblivion will
>do, but won't be surprised if they do it all over again.

Where was this? I found this sort of thing in the Giants mod
concerning zombies and there were of course the spriggans in Bloodmoon
and the even tougher earth spriggans in Giants that you had to kill
multiple times but I don't remember any such situation in the base
game un-modded.

>> > In Arena obtaining one artifact was a major accomplishment. Also
>> > obtaining a full set of good armor was another accomplishment. You
>> >could not go into tomb X and obtain a full set of ebony armor. You had to go

There certainly was an element of "Monty Hall-ism" in MW - the whole
point of most of the "House" mods was simply to get a better place to
display all that excess loot that one couldn't sell. Even with my
standard Creeper mod which I wrote to give him 50000 gold per day
instead of 5000 there was a lot of unsaleable stuff.

BTW my favorite house of all was the one you get when you finished
Suran Underworld.

 

[seraphim]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

"Sabeth" <Sabeth@goaway.com> wrote in
news:42ea159a$0$10030$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au:

> One thing that
> I couldn't understand in Morrowind the first time I played it was
> that when I killed a creature, went out of the building to heal and
> then went back in to gather items, the creature was alive again.

If you don't use the remove corpse option this problem should go away.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

I think the main change should be to force the programmers to sit through a
computer programming course entitled "How to program a Game without making
it Freeze all the time!" (I've got the X-box version; I don't know whether
the PC version has the same problem or not. And I can't add mods in my
version - bummer, man!)

Other than that, we need some randomness in artifact creation. Keep the
standard artifacts, but allow random artifacts to be generated as well (as
it is in most variants of the freeware Angband).

Also, the dungeons seriously need a randomness in the treasures tied to your
player level. You get tired of finding huge amounts of treasure that would
be really exciting and useful to a player starting the game at level one!
When you're level five and beyond it's not even worth picking up. Finding
that the biggest thing in a cave is a chitin shield, when you're level 20,
is a big no-no!

Another out-of-balance factor is the amount of money. It isn't long into the
game when you're getting so much money you don't know what to do with it
all. I hate to say this but maybe there shouldn't be a Scamp or Talking
Mudcrab in Oblivion to give you the full value of the item. And when you're
whacking Daedra with a single blow, you can get as much money as you like
because they're weapons are too valuable.

Randomness in some of the quests would be nice, if it's not too much of a
challenge for the programmers! Also, you sometimes fall through the scenery
in Morrowind - that needs to be fixed!

"DeAnn" <diwan@mitre.org> wrote in message
news:1122585268.315034.270320@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> I wonder. MW not only was a very impressive game that gave us all a
> lot of flexibility in how we roled played it, but MW is kept vibrant by
> all the user mods that keep coming out. I'm not sure the mods have
> peaked yet. MW_children, Wizard's Island and Constance--for
> example--have only recently come out. Want something a little
> different--then you can try one of the mechanics altering mods.
>
> Thoughts?
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

The Appalling Silence wrote:
> I think the main change should be to force the programmers to sit through a
> computer programming course entitled "How to program a Game without making
> it Freeze all the time!" (I've got the X-box version; I don't know whether
> the PC version has the same problem or not. And I can't add mods in my
> version - bummer, man!)
>
> Other than that, we need some randomness in artifact creation. Keep the
> standard artifacts, but allow random artifacts to be generated as well (as
> it is in most variants of the freeware Angband).
>
> Also, the dungeons seriously need a randomness in the treasures tied to your
> player level. You get tired of finding huge amounts of treasure that would
> be really exciting and useful to a player starting the game at level one!
> When you're level five and beyond it's not even worth picking up. Finding
> that the biggest thing in a cave is a chitin shield, when you're level 20,
> is a big no-no!
>

True, but seriously how many items will you really need at high levels?
Once I got Sunder, I never used much of anything else. I had a full
set of Daedric armor (ebony pauldrons) before trying the expansions. I
still did like collecting sets of stuff to store at a house on a perma
corpse. I had a full set of Ice, Daedric (reserve), Ebony, Glass, Dark
Brotherhood, Her Hands (both enchanted off the guy you have to off in
Tribunal and unenchanted), the one's the king's guard wore, Indoril,
Andamantium, Snow Wolf, Snow Bear, and a couple others I thought were
neat. I also had a full set of deadric, ebony, ice, and glass weapons
plus tons of artifacts/powerful magic items. Not much more needed.

> Another out-of-balance factor is the amount of money. It isn't long into the
> game when you're getting so much money you don't know what to do with it
> all.

I find it takes awhile to get enough gold to get as many skills up to
the 90 range as you can (I believe on Xbox, only the armorer and
enchant master trainer is missing). Enchanting items also cost a lot
of money.

> I hate to say this but maybe there shouldn't be a Scamp or Talking
> Mudcrab in Oblivion to give you the full value of the item. And when you're
> whacking Daedra with a single blow, you can get as much money as you like
> because they're weapons are too valuable.
>

My problem is that the merchants simply don't have enough gold. I know
you can abuse Creeper, but that takes forever to get a reasonable price
for a 30000 gp sword. I also really hated weapon weights. A 60 pound
sword (daedric dai-katana) is simply too heavy, and it really eats up
your ability to carry loot. I guess it's a "balancing" thing, but in
Morrowind, if you didn't go heavy armor, you were left behind.

> Randomness in some of the quests would be nice, if it's not too much of a
> challenge for the programmers! Also, you sometimes fall through the scenery
> in Morrowind - that needs to be fixed!
>

The developers of Oblivion have said the Radiant AI will generate
random quests from NPCs, like "go here and get me these three flowers"
or "give this to person X here" while the faction quests will be far
more involved. Some of the Morrowind faction quests were just plain
boring.

> "DeAnn" <diwan@mitre.org> wrote in message
> news:1122585268.315034.270320@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> > I wonder. MW not only was a very impressive game that gave us all a
> > lot of flexibility in how we roled played it, but MW is kept vibrant by
> > all the user mods that keep coming out. I'm not sure the mods have
> > peaked yet. MW_children, Wizard's Island and Constance--for
> > example--have only recently come out. Want something a little
> > different--then you can try one of the mechanics altering mods.
> >
> > Thoughts?
> >

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

Magnus Itland wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Jul 2005 22:15:07 GMT, Michael W. Ryder
> <_mwryder@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> > DeAnn wrote:
> >> I wonder. MW not only was a very impressive game that gave us all a
> >> lot of flexibility in how we roled played it, but MW is kept vibrant by
> >> all the user mods that keep coming out. I'm not sure the mods have
> >> peaked yet. MW_children, Wizard's Island and Constance--for
> >> example--have only recently come out. Want something a little
> >> different--then you can try one of the mechanics altering mods.
> >>
> >> Thoughts?
> >>
> >
> > Personally, I would like it if they returned to the Arena and Daggerfall
> > way of doing things. I dislike the way that almost All of the artifacts
> > of the Empire are available in one small area, that obtaining them is
> > trivial, and that once you have them, you have them forever. In Arena
> > obtaining one artifact was a major accomplishment. Also obtaining a
> > full set of good armor was another accomplishment. You could not go
> > into tomb X and obtain a full set of ebony armor. You had to go to a
> > very large number of stores buying it piece by piece.
> > The graphics in Morrowind are much better, but that isn't enough. There
> > needs to be randomness so when you play you don't automatically go to
> > tomb X and get ring Y, all at first level. I loved having to find the
> > rumors of someone who may know something about an artifact. Then having
> > to find the map to the actual location of the artifact. It could take
> > hours of playing to get an artifact, rather than minutes. And you had
> > no idea what artifacts, if any, you could find.
>
> I must say that the toolbox that came with Morrowind have proved really
> useful. But I also agree that the game lacks randomness. In Daggerfall
> especially, it would not be possible to write a traditional walkthrough.
> You could do that with the main quest, but the main quest was such a small
> part of the experience. And you could make the most improbable characters,
> like a linguist with an allergy to certain metals but able to learn new
> skills at triple speed...
>
> In a way, the Elder Scrolls construction set for Morrowind is necessary to
> bring back some of the randomness that was in the earlier games. And I
> must admit they've done some really impressive things with it. In fact, I
> am worried that having Oblivion come out this soon may put a stop to the
> Morrowind mods, and then we will have to start from scratch again with
> Oblivion. Hopefully this will be the last in the series, as it was
> planned from the very beginning. For that reason, I had actually expected
> - even hoped - that they would take some more time making it.
>

Why should it be the last? If Oblivion is half as good as the stuff
out there says it is (with perks being granted for each skill at
different levels), real physics, NPCs with actual character and
life-cycles, it should be a vast improvement.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

Sarah wrote:
> "Michael W. Ryder" <_mwryder@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> news:LNcGe.503848$cg1.176670@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
>
> > In Arena obtaining one artifact was a major accomplishment. Also
> > obtaining a full set of good armor was another accomplishment. You could
> > not go into tomb X and obtain a full set of ebony armor. You had to go to
> > a very large number of stores buying it piece by piece.
>
> That's one thing that wasn't so great about Morrowind. Part way through the
> game, you can practically ignore loot because there's so much of it.
>
> > The graphics in Morrowind are much better, but that isn't enough. There
> > needs to be randomness so when you play you don't automatically go to tomb
> > X and get ring Y, all at first level. I loved having to find the rumors
> > of someone who may know something about an artifact. Then having to find
> > the map to the actual location of the artifact. It could take hours of
> > playing to get an artifact, rather than minutes. And you had no idea what
> > artifacts, if any, you could find.
>
> A certain degree of randomness would be nice. Bethesda tends to recreate
> the wheel with each game based on comments about the previous one. Usually,
> some things are improved and others are worsened. Daggerfall players
> complained that the dungeons were too random (a valid complaint) and that
> magic was too overpowering (another valid complaint). So with Morrowind,
> they cut down on randomness and gimped magic. Now the pendulum will swing
> back a little in Oblivion.
>
> Can Oblivion be as good as or better than Morrowind? Yes--I hope it is. I
> love Morrowind, but there's room for improvement.

I don't think you have much to worry about. It's a lot larger than
Morrowind (smaller than Daggerfall) and the NPCs have life-cycles. The
main thing I heard it will have less of will be total number of NPCs,
but then again most of Morrowind's NPCs simply stood there, even if you
went upstairs and looted their house. I'm really looking forward to
the stealth aspect.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

On 31 Jul 2005 00:40:31 -0700, <hayes13@fadmail.com> wrote:
> Magnus Itland wrote:

>> I must say that the toolbox that came with Morrowind have proved really
>> useful. But I also agree that the game lacks randomness. In Daggerfall
>> especially, it would not be possible to write a traditional walkthrough.
>> You could do that with the main quest, but the main quest was such a
>> small
>> part of the experience. And you could make the most improbable
>> characters,
>> like a linguist with an allergy to certain metals but able to learn new
>> skills at triple speed...
>>
>> In a way, the Elder Scrolls construction set for Morrowind is necessary
>> to
>> bring back some of the randomness that was in the earlier games. And I
>> must admit they've done some really impressive things with it. In
>> fact, I
>> am worried that having Oblivion come out this soon may put a stop to the
>> Morrowind mods, and then we will have to start from scratch again with
>> Oblivion. Hopefully this will be the last in the series, as it was
>> planned from the very beginning. For that reason, I had actually
>> expected
>> - even hoped - that they would take some more time making it.
>
> Why should it be the last? If Oblivion is half as good as the stuff
> out there says it is (with perks being granted for each skill at
> different levels), real physics, NPCs with actual character and
> life-cycles, it should be a vast improvement.

The Elder Scrolls was planned to conclude with Oblivion. But of course
they can just make a less dramatic ending than what has been implied so
far, and continue to make new games.

As for the game engine improvements, however, you can always make new
improvements. Every 18 months the chips double in capacity, so things that
are impossible this year are possible next year. So the longer you work
until you release a new game, the more stunning it will be. You need to
time it so that you release the new game just before people are fed up
with the old. With all the new content made by fans, Morrowind could
probably have lasted another year, and who knows what Oblivion could have
been by then.

--
"When someone starts bragging about how much debt they have, it's not a
good sign." -G

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

<hayes13@fadmail.com> wrote in message
news:1122795394.632236.192290@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> The Appalling Silence wrote:
>> I think the main change should be to force the programmers to sit through
>> a
>> computer programming course entitled "How to program a Game without
>> making
>> it Freeze all the time!" (I've got the X-box version; I don't know
>> whether
>> the PC version has the same problem or not. And I can't add mods in my
>> version - bummer, man!)
>>

No mods is one of the reasons that I've never liked consoles. That and
their pathetic resolution.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

Magnus Itland wrote:
> On 31 Jul 2005 00:40:31 -0700, <hayes13@fadmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Magnus Itland wrote:
>
>
>>> I must say that the toolbox that came with Morrowind have proved really
>>> useful. But I also agree that the game lacks randomness. In Daggerfall
>>> especially, it would not be possible to write a traditional walkthrough.
>>> You could do that with the main quest, but the main quest was such a
>>> small
>>> part of the experience. And you could make the most improbable
>>> characters,
>>> like a linguist with an allergy to certain metals but able to learn new
>>> skills at triple speed...
>>>
>>> In a way, the Elder Scrolls construction set for Morrowind is
>>> necessary to
>>> bring back some of the randomness that was in the earlier games. And I
>>> must admit they've done some really impressive things with it. In
>>> fact, I
>>> am worried that having Oblivion come out this soon may put a stop to the
>>> Morrowind mods, and then we will have to start from scratch again with
>>> Oblivion. Hopefully this will be the last in the series, as it was
>>> planned from the very beginning. For that reason, I had actually
>>> expected
>>> - even hoped - that they would take some more time making it.
>>
>>
>> Why should it be the last? If Oblivion is half as good as the stuff
>> out there says it is (with perks being granted for each skill at
>> different levels), real physics, NPCs with actual character and
>> life-cycles, it should be a vast improvement.
>
>
> The Elder Scrolls was planned to conclude with Oblivion. But of course
> they can just make a less dramatic ending than what has been implied so
> far, and continue to make new games.
>
> As for the game engine improvements, however, you can always make new
> improvements. Every 18 months the chips double in capacity, so things
> that are impossible this year are possible next year. So the longer you
> work until you release a new game, the more stunning it will be. You
> need to time it so that you release the new game just before people are
> fed up with the old. With all the new content made by fans, Morrowind
> could probably have lasted another year, and who knows what Oblivion
> could have been by then.
>

The problem with their "improvements" is that they broke a lot of the
things people liked in Arena/Daggerfall and added nothing in return.
They have not added any new maneuvers such as being able to mantle up a
wall such as Thief, but removed almost all of the randomness. The game
is more like an oversize Doom than a RPG. Now you know where all the
"power ups" are, armor and wounds get repaired instantly, etc.
One of the major things I liked about Arena/Daggerfall was that no two
games were the same. The people had different rumors, most dungeons
were different, and the location of almost everything was different. If
you needed weapon or armor repairs, unless you were a Knight, you had to
find an armorer and wait days for the repair.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

hayes13@fadmail.com wrote:
> The Appalling Silence wrote:
>
>>I think the main change should be to force the programmers to sit through a
>>computer programming course entitled "How to program a Game without making
>>it Freeze all the time!" (I've got the X-box version; I don't know whether
>>the PC version has the same problem or not. And I can't add mods in my
>>version - bummer, man!)
>>
>>Other than that, we need some randomness in artifact creation. Keep the
>>standard artifacts, but allow random artifacts to be generated as well (as
>>it is in most variants of the freeware Angband).
>>
>>Also, the dungeons seriously need a randomness in the treasures tied to your
>>player level. You get tired of finding huge amounts of treasure that would
>>be really exciting and useful to a player starting the game at level one!
>>When you're level five and beyond it's not even worth picking up. Finding
>>that the biggest thing in a cave is a chitin shield, when you're level 20,
>>is a big no-no!
>>
>
>
> True, but seriously how many items will you really need at high levels?
> Once I got Sunder, I never used much of anything else. I had a full
> set of Daedric armor (ebony pauldrons) before trying the expansions. I
> still did like collecting sets of stuff to store at a house on a perma
> corpse. I had a full set of Ice, Daedric (reserve), Ebony, Glass, Dark
> Brotherhood, Her Hands (both enchanted off the guy you have to off in
> Tribunal and unenchanted), the one's the king's guard wore, Indoril,
> Andamantium, Snow Wolf, Snow Bear, and a couple others I thought were
> neat. I also had a full set of deadric, ebony, ice, and glass weapons
> plus tons of artifacts/powerful magic items. Not much more needed.
>
>
>>Another out-of-balance factor is the amount of money. It isn't long into the
>>game when you're getting so much money you don't know what to do with it
>>all.
>
>
> I find it takes awhile to get enough gold to get as many skills up to
> the 90 range as you can (I believe on Xbox, only the armorer and
> enchant master trainer is missing). Enchanting items also cost a lot
> of money.
>

That was one thing I liked about Arena. My character made it through
the game buying no training and having no items enchanted. Any
enchanted potions or items were purchased or looted, and finding an
ebony pauldron of levitation, for example, was a real bonus.


>
>>I hate to say this but maybe there shouldn't be a Scamp or Talking
>>Mudcrab in Oblivion to give you the full value of the item. And when you're
>>whacking Daedra with a single blow, you can get as much money as you like
>>because they're weapons are too valuable.
>>
>
>
> My problem is that the merchants simply don't have enough gold. I know
> you can abuse Creeper, but that takes forever to get a reasonable price
> for a 30000 gp sword. I also really hated weapon weights. A 60 pound
> sword (daedric dai-katana) is simply too heavy, and it really eats up
> your ability to carry loot. I guess it's a "balancing" thing, but in
> Morrowind, if you didn't go heavy armor, you were left behind.
>
>
They took away the weight of gold from Arena/Daggerfall and eliminated
the banks, letters of credit, buying houses and ships. It does not seem
like a fair trade. They also added a number of new metals, Daedric and
glass among others, and took out others, such as mithril and elven. I
still can't figure out why they changed so much of the series. If they
wanted a new game, label it a new game, not a continuation of an
established series.


>>Randomness in some of the quests would be nice, if it's not too much of a
>>challenge for the programmers! Also, you sometimes fall through the scenery
>>in Morrowind - that needs to be fixed!
>>
>
>
> The developers of Oblivion have said the Radiant AI will generate
> random quests from NPCs, like "go here and get me these three flowers"
> or "give this to person X here" while the faction quests will be far
> more involved. Some of the Morrowind faction quests were just plain
> boring.
>
>
>>"DeAnn" <diwan@mitre.org> wrote in message
>>news:1122585268.315034.270320@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>>
>>>I wonder. MW not only was a very impressive game that gave us all a
>>>lot of flexibility in how we roled played it, but MW is kept vibrant by
>>>all the user mods that keep coming out. I'm not sure the mods have
>>>peaked yet. MW_children, Wizard's Island and Constance--for
>>>example--have only recently come out. Want something a little
>>>different--then you can try one of the mechanics altering mods.
>>>
>>>Thoughts?
>>>
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

The Appalling Silence wrote:

> I think the main change should be to force the programmers to sit through
> a computer programming course entitled "How to program a Game without
> making it Freeze all the time!" (I've got the X-box version; I don't know
> whether the PC version has the same problem or not. And I can't add mods
> in my version - bummer, man!)

They get better and better at this as time goes by. You think Morrowind
freezes a lot? In Daggerfall, CTD was pretty much something you had to deal
with. You saved every couple minutes or so, or you were sorry. I expect
Oblivion will improve over Morrowind in much the same way.

> Other than that, we need some randomness in artifact creation. Keep the
> standard artifacts, but allow random artifacts to be generated as well (as
> it is in most variants of the freeware Angband).

Given artifacts are supposed to be unique items with an extensive backstory,
I doubt random generation would work well. I don't see how you could
generate a random backstory. One thing I could see is having the artifact
be randomly placed, and placing a rumor in the nearest village. It could
then spread by the standard NPC conversation channels, until you stumbled
across the rumor. As the game went by, the rumor would spread, making it
progressively more likely you would encounter the rumor.

> Also, the dungeons seriously need a randomness in the treasures tied to
> your player level. You get tired of finding huge amounts of treasure that
> would be really exciting and useful to a player starting the game at level
> one! When you're level five and beyond it's not even worth picking up.
> Finding that the biggest thing in a cave is a chitin shield, when you're
> level 20, is a big no-no!

All treasure is going to be generated according to treasure and class in
Oblivion, so you ought to be happy.

> Another out-of-balance factor is the amount of money. It isn't long into
> the game when you're getting so much money you don't know what to do with
> it all. I hate to say this but maybe there shouldn't be a Scamp or Talking
> Mudcrab in Oblivion to give you the full value of the item. And when
> you're whacking Daedra with a single blow, you can get as much money as
> you like because they're weapons are too valuable.

Horses and houses will be your money drain. Enjoy!

> Randomness in some of the quests would be nice, if it's not too much of a
> challenge for the programmers! Also, you sometimes fall through the
> scenery in Morrowind - that needs to be fixed!

Though the guild progression quests sound as if they are going to be an
elaborate linear progression similar to the main quest (though it is
possible that the main quest is less linear!), at least getting the highest
rank will unlock gameplay this time around. The commoner quests sound like
they will be, not so much "randomly" generated, as "procedurally." NPCs
will have needs, and I'm hoping they'll occasionally need the PC to meet
them. They did say most quests could be gotten from anyone, which reminds
me of the "merchant quests" of Daggerfall.

So, all in all, it sounds like you will be pleased with Oblivion.

- Tarvok

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

On Mon, 01 Aug 2005 00:30:58 GMT, Michael W. Ryder
<_mwryder@worldnet.att.net> wrote:

> The problem with their "improvements" is that they broke a lot of the
> things people liked in Arena/Daggerfall and added nothing in return.
> They have not added any new maneuvers such as being able to mantle up a
> wall such as Thief, but removed almost all of the randomness. The game
> is more like an oversize Doom than a RPG. Now you know where all the
> "power ups" are, armor and wounds get repaired instantly, etc.
> One of the major things I liked about Arena/Daggerfall was that no two
> games were the same. The people had different rumors, most dungeons
> were different, and the location of almost everything was different. If
> you needed weapon or armor repairs, unless you were a Knight, you had to
> find an armorer and wait days for the repair.

Also in Daggerfall, if I was a member of the Mages Guild and had done a
certain number of quests, I could travel to Grayidge, Tulune, and buy a
life-stealing dagger. But if I did so early in my career, the dagger was
gold or light blue. I would have to come back later to get the
higher-grade dagger. And even then, it would wear down and break
eventually, and I would have to trek back for another (or use another
weapon). Likewise with various pieces of armor - some of them I would hear
about from other adventurers, some I would find out by myself, and some
seemed to always be in the same shop on one machine, but not on another.
It was a mix of regularity and randomness which was just right with me.
Morrowind is less random, but it still has random creature spawn and some
random loot spawn. I am sure many people like the game better with less
randomness. This is the kind of people who buy "clue books" for role
playing games. But the thing I enjoy most in the Elder Scrolls is the
freedom to create my own fate. It is still there, but it is somewhat
diminished. I hope it is not reduced again in Oblivion. I don't want to
be the Avatar (or even the Nerevarine), I just want to be some guy who
makes his way in a world filled to the rim with magic and weird creatures.

--
"When someone starts bragging about how much debt they have, it's not a
good sign." -G

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

Magnus Itland wrote:
> On Mon, 01 Aug 2005 00:30:58 GMT, Michael W. Ryder
> <_mwryder@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
>> The problem with their "improvements" is that they broke a lot of the
>> things people liked in Arena/Daggerfall and added nothing in return.
>> They have not added any new maneuvers such as being able to mantle up
>> a wall such as Thief, but removed almost all of the randomness. The
>> game is more like an oversize Doom than a RPG. Now you know where all
>> the "power ups" are, armor and wounds get repaired instantly, etc.
>> One of the major things I liked about Arena/Daggerfall was that no two
>> games were the same. The people had different rumors, most dungeons
>> were different, and the location of almost everything was different.
>> If you needed weapon or armor repairs, unless you were a Knight, you
>> had to find an armorer and wait days for the repair.
>
>
> Also in Daggerfall, if I was a member of the Mages Guild and had done a
> certain number of quests, I could travel to Grayidge, Tulune, and buy a
> life-stealing dagger. But if I did so early in my career, the dagger
> was gold or light blue. I would have to come back later to get the
> higher-grade dagger. And even then, it would wear down and break
> eventually, and I would have to trek back for another (or use another
> weapon). Likewise with various pieces of armor - some of them I would
> hear about from other adventurers, some I would find out by myself, and
> some seemed to always be in the same shop on one machine, but not on
> another. It was a mix of regularity and randomness which was just right
> with me. Morrowind is less random, but it still has random creature
> spawn and some random loot spawn. I am sure many people like the game
> better with less randomness. This is the kind of people who buy "clue
> books" for role playing games. But the thing I enjoy most in the Elder
> Scrolls is the freedom to create my own fate. It is still there, but it
> is somewhat diminished. I hope it is not reduced again in Oblivion. I
> don't want to be the Avatar (or even the Nerevarine), I just want to be
> some guy who makes his way in a world filled to the rim with magic and
> weird creatures.
>

What I really liked about Arena/Daggerfall is that most magical items
had a charge that did not regenerate. You either used the item up and
it disappeared or you tried to get it recharged. The later took time
and money. If you used all the charges on your artifact it disappeared
just like in the legends about the item.
Also, in Arena/Daggerfall you were just a person that happened to be in
the right place at the right time. No prophecies to fulfill or
expectations to meet. And when you were done most people never knew
what you had done.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

Magnus Itland wrote:
> On 31 Jul 2005 00:40:31 -0700, <hayes13@fadmail.com> wrote:
> > Magnus Itland wrote:
>
> >> I must say that the toolbox that came with Morrowind have proved really
> >> useful. But I also agree that the game lacks randomness. In Daggerfall
> >> especially, it would not be possible to write a traditional walkthrough.
> >> You could do that with the main quest, but the main quest was such a
> >> small
> >> part of the experience. And you could make the most improbable
> >> characters,
> >> like a linguist with an allergy to certain metals but able to learn new
> >> skills at triple speed...
> >>
> >> In a way, the Elder Scrolls construction set for Morrowind is necessary
> >> to
> >> bring back some of the randomness that was in the earlier games. And I
> >> must admit they've done some really impressive things with it. In
> >> fact, I
> >> am worried that having Oblivion come out this soon may put a stop to the
> >> Morrowind mods, and then we will have to start from scratch again with
> >> Oblivion. Hopefully this will be the last in the series, as it was
> >> planned from the very beginning. For that reason, I had actually
> >> expected
> >> - even hoped - that they would take some more time making it.
> >
> > Why should it be the last? If Oblivion is half as good as the stuff
> > out there says it is (with perks being granted for each skill at
> > different levels), real physics, NPCs with actual character and
> > life-cycles, it should be a vast improvement.
>
> The Elder Scrolls was planned to conclude with Oblivion. But of course
> they can just make a less dramatic ending than what has been implied so
> far, and continue to make new games.
>

I'd think they'd be dumb to drop it at Oblivion without seeing where
sales leads. There's still a lot of places in that world to explore,
like Elsweyr and the Black Marsh. I'd like to see all of Nirn
eventually.

> As for the game engine improvements, however, you can always make new
> improvements. Every 18 months the chips double in capacity, so things that
> are impossible this year are possible next year. So the longer you work
> until you release a new game, the more stunning it will be. You need to
> time it so that you release the new game just before people are fed up
> with the old. With all the new content made by fans, Morrowind could
> probably have lasted another year, and who knows what Oblivion could have
> been by then.
>

I'm pretty bored with Morrowind, actually. I've done the MQ more than
a few times, all factions, the expansions, and tried many mods.
Oblivion could be put off for a decade and look a lot better than it
would if they put it off a year. From what I've read and seen of this
game, I think it's going to be a game that blows many people away.
Besides, new single player CRPGs right now are pretty scarce, with
Neverwinter Nights 2 being the only other one I'm looking forward to in
the forseeable future.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

John Doe wrote:
> <hayes13@fadmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1122795394.632236.192290@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > The Appalling Silence wrote:
> >> I think the main change should be to force the programmers to sit through
> >> a
> >> computer programming course entitled "How to program a Game without
> >> making
> >> it Freeze all the time!" (I've got the X-box version; I don't know
> >> whether
> >> the PC version has the same problem or not. And I can't add mods in my
> >> version - bummer, man!)
> >>
>
> No mods is one of the reasons that I've never liked consoles. That and
> their pathetic resolution.

Xbox 360 will not have pathetic resolution. It's one powerful machine.
Maybe not as good resolution wise as a totally new top of the line
system, but the differences will be small when one sees Xbox 360 games
on an HDTV. And with Xbox Live and the harddrive, some mods may make
it onto the consoles in this generation.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

Michael W. Ryder wrote:
> Magnus Itland wrote:
> > On 31 Jul 2005 00:40:31 -0700, <hayes13@fadmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Magnus Itland wrote:
> >
> >
> >>> I must say that the toolbox that came with Morrowind have proved really
> >>> useful. But I also agree that the game lacks randomness. In Daggerfall
> >>> especially, it would not be possible to write a traditional walkthrough.
> >>> You could do that with the main quest, but the main quest was such a
> >>> small
> >>> part of the experience. And you could make the most improbable
> >>> characters,
> >>> like a linguist with an allergy to certain metals but able to learn new
> >>> skills at triple speed...
> >>>
> >>> In a way, the Elder Scrolls construction set for Morrowind is
> >>> necessary to
> >>> bring back some of the randomness that was in the earlier games. And I
> >>> must admit they've done some really impressive things with it. In
> >>> fact, I
> >>> am worried that having Oblivion come out this soon may put a stop to the
> >>> Morrowind mods, and then we will have to start from scratch again with
> >>> Oblivion. Hopefully this will be the last in the series, as it was
> >>> planned from the very beginning. For that reason, I had actually
> >>> expected
> >>> - even hoped - that they would take some more time making it.
> >>
> >>
> >> Why should it be the last? If Oblivion is half as good as the stuff
> >> out there says it is (with perks being granted for each skill at
> >> different levels), real physics, NPCs with actual character and
> >> life-cycles, it should be a vast improvement.
> >
> >
> > The Elder Scrolls was planned to conclude with Oblivion. But of course
> > they can just make a less dramatic ending than what has been implied so
> > far, and continue to make new games.
> >
> > As for the game engine improvements, however, you can always make new
> > improvements. Every 18 months the chips double in capacity, so things
> > that are impossible this year are possible next year. So the longer you
> > work until you release a new game, the more stunning it will be. You
> > need to time it so that you release the new game just before people are
> > fed up with the old. With all the new content made by fans, Morrowind
> > could probably have lasted another year, and who knows what Oblivion
> > could have been by then.
> >
>
> The problem with their "improvements" is that they broke a lot of the
> things people liked in Arena/Daggerfall and added nothing in return.

Really? Improved depth was always a good thing.

> They have not added any new maneuvers such as being able to mantle up a
> wall such as Thief, but removed almost all of the randomness. The game
> is more like an oversize Doom than a RPG. Now you know where all the
> "power ups" are, armor and wounds get repaired instantly, etc.

Then don't get them until you feel like it. Elder Scrolls games are
known for freedom and nobody but yourself can force you to get those
artifacts.

> One of the major things I liked about Arena/Daggerfall was that no two
> games were the same. The people had different rumors, most dungeons
> were different, and the location of almost everything was different. If
> you needed weapon or armor repairs, unless you were a Knight, you had to
> find an armorer and wait days for the repair.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

Michael W. Ryder wrote:

> Also, in Arena/Daggerfall you were just a person that happened to be in
> the right place at the right time. No prophecies to fulfill or
> expectations to meet. And when you were done most people never knew
> what you had done.

Actually, that was one thing I really liked about Morrowind--the fact that,
once something major was accomplished, people actually *knew* about it. I
rather enjoyed being greeted like a savior.
--
- Tarvok
http://weeklyramble.blogspot.com

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

Michael W. Ryder wrote:
> hayes13@fadmail.com wrote:
> > The Appalling Silence wrote:
> >
> >>I think the main change should be to force the programmers to sit through a
> >>computer programming course entitled "How to program a Game without making
> >>it Freeze all the time!" (I've got the X-box version; I don't know whether
> >>the PC version has the same problem or not. And I can't add mods in my
> >>version - bummer, man!)
> >>
> >>Other than that, we need some randomness in artifact creation. Keep the
> >>standard artifacts, but allow random artifacts to be generated as well (as
> >>it is in most variants of the freeware Angband).
> >>
> >>Also, the dungeons seriously need a randomness in the treasures tied to your
> >>player level. You get tired of finding huge amounts of treasure that would
> >>be really exciting and useful to a player starting the game at level one!
> >>When you're level five and beyond it's not even worth picking up. Finding
> >>that the biggest thing in a cave is a chitin shield, when you're level 20,
> >>is a big no-no!
> >>
> >
> >
> > True, but seriously how many items will you really need at high levels?
> > Once I got Sunder, I never used much of anything else. I had a full
> > set of Daedric armor (ebony pauldrons) before trying the expansions. I
> > still did like collecting sets of stuff to store at a house on a perma
> > corpse. I had a full set of Ice, Daedric (reserve), Ebony, Glass, Dark
> > Brotherhood, Her Hands (both enchanted off the guy you have to off in
> > Tribunal and unenchanted), the one's the king's guard wore, Indoril,
> > Andamantium, Snow Wolf, Snow Bear, and a couple others I thought were
> > neat. I also had a full set of deadric, ebony, ice, and glass weapons
> > plus tons of artifacts/powerful magic items. Not much more needed.
> >
> >
> >>Another out-of-balance factor is the amount of money. It isn't long into the
> >>game when you're getting so much money you don't know what to do with it
> >>all.
> >
> >
> > I find it takes awhile to get enough gold to get as many skills up to
> > the 90 range as you can (I believe on Xbox, only the armorer and
> > enchant master trainer is missing). Enchanting items also cost a lot
> > of money.
> >
>
> That was one thing I liked about Arena. My character made it through
> the game buying no training and having no items enchanted.

I'm not complaining, just mentioning it in response to the guy.
There's plenty of things to spend money on for the first 40-50 hours at
least. Once maxed out and decked with great enchanted items, there's
not much else to spend gold on, but at that point you're basically a
walking god. One character of mine has something like 750K gold and a
whole bunch of items stashed away in a house. At least in Oblivion
they're allowing houses to be purchased.

> Any
> enchanted potions or items were purchased or looted, and finding an
> ebony pauldron of levitation, for example, was a real bonus.
>
>
> >
> >>I hate to say this but maybe there shouldn't be a Scamp or Talking
> >>Mudcrab in Oblivion to give you the full value of the item. And when you're
> >>whacking Daedra with a single blow, you can get as much money as you like
> >>because they're weapons are too valuable.
> >>
> >
> >
> > My problem is that the merchants simply don't have enough gold. I know
> > you can abuse Creeper, but that takes forever to get a reasonable price
> > for a 30000 gp sword. I also really hated weapon weights. A 60 pound
> > sword (daedric dai-katana) is simply too heavy, and it really eats up
> > your ability to carry loot. I guess it's a "balancing" thing, but in
> > Morrowind, if you didn't go heavy armor, you were left behind.
> >
> >
> They took away the weight of gold from Arena/Daggerfall and eliminated
> the banks, letters of credit, buying houses and ships. It does not seem
> like a fair trade. They also added a number of new metals, Daedric and
> glass among others, and took out others, such as mithril and elven.

Mithril is coming back:

http://www.elderscrolls.com/art/obliv_conceptart.htm

Click the picture in the middle and right.


> I
> still can't figure out why they changed so much of the series. If they
> wanted a new game, label it a new game, not a continuation of an
> established series.
>

That pretty much defies their whole philosophy. The designers said
they want to change things that didn't work last time or that the
fanbase really doesn't like. They spend a lot of time talking to
people interested in the game and listen to complaints. They heard
magic was overpowered in Daggerfall, for example, and gimped it for
Morrowind. Now they're trying to make magic more balanced for Oblivion
since so many people found magic to be weak in MW (and they're mostly
right, it had its utilities but you needed to invest a lot in
melee/marksman to get through it). And believe it or not, a lot of
people wanted more depth to the game rather than a huge map with
shallow NPCs. Daggerfall had like 750K+ NPCs while MW is far more
focused. They make changes according what they feel will make a better
game.

I liked Morrowind a lot. Played at least a few hundred hours of it.
But I think it's time for a change and much of it seems for the better.
The Radient AI system they're using sounds pretty damn good and it
brings a random element to the system.

>
> >>Randomness in some of the quests would be nice, if it's not too much of a
> >>challenge for the programmers! Also, you sometimes fall through the scenery
> >>in Morrowind - that needs to be fixed!
> >>
> >
> >
> > The developers of Oblivion have said the Radiant AI will generate
> > random quests from NPCs, like "go here and get me these three flowers"
> > or "give this to person X here" while the faction quests will be far
> > more involved. Some of the Morrowind faction quests were just plain
> > boring.
> >
> >
> >>"DeAnn" <diwan@mitre.org> wrote in message
> >>news:1122585268.315034.270320@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> >>
> >>>I wonder. MW not only was a very impressive game that gave us all a
> >>>lot of flexibility in how we roled played it, but MW is kept vibrant by
> >>>all the user mods that keep coming out. I'm not sure the mods have
> >>>peaked yet. MW_children, Wizard's Island and Constance--for
> >>>example--have only recently come out. Want something a little
> >>>different--then you can try one of the mechanics altering mods.
> >>>
> >>>Thoughts?
> >>>
> >
> >

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

On Wed, 03 Aug 2005 22:00:35 GMT, Daryl Sawyer <tarNOSPAMvok@gmail.com>
wrote:

> The thing that worries me is the fact that, in every interview, the
> number
> of guilds seems to get smaller and smaller. Initially, you had fighters,
> thieves, mages, dark brotherhood, arena guild, and Nine Divines. In
> recent
> interviews, Nine Divines and arena guild seem to have been cut. I worry
> that their "all voiced dialogue" thing will end up cutting dialogue
> content
> severely. In truth, I hate the "all voiced dialogue" fad in the same
> way I
> hate the old "3d everything" fad that ruined a good number of great 2d
> franchises.

I really don't see the point of the computer speaking to you if you can't
speak to it. It seems unnatural.

As for the disappearing guilds, I feel pretty confident that they will
return once the modders get their hands on it.

--
"When someone starts bragging about how much debt they have, it's not a
good sign." -G

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.elder-scrolls (More info?)

hayes13@fadmail.com wrote:
> Michael W. Ryder wrote:
>
>>Magnus Itland wrote:
>>
>>>On 31 Jul 2005 00:40:31 -0700, <hayes13@fadmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Magnus Itland wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>I must say that the toolbox that came with Morrowind have proved really
>>>>>useful. But I also agree that the game lacks randomness. In Daggerfall
>>>>>especially, it would not be possible to write a traditional walkthrough.
>>>>>You could do that with the main quest, but the main quest was such a
>>>>>small
>>>>>part of the experience. And you could make the most improbable
>>>>>characters,
>>>>>like a linguist with an allergy to certain metals but able to learn new
>>>>>skills at triple speed...
>>>>>
>>>>>In a way, the Elder Scrolls construction set for Morrowind is
>>>>>necessary to
>>>>>bring back some of the randomness that was in the earlier games. And I
>>>>>must admit they've done some really impressive things with it. In
>>>>>fact, I
>>>>>am worried that having Oblivion come out this soon may put a stop to the
>>>>>Morrowind mods, and then we will have to start from scratch again with
>>>>>Oblivion. Hopefully this will be the last in the series, as it was
>>>>>planned from the very beginning. For that reason, I had actually
>>>>>expected
>>>>>- even hoped - that they would take some more time making it.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Why should it be the last? If Oblivion is half as good as the stuff
>>>>out there says it is (with perks being granted for each skill at
>>>>different levels), real physics, NPCs with actual character and
>>>>life-cycles, it should be a vast improvement.
>>>
>>>
>>>The Elder Scrolls was planned to conclude with Oblivion. But of course
>>>they can just make a less dramatic ending than what has been implied so
>>>far, and continue to make new games.
>>>
>>>As for the game engine improvements, however, you can always make new
>>>improvements. Every 18 months the chips double in capacity, so things
>>>that are impossible this year are possible next year. So the longer you
>>>work until you release a new game, the more stunning it will be. You
>>>need to time it so that you release the new game just before people are
>>>fed up with the old. With all the new content made by fans, Morrowind
>>>could probably have lasted another year, and who knows what Oblivion
>>>could have been by then.
>>>
>>
>>The problem with their "improvements" is that they broke a lot of the
>>things people liked in Arena/Daggerfall and added nothing in return.
>
>
> Really? Improved depth was always a good thing.
>

Where are you seeing this improved depth? They improved the graphics
and took out most of the scenery. The interaction with NPCs is much
worse than Arena or Daggerfall. There is no option for asking for jobs
to raise money, nor is there any option to adapt a certain attitude when
talking to an NPC. You can either bribe them or taunt them, nothing else.
There is no weight to gold, nor is there any banks, notes of credits,
houses or ships to buy, or horses or carts for transportation. All of
these things would have migrated to Vardenfell as people would want the
things they are familiar with.


>
>>They have not added any new maneuvers such as being able to mantle up a
>>wall such as Thief, but removed almost all of the randomness. The game
>>is more like an oversize Doom than a RPG. Now you know where all the
>>"power ups" are, armor and wounds get repaired instantly, etc.
>
>
> Then don't get them until you feel like it. Elder Scrolls games are
> known for freedom and nobody but yourself can force you to get those
> artifacts.
>
>
But after a short time there is Nothing else to do in Morrowind except
collect all the artifacts. In Arena/Daggerfall there was always new
quests and dungeons to explore and there were No walkthroughs for any of
them. Morrowind is more like a Doom game in that everything is always
in the same place. In Arena I usually spent up to an hour in each town
looking for goods, rumors, etc. In Morrowind, after the first run
through it was time for the discard pile unless you wanted to take your
chances with the various mods.

>>One of the major things I liked about Arena/Daggerfall was that no two
>>games were the same. The people had different rumors, most dungeons
>>were different, and the location of almost everything was different. If
>>you needed weapon or armor repairs, unless you were a Knight, you had to
>>find an armorer and wait days for the repair.
>
>