This means war! A secret poll on games.

Hello!

Did you play this game? The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion



No? Alright, leave this thread for now and come back later, when the poll's done.

Yes? Cool. Here's a simple question. Please vote before you read what others have to say below. What's interesting is your opinion, so don't let that be influenced.

Did you vote? No? What are you waiting for - do it now!

Oh, you did? Cool. Here's stuff you may find interesting.




Finally, a word about this. Yeah, this is an experiment. Who knows, maybe I'll do that with other games, too (if we gain something interesting from all this).
I humbly ask not to reveal current poll standing in any of the posts below until the voting period is over, as to not influence potential voters.

Thanks!

I voted positively even i was at the border. The good side of the game is story, graphics and optimization. Bad things is to big and empty world, terible gameplay and incredibly difficult to remember names of NPCs .
All in all i think it was worth it to play this game

I've played it for about few weeks (two and half maybe).. But I can't say that I really enjoyed it.. It became boring after few days (but I kept playing, cause I was hoping, that it will became more interesting, and maybe I could open something new for myself) as soon as the locations started to be the same, over and over again.. Well.. I liked Skyrim (and Mirrowind). In near future, I'm going to try previous series of The Elder Scrolls.

The results are in!

Out of eight votes (what a statistically relevant sample size!), 5 (63%) say it's a good game.


This game is interesting to me because, as you may have guessed, I'm one of the three who don't like it.
I can't even put my finger on it, why. I should like it in principle. It's got a nice big world, there's tons to do, and so much exploration!
But, I dunno, I couldn't get into it much. The caves all felt the same, somehow, the combat wasn't so enjoyable to me, and I didn't care much for any of the characters, or the story.
Perhaps the last part is my biggest problem with it.
I really enjoy games with good storylines - I've noticed that I'm willing to forgive a lot if the story and/or characters are good - in a trade of interactivity vs story, I seem to choose story more often than I used to do. Who knows if that is a good thing from the perspective of game creation.



In any event, thank you for voting, and thanks 3run and Iglarion for your thoughts on the game!

3run, seems like we both founded the locations to be a little... same-y.
Iglarion, great point on the size of the world.
I remember times when "huge world" sounded like the best thing ever to me. Now, all my cynical mind thinks is that it means a lot of bland, empty space and perhaps annoying backtracking. I'm aware that this isn't a MUST, but I'd much rather have smaller locations that are interesting, then big ones with the same amount of interesting points per locale - give me a high density of interesting things!

... So, here's a related story.
A few months ago, I went to buy an RPG for the Wii that I intended to play over the free days around christmas. I narrowed it down to "The Last Story" and "Xenoblade Chronicles" -- and I've chosen the former, because it was criticised for being linear and not having an open world. It seemed to me that, in that more linear experience, I'd likely end up having more fun.

This is almost a gaming confession now! Because this goes contrary to what most people tend to want games to do. Am I just clinging to old values, or is my "more-happenings-per-gaming-hour-in-linear-games"-point a valid one?

For those interested, I liked the game, but didn't finish it. Of course I didn't! When do I ever finish a game, right?

It is a partially valid point. Yes, small worlds may carry more game experience per game hour (not necessarily, though), but they don't have to be linear. Thief 1 would be a good example. Small levels, clear cut missions, but you could solve them however you liked it (and were able to, very important!).

I have three problems with the modern Elder Scrolls games:

1.) First person view
I really don't like the ego perspective. It just doesn't work for me when it's about close combat. The look, the feel, the gameplay - it's simply not very appealing to me. What I'd like though is something Red Steel tried to do by using the Wiimote to simulate the way you hold a sword...

2.) The enemy scaling
I dislike the entire mechanic of enemies that level up just like you do. It sort of destroys the world for me and takes any challenge away. Plus it's ridiculous when "suddenly" thieves you meet on a street start wearing mithril armor or something like that just to match your stats...

3.) Morrowind
This game might be what ruined the entire series for me. It was the first Elder Scrolls game I played and one of the few games I actually stopped playing pretty soon. I still hate this entire empty world with the giant mushrooms and whatnot. Not mentioning the said problems with the gameplay mechanics. I also never could get over all those things like silly nonstop jumping around just to improve your stamina/athletic skills. This whole improving by doing thing might be somewhat "realistic" but at the same time I think it's silly that it makes you jump around like an idiot with "Oh - you've improved your skill!" messages popping up all along...

In general I prefer the Gothic like experience. 3rd person view, enemies with fixed stats so I might have to come back when I've become stronger and no silly busywork like jumping around to improve my skills...

You can play in 3rd person (or is that only so in Skyrim?)

Mah! I didn't saw this thread until now. My vote were be "I enjoyed it". I stopped playing at that time for no particular reasons (real life issues, I guess). But what I disliked about that game were the gates to Oblivion-stages; the same goes for Skyrim, I really hated the randomized-dragon stuff (except for the story-driven epic battles).

What is questionable, too, is the whole magic thing (for me). This in particluar destroyed the fun factor of Skyrim. All I did after a while was running around in dungeons, fire-fisting my enemies, then a bit of hacknslash, then throwing in some portions, magic again and if I ran out of potions I flew, healing myself. In one scene, in which some guards lured me into an ambush in a small temple room, I literally ran around the table so long until I recovered my health - silly! I think the choices at the beginning like "I want to be a warrior, so no magic for me" should have not a subtle, but a very strong effect.

What I always liked and what I enjoyed more than the main story were the massive amounts of sidequests. The stories which were told were sometimes so charming, entertaining, crazy or badass. That was always for me a reason to play the game - and not because of DRAGONS. The thieves guild sidequest in Skyrim was really a blast and would be a reason for me to play it again (maybe because I am highly attracted by THIEF games).

I don't know if Morrowind did have it but a 3rd person view exists in Oblivion. The thing is that you don't want to fight in the 3rd person view. Especially when using the bow you don't see much as your character is in the way so you don't really see where you're firing. At least I think that this was a flaw...

But even then the combat system is meant for the ego perspective...

Actually most people seem to play those games in third person, while The first person perspective is one of the things I totally enjoy in these games. I usually play my way through the main quest and then start working on all those side quests which is when both oblivion and skyrim really shine. There is so much to find and see and so many different shorter and longer stories.
I also really enjoyed the crazy world of oblivions shivering isles addon as well as the feeling of seeing the updated morrowind architectures in skyrims dragonborn addon, which isn't perfect but added some pretty cool new settings and quests.
I btw didn't enjoy oblivion for quite some time until I just played it for a couple of days nearly nonstop exploring different guilds and quests and everything.

As you error, I too do enjoy linear games with a strong story usually the most, which is why my absolute favorite games are heavy rain, Fahrenheit and penumbra, but Lately I also liked far cry 3 a lot, just focussing on the story.

Count me into that group. It is pretty cool to customize your character and see it running around in such a big world. You also have a better sense how you relate to space and you can see the wolves coming before they bite you

I see your point, but since neither game has a proper hitbox system, it is pretty useless to shoot a magic ball (or an arrow) to the head, stomach or.. to the knee

I think that is why Fallout 3 was so outstanding, even more than the Elder Scrolls games: it combined both worlds (3rd person and 1st person) very well by letting the player decide if he/she wants to shoot/fight in realtime or with V.A.T.S. --- I played it on the PS3 and it was a blast

I did a few steps in Oblivion. And the possibility to ride horses are great.

But I prefered Gothic. Even Gothic 3 was a bit buggy. I like a dirty world