Oblivion Post Game - Main Quest *spoilers*

[TrodKnee]

After finally finishing up the main plot late last night, I'm ready to reflect on the game. I will try to avoid spoiling anything but main plot in this thread.

Oblivion is easily the most advanced RPG ever. It's strength is also it's weakness in that it has reached a kind of "Uncanny Valley" of immersiveness. The pursuit of realism and open-ended gameplay, combined with the focus on a linear main plot, creates a number of minor inconsistencies which distract from the progressive brilliance of the game. This brings about nitpicky complaints from experienced gamers which would seem absurd directed at any other RPG. Oblivion has proved once again that you can't be all things to all people, but I can't help but feel that it is a necessary step on the evolutionary ladder of non-linear RPGs. I will not try to deny or argue with the numerous issues with the game, but instead ask a simple question: What could they (the designers) have done differently? I believe that the compromises made are balanced as well as they could be in order to appeal to the widest audience. Those who take a holistic view of game design will see that all the minor inconsistancies are inevitable given the complexity of the game's vision, and are mostly handled as gracefully as could be expected.

A common complaint is the contradiction between the urgency of the mostly linear main plot and the open ended "go anywhere, do anything, at anytime" gameplay. Clearly, not having a main plotline is not an option (yet) in today's consumer gaming market. The large majority of gamers go into a new game expecting their hand to be held as they are dragged down the path of a game, until they meet and destroy the final bossmonster and beat the game. One of the main gripes against Morrowind was how remote and obscure the main quest was. The average player found it difficult to figure out where to go and what to do next. So Bethesda decided to make the main quest highly visible and central to the game this time around. It's like a shiny yellow brick road that goes straight to the wizard of oz, but you can still step off the road at anytime. The problem is what to do when you step off that path. Should the plotline progress regardless of the player's actions? Of course that creates time restraints which destroy the non-linear gameplay. Should there be a fail state, in which Martin dies and Dagon takes over Tamriel? If so, that would either have a major effect on the rest of the game world, or destroy the realism if there was no change. Should there be an AI character that takes up the cause if the player chooses not to? Should there be multiple pathways to "winning" the game by defeating Dagon? Any of these things would open a can of worms that would be a nightmare for a designer.

Ok on to more specific gripes. Let's look at a complaint from Dave Long in another thread. While in Kvatch, he was able to sleep on a bedroll while monsters waited in a room next door. Yes, this does strain immersion, but once again...what would you do differently? I think Dave mentioned just not putting a bedroll there at all, a simple solution but does nothing to address the real issue. Why do you need beds to sleep in anyway, couldn't you just sleep on the ground? In past ES games, you would get the ol' "You cannot rest while monsters are around" message. But why not? Shouldn't you be able to lay down and sleep anywhere, no matter how dangerous it might be? Again in past ES games, you could goto sleep and then be awakened by wandering monsters. Wouldn't the monsters just be able to kill you while you sleep? Should the game prevent you from sleeping, or just kill you when you hit the Rest button? This is one of those issues that are more complex than they appear on the surface, and require realism to take a backseat to gameplay everytime.

Dave has mentioned a few issues which he claims destroy the immersion factor for him. However, in this column (http://www.gamerdad.com/detail.cfm?itemID=3135) he describes a situation which clearly shows that the immersion in this game surpasses that of other games. Not trying to pick on Dave...this isn't so much a contradiction as an inevitable side effect of heightened expectations.

Let me give an example of my own. After giving Martin one of the main quest items, he then sets off for Bruma in order to tell the Countess his plan and prepare for the final battle. In past games, he might have said "Meet me in Bruma", and stood there and waited for me to leave the room. If I had gone back into the room, he would be gone, and then when I went to Bruma he would be there waiting for me. However, in Oblivion, he says he is going to Bruma and then he does just that. He walks out the door and heads down the path to Bruma, with a single guardian walking behind him. Would the new Emperor, being ruthlessly hunted by the enemy, the only hope left for Tamriel, really just walk down a dirt road with one guard? At the very least, he should rode out on a warhorse, and been surrounded by guards, while scouts patrolled the route for enemies. Yet another example of heightened expectations falling short. The game is full of instances like this, the real question is whether you appreciate the attempt to move the genre forward and come up a little short, or would rather they just fell back on the old tried and true RPG mechanics that avoided the issues altogether.

The leveled enemies issue is a whole nother ball of wax that I won't get too into because this rant is already too long. I feel that the way they went about it was once again the best compromise. No doubt there will be a ton of mods which change the leveling process. My prediction is that while these mods may appear to fix the problems on the surface, they will all disrupt the game balance in subtle but undeniable ways. The only good application of a modified leveling system would be in a seperate, fully dynamic world-space that is totally removed from Cyrodiil and the main quest.

As far as gameplay difficulty goes, I feel that once again the balance is perfect. Dumbing down is inevitable in today's gaming market, but in Oblivion I never felt as though my approach to the game was forcefully dumbed down like it was in Deus Ex 2 or Thief 3. For example, during the last few Oblivion planes I had to clear out to complete the main quest, I was able to breeze through quickly by using smarter tactics. I was even able to put my FPS and Thieving skills to good use. With my Wood Elf Thief Bow guy, I began using a combination of Life Sight and NightEye along with my sneak skill to make sure I always progressed quickly while still avoiding danger. I could run down a path at full speed with my weapon sheathed (you move faster without a weapon out), then go into sneak mode when I detected a monster, then pull out my sword or bow when I was in perfect position to strike, or just avoid the encounter altogether. No doubt a console kiddy could have taken the direct approach by just smashing everything along the main path with his dumb barbarian, but I never felt like I was forced to take the simple way.

On a "dumbing down" side note...it seems clear that Bethesda took the approach of appealing to the LCD as much as possible, with the full knowledge that there would be tons of mods created to appeal to more elitist, hardcore RPGers. This wouldn't have been a feasible approach without delivering the development tools needed to allow fans to change the game to their hearts desire. Some people may think this is a copout, and that they shouldn't expect fans to 'fix' their game for them. I disagree, the ease of modification is a huge factor in the longevity of the game which should not be overlooked. How many games released recently had mods available within the first week which were so useful? Contrast this with Thief 3, where the poor hardcore modders are still struggling with crappy tools and trying to figure out how to deliver custom levels without requiring users to download hundreds of megs of redundant data and jump through flaming hoops in order to install them...over a year after the tools have been released.

To sum up, I greatly appreciate the evolutionary leap that Oblivion has taken despite the fact that it clearly has fallen short in a number of minor ways. The game is extremely fun despite the issues created by the complexity of it's design, as long as you don't focus too much on the little things and accept it for what it is.

Now to finish with a bad joke: How is Oblivion like Barry Bonds? Everytime it hits a home run, someone tries to pull down its pants and point at its shrunken balls...

[Igor Muravyev]

I don't know if they just decided one day that they *had* to ship next year, but with about half the issues I found in Oblivion, they could be fixable easily without having to resort to older RPG methods.

It is true that the game is in general moving RPGs forward, that a Martin that walks to his target without an escort is better than a Martin that teleports there by himself, but it seems like you ask so many questions and that the developers are able to provide just a few answers. Let us consider just a few of the questions:

Plot linearity - The time can keep ticking on, at which point the player can be a) forced to show up at his quest (get an NPC to go find the player and whisk him away), b) have the player lose the quest, or c) have someone else do it. There could be an option toggle that leaves the gameplay as it is now (pausing the rest of the world). Maybe players could still beat the Main Quest, but do it in a different way (by killing Vivec and taking his gauntlets in MW).

I don't know if you've beat all of the guild quests, but I have, and it's amazing as to how linear each guild quest is. The quests never branch, you cannot join the guild's enemies (just like you couldn't join the Mythic Dawn), and in the case of the Mage's Guild it seems like the world is in peril (again) and only you can stop it. Except that it's not really in peril, and the Arch-mage is just a wuss. Gone are Morrowind's "pick one side or the other" where doing Morag Tong quests could prevent you from doing Thieves Guild quests, or where one guild would dislike you for being a member of the second guild, or the Great Houses competing against each other.

Oblivion gates could pop up over time, instead of all-at-once, and maybe a city's guard would go help you take them down instead of bitching to your avatar how they won't send help to Bruma while there's a gate outside. Cities could get destroyed like Kvatch if the avatar didn't do anything about it, and the guards weren't strong enough to stop the gates.

Some of this truly does open up a can of worms, but other decisions seem to be made on a whim. If Cyrodiil is about to be overrun by Daedra, why can't Ocato withdraw some of the Imperial Army? Who gives a shit about the political repercussion, if the whole world is about to die? Why does my quest journal say I should try to get help from the guilds, yet when I am leader of all 4 of them (plus the arena), the most I can get to follow me is one DB Murderer and one Mage Aprentice? Are people that content with just sitting in their houses waiting for their deaths?

The further I got into the game, the more obvious it became to how a few things that people didn't pay attention to broke quite a bit of immersion. How about same NPCs talking with different voices? It wouldn't be that hard to add metatags to voice WAVs so each NPC only says thing by the same voice actor, but was it done? I suppose not.

How about going back to the Main Quest? It started out quite easy when I did the Kvatch Gate at level 4. Then I came back at 22 to finish the MQ, and I am greeted by Xivilais, Atronachs, and Daedroths. Do you suppose the guards got much better? No.. While bandits magically get daedric and glass armor, and start to kick your ass, guards remain the same weaklings that they do, perhaps with better attributes and skills. Why didn't they make the MQ guards stronger? They dropped like flies while I was retaking the Castle of Kvatch, and only the main character (who would fall unconscious) survived. I had to run around in circles to avoid getting dropped, even though my character was wearing items obtained from all the daedric/guild quests. Does that make sense?

In fact, the game gives you other friendly NPCs so often, it begs to ask the following questions: why do quests when you have to follow other NPCs suck so bad? Why can't you auto-travel to the destination or have them walk without stopping? Why isn't there a way to better keep track of your party's health? Why can't you give basic orders like "sneak with me," or "dont attack until attacked"? Why isn't there a way to loan items to your teammates? I've got at least 10x daedric suits in my chest, so why the hell can't I give it to them? At least then maybe they wouldn't keep dying on me. Why, oh why, do NPCs sometimes stand by idly while their teammates get attacked? As the Great Gate was about to open, half of my NPC soldiers were standing around while the other half was getting slaughtered by the Daedra. HUH?

I made what should have been a strong character, and yet I couldn't take on 3 Storm Atronachs/Xivilais by level 23. My allies could barely take one. I'm surprised that the game actually got harder instead of easier. To anyone who would suggest sneaking, you can't exactly do that during a big battle ;).

[Dhruin]

At the risk of sounding terrribly jaded - how exactly does it move the genre forward aside from advanced graphics?

Don't get me wrong, I quite like the game (although I simply can't understand all the perfect review scores) but apart from polishing elements that were simply subpar in Morrowind, why is it so visionary? As for the plot, you really don't think a different plot might not have handled the discrepancy between urgency and let's-go-exploring (let's ignore the whole fate-of-the-empire-in-a-criminal thing) a little better? I'm not a particularly creative person but I have a few ideas - I think a whole creative team should have been able to do better.

As for scaling, I don't think the solution is that hard but there's enough talk about that elsewhere.

[Gordon Cameron]

**** MAIN QUEST SPOILERS *****

I would like to post a main plot related question here, if I may. It's probably been addressed elsewhere, it's so obvious that it must have, but I can't find it here or on the Elder Scrolls forums so far.

It is in the stage of the main quest where you go into the Mythic Dawn shrine and you are initiated as a member of the cult.

They take away all your crap. I have scoured the damn place and can't find it anywhere.

Does the game actually take my stuff away *permanently*? Is there some obscure barrel I missed in the cave that contains all my stuff? Does Jauffre magically give it to me when I go back to Cloud Temple Top or whatever it's called?

There is no fucking way I'm playing without all the awesome gear I amassed, so I will have to reload, stick my gear in my house, and do the whole stupid segment naked. Maybe something in the quest log warned me "they are going to take my stuff so I should take it off before I go inside" but I don't remember that. Should I have refused to give them my gear? I was afraid it would screw up my infiltration of the cult.

Note to Bethesda: in a game where your loot is part of what drives interest in the game and makes you attached to your character, it's not fun to have it taken away from you even for a short time, when you have uncertainty about its whereabouts.

Thanks.

*** END MAIN QUEST SPOILERS ***

[stusser]

Oblivion moves the bar in world simulation, not roleplaying. Its entirely linear plotlines and complete lack of choices ensure that there really is no role to be played.

No, your items aren't taken away permanently. Keep playing, and shortly you will get a quest to pick up a certain very important item. When you do so, you'll kill the person that took your stuff in the first place. It's on his corpse.

[RichardC]

They take away all your crap. I have scoured the damn place and can't find it anywhere.

It should still be on the guy who took it. I just beat the crap out of him and took it back.

Although I was pleased to see that they don't get the secret Dagger of Woe from the Brotherhood, wherever that was hidden. I wanted to see if I could backstab Carmoren or whatever his name is, but annoyingly it didn't work.

[Gordon Cameron]

Ok, thanks.

I wish they had at least put in something in my journal entry when I left the Mythic Dawn cave saying "...and I have to find my missing gear" or something to that effect. So I know the game "knows" what's on my mind.

Considering all the effort I put into enchanting that full glass set, I get veeery nervous when I don't know where it is. :-/

[Sharpe]

Or you could do like me: when they ask you to give up all your stuff, you just say "Screw you buddy", then proceed to slash, crush, pummel and otherwise ass-kick the whole shrine full of weenie cultists. The cultists are actually big wusses and lots of them run from you. I guess I don't like infiltrating :). I did that quest like a bull in a china shop and it was tons of fun.

[stusser]

You miss a bunch of plot if you do that.

Also, not sure how you left the caves without picking up the big book.... you didn't finish the quest.

[Sharpe]

Nah, you get all the plot - when you bust into the main ritual room you here the bad guy give his speech, and you see the sacrificial victim, etc. You dont get a chance to interact with the victim, but you do get to grab the book and then fight your way out. I am pretty sure that the combat path is just an alternate path, and was IMO more fun :0.

[Gordon Cameron]

**MORE MAIN QUEST SPOILERS**

Ok, I just did the entire "Bruma spies" section after the Mythic Dawn shrine and killed 3 cultists in and around Bruma. Still no sign of my gear. Now Martin wants me to find a Daedric artifact.

I am assuming now that I have missed something. The way I did the shrine thingy was, I refused to sacrifice the argonian and then I fought my way out. Is my gear on one of the corpses in there? I thought I searched them all. Is it still lying in there somewhere and/or do I have to go back or reload before that sequence...? If I have gone through "Bruma spies" and still not gotten my gear, have I missed some critical thing?

Bethesda, this is not fun. First rule of CRPG design: you do not fuck with a man's gear unless you have a damn good reason.

[Gordon Cameron]

and shortly you will get a quest to pick up a certain very important item.

Or by this, were you referring to the Daedric artifact? So I am still on the right track?

Christ, I've already been playing for 40 minutes wandering around in this stupid red robe with a goofy knife and all my good equipment is gone. The quest log doesn't even *mention* the missing gear. What the hell were they thinking?

[Gordon Cameron]

This is getting better by the minute. Not only do I still have no idea where the hell my gear is (unless it is back in the Mythic Dawn shrine on one of the anonymous corpses, in which case it has presumably vanished by now), but the next stage of the main quest appears to be broken. I'm supposed to go to azura's shrine to find out how to get a Daedric artifact. But I already *did* the Azura quest on my own. Now, when I go there, her followers won't say anything new to me and all Azura herself says is "go forth and do good deeds" or some crap like that. The quest marker remains stuck on the Azura shrine and if I go back to Martin (even after waiting 48 hours) he keeps saying he is stuck on the book translation.

So, apparently, even if I go back to my earlier save, take off my gear before doing the Mythic Dawn shrine segment again (or just kill everyone in the damn room and skip the ritual), I will *still* be unable to complete the main quest because I did a Daedric quest on my own. Which, by the way, the game gave no indication I *wasn't* supposed to do.

Yay for broken quests.

edit: Does someone know which quest stusser was referring to with


Keep playing, and shortly you will get a quest to pick up a certain very important item.

Does this mean the daedric artifact quest? I'm still not clear on whether it is possible to walk out of the mythic dawn shrine without recovering your gear and still be able to get it back later. Everyone besides stusser seems to be indicating that they looted their gear during/after the fight at the altar.

I have no idea whether to proceed with this character or roll back to before I did the mythic dawn quest. Which I suppose is a moot point since the Azura stage of the main quest seems to be permanently broken.

[forgeforsaken]

I think you just need to have an artifact on you when you talk to Martin. Sounds like you may have lost all your gear though, I'm guessing it was on someone in the temple. I never handed my stuff over though so can't help you too much there. BTW, you dont have to give Martin that specific artifact, I opted for another much more useless to me artifact.

[stusser]

Basically, you pick up the book, everybody attacks you, and you kill Harrow, the guy who took all of your shit, which you then loot from his corpse. If you left and harrow's corpse vanished... umm... that would suck. If you're on the PC version, just player.additem all the important stuff back. If you're on the xbox360 version, whoopsie, you shoulda bought the PC version.

For the daedric artifact, any daedric artifact works. I suggest the crappy hammer. Don't give up azura's star, it's one of the best items in the game... especially when you turn it into black azura's star.

[Peter Olafson]

This is getting better by the minute.

Have you done the intervening "Spies" quest for Jauffre?

Peter

[Gordon Cameron]

Yeah ok it's all worked out. I had not looted Harrow, but fortunately he was still there when I went back. The corpses hadn't disappeared yet. I still think that's a pretty crappy way to design it -- it's a big dark room and there are a lot of cultists and it's easy to miss one of the corpses, as I obviously did. The journal entry makes no mention at all about getting your gear. I could blithely have gone on and never gotten it back as far as the game cares.

One more time, Bethesda: You do not fuck with a man's gear.

I was worried about the "Daedric Artifact" stage of the quest because, after reading that book in the Cloud Temple Place, the journal *told* me to go to Azura's shrine, and placed a quest marker there; yet since I had already done her quest I got no response from her or her followers. I get that you can bring any Daedric artifact to Martin, but this was obscured for me by the quest journal's particular insistence on Azura. I now realize that the reason Martin wouldn't progress to the next stage when I talked to him was because I had no Azura star to give him -- it was still on Harrow's corpse!

So now I will just go get another Daedric item and finish it that way. No way am I giving up Azura's star.

Thanks for the help.

[Gordon Cameron]

Have you done the intervening "Spies" quest for Jauffre?

Peter

Yes, I thought this was what Stusser was referring to but he was talking about an earlier part. Hence the mixup. I kept expecting to loot my gear off one of the spies I killed in Bruma, and got more antsy when that didn't happen...

[Igor Muravyev]

Wow way to derail the thread everyone (coulda sworn it was a discussion of mechanics not hints), anyways I would suggest giving up Sanguine Rose instead of Azura's Star, as the latter is very useful for recharging your Goldbrand/Mage Staffs/Enchanted Daedric Bows.

By the way, about Harrow, I don't know how obvious it is that the same person that took your gear *probably has* your gear. That the game didn't realize that you already did Azura's Star quest is a mistake though.

[Gordon Cameron]

Wow way to derail the thread everyone (coulda sworn it was a discussion of mechanics not hints), anyways I would suggest giving up Sanguine Rose instead of Azura's Star, as the latter is very useful for recharging your Goldbrand/Mage Staffs/Enchanted Daedric Bows.

By the way, about Harrow, I don't know how obvious it is that the same person that took your gear *probably has* your gear. That the game didn't realize that you already did Azura's Star quest is a mistake though.

Honestly, Igor, I didn't remember his name. He was just another cultist who was leading me through the thing. I looted every body that I saw after the battle. It's a big dark room. I happened to miss one of the 8 jillion dead cultists lying in that room, and it happened to be the one that had my loot. The quest journal says *nothing* about getting your gear back despite this being IMO a pretty goddam big deal. I searched every barrel, every crate, every chest, thinking maybe the cultists had stowed my loot there. (Which seems more reasonable to me than Harrow carrying it all under his red robe anyway.)

I won't budge on this one. Crappy design, Beth. You do not fuck with a man's gear. If you take it away you make *damn* sure he knows how to get it back.

Sorry for derailing the thread, but this was a main plot/spoilers thread and I didn't want to start another one just to answer my question.

[TrodKnee]

Well, I did mean to do more spoiling and less ranting...

I was curious about the Daedric artifacts, because I really hated giving up that Azura's star. At that point I was just rushing the main quest anyway...but that quest was one that took you into a seperate worldspace so now I'm wondering if the other artifact quests are as interesting. They could have made it a little clearer that you could use any artifact, not just the star.

As far as moving the bar, I agree that it advances more as a world simulation then as a "role-playing" game. But really, have any RPG's been about roleplaying since the PnP days? In Oblivion, your character can be a ruthless assassin or a pansy high-elf flower-picking alchemist (my latest character). Sure, it doesn't do "character development" the same way BG2 might, but even in BG2 90% of the game was party-based dungeon crawling. I guess I'm just happy to see any progress, even if it was doomed to fall short.

I just ran into yet another example in a Mages Guild quest with my new character. I went and rescued Whatshisname and when I get back to the guild the other apprentices are saying "Where is Whatshisname? I haven't seen him around" even though he was standing right there. I don't know if these things are oversights, a sign of being rushed to market, or just all examples of the million little things a designer can't account for in a sandbox world simulation type game. I guess it's just a matter of how willing you are to be forgiving of such minor issues in exchange for the freedom the game gives you.

[Dhruin]

Oblivion moves the bar in world simulation, not roleplaying. Its entirely linear plotlines and complete lack of choices ensure that there really is no role to be played.

I don't think it does that. There is no logically consistent gameworld. It's an enjoyable action/RPG with a loooot of content but I don't see the greater whole. I was walking to Anvil yesterday and as I passed an Oblivion gate 20 feet from the road, a guard on horseback rode past and said something like "all's well". The McDungeons (to borrow a a great phase) make no attempt at consistency or realistic world simulation - they're just there to have 200 dungeons. The fora consists of wolves, deer and butterflies - nothing else - and the wolves then start to be replaced with items from the level list. There are no dangerous areas, no weak areas, the towns aren't ethnically consistent...anyway, other than "big" and "pretty" (both of which are perfectly worthwhile things), I don't see the greatness.

[Shadari]

I really like Oblivion and all, but it just seems a bit soulless.

[Gordon Cameron]

But really, have any RPG's been about roleplaying since the PnP days?

Not mostly and I don't really have a problem with that. As I've said many times, a CRPG is not necessarily deficient because it lacks according-to-Hoyle-roleplaying. That's as much an artifact of naming conventions as anything else; the genre has evolved in its own ways constrained by the limitations of the medium and I don't think one should get too hung up on "role playing" at the expense of everything else they offer. I sometimes think the genre should be renamed "Willard" or something. Personally, world-simulation interests me more anyway.

Anyhoo, the hits keep on coming. I went and did another Daedra quest, a damn tough one I might add, for a dragon looking dude named Pyrite (or something along those lines). And guess what! The item he gives me (a shield named Spellbreaker) doesn't show up on the list of items to give to Martin!!! It's still just fucking Azura's Star. My fear now is that, having spoken to Martin once with Azura's star in my possession, it is futile for me to find other artifacts because his "available list" will never update. Well I'm goddamned if I'm going to give Azura's Star up.

Doubleyoo Tee Eff. Since the Mythic Dawn the main story of Oblivion has been a nonstop series of annoyances for me, just the sort of crap I hate where I must tread lightly so as not to break the delicate filigree of the quest objectives. I know Bethesda encourages you to go off and do your own thing, but I didn't know they did that by trying to screw up the main quest in every possible way.

The only thing I can think of to do now is go all the way back to the pre-Mythic Dawn savegame, do Pyrite's quest *first* (or some other Daedra's), then go thru Mythic dawn/Bruma spies/etc. until I get to talk to Martin again. Then hopefully his list of Daedric artifacts will include all the items in my possession at the time.

I seriously hope there is an easier way. The thought of going through all that again gives me a headache. All in all today has been a big buzzkill, especially considering I was coming off my personal highpoint of Oblivion so far (the conclusion of the Collector questline).

[Dhruin]

But really, have any RPG's been about roleplaying since the PnP days?

Absolutely. No cRPG ever comes close to a genuine PnP experience but some of the Ultimas, Darklands, Fallout, many of Jeff Vogel's games, PS:T and even KotOR (in a limited fashion) etc all offer genuine choices and consequences that make it real roleplaying.

[Phred]

Anyhoo, the hits keep on coming. I went and did another Daedra quest, a damn tough one I might add, for a dragon looking dude named Pyrite (or something along those lines). And guess what! The item he gives me (a shield named Spellbreaker) doesn't show up on the list of items to give to Martin!!! It's still just fucking Azura's Star. My fear now is that, having spoken to Martin once with Azura's star in my possession, it is futile for me to find other artifacts because his "available list" will never update. Well I'm goddamned if I'm going to give Azura's Star up.


You haven't broken it and you don't have to give up the star.At least in my game I talked to him when all I had was the star and then I went out and got a hammer from one of the other shrines (sorry cant remember name or item now) and he accepted the hammer just fine.

On the star. When I kill the humanoid daedra in Oblivion with soul trap on them it tells me I don't have a large enough soul stone to capture their soul. Wierdly Azura's star was the max capacity soulstone in Morrowind. Are there bigger stones in Oblivion or is it the black soulstone I've heard about that I need? I'm still stuck on the mages guild quest where I need to cast 4 spells at the pillar (can't find a vendor with fortify or drain mana)

Also, has anyone done the quest where you have to cast the insanity spell on the dinner party? I keep failing it with a message that not all the guests were affected dispite it being a large area of affect and all the guests running around naked. Anyone got this quest to succeed?

I'm finding a few of the quests sort of buggy. Ones where I have to wait for a triggered event, like eavesdropping on the theives or following the woman to the back of the house to see her planting meat took a long time for the npc's to do the required action. In the case of eavesdropping on the theives I had to reload a half dozen times to get them to discuss where the eye was hidden.

[Gordon Cameron]

Absolutely. No cRPG ever comes close to a genuine PnP experience but some of the Ultimas, Darklands, Fallout, many of Jeff Vogel's games, PS:T and even KotOR (in a limited fashion) etc all offer genuine choices and consequences that make it real roleplaying.

The problem for me is that many of the games which provide this type of "real" roleplaying do so via prescripted branching dialogue trees, which as a sort of gameplay doesn't interest me that much. Navigating a dialogue tree can provide a nice context to the gameplay but I seldom consider it to be compelling gameplay in its own right; if there is too much of it the experience of playing the game feels largely passive to me. I'm aware others feel differently, but this is part of the reason I don't regard PS: T in the hallowed way that some others do (though I will stipulate it is an extremely well written CRPG).

Since NPC AI, chatterbot technology, turing test experiments, etc., are not yet that advanced in videogames (or maybe anywhere), there is no other way that you can model face-to-face personality exchanges but by these prescripted branching trees. You can however provide a kind of nonscripted "macro" roleplaying in the sense that your character can define himself as a pirate or a soldier or a trader or whatever (via faction alliances and other types of behavior). Even space sims have some of this, often more of it than conventional RPG's do. If we are looking to the future of the CRPG genre I personally am more interested in what can be done with increasingly detailed "living world" simulations in which the NPCs react in nonscripted ways to your behavior, potentially even leading to economic and political consequences in the gameworld; this interests me more than the more writerly approaches to RPG design, though the latter approach has I admit resulted in a few marvelous designs. Again, whether the result is according-to-Hoyle "roleplaying" is a secondary concern to me. I've loved the CRPG genre for decades, but I've loved it for what it was, not for what its pnp ancestors and its hereditary acronym indicated it should be.

Within the genre's current scope and limitations, I am most satisfied when a game reaches a comfortable balance among combat and dialogue, open-endedness and narrative. Bioware, Vogel, middle Ultimas, and the Gothics probably come as close to hitting this sweet spot as anything I have played.

[Gordon Cameron]

You haven't broken it and you don't have to give up the star.At least in my game I talked to him when all I had was the star and then I went out and got a hammer from one of the other shrines (sorry cant remember name or item now) and he accepted the hammer just fine.

Hmm. So why won't he accept Spellbreaker shield, I wonder?

[Gordon Cameron]

On the star. When I kill the humanoid daedra in Oblivion with soul trap on them it tells me I don't have a large enough soul stone to capture their soul. Wierdly Azura's star was the max capacity soulstone in Morrowind. Are there bigger stones in Oblivion or is it the black soulstone I've heard about that I need? I'm still stuck on the mages guild quest where I need to cast 4 spells at the pillar (can't find a vendor with fortify or drain mana)

I wondered that about those humanoids too, and whether there is a grade above Grand, and whether black gems can hold 'em. Don't know myself.

As for the 4-pillar quest, there is a chest nearby with some scrolls in it that provide the effects you need. Just equip those and cast away.

[stusser]

Not sure why spellbreaker didn't work; I'm not at home or I'd just check the construction set. I gave him the hammer, so you definitely don't need to use azura's star.

KOTOR was almost as linear as Oblivion. It just offered two choices for every quest instead of one. Both choices were obvious, there was no "wait, is this evil or good? what would my character do?" kind of thing going on. You either ripped off the old woman or gave her money. It wasn't much of a role playing game either, but still, two choices are much better than none.

For the humanoid daedra (the xivilai?) I think you need a black azura's star. Yeah, that works.

I had to cast the spell twice on the dinner party. Make sure the guard leaves the room and shut the door, cast the spell so it hits everybody, then skedaddle out of there and pay off your bounty.

[Dhruin]

KOTOR was almost as linear as Oblivion. It just offered two choices for every quest instead of one. Both choices were obvious, there was no "wait, is this evil or good? what would my character do?" kind of thing going on. You either ripped off the old woman or gave her money. It wasn't much of a role playing game either, but still, two choices are much better than none.

I agree. I included it only for breadth. As an aside, I'd note that KotOR is another game the mainstream media went bezerk over (Two paths! Two!!!!).

@Gordon Cameron, people play cRPG for all sorts of reasons and yours is as valid as any, of course. I quite like good world simulations myself...it's one of the reasons I love Gothic, for example.

What I don't, is a good argument for how Oblivion actually advances that - other than graphics.

[Gordon Cameron]

Well, the NPC AI catches up to Ultimas V-VII and the Gothics, at least. Might even go further with the "radial" stuff though I haven't seen it really in the gameplay.

Man I'm annoyed about this stupid Daedric artifact thing. Why won't it take Spellbreaker? The only explanation I can think of is that I broke the quest by talking to Martin when all I had was Azura's star, and now that is all he will accept. I don't see how that jibes with Phred's experience, though.

[Igor Muravyev]

I wondered that about those humanoids too, and whether there is a grade above Grand, and whether black gems can hold 'em. Don't know myself.

As for the 4-pillar quest, there is a chest nearby with some scrolls in it that provide the effects you need. Just equip those and cast away.

Dremoras count as a race, they are just a locked race. You probably need Black Soul Gems for them. Xivilais can be held in Azura's Star/Grand Soul Gem. I have never seen any soul greater than "Grand" with exception of the useless Arch-Mage's soul.

Gordon, seems like your quest is truly broken. I would definitely suggest you giving him Sanguine Rose though, since Spell Breaker might be useful if you ever get around to doing the Mage's Guild line of quests.

[Gordon Cameron]

He took Sanguine Rose! Yay! I have no idea why Sanguine Rose updated Martin's list and Spellbreaker didn't. But, my main quest appears to be "unbroken" and back on track, and I haven't lost Azura's Star, and can keep Spellbreaker to boot.

While doing the Sanguine Rose quest I ended up breaking a *different* quest so I then had to reload, finish *that* quest first (Mazoga the orc), then re-do the Sanguine Rose quest... but that's another story.

[Gordon Cameron]

I had to cast the spell twice on the dinner party. Make sure the guard leaves the room and shut the door, cast the spell so it hits everybody, then skedaddle out of there and pay off your bounty.

*SPOILERS*

Man, I made it a lot harder on myself than that! I did notice the guard left the room but I didn't close the door after him so he ended up trying to arrest me anyway. The way I ultimately had to do it was cast the spell, resist arrest, run around with 10 guards in Benny Hill mode after me while I try to zap the last guests, then flee Llewayiin altogether and ride to the next town and turn myself in. And the first couple times I managed *this*, Mazoga got killed in the ensuing melee, breaking her quest chain, so I had to go back and do Mazoga's quest first, then redo Sanguine.

*wipes brow* Martin better goddam appreciate that artifact.

*END SPOILERS*

[Igor Muravyev]

*SPOILERS*

Man, I made it a lot harder on myself than that! I did notice the guard left the room but I didn't close the door after him so he ended up trying to arrest me anyway. The way I ultimately had to do it was cast the spell, resist arrest, run around with 10 guards in Benny Hill mode after me while I try to zap the last guests, then flee Llewayiin altogether and ride to the next town and turn myself in. And the first couple times I managed *this*, Mazoga got killed in the ensuing melee, breaking her quest chain, so I had to go back and do Mazoga's quest first, then redo Sanguine.

*wipes brow* Martin better goddam appreciate that artifact.

*END SPOILERS*
It's not really having to cast it twice, it's more like you have to cast it on a spot that will affect everyone in the spell's radius. Which probably means doing it twice :). You can get the first cast "for free" by going upstairs, sneaking, and shooting inside the room. "For free" because they won't know who did it and won't chase you. After that, it's a piece of cake, turn yourself in or resist arrest after the quest updates that you have finished it.. none of your items get lost anyways :).

Here's a question for all of you other guys: I have beat the main quest, 4 guild quests, I am champion of the arena. It seems like when I talk to people about Rumors I don't get any new quests, and I haven't had NPCs come up to me. I know there is the Nirnroot quest (don't want to get 20 nirnroots! lame ! !) and the Shadowbanish Wine quest (where does this start anyways?), but aside from that I can't think of any important quests. Is there anything more to the game for me or is it just all dungeon raiding? I don't want to start a new character just to replay the same quests.

At least in Morrowind, there would be so many guilds, you'd probably not do all the quests in one run, and have to play at least 3 times to join all the Great Houses :)...

[Gordon Cameron]

How many guilds did Morrowind have? I thought it was just Mages' Guild, Fighter's Guild, Morag Tong, and Thieves' Guild... roughly the same 4 as Oblivion? It did have the Great Houses as you say, though. Ahh, I miss my big Telvanni mushroom mansion.

Edit: Oh, wait a minute. There was also the Temple, the Imperial Cult, and the Imperial Legion. I forgot about those.

[Igor Muravyev]

How many guilds did Morrowind have? I thought it was just Mages' Guild, Fighter's Guild, Morag Tong, and Thieves' Guild... roughly the same 4 as Oblivion? It did have the Great Houses as you say, though. Ahh, I miss my big Telvanni mushroom mansion.

Edit: Oh, wait a minute. There was also the Temple, the Imperial Cult, and the Imperial Legion. I forgot about those.

http://www.cyrodiil.net/html/mwfactions.html

Aside from the ones you listed, also:

Vampire:
* Clan Aundae
* Clan Berne
* Clan Quarra

Houses:
* Telvanni
* Redoran
* Hlaalu

So if you count Arena as a guild that's *8* more guilds in Morrowind. I don't count the ones you join automatically as part of the MQ by the way.

[Gordon Cameron]

The way you wrote your previous post I thought you were counting the great houses separately from the guilds... I acknowledged those already. I didn't know there were 3 vampire guilds, though.

[Igor Muravyev]

The way you wrote your previous post I thought you were counting the great houses separately from the guilds... I acknowledged those already. I didn't know there were 3 vampire guilds, though.

Yep, it especially made sense to become a vampire when there were things to do besides mindlessly kill people for absolutely 0 reason :).

[Hawkeye Fierce]

*bump*

Finished the main quest this weekend. Am I alone in thinking that the main quest is just about the weakest collection of quests in the whole game? Fetch quest, in-game cutscene, fetch quest, in-game cutscene, etc. And the final part of the main quest is a goddamn ESCORT MISSION. Who thought that was a good idea?

Morrowind's main quest at least had the advantages that YOU were the focus, rather than Martin, and it actually had some interesting political twists and turns as you navigated the various factions opposed to you becoming the Nerevarine.

I think my other characters are gonna ignore the main quest. There are other quest lines that are much more rewarding. The Dark Brotherhood quests are awesome, for example.

[Igor Muravyev]

Eh, heh, heh. All of Tamriel is about to get pwnzored by the Daedra, and the chancellor can't pull out an imperial army legion to come close a few gates?

[DeepT]

Anyone got a list of all the shrines and the loot for them? I have only found 4 so far.

Also what is the deal with the statues quest line? I have been in like 15 ruins and not found a single statue beyond the first one that started the collectors quest series.

Black Azura's star... I wish.

[Gordon Cameron]

Bad luck that you have been into that many ruins without finding a statue, but plenty of ayleid ruins do have them.

[foogla]

DeepT: http://www.uesp.net/w/index.php?title=Oblivion:Daedric_Quests

[jeffd]

Out of curiosity, why do people commonly insist that putting timers on the quests breaks the sandbox aspects of the game?

If we're interested in world simulation, well guess what - consequences are part of things. If you ignore your ONE TRUE DESTINY long enough then the world ends.

I think the right solution isn't to hold the main quest indefinitely - if you dilly dally for too long you end up in a failure state and Dagon takes over. You can no longer "win" the game at this point; but you can still putter around as much as you like.

[Gordon Cameron]

I'm leery of time limits because of Fallout. I was constantly stressing over the waterchip time limit and that detracted from my enjoyment of the game. In retrospect I suppose you have plenty of time to get it done, but going in I didn't know that, and I worried about wasting too much time on side quests or exploration.

Sure, it would be better if you had a time limit where the game wouldn't end if you failed. Though I don't see how that would really work in Obliivon's particular plot, since Tamriel as you know it would basically cease to exist if the bad guys won. You can easily come up with mainquests that are different, though. A) You can have a mainquest such as Ultima IV in which the fate of the world doesn't depend on what you do; B) You can have a mainquest like Ultima V in which the "bad stuff" has already happened and you are trying to undo damage that has already been done, rather than stave off further disaster.

But overall I like to play CRPGs in a rather relaxed way, so thusfar I have found it to be a detriment to my enjoyment when there is a time limit breathing down my neck. It was a real downer for me in Fallout; that's the main "data point" I'm going on thusfar.

[DeepT]

You could get away with putting in a soft time limit. Simply have the gates do things beyond spawning monsters in thier immedate vacinity. Make the player's life increasingly difficult the longer the gates are open. Maybe at one point the npcs lock the doors and hide and stop giving quests cause they are scared. Or perhaps the demons remove some quests from the game (which need to be obvious to the player). For example, Farmer bob could say, I was having goblin problems at my farm and I would have paid some gold for someone to kill them. But now a bunch of demons burned my farm to the ground, so there is no point anymore (or the demons ate the goblins, so his problem is solved).

[Mehrunes]

Eh, heh, heh. All of Tamriel is about to get pwnzored by the Daedra, and the chancellor can't pull out an imperial army legion to come close a few gates?

Didn't you talk to Chancellor Ocato during the Aid for Bruma quest? The entire army is tied down fighting off a Daedric invasion that's spread across Tamriel.

[Igor Muravyev]

Didn't you talk to Chancellor Ocato during the Aid for Bruma quest? The entire army is tied down fighting off a Daedric invasion that's spread across Tamriel.

I did talk to him, I thought what he said was more along the lines of there being unrest across the provinces and all of them being close to rioting..?

[Mehrunes]

I did talk to him, I thought what he said was more along the lines of there being unrest across the provinces and all of them being close to rioting..?

No, he says there would be a political crisis if he tried pulling troops out of the provinces. Which makes perfect sense, since they've been keeping the provinces in line for over three hundred years and I know I would be pretty pissed if the Empire's occupying army just cut and ran from my province right when they were actually needed.

[foogla]

So, how good is the armor and where can I snag it? I can't seem to find the Imperial Legion Compound.

[DeepT]

It completly blows. It looks nice, but otherwise sucks. I would guess it would be as good as ebony armor, although I am not sure it would even be that good. If you got it at level 8 or so, it would be great, but at level 34 its pure crap.

Two problems asside from the low AC is the fact that it is all enchanted so you can't customize it, and even if it wasn't enchanted, all the Oblivion gates are closed so you can't get any more Sigil stones which are like 2x as strong as a grand soul enchantment.

[RichardC]

Ocato's last speech bugged me. What happened to "The nation is looking for a new Emperor? OH OOPS YOU FELL ON MY SWORD. Hey, folks, guess what Martin said my reward should be for doing all the work in saving your lives!"

[Igor Muravyev]

I think the next expansion should have you, the champion, vying to be Emperor. You did all the hard work, you are the Hero of Kvatch, you deserve it more than some wussy ass Chancellor who couldn't even be bothered to pull a few imperial squads out of other provinces to protect the Emperor during his coronation.

Oh, and, I think having the other provinces riot would be kind of moot if all of Tamriel got taken over by Dagon.

[DeepT]

I think this is the end of the empire as we know it. I thought the for-shadowing was very clear. In the next game id expect the empire to be collapsing, recently collapsed, or the forging of a new empire from the remnants of the old one.

[Hawkeye Fierce]

I think this is the end of the empire as we know it. I thought the for-shadowing was very clear. In the next game id expect the empire to be collapsing, recently collapsed, or the forging of a new empire from the remnants of the old one.

In Morrowind there were these rumblings about how the line of succession for the throne was very unclear, and would probably lead to civil war in Cyrodil with various claimaints to the throne competing. Very War of the Roses. In turn, this would lead to Morrowind declaring independence, and other provinces attempting to break away as well. It seemed like a really cool setup for the sequel.

I guess the Mythic Dawn kinda made all those political concerns about the succession moot.

[Case]

Finished the main quest tonight. I agree that many of the main story quests were weak. The closing of the Oblivion gates were waaaayyy too repetitive.

I did like it quite a bit overall. By the time I started the main storyline, I was already level 22, was Master of the Thieve's Guild and Archmage of the Mage's guild ;-)

The artifact you get from completing the Thieves Guild series was pretty overpowering, though. I wore it through all the Oblivion gates. That, plus 91 marksman skill meant I rarely had to engage any enemies up close.

But it was a fun ride. I may follow up with the Dark Brotherhood quests. Ya know, I'm Champion of the Realm and all that, but now I'm bored and turn to idleness and wickedness ;-)

[ElGuapo]

Sorry for the thread bump.

I finished it last night. Man, the last quest was wicked hard for me. Xlivas everywhere! There must have been 15 of those suckers on the screen at one time.

Anyway, the next game might be interesting. All the good conflict games start out "the emperor is dead, and there is no heir, so you must fight/unite all the land". Might we have a bit of conquering/land grab missions in the next one? You thought bandits were bad in this game, wait till you see Tamriel with no emperor. Bring on the fightin'!

By the way, can you see the big dragon statue from outside the city? I looked around and can't see it from any angle I checked from.

[Jab]

Oblivion is decent, but the whole wandering around looking for stuff is pretty much negated due to the leveling. I would have enjoyed it more if I was wandering around and found some kind of uber deadtric(can't spell it) sword within the first hour. Or a huge demon monster hidden somewhere. Not have them start showing up around lvl 20 or so.

Also while there are alot of places to explore your not really doing anything different. You fight, and talk. The only good quests I've done are the dark brotherhood quests. The party quest was enjoyable. I would have really wanted to see more way to interact with the world that didn't involve killing, stealing , or talking. I heard you can craft armor and spells at the guilds, but that's about all the crafting you can do (and alacemy I guess).

The sad part is that after playing Oblivion now,(haven't finshed the main quest, just finshed the dark brotherhood) I really don't think the buyable mods are worth any money whatsoever, at this point Oblivion needs as much unique content that it can get imo, free.

[foogla]

I would have enjoyed it more if I was wandering around and found some kind of uber deadtric(can't spell it) sword within the first hour.

If you run very fast you should get to Umbra in an hour.

Oblivion Speed Runs!