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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

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The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
File:WTL elderscrolls4.jpg
Developer(s)Bethesda Game Studios
Publisher(s)Bethesda Softworks LLC & 2K Games
Designer(s)Todd Howard, Executive Producer
EngineCustom Gamebryo Engine using SpeedTree Technology, Radiant A.I., Havok 3.0 Physics and FaceGen technology
Platform(s)Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360
ReleaseNorth AmericaMarch 21, 2006
EuropeMarch 24, 2006
Genre(s)Action RPG
Mode(s)Single player First-Person & Third-Person view

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (commonly known as 'Oblivion') is a fantasy-themed role-playing game developed by Bethesda Softworks LLC for PC and Xbox 360. It is the fourth installment of the Elder Scrolls series. The game was shipped March 20th, 2006 in North America, and March 24th in Europe. The retail date set for the game was March 21st.

Overview

Oblivion is currently available for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360, and now is also playable on Linux with Transgaming's Cedega (from version 5.2). In addition to the standard release, a "Collector's Edition" is available for both platforms which includes a 112-page Pocket Guide to the Empire, a Bonus DVD (including concept art, renders, and an approximately 45-minute long documentary on the making of Oblivion), and a coin replica (the currency of Tamriel, also known as a drake, Septim or more simply, Gold).

The game, featuring the voices of Patrick Stewart, Lynda Carter, Sean Bean, and Terence Stamp, began development in 2002.

Oblivion features a custom version of the Gamebryo game engine, a combat interface utilizing the Havok physics engine, state-of-the-art graphics (using True HDR) with realistic procedurally generated forests (created with the aid of SpeedTree Technology), an improved magic system, and a more interactive stealth system, along with many additional features not seen previously in the series. The player is meant to play in first person view, but can also play in a third person view found in many other action-adventure games.

The Microsoft Windows edition of the game also supports a new version of The Elder Scrolls: Construction Set (TES:CS) that is available as a free download on Bethesda's website (the developers indicated that this allows for easier upgrading of the Construction Set; some have speculated it may be because of pending Havok licensing issues). The Construction Set allows for extensive expansion of the game and includes the entire basic world building tools used by the designers, giving users many of the same opportunities to create original game content as the designers.

As of June 6th, 2006, when Bethesda released the first official patch, the current version of the game is 1.1.511.

General story

After the mysterious and untimely death of the Emperor, Uriel Septim VII (voiced by Patrick Stewart), the throne of Tamriel lies empty. With the Empire ready to crumble, the gates of Oblivion are thrown open and daedra march upon the land of Tamriel - laying waste to everything in their path. To turn the tide of darkness, the player must find the lost heir to the throne and unravel the sinister plot that threatens to destroy all of Tamriel. The main character has been imprisoned under unknown circumstances in the Imperial City, the capital of Cyrodiil and the Empire. By chance, the cell is also an Imperial secret escape route to get out of the city in case of an emergency.

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Emperor Uriel Septim VII, the current reigning Emperor, arrives at the prison escorted by several bodyguards. It is revealed that assassins, later revealed to be a part of a Daedric cult known as the Mythic Dawn, have killed Uriel's three sons and are now after him. Through conversation, Septim claims that he has seen the protagonist in his dreams and visions, and his Blades bodyguards lead him into the escape route. At this point the protagonist makes his way through the catacombs after being cut off from the Emperor, where the main tutorial takes place, which teaches the basic game mechanics and collects information that eventually leads to the game suggesting which class the player should choose at the end of the dungeon.

At the end of the catacombs, the protagonist meets up with the guards and Septim again, and they are quickly overwhelmed by assassins, which results in the player taking on the task of guarding the Emperor. Before combat begins, however, Uriel entrusts the protagonist with the Amulet of Kings, a special trinket that can only be wielded by those of the Septim bloodline. An assassin ambushes Uriel after this and kills him. After the assassin is defeated, there is only one surviving guard, Baurus, who quickly questions the protagonist and charges the player with delivering the Amulet of Kings to Jauffre, the leader of the Blades, the Emperor's bodyguards, at Weynon Priory. Soon after, the protagonist leaves the sewers and begins his journey in the land of Tamriel; it is the player's choice whether they follow these orders or goes his or her own way.

If the player chooses to continue the main storyline, and ventures to Weynon Priory, it is revealed that the Emperor's death has allowed multiple gates to Oblivion to open, and a Daedric invasion is to begin as a result. The only way to close down the gates permanently is to find someone of the Septim bloodline to retake the throne and re-light the Dragonfires in the Imperial City. Fortunately, it is also revealed that there is indeed still an heir to the Septim throne: an illegitimate son named Martin Septim (voiced by Sean Bean), who resides in Kvatch. The protagonist then must venture to the city and bring him to Weynon Priory. However, the Daedra have Kvatch under siege and the protagonist has to venture into the Planes of Oblivion and close down the gate.

Upon closing the gates, the player is praised as "The Hero of Kvatch" and becomes somewhat known throughout Cyrodiil. After clearing out the courtyard the protagonist arrives at the Kvatch chapel and, while receiving some slight skepticism, persuades a somewhat oddly trusting Martin to join him to travel to Weynon Priory. Upon arriving, the player soon learns that Weynon Priory is under siege by the Mythic Dawn and the Amulet of Kings has been stolen. Recovering from the attack, Jauffre orders the protagonist to escort himself and Martin to Cloud Ruler Temple, the stronghold of the Blades in the Jerall Mountains. Upon arriving, Martin is recognized as the de jure Emperor and is given command of the Blades. After some planning, Jauffre orders the player to rendezvous with Baurus, the sole surviving Blade from the beginning of the game, in the Imperial City to find the Shrine of Dagon, a Daedric cult lair that is believed to be the location where the Amulet was taken.

After some investigating and clever thinking by the player, the protagonist arrives at the Shrine of Dagon, infiltrating it or assaulting it depending on what the player chooses to do. Either way, it is too late, as Mankar Camoran (voiced by Terrence Stamp), the leader of the Mythic Dawn, escapes to his "Paradise" through a portal using a mystical book called the Mysterium Xarxes. The protagonist recovers this book and returns it to Martin, who deduces that the only way to recover the Amulet is to follow Camoran, and create a portal to the paradise as well. A "collect-the-pieces" plot now begins, as the player must recover three key items that are necessary to recreate the portal. These include a Daedric artifact, a Great Welkynd Stone, and the "Blood of a Divine" (Which requires the player to recover the ancient armor of Tiber Septim, the first Emperor of the Third Era). After this quest is concluded, Martin reveals a final item that needs to be used in order to create the portal, a Great Sigil Stone used in a Great Gate to the Planes of Oblivion, similar to the one that devastated Kvatch.

Martin and Jauffre create a desperate plan that involves allowing Bruma to be attacked by the Daedra so that a Great Gate can be opened. The "Hero of Kvatch" then must venture into the gate and recover the Great Stone in a limited amount of time. Arriving on the battlefield of Bruma, Martin gives a moving speech before charging into battle against the Daedra. Many men are lost, but a Great Gate is finally opened. The protagonist rushes in and the stone is recovered, closing the gates outside Bruma. Martin then tells the protagonist to meet him in Cloud Ruler Temple when he is ready to venture into Camoran's paradise.

Upon arriving at the Temple, a portal is created and the protagonist ventures through, arriving at a Utopian paradise resembling "Heaven." After fighting through Camoran's men, the protagonist finally confronts Camoran in his throne room. The player must defeat Camoran to recover the Amulet. After this is done, the Paradise collapses and the protagonist returns to Cloud Ruler Temple. The Amulet is returned to Martin, and the Blades travel to the Imperial City to re-light the Dragonfires, ending the Oblivion invasion. However, the Daedra begin a desperate assault of their own, and overrun the Imperial City. In a very difficult and heated battle, the protagonist and Martin fight their way to the Temple of the One, in the Imperial City Temple District, to find that a 200-foot tall beast is wreaking havoc in the city, revealed to be the Daedric Lord Mehrunes Dagon himself. Martin fights his way into the Temple, and uses the Amulet of Kings to merge himself with the spirit of Akatosh, the Dragon-God of Time, becoming his Avatar. He defeats Dagon in a heated final confrontation. The Amulet of Kings is destroyed, Martin has disappeared, the gates of Oblivion are shut forever, and the throne of the Empire again lies empty. A final monologue by Martin, however, describes this in an optimistic light, claiming that the future of Tamriel is now in the player's hand and that this is the beginning of the Fourth Era, possibly opening the doors for a sequel.

In addition to the main plot line, one can also join any number of guilds, clubs, cults, or clans in the game. There are many of them, including, but not limited to, the Thieves' Guild, Fighters' Guild, The Dark Brotherhood (assassins guild), and the Mages' Guild. See "Guilds" below for more details.

Gameplay style

Oblivion is an example of open-ended or "sandbox" gameplay. The main quest may be delayed or ignored as the player explores a game world, consisting of approximately 16 square miles, following side quests, interacting with NPCs, and developing a character according to their taste. Many enemies, quests, and treasures are "leveled" or become increasingly difficult, as the player gains levels (this can lead to some problems, however; see the "Critical Reception" section below).

Most quests are fairly linear and independent from each other, with some players stating that the gameplay has been tailored for the casual gamer. They state that the dual-development of Oblivion for the Xbox 360 console probably weighed on this design decision. Others respond, however, by pointing out that many of these decisions stem from fan response to earlier Elder Scrolls games. In response to many players being unable to find quest objectives in Morrowind, Oblivion marks all locations on the player's map, showing them exactly where to go to continue the quest.

Music

American composer Jeremy Soule, known in the world of Elder Scrolls for his contribution to the franchise's previous entry, Morrowind, has returned for Oblivion.

Cast and crew

Cast
Crew

Guilds

There are several guilds in The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, some more prominent in the plot than others.

In the world of Tamriel, the major guilds function as trade unions that control and regulate a particular type of job or skill set. For game play purposes, each major guild serves as a basis for a significant plotline and the series of quests that accompany that plotline. When a player joins a guild, members of that guild will give the player assignments (quests) that allow him/her to earn money, rewards and/or promotion within the guild. In the Xbox 360 version of the game, Xbox Live Achievement Points are earned primarily via these major guild promotions (as well as via progress through the main storyline of the game). These guilds also provide members with training, equipment, accommodation, advice and recruitable allies.

There are four major guilds that can be joined. If a player gains enough influence within a major guild, they can rise to the top and become the leader of that guild, which often grants very powerful equipment, abilities or influence within the game.

The major guilds in which you can join are as follows:

  • Thieves' Guild (Criminal monopoly, smuggling, burglary; illegal organization)
  • Mages' Guild (Academy for the preservation and study of the esoteric arts, magic, alchemy, chemistry, humanities, sciences; Imperially chartered)

There is also the Arena (Gladiatorial combat with some religious significance; Imperially chartered), which may be considered a "Gladiator's Guild." It has all of the features of a major guild, except that it does not offer a significant plotline or a series of quests. Instead it offers a series of gladiatorial battles in the Imperial City's Arena against one, two, or three opponents, with a final battle for the rank of Arena Grand Champion.

In addition to the above guilds, there are several other religious or paramilitary organizations the player might join. Most of these are briefly related to individual quests within the many storyline:

  • The Blades (Spy network and bodyguards to the Emperor; Imperially chartered) Note: Only one faction rank
  • The Order of the Virtuous Blood Note: Only one faction rank
  • Knights of the White Stallion Note: Only one faction rank
  • Knights of the Thorn --- Note: Only one faction rank
  • Order of the Dragon --- Note: Only one faction rank
  • Mythic Dawn --- Note: Only one faction rank -and can only stay in this faction for a short period of time
File:ElderScrollsOblivionScreenshot6.jpg
Promotional screenshot.
File:ElderScrollsOblivionScreenshot7.jpg
Promotional screenshot.
File:ElderScrollsOblivionScreenshot8.jpg
Promotional screenshot.
Screenshot from the fictional city of Anvil in Oblivion. Here the user interface is visible.

Playable races

Oblivion has 10 playable races.

Four of the races are classical human archetypes:

  • Breton (Descendants of humans, have dragon blood flowing through their veins, predisposed toward healing and other magical arts)
  • Imperial (The reigning race of Cyrodiil; semi-balanced, recommended for warriors or archers, beginner friendly)
  • Nord (Fair-haired, are hardy and resistant to cold temperatures, best as warriors)
  • Redguard (dark-skinned, best as warriors)

Four types of Mer (Elves):

  • Altmer (High Elf, tall, good race for mages)
  • Bosmer (Wood Elf, skilled archers and thieves)
  • Dunmer (Dark Elf, dark-skinned, balanced race, recommended for beginner players)
  • Orc (Originally were similar to the Altmer, until Boethiah, a Daedric Prince like Mehrunes Dagon, ate their god Trinimac and turned him into Malacath. They are excellent warriors.)

Two beast races:

The Sload, Maormer, Dwemer, Falmer and Akaviri races were not included because they do not associate in areas where the game takes place, due to exile, isolationism, banishment, or extinction.

Skills

Oblivion features 21 skills, with seven allocated to each of Oblivion's three primary character classes; those of combat, magic, and stealth. Additionally, each of the 8 character attributes govern three skills, excepting the luck attribute, which contributes a little to everything.

Combat Arts Magic Arts Stealth Arts
Athletics Alteration Acrobatics
Blade Destruction Light Armor
Blunt Restoration Marksman
Hand to Hand Alchemy Security
Armorer Conjuration Sneak
Block Mysticism Mercantile
Heavy Armor Illusion Speechcraft

Oblivion also introduces Mastery Levels. These are levels of proficiency that the PC has reached with a given skill. The Mastery Levels are:

  • Novice: 0-24
  • Apprentice 25-49
  • Journeyman: 50-74
  • Expert 75-99
  • Master: 100

Each level of mastery the PC reaches in a given skill brings with it appropriate bonuses; For instance, when the player character become a master of the 'Heavy Armor' skill, the weight of the armor he/she wears no longer adds to the player character's encumbrance.

Oblivion, the evolution of The Elder Scrolls

Each iteration of The Elder Scrolls series has been built from the ground up. Over time, many features have been added, removed, or otherwise modified to fit each game.

Game technology

Radiant A.I.

Oblivion boasts a new artificial intelligence system, fully developed in house by Bethesda, codenamed 'Radiant AI'. It aims to counter what was believed to be one of the major flaws of the previous installment (The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind): the lack of 'life' of the NPCs in the game. Radiant AI gives every NPC a set of 'needs' (such as hunger) that they will need to fulfill, thus attempting to create a more lifelike world.

Radiant AI works by giving NPCs a list of goals (only quests and interaction with the player character are scripted). They must decide how to achieve these goals by themselves based on their individual statistics. A hungry NPC might compare his current gold against his moral values to decide whether he will walk to a store and purchase food, or just steal it; a skilled archer can choose to hunt his own deer.

According to interviews given by the developers, the following are examples of unexpected behavior discovered during early testing:

  1. One character was given a rake and the goal "rake leaves"; another was given a broom and the goal "sweep paths," and this worked smoothly. Then they swapped the items, so that the raker was given a broom and the sweeper was given the rake. In the end, one of them killed the other so he could get the proper item.
  2. In another test, a minotaur was given a task of protecting a unicorn. However, the Minotaur repeatedly tried to kill the unicorn because he was set to be an aggressive creature.
  3. In one Dark Brotherhood quest, the player can meet up with a shady merchant who sells skooma, an in-game drug. During testing, the NPC would be dead when the player got to him. The reason was that NPCs from the local skooma den were trying to get their fix, did not have any money, and so were killing the merchant to get it.
  4. While testing to confirm that the physics models for a magical item known as the "Skull of Corruption," which creates an evil copy of the character/monster it is used on, were working properly, a tester dropped the item on the ground. An NPC immediately picked it up and used it on the player character, creating a copy of him that proceeded to kill every NPC in sight.
  5. In one test, after a guard became hungry and left his post in search of food, the other guards followed to arrest him. The town people looted the town shops, due to lack of guards.

Bethesda worked to fix these issues, balancing an NPC's needs against his penchant for destruction so that the game world still functions in a usable fashion. In-game there are over 1,000 different NPCs, not including randomly spawned monsters and bandits. The result is that the AI in the release version is much reduced although still impressive.

Bethesda released a set of preview videos (still available for download on their site), showing a supposed demonstration of the Radiant AI system in action.

Middleware used in Oblivion

  • Gamebryo 3D graphics engine from Emergent Game Technologies formerly: Numerical Design Limited (NDL)
  • OpenMP A Library used by Gamebryo to optimize performance on Multiprocessor-systems.
  • SpeedTree vegetation rendering from Interactive Data Visualization, Inc (IDV)
  • Havok physics engine from Havok Inc
  • FaceGen[1] face generation from Singular Inversions Inc
Gamebryo Engine

Emergent Game Technologies developed the Gamebryo 3D graphics engine. Games using it include Sid Meier's Pirates!, Civilization IV, Dark Age of Camelot and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. In Morrowind Gamebryo had shown severe reliability, performance and animation problems, and lacked special effects. It has been rebuilt for Oblivion with new features and special effects, and is more optimized than its predecessor is.

Gamebryo's run-time engine uses a C++ API with a hierarchical scene graph structure. Multiple culling and sorting techniques are used simultaneously to reduce GPU usage by drawing only visible objects.

SpeedTree

SpeedTree is a programming package produced by Interactive Data Visualization, Inc. (IDV) that aims to produce high-quality virtual foliage in real time, suitable especially for video games but also aimed to a lesser extent at some other kinds of simulations. It has so far been licensed to a substantial number of video game developers, including developers of the Unreal engine series. Speed Tree is currently being used in several games, one of which is a MMO game WWII Online.

Havok

The Havok Game Dynamics SDK, better known simply as Havok, is a middleware physics engine (in this case Dynamical simulation) designed for computer and video games by allowing interaction between objects or other characters in real-time. By using collision detection Havok allows for more lifelike worlds and animations, such as ragdoll physics, that adds to the overall game by making these interactions appear natural.

FaceGen

FaceGen is a parametric face modeling software that allows the user to create faces from one or more photographs, or at random. It is partially implemented in Oblivion, having about 150 parameters for editing face, besides race, age and gender. It takes significantly more time to use, but gives the player more freedom in creating his character's appearance.

Changes from previous games

Oblivion introduces numerous changes into the Elder Scrolls Franchise. Here is a partial listing.

Combat

  • Arrows are now physically visible on the character model when they have struck them, and they can often be retrieved.
  • Bows now make use of physics on arrow flight. The player can also zoom at higher levels and set off traps with arrows.
  • The combat system has changed. The classical "Chop/Pierce/Slash" TES combat system was replaced by a simpler system similar to action-RPG hybrids such as Fable, with one button for attack and another for block. Blocking is no longer automatic, but player controlled.
  • The combat system has been changed so that your skills determine what happens once you perform an action, not whether or not something happens. So, you block when you want to block. If your sword hits somebody, it hits. There is no “to hit roll”, no “swish” sound of a miss when your sword clearly hit its mark. Instead, skills are used to determine how much damage that attack does, or how much less damage you take because of your block.
  • Crossbows, throwing weapons, spears, and their respective skills have been removed. The only ranged weapons are bows. However, the bow and arrow flight physics have been refined to make up for the exclusion of the other weapons.
  • Clothing and armor are now considered the same item type. Whereas in Morrowind you could wear a full set of clothes and then a full set of armor on top of it, or a set of armor covered by a robe, Oblivion only allows one item to be worn on each section of the body. Some armor covers more than one, or all, positions of the body. This was probably done for balance reasons, as previously players would enchant clothing and armor, making them more powerful than intended.
  • Fatigue does not drain from running, but plays a more vital role in combat tactics. Instead, running lowers the rate of fatigue regeneration.
  • The player can now attempt to end the battle by talking to his opponent while holding block, and if he likes you enough the battle will cease. This is usually the case with guildmates and other friendly characters.

Magicka

  • Enchanting items/weapons is now a benefit of membership in the Mages guild, and not a player skill. The Wizard’s Tower add-on by Bethesda allows non-Mages guild players this option.
  • Levitation spells have been removed. The reason levitation was removed according to the developers was that, unlike in Morrowind, cities are located in separate cells from the rest of the world. Since the cities aren't fully rendered until you enter them, it wouldn't look right if you were to fly over the walls. Levitation also was sometimes used as an exploit in previous games of the series, so it was removed to preserve game balance. However, by climbing on roof tops one can exit towns and see the unrendered world.
  • Magicka (mana) now regenerates over time, like fatigue, with no need for resting to achieve the effect, although resting will fully restore it.
  • Spells may now be cast while holding a weapon and/or shield.
  • All spells have a novice, apprentice, journeyman, expert, and master designations, requiring such skill levels in their corresponding magic school to cast them. The casting always succeeds. In Morrowind, player skill and spell difficulty determined chance of success.

NPCs

  • The Dark Brotherhood is the predominant assassins guild, rather than the Morag Tong, which was joinable only in the province of Morrowind. However, the Dark Brotherhood makes an appearance during the Tribunal expansion of Morrowind in an assassination attempt on the player character.
  • Merchants do not run out of money, instead, they have a limit to the maximum amount of money they can offer per transaction.
  • Merchant’s primary inventory for sale is now hidden in inaccessible boxes that cannot be broken into. In Morrowind, players could steal any merchant’s inventory, which would be in a locked chest nearby. This would permanently deplete a merchant’s goods. Oblivion now moves these chests to cell areas that cannot be accessed through normal game play.
  • In Morrowind, inventory sold to merchants was permanently retained in their inventory list. In Oblivion, this was changed to after a pre-set amount of game days items sold to a merchant would no longer appear in his/her inventory.
  • Every NPC includes full voice acting; however, the vast majority of NPC's share a common pool of voiceovers. The amount of dialogue text was drastically decreased to allow this, and makes the game seem less diverse.
  • Nudity from both the player portrait and creatures has been removed and has yet to make a return from Daggerfall, though the topless coding is retained. See the hidden content for more information.
  • The speechcraft skill now employs a mini-game in order to affect the disposition of NPCs. Speechcraft techniques changed to joke, boast, admire, and coerce, all used simultaneously. Bribing now functions in a different way, always giving a set positive amount of disposition for a set amount of money. How much money it takes for each bribe is governed by the player’s current level, with each successive level getting more and more expensive. NPCs have a limit for disposition reached by speech but not bribing
  • The player can no longer kill NPCs important to major quests as they could in Morrowind. Instead they fall unconscious, only to revive a matter of seconds later.

Skills and levels

  • The skills list has been condensed into 21 skills. Players choose 7 major skills and the remaining 14 are classified as minor skills; increasing major skills is the only way to level up.
  • After the fifth skill training session in any skill each level, the player must level up before training again. In Morrowind, the player had unlimited training sessions available; however, skills were governed by attributes. Skills could not be raised above attributes. If a player had 60 sneak and 60 agility, she/he could not train sneak until she/he leveled up his/her agility. In Oblivion, the training system is generally more restrictive, since, although skills can be raised above attributes, player only gets five training sessions per level, whether it is for a major or minor skill.
  • Enemies, quest rewards, and items, including artifacts, level up with the player, and are tied to whatever level the player is on. Levelling made some appearance in Morrowind, mostly for random encounters, but all armors and items were freely available, regardless of level. In Oblivion, the player will not see glass, daedric, or ebony armor until the higher levels, but once he reaches some level, these armors will become common even among bandits. All quest items are affected by this as well, and artifacts have different versions depending on when player gets them. If a player gets a quest item as a reward at level four, it will be impossible for that player to upgrade the item to the more powerful versions that the player would get if s/he had waited a few levels to complete the quest. Multiple PC-only mods for fixing that have been created.
  • Lockpicking and persuasion minigames have been added to require more skill of the gamer him/herself. Persuading or lockpicking no longer are automatically resolved based on character's levels in those skills. Lockpicking now resembles in part Thief: Deadly Shadows, though still having an option to automatically resolve the lockpicking minigame. There is also a daedric quest at Nocturnal Shrine (North of Leyawiin) that gives player an unbreakable lockpick, thus making the security skill mostly pointless, as player can just hit auto attempt over and over.
  • The axe skill has been removed. Axe weapons may be governed by either the Blade or Blunt skill, depending on the axe.
  • The long blade and short blade skills have all been consolidated into a single Blade skill.
  • The Medium armor skill has been removed; the actual armors which were previously considered medium-class have been moved to the heavy or light armor skills.
  • The Unarmored skill has been removed.

Miscellaneous changes

  • Bodies have a ragdoll effect, rather than being "glued" to a spot, as was the case in Morrowind. This allows players to move corpses, although it is not required in any part of the game.
  • Bethesda sells downloadable content via both Xbox Live and a standard internet connection for PC users. Five downloadable content addons are currently available for purchase, specifically the Armored Horses, Orrery, Wizard's Tower, Thieves Den, and recently released Mehrunes' Razor and Vile Lair addons. The Bethesda team canceled plans for Holiday content. Future downloads will include the Mages Guild Inner Sanctum.
  • Clothing and armor models change according to the gender of the character, and the same item acts as trousers for a male and as a skirt for a female.
  • Dungeons now include tricks and traps using the Havok physics engine, such as falling spikes, gas traps, spiked maces, trip wires and trap doors.
  • The player may "fast travel" to any location they have previously visited via the map, allowing the game to simulate the amount of game-world and real-world time it would take for the player to travel that distance. A compass is also available that directs players towards the target of a quest. All other forms of long-distance fast travel from previous TES games were omitted, including Mark and Recall spells, Almisivi Intervention, Divine Intervention, Propylon Indices, silt striders, Mage Guild teleportals, and boats.
  • The player can play as the Cathay-Raht breed of Khajiit, who are less beast-like and can wear boots, rather than the Suthay-Raht who were the playable breed in Morrowind.
  • Horse riding has returned, but Carriages have not. The game allows the player to purchase different breeds of horses, which can attack enemies, but only when the player is dismounted. Mounted combat isn't possible at all.
  • Each of the 9 major cities has a house you can buy and have for your own. You can go around in town and buy different things to decorate your house with, so you have places to put all the items you collect. One of the houses that you can purchase is initially haunted. One of the houses is large enough to allow a servant, but requires a significant amount of fame to buy.
  • Interface Change: The inventory system has been changed to menu based instead of icon based. The player no longer drags an item to the character portrait to equip it, but just clicks it. The “Window” interface of Morrowind has been removed, and windows can no longer be resized or dragged. Hotkeys can be used to access menus, instead of clicking on icons.
  • Repair hammers never fail to repair. The amount of equipment health they repair and how quickly the hammer breaks is dependent upon the player's armorer level. All weapons and armor have 100 health, but lighter weapons and armor degrade quicker. Higher-level armorers can repair item beyond 100% as well as repair magical items.
  • Casting almost any spell projects light that visibly reflects off of its surroundings, which can give away a sneaking character's position to NPCs.
  • The player and NPCs can sit on benches and chairs.
  • Pauldrons are no longer separate armor, but are rather included in the cuirass.
  • There are no longer left and right gloves/gauntlets, as in Morrowind, just gauntlets as a set.
  • Doors and chests are no longer trapped. In Morrowind, you had to use a probe to untrap the door, but that feature is gone.
  • Weapons now appear on the character when sheathed. In Morrowind, they would simply disappear. Enemies will also sometimes drop held weapons and shields when killed.

Morrowind vs Oblivion vs Daggerfall size comparison

The total above-ground area of Morrowind 's game world was roughly 10 square miles (26 km²); however, the central landmass was only around 6 square miles and then surrounded by water and tiny islands; these figures do not include either of the expansions.

With Oblivion, the aboveground areas are approximately 16 square miles (41 km²) but with considerably less water coverage and the realm of Oblivion.

The realm of Oblivion in lore is described as infinite; in game terms, you'll be exploring large, independent extra-dimensional terrain every time you enter a portal and leave the normal world behind you. Actually, however, these extra-dimensional spaces are randomly selected from a pool of 7, non-random, pre-made sections, each time the player enters a new portal; there are approximately 90 such portals in total. The exception to the Oblivion gates is during the main quest. The main quest Oblivion gates you enter will always have the same terrain every time, no matter how many times you reload.

There have been no official size estimates for the playable sections of the realm of Oblivion. Unofficially, however, they are generally the largest areas of the game, rivaling the entire City Isle in size (though some are considerably smaller).

Neither Morrowind nor Oblivion come close to the massive world as it existed in Daggerfall, estimated as being roughly twice the size of Britain, with over 15,000 towns, cities, villages, and dungeons, and speculated to take over two weeks to travel from one end of the world to the other. Daggerfall's size is tremendous, especially considering that the game was made in the 1990s. However, in Daggerfall the towns were generally identical in appearance. Instead Oblivion aims to bring more variety to the world, and not just massive size.

Critical reception

Critical reaction to the English version of Oblivion has almost been entirely positive; PC Gamer UK, PC Gamer US, Gamespot, IGN, Electronic Gaming Monthly, and OXM have all awarded the game 9/10 or more, and praised the game for its immersiveness and scope. The television program X-Play, citing similar reasons, awarded the game a rare 5/5. PC Gamer UK did, however, criticize the game's repetitive and occasionally absurd nature of conversations between NPCs, saying that it broke suspension of disbelief. OXM also said that the Xbox 360 version of the game suffered from occasional frame rate drops, though they were not as frequent as the PC version, and also slightly longer loading times on a Core system which lacks a Hard-drive. The game is also currently (as of Spring 2006) the best-selling video game on the Xbox 360.

German and French Internet and print magazines, however, have generally scored the game lower due to the poor translation into their languages. [citation needed] Besides many spelling mistakes, spells and potions have been named wrongly (e.g. the starting healing spell is by default named 'Feuerball' in German and 'Boule de feu' in French, which both mean fireball), some texts have not been translated at all, and there are several references to the Xbox 360 controls in the PC version's tutorial. Some quests therefore were not solvable. Additionally the gender of the player and NPCs sometimes was changed during the game: In the German version for example approx. 10% of all male main-characters were referred to as "sie" or "ihr" ("she" or "her"). [2] The poor quality is extensible to the Spanish translation, which has 'Bola de Fuego' (again fireball) as the healing spell and the gender of characters is frequently mistaken. However, this fact has not been mentioned by Spanish videogame magazines, probably due to the fact that its predecessor Morrowind was not translated at all. The translation of the speech files has not suffered to a similar extent.

There have been complaints that the scaling system, used in Oblivion to ensure that all the player's foes remain equally challenging throughout the game, is excessively difficult by default, and makes the world non-sensible, with new creatures appearing out of nowhere. The system makes enemies weaker or stronger based on the player character's master "level". However, characters with the same "level" can have different skills. This means that players who focus on non-combat skills like Mercantile or Speechcraft will find it progressively harder to fight monsters as their own level increases, which is counter-intuitive. There has been response to the criticism; however, that common sense dictates that players who focus on non-combat skills would have a hard time anyway. This has spawned the creation of many game modifications to make certain areas inherently easy (or inherently difficult), or to completely eliminate the game's level-based auto-scaling system, making the game world more varied, unpredictable and realistic. Another solution, of course, is to simply reduce the difficulty setting in the options menu (but this will still keep all enemies at a similar level).

Re-rating

On May 3, 2006, Oblivion was re-rated from T (Teen) to M (Mature) by the ESRB. The ESRB said this was because of "more detailed depictions of blood and gore than were considered in the original rating, as well as (with the PC version of the game) the presence of a locked-out art file or 'skin' that, if accessed through a third-party modification, allows the user to play with topless versions of female characters." The ESRB is adding a Nudity content descriptor to the PC version of the game until it "can be remastered and the topless skin removed." [3].

Add-ons

Oblivion has had many minor expansions since its release. The downloads add new quests to the game for a small fee on either the PC or Xbox 360 version. Its been debated whether charging for these expansions was moving games in a bad direction because charging for these kind of expansions has not been done frequently in the past. The updates are as follows:

Horse Armor Pack: This was the first add-on introduced. It allowed for steel and Elven armor to be added to your horse, increasing the horse’s defense.

Orrery: This add-on allows an extra room in the Arcane University, the Mages Guild headquarters, to be unlocked after a small quest. The Orrery gives you new powers that boost one stat at the expense of another. The spell that is given is based on the phases of the moon in the game.

Wizard's Tower: Frostcrag Spire is a home that you inherit from a relative that passes away. The tower provides a place to rest, a garden to harvest ingredients from, and a desk that increases your alchemic skill. Outside of the tower are portals for instant one-way transport to all the mages guilds. You can also create frost, fire, and storm atronachs that will help you fight in the game.

The Thieves Den: This expansion gives a haven for thieves. You will get a personal gang of thieves to do your bidding, and uncover a famous pirate ship and make it your own. There are also new trainers and upgrades in this expansion.

Mehrunes' Razor: It is the largest expansion of all those previously mentioned. Its quest revolves around Mehrunes' Razor, a daedric artifact that kills enemies instantly. A Telvanni arch-mage attempts to take this artifact for evil purposes and it's up to the player to stop him. This expansion, while the largest, is also more expensive than the others, and is currently priced at $2.99.

The Vile Lair: The Vile Lair is the newest addition to Oblivion. It includes several altars that have effects from curing Vampirism, to the exact same effects as a normal altar, among other things.

It should be noted that if you run Windows XP 64-bit edition that the installers will not work for these "pay" downloadable addons. A second note is that there seems to be no workaround nor any plans to support this.

Hidden content: nudity and testing cells

Oblivion, like GTA: San Andreas, contains hidden content unavailable during normal game play. Two game elements have been discovered within the gaming's code. The first is all female characters have topless coding. Bethesda, however, covered the topless coding with bras. The first patch released by Bethesda has removed this coding from the game.

The second, and in many ways far more interesting, hidden play area has been found in Skingrad beneath the house that is available for sale. Extensive testing cells, including a small town named Hawkhaven and rooms containing every weapon, item of clothing, book, monster and random household objects has been found in the game's programming. These were used by Bethesda programmers to test various aspects of the game and are not meant to be part of regular gameplay.

There are two ways to access this hidden area. The first is by console command. (To access by console command, type the tilde key (~) and coc testinghall). Secondly, a mod [4] exists that places a trap door from the house's basement to the first of two rooms. It should be noted the mod only provides the access into the cells; the cells themselves were programmed entirely by Bethesda for development purposes.

This content is accessible only on the PC version.

Trivia

  • The development of Oblivion began in mid 2002 shortly after the release of Morrowind - roughly 4 years in the making.
  • In the Making of Oblivion Documentary DVD (only found in the Collector's Edition), Todd Howard (executive producer) was given a list of actors to choose from to provide the voice for Mankar Camoran. He stated that the only actor he envisioned perfect for that role was Terence Stamp, best known for his role as General Zod in Superman II.
  • According to executive producer Todd Howard, Patrick Stewart's reaction to the "embarrassingly long notes" supplied to him about the character Uriel Septim VII was (paraphrased): I got the notes on the character. Never in my life doing any role have I gotten such detailed notes, and I loved it! I am really intrigued, this sounds really cool, you guys have given this a lot of thought. I can't wait to do it! - found in the Making of Oblivion Documentary DVD.
  • According to past and recent interviews with Todd Howard and other members of the Bethesda Softworks team, Oblivion is the very first Xbox 360 game to utilize all three symmetrical cores of the CPU. This being so, the PC version also offers support for multicore cpus.
  • Although the game has dozens of different kinds of food and drink, eating and drinking is not required. However, a third party modification exists that integrates the need to eat. In the basic game, food items are only used as potion ingredients (by mixing them with a mortar and pestle) although eating these ingredients raw does enhance your alchemy rating.
  • A closed-doors demonstration given at E3 2005 for the game apparently has Todd Howard, the executive producer, playing the game as he demonstrates the game's vital features. This can be seen through his way of playing and how he speaks to the viewers during the video (some may speculate it is not him playing, some will notice he fast-travels and misleads players on his destinations.) The full demo presentation was handed out on DVD to retailers at an insider pre-launch event to promote the Xbox360.
  • A mod is now available that makes the menu system of the PC version more user-friendly, with smaller icons so that the user can see more items or spells at once. [5]
  • While the game takes full advantage of the Pixel and Vertex Shader 2.0 features, a mod called Oldblivion [6] exists to make the game run on cards that support Pixel and Vertex Shader 1.1, allowing the game to be played at all - though obviously nowhere near optimal settings - on cards as early as GeForce 3. Without this mod, the game appears almost all white on pre-2.0 cards. Since Cedega doesn't support P/V shaders 2.0, this mod is necessary to play it under linux.

Awards

E3 2005 Game Critics Awards: Best Role Playing Game [1]

See also

References

  1. ^ "2005 Winners". gamecriticsawards.com.
Official Website links

Wikis and news

Fan sites

Mod sites

Media reviews

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