Developer Quotes 6

Note: This sixth set of quotes has been added 15th of January, 2006.

BlueDev:

Why dual wielding is not in the game

EmilPags:

Hayt:

Kathode:

MrSmileyFaceDude:

Pete:

Sentinel:

Shifty Eyed Dog:

Oblivion for Macintosh?

Slateman:

VXSS (Wormgod):

BlueDev, Designer

Why dual wielding is not in the game/ We were going to add it, but since so many other games have it, and since so much of the "mainstream" audience seems to want it, we decided to keep it out so we wouldn't be accused of "dumbing down" the game. (rolls eyes)

BlueDev, Designer

Why dual wielding is not in the game/

We were going to add it, but since so many other games have it, and since so much of the "mainstream" audience seems to want it, we decided to keep it out so we wouldn't be accused of "dumbing down" the game. (rolls eyes)

EmilPags, Designer

The Problems with being a game developer/ EvilJason wrote: Did you know what one of the great things about being a game developer is? It is making your perfect game or at least one that you your self would like to play, But there is also a downside imagine finishing your perfect game and just realising that you can never play it fully, that you will never experence the feeling of playing the game from the perspective of someone who is playing it for the first time. EvilJayson, there's a lot of truth in what you said. BUT, for Oblivion, it's actually a bit different. Why? Because we've got such a big game on our hands, there's always something you haven't seen. I can't wait to get Oblivion home and play it because, honestly, there are some quests and locations that I, quite simply, have not even experienced yet, and I can't wait! *** Will the developers play the game after it's out?/ Heh, no, there's nothing in the Dark Brotherhood I haven't see before, because I put it all there. But yeah, of course I'll play through it again -- I know where all the good loot is hidden! ;) *** Why sneak attack with a dagger if another weapon does more damage?/ Keep in mind, too, that different weapons can be enchanted in different ways, so it may very well be that the weapon you choose to sneak attack with just so happens to be an enchanted dagger you've acquired in the Dark Brotherhood or Thieves Guild, and it offers bonuses consistent with playing that type of character. So yeah, you could sneak attack with your axe. But if you've acquired a cool assassin's dagger, with some sweet enchantments, that's probably the weapon you're going to use. At least, that's the weapon I would use. :) *** Why sneak attack with a dagger II/ Sure could, if you had those skills. I was just making a point that it's possible, POSSIBLE, that, as an assassin, you'd be more likely to come across a cool enchanted dagger that you liked to use, because it's more an assassin type of weapon. *** Why sneak attack with a dagger III/ hehe No, not what I'm saying at all. I mean, as an assassin, you may have come across an enchanted dagger that's just as powerful as an axe, because of the enchantments on it. But you'd definitely look cooler too. :) *** About the fighting Arena/ Well, I won't give anything away, but I will say the Arena in Oblivion has more of the flavor of a Roman Arena -- like the Colosseum in Gladiator -- than the more medieval/fantasy flavor of the rest of the game. Sort of exploring that side of Cyrodiil and the obvious parallels to the Roman Empire. So it's more about blood and valor than pageantry. It's combatant against combatant -- roar of the crowd, sweat on your brow, a good blade in your hand... that sort of thing. And I'd be lying if I said Gladiator wasn't a big inspiration when I design/implemented the Arena. :) *** About the fighting Arena II/ Well, an Empire is an Empire, and the parallels to the Roman Empire have been pretty firmly established. Besides, as I'm sure all you Elder Scrolls historians know, the Arena has been there for, well... ages. A virtual cookie to whomever can tell me who founded the Arena. Sure, spellcasters can compete in the Arena. Archers too. The Arena does not discriminate against any combatant foolish enough to enter!

EmilPags, Designer

The Problems with being a game developer/

EvilJason wrote:
Did you know what one of the great things about being a game developer is? It is making your perfect game or at least one that you your self would like to play, But there is also a downside imagine finishing your perfect game and just realising that you can never play it fully, that you will never experence the feeling of playing the game from the perspective of someone who is playing it for the first time.

EvilJayson, there's a lot of truth in what you said. BUT, for Oblivion, it's actually a bit different. Why? Because we've got such a big game on our hands, there's always something you haven't seen. I can't wait to get Oblivion home and play it because, honestly, there are some quests and locations that I, quite simply, have not even experienced yet, and I can't wait!

***

Will the developers play the game after it's out?/

Heh, no, there's nothing in the Dark Brotherhood I haven't see before, because I put it all there. But yeah, of course I'll play through it again -- I know where all the good loot is hidden! ;)

***

Why sneak attack with a dagger if another weapon does more damage?/

Keep in mind, too, that different weapons can be enchanted in different ways, so it may very well be that the weapon you choose to sneak attack with just so happens to be an enchanted dagger you've acquired in the Dark Brotherhood or Thieves Guild, and it offers bonuses consistent with playing that type of character.

So yeah, you could sneak attack with your axe. But if you've acquired a cool assassin's dagger, with some sweet enchantments, that's probably the weapon you're going to use. At least, that's the weapon *I* would use. :)

***

Why sneak attack with a dagger II/

Sure could, if you had those skills. I was just making a point that it's possible, POSSIBLE, that, as an assassin, you'd be more likely to come across a cool enchanted dagger that you liked to use, because it's more an assassin type of weapon.

***

Why sneak attack with a dagger III/

hehe

No, not what I'm saying at all. I mean, as an assassin, you may have come across an enchanted dagger that's just as powerful as an axe, because of the enchantments on it. But you'd definitely look cooler too. :)

***

About the fighting Arena/

Well, I won't give anything away, but I will say the Arena in Oblivion has more of the flavor of a Roman Arena -- like the Colosseum in Gladiator -- than the more medieval/fantasy flavor of the rest of the game. Sort of exploring that side of Cyrodiil and the obvious parallels to the Roman Empire.

So it's more about blood and valor than pageantry. It's combatant against combatant -- roar of the crowd, sweat on your brow, a good blade in your hand... that sort of thing. And I'd be lying if I said Gladiator wasn't a big inspiration when I design/implemented the Arena. :)

***

About the fighting Arena II/

Well, an Empire is an Empire, and the parallels to the Roman Empire have been pretty firmly established. Besides, as I'm sure all you Elder Scrolls historians know, the Arena has been there for, well... ages. A virtual cookie to whomever can tell me who founded the Arena.

Sure, spellcasters can compete in the Arena. Archers too. The Arena does not discriminate against any combatant foolish enough to enter!

Hayt, Designer

To buy or not to buy Oblivion/ I don't have much to add here, and I certainly don't expect anything I say to sway anyone's opinion (since it seems so many of you already have your minds made up, one way or the other). Just a couple of thoughts: First -- It's a shame to see so many people taking this personally, and hurling insults at one another. It IS possible to have differing opinions and discuss them without resorting to name-calling or cursing. (And yes, this applies to folks on BOTH sides of the argument.) Second -- I've been working on this game for a long time. A long, LONG time. Late nights, weekends, you name it. And I can honestly say -- as someone who plays games, not as a developer for the title -- that this game is so much fun I can't get over it. After all this time, I am still so eager to go into work and test, to have an opportunity to play through the game again. I haven't gotten tired of it, and I don't expect to. (I'm anxious for it to be released myself, so I can play it at home.) No less than 3 or 4 times a day do I exclaim out loud (often to the annoyance of my co-workers) over something that happened that I wasn't expecting, or was just so cool I couldn't help myself. You can choose to believe that, or decide that I'm making it up because I want the game to succeed (which, of course, I do.) But I wouldn't write it if it weren't true. I do hope that everyone gives it a chance, because I really, truly believe the game deserves it. Edit: I don't want my post de-railing the discussion, either. I'm not going to be answering questions; just wanted to offer one more opinion. *** Do the devs still read the forums at this point?/ We're quickly drifting off-topic here. This isn't a discussion of your opinions of how well/poorly the forums are moderated. That being said, yes the staff reads the forums. Be aware that we're well past the point of considering suggestions for Oblivion, however. If we keep adding/changing things, the game will never be done. *** Diminished dev presence on boards?/ Intravenus de Milo wrote: I would hope it's because they're working hard to get the game done. Ding ding ding! We have a winner. *** Game world randomly generated in-game?/ carcophan wrote: Just for the hell of it. Random. Yeah, y'know what's funny about that? I actually should have referred to it as "procedurally generated". Tee-hee. o_O To reiterate: Landscape was generated in the editor. It isn't done randomly in the game. Your landscape will not change, and is exactly the same as everyone else's.

Hayt, Designer

To buy or not to buy Oblivion/

I don't have much to add here, and I certainly don't expect anything I say to sway anyone's opinion (since it seems so many of you already have your minds made up, one way or the other). Just a couple of thoughts:

First -- It's a shame to see so many people taking this personally, and hurling insults at one another. It IS possible to have differing opinions and discuss them without resorting to name-calling or cursing. (And yes, this applies to folks on BOTH sides of the argument.)

Second -- I've been working on this game for a long time. A long, LONG time. Late nights, weekends, you name it. And I can honestly say -- as someone who plays games, not as a developer for the title -- that this game is so much fun I can't get over it. After all this time, I am still so eager to go into work and test, to have an opportunity to play through the game again. I haven't gotten tired of it, and I don't expect to. (I'm anxious for it to be released myself, so I can play it at home.) No less than 3 or 4 times a day do I exclaim out loud (often to the annoyance of my co-workers) over something that happened that I wasn't expecting, or was just so cool I couldn't help myself.

You can choose to believe that, or decide that I'm making it up because I want the game to succeed (which, of course, I do.) But I wouldn't write it if it weren't true.

I do hope that everyone gives it a chance, because I really, truly believe the game deserves it.

Edit: I don't want my post de-railing the discussion, either. I'm not going to be answering questions; just wanted to offer one more opinion.

***

Do the devs still read the forums at this point?/

We're quickly drifting off-topic here. This isn't a discussion of your opinions of how well/poorly the forums are moderated.

That being said, yes the staff reads the forums. Be aware that we're well past the point of considering suggestions for Oblivion, however. If we keep adding/changing things, the game will never be done.

***

Diminished dev presence on boards?/

Intravenus de Milo wrote:
I would hope it's because they're working hard to get the game done.

Ding ding ding!

We have a winner.

***

Game world randomly generated in-game?/

carcophan wrote: Just for the hell of it. Random.

Yeah, y'know what's funny about that? I actually should have referred to it as "procedurally generated".

Tee-hee. o_O

To reiterate:

Landscape was generated in the editor. It isn't done randomly in the game. Your landscape will not change, and is exactly the same as everyone else's.

Kathode, Producer

Has Oblivion gone gold yet? (Jan 10 2005)/ Not gold yet. *** What version will have better graphics, PC or Xbox 360?/ Both versions use identical art assets, and the shader code for a 3.0 spec PC and the 360 should be the same (though there will be slight differences in how they get compiled). The visual differences should be extremely minor due only to differences in display technology, slightly differing data formats between Xbox and PC, and very slight differences in the path from rendering hardware to display. Basically, attempting to choose one version or the other based on visual differences inherent to the software is relatively futile. Your choice should be based on your relative setups - your PC hardware and monitor and how much importance you place on mods vs. the quality of your television and your preference for playing the game with a console controller. *** When will the third fan interview be done? (Jan 3 2006)/ It's HUGE! But we're working through it. Don't forget about that whole game thing we've got to make, too ;) *** On loading times/ It was a 400% improvement based on what Oblivion's load times were previously, not a 400% improvement over Morrowind. Oblivion's load times should be on par with other 360 games. You want to play a game that uses a ton of data like Oblivion? Then you're going to have to wait while the data gets loaded :) That's just how software in general works. *** Will anti-aliasing be used on 360?/ Yeah, we use it. *** NPCs - scripted?/ Depends on how you define "scripted." Most people seem to see something either as "scripted" or "not scripted." But there's enough room in between that both can happily coexist. The observed behaviors of NPCs could indeed be expressed through complicated scripts, but the NPCs are not running off scripts in a strict sense. Put simply, they are operating on a set of rules that can be made as general or specific as one wants. So we can get behavior where an NPC simply looks for any "food" type thing that he or she can find, or we can have the NPC go to a particular table at a particular time of day when it's raining and only if they still happen to be on friendly terms with the local count. That's not to say that we don't use scripting (in a strict sense) to augment the system, but the majority of NPCs are running through a list of rules and executing those rules based on the environment around them. Sartre would probably say it transcends scripting ;) But, no brandishing about Sartre unless you've read Being and Nothingness in full. No Exit doesn't count ;) *** On Oblivion's HDR Implementation (what's this?) It uses full HDR for 3.0 cards, and image space glow (basically what you refer to as "bloom", with a few tweaks) for 2.0 cards. You cannot tell from a screenshot what lighting model we're using. By definition, HDR is a dynamic effect (it's the D in the term after all) and obviously that doesn't come across in a screenshot. *** Xbox 360 version set to a maximum of 30 FPS?/ It's 30 just like every other 360 launch title as far as I know. PGR3, Kameo, Perfect Dark, Madden all run at 30. *** On auto-cleanup of displaced items in houses/ Keys wrote: do you.. buy a house, set it up the way you like it and furnish it perfectly. leave and come back after a five day quest accross the land and find your house bare and empty with a nice candle set sitting on the table? No, it only happens for things that have NPC ownership marked on them. Stuff will get cleaned up after about three days of game time once you're out of the cell. Prevents a lot of save game bloat, plus it just makes sense that people wouldn't leave a big mess just sitting around.

Kathode, Producer

Has Oblivion gone gold yet? (Jan 10 2005)/

Not gold yet.

***

What version will have better graphics, PC or Xbox 360?/

Both versions use identical art assets, and the shader code for a 3.0 spec PC and the 360 should be the same (though there will be slight differences in how they get compiled). The visual differences should be extremely minor due only to differences in display technology, slightly differing data formats between Xbox and PC, and very slight differences in the path from rendering hardware to display. Basically, attempting to choose one version or the other based on visual differences inherent to the software is relatively futile. Your choice should be based on your relative setups - your PC hardware and monitor and how much importance you place on mods vs. the quality of your television and your preference for playing the game with a console controller.

***

When will the third fan interview be done? (Jan 3 2006)/

It's HUGE! But we're working through it. Don't forget about that whole game thing we've got to make, too ;)

***

On loading times/

It was a 400% improvement based on what Oblivion's load times were previously, not a 400% improvement over Morrowind. Oblivion's load times should be on par with other 360 games. You want to play a game that uses a ton of data like Oblivion? Then you're going to have to wait while the data gets loaded :) That's just how software in general works.

***

Will anti-aliasing be used on 360?/

Yeah, we use it.

***

NPCs - scripted?/

Depends on how you define "scripted." Most people seem to see something either as "scripted" or "not scripted." But there's enough room in between that both can happily coexist. The observed behaviors of NPCs could indeed be expressed through complicated scripts, but the NPCs are not running off scripts in a strict sense. Put simply, they are operating on a set of rules that can be made as general or specific as one wants. So we can get behavior where an NPC simply looks for any "food" type thing that he or she can find, or we can have the NPC go to a particular table at a particular time of day when it's raining and only if they still happen to be on friendly terms with the local count. That's not to say that we don't use scripting (in a strict sense) to augment the system, but the majority of NPCs are running through a list of rules and executing those rules based on the environment around them.

Sartre would probably say it transcends scripting ;) But, no brandishing about Sartre unless you've read Being and Nothingness in full. No Exit doesn't count ;)

***

On Oblivion's HDR Implementation (what's this?)

It uses full HDR for 3.0 cards, and image space glow (basically what you refer to as "bloom", with a few tweaks) for 2.0 cards.

You cannot tell from a screenshot what lighting model we're using. By definition, HDR is a dynamic effect (it's the D in the term after all) and obviously that doesn't come across in a screenshot.

***

Xbox 360 version set to a maximum of 30 FPS?/

It's 30 just like every other 360 launch title as far as I know. PGR3, Kameo, Perfect Dark, Madden all run at 30.

***

On auto-cleanup of displaced items in houses/

Keys wrote:
do you.. buy a house, set it up the way you like it and furnish it perfectly. leave and come back after a five day quest accross the land and find your house bare and empty with a nice candle set sitting on the table?

No, it only happens for things that have NPC ownership marked on them.

Stuff will get cleaned up after about three days of game time once you're out of the cell. Prevents a lot of save game bloat, plus it just makes sense that people wouldn't leave a big mess just sitting around.

MrSmileyFaceDude, Programmer

Oblivion for Macintosh?/ On the Intel-based Macs, you'll also be able to dual-boot to Windows Vista once that's out and run games natively on that. *** Oblivion for Macintosh II/ Mac + Intel + Darwine = the possibility of running Windows games like Oblivion natively in OSX :) *** On magic skill perks/ Every spell has a Skill Level associated with it, based on its total cost and the school of the dominant effect. So you might see a Journeyman level Destruction spell, or an Expert level Alteration spell. You can't cast them until your skill level in the spell's dominant school exceeds the spell's skill level -- even if you have enough magicka. So in addition to spell costs dropping and effectiveness increasing as your skills increase, you'll gain access to ever more powerful spells as you advance from Novice through to Master. *** Horse riding in first or third person?/ You can ride either way, but personally I always ride in third person. The controls are a bit different when you're riding. On the PC, A and D instead of strafing cause you to turn left & right while on horseback, and you can look around with the mouse independently. So I always put the horse on autorun, go into third person & zoom out a bit, and watch the horse & rider animating as they speed across the countryside, panning the camera around with the mouse and steering with the keyboard when I need to. *** How will magically resurrected NPCs react?/ Resurrected NPCs are not themselves. They're basically mindless automata who will follow you around and fight for you. *** Availability of summoning spells/ Whatchoo talkin' bout, Willis? Of course there are summoning spells! *** About the rate with which items in dungeons respawn/ 501105 wrote: it sounds a lot better like that but the respawning treasures sounds lame. revisits a dungeun where he was a day ago 'he isnt that the godly sword i found yesterday again?' You're assuming the respawn rate is a day, when nobody's said how fast it is. How do you know it's not a week, or a month? *** On the combat system/ mislavB wrote: desslock said that the combat has not radicaly changed form MW!!!!!!!!! that is a very VERY big dissapointment because MW combat was probably the WORST COMBAT SYSTEM EVER!!! ...and it is NOT radicaly changed??? i can not belive it!! all of those "bloody. visceral, exicting, fps-like" annoncents from Todd are probably exagerations, even lies. dessloc said that it is something beetwen gothic combat and mw. i played gothic and the combat is good, primarly because when you succesfully block, YOU BLOCK and recieve no damage. but NO!! in oblivion you block and of course RECEIVE DAMAGE...how typical for bethesda He meant that the CONTROL is very similar, with the exceptions that blocking is active and you can cast spells without sheathing your weapon. Read my team diary for a more detailed description on how combat works in Oblivion. *** Advertizing the game as an adventure for XBox 360/ "Action Adventure?" Steadtler wrote: Because if they have RPG on the XBOX, fans will be confused and will think Microsoft have been taken over by Square Enix. RPGs scare XBOX kids. Yeah, just like Morrowind on Xbox. rolls eyes *** What color will the skin of Argonians be?/ They're mostly reddish, but the red tone can vary from pale to bright to dark, and there are other color variations especially in the face depending on age. *** What color will the skin of Argonians be II/ It varies depending on the age, complexion and gender. *** More than one game disk for the Xbox 360?/ No, the game will be on one disk. *** About Xbox 360 "achievements" / the stats page I/ My gamer score on Xbox Live is 145. I have 9 out of 12 Achievements on Hexic HD. I enjoyed the challenge of getting them, and I like competing with my friends to see who can get which Achievements first. I'm 41. Am I childish? *** About Xbox 360 "achievements" / the stats page II/ Frankie I honestly don't see what the big deal is. The stats are kept track of invisibly, and like I said, you don't have to ever visit that page of the menus. Just because we throw a bone to completists and collectors doesn't mean we're taking anything away from people who don't care about such things. Different people -- even among RPG enthusiasts -- care about different things. Some people like wandering the wilderness collecting exotic ingredients and making potions. Others like sneaking around, stealing stuff and trying to get away with it. Some want to rush into heavy melee combat with plate armor and a claymore. Others may prefer ranged combat. Some folks might make a beeline for the main quest, ignoring anything else that comes up along the way. Some folks might be systematic and do one quest line at a time. Others might just do whatever quests come up as they come up, even accepting new quests before finishing others. Some folks might pay a lot of attention to how their character dresses, others might not. Some players might go around listening to every NPC conversation they find, and talk to everyone, others might only talk to NPCs when it's absolutely necessary. Some people may get a horse or steal one, others won't. Some people will use fast travel a lot, some not so much (or ever), and others whenever they're in a rush. Some people will carefully choose their major skills, and meticulously work on advancing them so as to get the greatest benefit when leveling up, and others will just play the game and hardly ever LOOK at their stats. I could go on all day. Oblivion presents a huge variety in the way people can play the game. Just because you aren't interested in accumulated stats does not mean that those who are are any less of an RPG gamer than you are. *** About Xbox 360 "achievements" / the stats page III/ I'm pretty sure that EVERY Xbox 360 game has to have Achievements you can earn. Oblivion is no exception. You'll have to wait to find out what Oblivion's Achievements are, though. Aside from that, there is a stat sheet that shows you current and highest bounty, current fame & infamy, number of kills, number of active and completed quests, etc. Lots of people like to keep track of stuff like that. If you're not interested in it, don't go to that page in the menus *** On character alignment/ Just remember that "alignment" is not part of Elder Scrolls RPGs. You have Fame, Infamy and Personality stats which will affect how NPCs feel about you, but any D&D-style alignment you'll have to keep in your head as you roleplay your character. *** Will fog be used to limit few distance?/ There's only fog for atmospheric effect. On a clear day, you can see for a very, very long distance. *** On the nature of poisons and diseases/ Poisons and Diseases have specific resistances and weaknesses, just as the elemental damage types do. They're not really elemental, but they have similarities to the elemental spells. *** About dialog voice-overs in mods/ There's a recording feature built-in to the editor and a tool to generate lip synch data. You can create mods with full voice acting if you want. But it's not required -- the dialog features will work even without voice assets, so you can have your NPCs be silent if you wish. *** What to do if you don't like the quest compass/ You can change the distance at which map icons appear on the compass in a mod. Or put a piece of tape over the monitor where the compass appears. Or do what I do, and ignore the compass most of the time anyway. It is not the big issue you think it is. *** On creating a mod to prevent autoleveling/ I would recommend playing the game first. I doubt you will even notice that it's happening. There will still be easy encounters, and there will still be super hard encounters. *** Is Oblivion being dumbed down?/ If we didn't think gamers had patience, why would we be making a game with over 200 hours of game play in it? No, we'd be making an 8-10 hour game, something the "mainstream" gamer can finish in a weekend. We wouldn't bother with stats at all. There'd be maybe 5 different spells, no alchemy at all other than healing potions you'll occasionally find, and we wouldn't bother with putting any details at all into the game world. I mean why bother? The thought that Oblivion has been dumbed down is ludicrous. If anyone truly, honestly believes the game is too mainstream after playing it, I'm willing to bet that they're just being stubborn. *** Is Oblivion being dumbed down II/ Of course not. Oblivion is an extremely rich, complex game with a tremendous amount of depth, compelling quest lines, interesting NPC characters, a huge variety of player character types and intricate character progression set in a huge, varied game world. Combat, magic, and AI have all been dramatically improved to enhance gameplay while still providing a balance between player skill and character skill, because after all, Oblivion is a role playing game. Yes, some things that were present in Morrowind are not in Oblivion -- but a lot more has been added than removed, and the goal has always been to make a game that is both more accessible to first-time RPG players, and is also challenging and rewarding for more experienced players. *** Dungeons too small in Oblivion?/ "About the New Pics..." I don't know what dungeons Desslock explored, but there are definitely some huge dungeons in Oblivion. He played for about 8 hours, I guess he just didn't get into any of the big ones. I'm sure he wanted to see as much as he could in the time he had. *** On jumping high without the jump spell effect/ Dreagon wrote: But I can't get over a simple three foot obstacle. How do you know you can't jump 3 feet? The answer is, you don't know that. And maybe if you fortified a certain skill or attribute you'd be able to. *** Number of spell effects in Oblivion/ The Codex does not list all of the spell effects. I would have thought that'd be obvious. There are over 100 spell effects available to players, and that doesn't count expanding the Fortify/Drain Attribute & Skill spell effects, nor does it count the Script Effects that have been included. *** What do Elves look like?/ None of the people in those pictures (including the avatar) is an Altmer. There's one screenshot floating around of a Dunmer blacksmith, but other than that I'm pretty sure we haven't released any other pictures of any of the Elf races. Actually in Mike Ryan's team diary there's an Editor screenshot in which an NPC who is very likely an Altmer can be seen, but not close-up. *** What's visible of city interiors from the outside/ You can see over city walls from the outside. There are numerous locations, on high mountain peaks for example, where you can see distant cities and what's inside their walls. There are low-detail versions of all of the buildings inside. The high detail versions of the buildings, along with all the other details -- signs, plants, clutter, crates, and of course NPCs, are only loaded in when you go through a city gate. *** A bit of reflection on Levitation/ Here are some of the primary reasons people used Levitation in Morrowind (gleaned from the multiple threads on the subject): 1. To escape combat 2. To exploit AI that couldn't deal with flying targets 3. To reduce travel time by flying over hazardous and/or impassable terrain 4. To get to areas specifically designed to be levitated to 5. Because it's cool A few response: 1. In Oblivion, mages have a wide variety of tools at their disposal if escaping combat is the goal. Casting Invisibility on yourself for example is a good one. Enemies lose track of you. They'll wander around, trying to find you, and if enough time passes they'll drop out of combat. Calm will put targets into a stupor during which they won't attack or follow you around for the duration of the spell. Demoralize will make a creature or NPC flee, and Turn Undead will do the same for the undead. Obviously, Paralysis is good for making a hasty retreat as well. These spells and others can of course be used for tactical advantage in combat as well. In addition, pure mages are not necessarily at such a disadvantage in combat anyway. For example, the Shield spell will improve your armor rating, and all of the Elemental shields (Fire, Frost, Lightning) will improve the armor rating in addition to resistance to the elemental magic. Factor in new features such as continuous regeneration of magicka and the fact that spell costs go down and effectiveness goes up as your skill in a spell's dominant effect increases, and mages are much, much more effective than they ever were in Morrowind. In other words, the need to flee combat is reduced. 2. In Oblivion, the AI has behavior to handle it when an opponent is unreachable, so even if Levitation was in, this wouldn't be a "viable" strategy. 3. Horses and fast travel help to reduce travel time. 4. Obviously there aren't any such areas in Oblivion. 5. Yeah, Levitation is pretty cool. But there are lots of other cool effects in the game, new and old, and many of the old with new functionality. There's no shortage of "cool" in Oblivion. While I'm sure some of you will miss the spell effect out of nostalgia, you won't find yourself NEEDING to Levitate in Oblivion. *** Mages weaker in Oblivion?/ Now there's no skill-based chance of failing to cast a spell. Skill-based spell effectiveness and cost replaces that. So you can always cast that entry level fireball spell, but it may end up doing very little damage (and using a lot of magicka) if you're Destruction skill level is very low. Also, spells have a skill level based on their dominant effect -- Novice, Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert, or Master -- and you have to be at that level in that effect's school in order to cast the spell at all -- even if you have enough magicka to cast it. So suppose you learn a high level Summon that requires a Master skill level in Conjuration and uses 150 spell points. Your total magicka pool is 200 points currently, but you're only a Journeyman in Conjuration. Even though you have enough magicka to cast the spell, you can't cast it because youre skill level isn't high enough. But it's certainly incentive to work on advancing your skills :) *** Mages weaker in Oblivion II/ "Invisibility" Romanian_Dude2005 wrote: but since they are making mages weaker this time arround No, mages are far more effective in Oblivion than they were in Morrowind. *** Mages weaker in Oblivion III/ Spells get more powerful and require less magicka to cast as your skill in the dominant effect's school increases. *** Spells: hard-coded vs. scripted/ No, there are plenty of hard-coded spells. Script Effect exists in addition to those. *** Reflection a serious problem for mage characters?/ Oh no. I don't know if that enemy I've never encountered has Reflect or not. Whatever shall I do? Hm. Maybe I'll drink a bunch of Resist Fire Damage potions before I shoot a few fireballs at him -- that way, if he has reflect, I won't get hurt by my own spell, and I'll know he has reflect. I could also cast spells at him that wouldn't affect me at all -- like Calm or Command. If they get reflected back on me, no harm. He hasn't seen me yet, he's just talking to his buddies -- I could try Frenzy, too, and that might make him attack one of his friends instead of me, and if he does have reflect I won't be affected! Maybe I'll summon a skeleton or something first, so if he aggroes on me I'll have a line of defense -- or I could cast Invisibility if he detects me and that'll let me get away too. Either way, I'll know he has Reflect without having caused any harm to myself. I'm glad that, as a mage, I'm prepared for encounters with unknown enemies and have a variety of strategic options available to me. *** Reflection a serious problem for mage characters? II/ GhanBuriGhan wrote: Magica regenerates continuously now (See Raptormeats dv diary). About the speed nothing is known. The rate is based on your Willpower. Atronach birthsign still has no automatic regen (including while resting), but you do get the high absorb chance so that counters it. There are also other ways to restore magicka that we have not talked about yet. *** Reflection a serious problem for mage characters? III/ DarkAero wrote: First off wtf? Anyways... have you played a mage in morrowind? Example of a high level battle: I'm fighting two golden saints or something. I cast fire spell. Reflect. I'm nearly dead. I drink potion of health. Then I cast absorb health. It's reflected. My magicka is now gone from two spells. I think I should summon something. Drink hugely expensive magicka potions so I can cast again. Cast summon Golden saint. With 100 skill in conjuration I still have 50% chance of failing. I fail. Drink more potion. Cast again while dodging the moster. Dodging monster causes fatigue to go down. Spell is at 25% chance now. I cast and fail. Have to drink more potions to retry. Try again. I finally cast the spell. My golden saint gets killed. Repeat until enemies are dead. Is this supposed to be fun? You're making a huge mistake -- you're assuming that everything in Oblivion is identical to Morrowind. We've already described huge changes made to the magic system, the AI, and other parts of the game, and we've said multiple times that we've spent a significant amount of time balancing the game. That includes making sure enemies don't have impossible advantages over you. Removing reflect would make the game too easy for high powered mages. You're just going to have to be careful and use the tools that are given to you, which are many and varied and fit WELL within the scope of roleplaying a pure mage. *** Reflection a serious problem for mage characters? IV/ DarkAero wrote: I know we should have faith in the devs and all. But you really haven't given us any specifics on how it will be any different if at all. Your comments thus far have nearly always been to devise new and complex strategies (ie: use spells that won't hurt to be reflected, etc.) or that it will be alot different than morrowind so all this worrying is pointless. I'm sorry, but what's wrong with me suggesting that mages use all the tools that they have at their disposal? The magic system is complex and diverse. If one is playing as a mage and can't devise strategies other than "blast them with every destructive spell that I've got," then they're not really roleplaying the brightest mage in Tamriel. Advanced mages are supposed to be highly educated and skilled in their arts. If your character is high level, you're going to face tough characters and you are going to have to take care in how you fight them. We are not going to surround you with a dozen 100% Reflect enemies. But you might encounter one really tough enemy with 20%. And by the time you reach enemies like that, your character should have had plenty of experience with the system getting to that point. It's not rocket science. It's just paying attention to what spells are available and learning when to use what. As to how the magic system will be different, I'm assuming you missed the latest team diary, which outlines a number of the ways the magic system differs (for example, magicka regeneration is a pretty big change). *** Reflection a serious problem for mage characters? V/ It's the percent chance that the effect will be reflected back at the caster. The reflection is instant (even for ranged spells) and cannot be re-reflected. No Zelda-like fireball ping pong. Resistance IS checked however, so if you are unsure about an opponent and just HAVE to blast it with a fireball, boosting your resistance to fire damage will help you avoid reflected damage. Again. There are spells that affect others, but not the player. Command. Calm. Frenzy. Demoralize. Turn Undead. Even if these are reflected, they will not hurt you, and unreflected they may make a big difference in whether the opponent chooses to fight you (or to continue doing so). As a high level pure mage, you are just going to have to be smarter than running into battle with unknown enemies with "guns" blazing. *** Reflection a serious problem for mage characters? VI/ RoboWizard wrote: The problem here is that a pure mage is screwed by this trump card, but oh well. No, they're not. The pure mage is a viable choice in Oblivion, even if some enemies do have a partial reflect chance. *** Reflection a serious problem for mage characters? VII/ RoboWizard wrote: Well if nothing else I'll give it to you that all arrows point towards expoenential improvements for pure mages, but my question is: do any of the other classes have their own kryptonite besides the reflection for mages or is it just in place to balance out the mage's naturally strong abilities? It's there to add more strategy and depth to magic casters other than just blasting away at everything. Without reflect, there's never any potential negative to casting an offensive spell other than it might be resisted (and that it consumes magicka). You are not going to encounter dozens of 100% reflect enemies at the same time. You might find one at a time with a 20% chance, or very rarely one with 30% chance but it doesn't really go higher than that. We'll leave it to mod makers to make things impossible for mages, because we're not doing that, despite what some in this thread are insisting. *** Reflection a serious problem for mage characters? VIII/ Maia wrote: or they wouldn't have needed CE reflect to make enemies tougher/prevent overuse of the damage spells. Reflect is in to add challenge, strategy and depth to playing as a mage, not because mages are or could be overpowered. It is not broken in Oblivion. *** Reflection a serious problem for mage characters? IX/ He's not suggesting that at all. (Here I go again). If you want to bombard something with a Reflect chance with destruction, buff up your resistance to magic and/or the elemental damage you're casting. You can do this with potions if you don't want to wait for your magicka to regenerate. And if you have an absorb magicka chance, you get a reduced chance to absorb a reflected spell. I keep telling you that this is not the big mage-breaking deal you think it is, but you keep insisting I'm wrong. Oblivion and Morrowind are different games. *** Magic too exploitable?/ DragoonWraith wrote: Interesting, while I don't think these are really serious exploits, you did miss one massive exploit: Alchemy stacking. Create a Fortify Intelligence Potion, drink it, create another, with better stats (thanks to your improved Intelligence), drink that, and repeat until you have potions that give thousands of Intelligence for millions of seconds (I've done it), There are now skill-based limits on the number of potions you can have affecting you at once. This was mentioned months ago, actually. There was a small misunderstandment here, as DragoonWraith added to a list someone else made about what exploits are fixed in Oblivion. Still interesting. *** Did the developers love Morrowind more?/ Oblivion is infinitely superior to Morrowind in every conceivable way. *** Usage of scripted spells/ Don't think that our designers haven't made extensive use of the Script Effect. It's used quite a bit. They were just as excited about it as you :) *** On staffs and their usage/ aelana wrote: Now that "the veil is lifted"... I wonder if we can get an answer to the ???? on if using staves will raise the skill of the spell used on it... I.E. using a fireball stave would raise destruction (less than casting, but more than nothing)... :) Even if we don't... <<<<< I LOVE THIS UPDATE >>>>>> No, staffs do not require a skill to use (unless you're blocking with a staff), and you don't get any skill usage for using one. They're kind of like scrolls in that aspect. As enchanted items, they have a maximum charge, and each time you use it the charge is drained by the cost of the enchantment. Once the charge is exhausted, the staff is useless until you recharge it. Staffs are pretty rare. Some are even artifacts. *** Implementing Mark & Recall via a mod/ As an experiment, I used a Script Effect spell to implement a kind of mark & recall spell. You'd cast it once, and it would move a special marker to where you were standing. Cast it again, and it would move you to where the marker was. Took about 20 minutes. Maybe I'll release it as a mod after the game's out. Our designers have found some insane uses for Script Effect, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the mod community comes up with! *** Animation: will "long" creatures look funny when walking slopes?/ "long" creatures like deer, wolves, and horses pitch forward or backward to match the slope of the hill. *** On spell effect duration icons/ There's a small arc over the top of the active effect icon that shrinks as it gets closer to wearing out, sort of like the enemy health indicator. *** For-pay mods making fan-made mods illegal?/ Tarnarious wrote: In other words, if you're going to mod for this game, be sure and read the EULA very carefully.... As long as mod makers don't include copyrighted assets (artwork, text, music) within the mod packages themselves. The main thing you have to avoid is re-distributing copyrighted material. So for example if you can buy horse armor from Bethesda, a mod maker cannot include that horse armor in the distribution files of their own mod. The mod can REQUIRE the horse armor, but the actual artwork itself cannot be re-distributed. *** Enchanting and soulgems, enchanting without a guild enchanter or enchant skill/ nasos_333 wrote: The bad thing is that soul gems are no longer used for the enchantment creation, so all the adventuring and searching for the best gems and creatures to capture will be gone forever, they are only used for filling up charges for cast on hit enchantments. That is absolutely not true. Just because you can't create enchantments the way you could in Morrowind doesn't mean soul gems are not required for their creation. You need to bring a populated soul gem to the enchanter. There is also another kind of stone you can find which will enable you to enchant things without anyone else, but you don't get to pick the magic effect or amount of charge. *** Levelling up several levels in quick succession still a problem?/ InbredMonkey wrote: But what is still not clear to me is if like in morrowind, where if you fight alot get a high multiplier on all of your stats and enough points to level up multiple times, then if you took multiple level ups all in a row, your character would get gimped, since levelups after the first would have NO multipliers whatsoever. That's not the case in Oblivion. You'll get the appropriate multipliers for each level advancement when you finally do get around to leveling up. *** Enchanting gone or not?/ "New Codex info" SuperX wrote: Dont think enchant has gone entirely away from the game, I think I can recall an interview where they explained how they improved the enchantment's glow and did away with morrowind's plastic-esque look. :) Enchant isn't a SKILL. There are still enchanted weapons and items, and you can create new enchanted items in a couple ways that are not skill-based. *** On blocking with a shield/ Some enemies are less likely to attack when you block, and more likely to dodge around to look for an opening. In addition, you can only move very slowly when blocking -- and you can only block blows coming from in front of you, so if you have multiple opponents it's probably not a good idea as they tend to surround you. And of course as others have said, your shield will take damage from each blow, and some will "get through" to you as well, the amounts depending on your block skill and the quality of the shield (as the shield gets more & more damage, more & more of each blow's damage gets through to you). Standing there holding block is not "completely safe." *** Blocking with a shield vs. dodging/ Matt71 wrote: If you are going to be dodging the attack, what is the point in holding up your shield? Edit... Or using a shield at all, it would only slow your type of character down. Exactly. If you're playing a speedy character, the kind who would dodge around, you're probably only going to use a shield (or weapon) to block occasionally, and instead you'd move to avoid getting hit. On the other hand if you're playing a beefy warrior type, the shield is good for standing toe to toe with an opponent. *** Can any potion be applied to a weapon or just poisons?/ "Coating arrows with poison" A poison is a potion with only negative effects. You poison weapons by selecting the poison in your inventory, and then it asks if you want to poison your current weapon or next shot with a bow. If you select a regular potion, you just drink it. So you can't apply beneficial potions to weapons. *** On leveling/ "7 major skills?" Pilaf wrote: Major skills level much faster than miscellaneous skills. That's why they're majors. They're the chosen skills of your "profession" so to speak. You could train misc. skills but not level up from doing that, and for pure RPers, that's an activity reserved for much later anyway, after completing the MQ and fully mastering all Majors. Not exactly. Major skills START at a higher level than misc skills, but they advance at the same rates for a given skill level. To advance any skill, you have to use it a specific amount -- and that amount increases the higher the skill level. That's true for both misc and major skills, though misc/minor skills don't advance as quickly as majors. If you advance Major skills 10 times, you can level up. Minor skill advancement does not contribute towards leveling up, but advancing ANY skill in between levels contributes towards increasing the bonus multiplier for the skill's governing attribute. So both majors and minors will contribute towards stat increases when you do level up. post modified to clear up some confusion *** On skill progression I/ Skill progression is not based on a linear formula. It's an exponential formula, that starts out pretty flat. So while your misc skills at the beginning may advance slightly faster than your majors at the beginning, the difference is not so great that you'll "catch up" to your majors unless you really, really work at it, which is probably not in your character's best interest (because you start out with much higher skill levels for your majors.) The curve is not dissimilar to this image. *** On skill progression II/ It's balanced so that does not happen -- you will quickly get to mediocre levels, then moderately get to good levels, then slowly get to expert levels. We've had a lot of people playtesting the game and the "feel" of skill advancement has been heavily tweaked to the point where everyone's pretty happy with it. Picking a class is MORE important than with Morrowind because ONLY your class-related skills (your majors) contribute to leveling up. You only get 7 of them, instead of 10 (majors & minors) like you did in Morrowind. 7 classes that start at a higher level, 7 classes that contribute towards leveling up. *** On skill progression III/ GhanBuriGhan wrote: Hmmm, you are saying yourself that minors quickly improve to mediocre levels. And yet you say the difference stays intact? How? Look at the curve again. Advancement requirements stay pretty flat for most of it, then jump up sharply towards the end. GhanBuriGhan wrote: And minors I take it still play a role in leveling since they contribute to the multipliers? You can advance minors only all day long and never level up. Only advancing major skills will allow you to level up. That's what I was talking about. As far as the multipliers go, when you advance a skill a formula determines how much that skill advancement contributes to your bonus multipliers. The formula takes into account whether or not the skill being advanced is major or minor. So minor skills do not contribute to the bonus multipliers as much as major skills do. GhanBuriGhan wrote: Also while its "only 7" skills that count to leveling now, all of these 7 are now equal - so there is less fine tuning to start with. The major skills don't all start out at the same level. Initial skill levels also depend on racial bonuses and other factors. And I have nothing else to say about this. When you've spent a few months with a few dozen people playtesting your advancement scheme in-game, and you've tweaked and re-balanced and modified your scheme based on their feedback through multiple iterations until everyone was happy with it, then let me know and we can compare notes. *** On skill progression IV/ While Oblivion's system does allow you to raise all of your skills to the maximum amount -- just as Morrowind did -- even with the new skill advancement formula, it will still take a much longer time to advance your minor skills to high levels than it will your majors. I understand the concerns that some people have -- but in practice it has not been an issue. We don't want to artificially prevent people from advancing whatever skills they want to, which is what it seems some of you might prefer. As the system works now, skill progression feels natural, and the rewards you get for advancing to the discrete levels (Novice/Apprentice/ Journeyman/Expert/Master) come at a good rate. Most characters will focus on their major skills -- after all, that's why most characters pick a class to begin with. But if you choose to raise everything up to 100, knock yourself out. It'll take a long time, but we're not going to stop you. And no, you won't be able to train your way up. The training system has been completely revised. *** On skill progression V/ This is what I get for making a quick post when I'm tired. Actually, the amount of skill usage you get for using a skill is the same, but major vs minor does indeed make a difference in the rate of skill advancement. Your class specialization (combat, stealth, magic) has an effect as well. Here's a concrete example. Suppose you wanted to advance a skill from 15 to 16. Major, within class specialization: 6.76 uses Major, non-specialization: 9.02 uses Minor, within class specialization: 11.27 uses Minor, non-specialization: 15.03 uses And those numbers get higher and higher in an exponential curve with higher skill levels. The amount you get for using a skill depends on the skill. For athletics, for example, you get a VERY small skill usage for every second you run. Magic skills give you a usage either when you cast or when you find a target, depending on the school. I need more sleep. Note that the exact numbers are subject to change as long as we're still balancing the game. *** The Sky and The Texture/ GhanBuriGhan wrote: I would assume two layers of cloud texture that can change and move independently. Exactly. *** On the compass being moddable/ Just to clear up a little confusion. The gamesetting indicates the distance at which compass icons appear. These icons show you the direction that things like settlements, shrines, ruins, etc. are in as you're exploring. They fade in as you get closer, and show you the direction they're in. They're actually extremely handy, especially when you're looking for a place to bunk for the night. Anyway, if you set that gamesetting to a low value in a mod, they won't appear until you're very close. These icons are different from the quest marker. That always shows you the direction you need to go to get to the next step in your quest -- assuming you've chosen to do so. (As I said before, you can pick an older quest to set the marker at if you really don't want to have it there.) You can also pick a place on the map and set your own marker location on it, and have another indicator appear on the compass pointing you in the direction of your marker. That said -- the compass, the quest marker and compass icons, are NOT the hand-holding, dumbing down babysitter some folks paint them out to be. They are extremely handy. Not everything is marked, and you can still get quite lost. Exploration is still a huge, huge part of the game. And the compass itself is not obtrusive. In fact, when I play I have to remind myself to look at the compass in the first place, because I'm always looking at my surroundings, taking in the view, looking for alchemy ingredients, keeping an eye out for enemies, etc. *** Quality of the voice acting so far?/ Sean Bean did an AWESOME job in this game. He's excellent. *** Forest poping in and out of view?/ Kaleem wrote: This was shown TODAY. At X-BOX 360 launch. Why would they show an old build with problems. Please explain. And no I have not coded games ever. I was just adding some healthy criticism and my opinion that it will be hard to fix. As Pete said in the video, he brought a stable build from a couple weeks prior. The process of optimization often leads to temporary instabilities that need to be fixed -- and he decided he'd rather have a few popup issues than risk having the game crash during the presentation. All of these issues -- instability, performance, etc. -- are continually being worked on, and of COURSE will be fixed before we release. If we didn't care about that, the game would be out now. *** Towns looking empty?/ Actually the number of NPCs walking around in town varies tremendously. Sometimes it'll be pretty busy -- sometimes it'll be quiet like it was when Pete was walking around in Skingrad. It depends on the NPC schedules. There are also certain events where there'll be more people around. As to the woman and her rumors topic. Maybe if she liked your character more, she'd have more to say. Maybe if you were in a certain guild, or had a certain level of fame or infamy, she'd have a quest for you. Maybe if you'd completed a certain quest, or talked to someone else first, she'd have additional things to talk about. Or maybe someone else will give you a quest that leads you back to her, and then she'll have things you can ask her about or confront her with. *** Towns looking empty II/ There aren't thousands of people living in each city as their would be "in real life." And everyone who IS in each city has their own schedule -- guards have patrols or stations, folks go to shop, work, eat, hunt, travel to other cities or settlements, etc. and unless there's a specific event that causes folks to congregate, it's difficult to predict when you'll see crowded cities. That same street might have more people on another day or at another time. There's no contradiction. As to the outdoor market thing, most of the shops in the cities are indoors. *** Can any building be entered?/ "Skingrad, can we enter every building?" Yes, you can enter every interior. I think he was just going to the tavern rather than a house. *** On the combat system again/ The new combat system feels nothing like Morrowind's. It's more exciting, much more fun, and involves greater strategy. Yes, player skills are involved -- you have to press the attack button (click for normal attacks, hold briefly for power attacks), actively block, and move around. But your character's stats still play a tremendous role in the success of your actions. Everyone playtesting the game has said they have a lot of fun with the new combat system. And of course it belongs in an RPG, Metalliska -- what would you prefer, you click on your opponent, press "fight this guy", and watch events unfold? *** On dialog/ It was a representation of the mechanics of dialogue. With 1500+ NPCs, a huge number of quests, over 50 hours of recorded dialogue, do you really, honestly think that that E3 demo shows every facet of how every single conversation in the entire game flows? Yes, there are conversations and quests that go in different directions depending on how you respond. No, we're not going to give any specific examples of that, because half of the fun of games like this is for you to discover these things for yourselves. There really isn't any way we can respond to this, short of releasing an entire quest's dialogue -- and that ain't gonna happen. I know you don't want to hear it, but you're just going to have to trust us that the dialogue is better than Morrowind's. *** On protective spell effects / spell shields/ Elemental shields add to your armor rating in addition to providing resistance to the particular elemental damage. *** On the leveling system again/ Conceptually, it's very similar -- you use skills to advance them. The number of times you need to use them to advance a skill increases the higher your skill level -- so at skill 5 you may need 9 uses, for example, at skill 30 you might need 50 (these are arbitrary numbers). Point being, it takes longer to advance a skill the higher your skill level is. In Oblivion, the skill usage required for advancement has been tweaked for better balance for every skill. In addition to the numeric skill value of 0-100, skills are divided into 5 discrete levels -- Novice, Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert and Master. As you attain each level in a skill, you gain "perks" that give you special abilities relevant to the skill in question. This gives additional depth to skill advancement beyond just becoming more proficient in the skill. At the start of the game, you choose 7 major skills, which defines your character's class. Only by advancing those 7 skill can your character increase in level (you have to advance major skills 10 times before you can level up). When you level up, you get the opportunity to permanently raise 3 of your character's attributes (strength, intelligence, endurance, etc.) You may get modifiers that increase the number of points by which you can raise attributes, depending on how many skills (major or not) you have advanced since the last time you leveled up. Anyway, Oblivion's skill progression and level advancement is similar to Morrowind's, but it's much more refined and balanced. And hopefully it provides greater rewards and incentive for advancing skills beyond power gaming. *** Elven Power Crystals/ They're actually called Welkynd stones, and no, they're not used for enchanting. waves hands mysteriously

MrSmileyFaceDude, Programmer

Oblivion for Macintosh?/

On the Intel-based Macs, you'll also be able to dual-boot to Windows Vista once that's out and run games natively on that.

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Oblivion for Macintosh II/

Mac + Intel + Darwine = the possibility of running Windows games like Oblivion natively in OSX :)

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On magic skill perks/

Every spell has a Skill Level associated with it, based on its total cost and the school of the dominant effect. So you might see a Journeyman level Destruction spell, or an Expert level Alteration spell. You can't cast them until your skill level in the spell's dominant school exceeds the spell's skill level -- even if you have enough magicka. So in addition to spell costs dropping and effectiveness increasing as your skills increase, you'll gain access to ever more powerful spells as you advance from Novice through to Master.

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Horse riding in first or third person?/

You can ride either way, but personally I always ride in third person. The controls are a bit different when you're riding. On the PC, A and D instead of strafing cause you to turn left & right while on horseback, and you can look around with the mouse independently. So I always put the horse on autorun, go into third person & zoom out a bit, and watch the horse & rider animating as they speed across the countryside, panning the camera around with the mouse and steering with the keyboard when I need to.

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How will magically resurrected NPCs react?/

Resurrected NPCs are not themselves. They're basically mindless automata who will follow you around and fight for you.

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Availability of summoning spells/

Whatchoo talkin' bout, Willis? Of course there are summoning spells!

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About the rate with which items in dungeons respawn/

501105 wrote:
it sounds a lot better like that but the respawning treasures sounds lame.

*revisits a dungeun where he was a day ago 'he isnt that the godly sword i found yesterday again?'*

You're assuming the respawn rate is a day, when nobody's said how fast it is. How do you know it's not a week, or a month?

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On the combat system/

mislavB wrote:
desslock said that the combat has not radicaly changed form MW!!!!!!!!!

that is a very VERY big dissapointment because MW combat was probably the WORST COMBAT SYSTEM EVER!!!

...and it is NOT radicaly changed??? i can not belive it!! all of those "bloody. visceral, exicting, fps-like" annoncents from Todd are probably exagerations, even lies.

dessloc said that it is something beetwen gothic combat and mw. i played gothic and the combat is good, primarly because when you succesfully block, YOU BLOCK and recieve no damage.

but NO!! in oblivion you block and of course RECEIVE DAMAGE...how typical for bethesda

He meant that the CONTROL is very similar, with the exceptions that blocking is active and you can cast spells without sheathing your weapon. Read my team diary for a more detailed description on how combat works in Oblivion.

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Advertizing the game as an adventure for XBox 360/

"Action Adventure?"

Steadtler wrote:
Because if they have RPG on the XBOX, fans will be confused and will think Microsoft have been taken over by Square Enix. RPGs scare XBOX kids.

Yeah, just like Morrowind on Xbox. *rolls eyes*

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What color will the skin of Argonians be?/

They're mostly reddish, but the red tone can vary from pale to bright to dark, and there are other color variations especially in the face depending on age.

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What color will the skin of Argonians be II/

It varies depending on the age, complexion and gender.

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More than one game disk for the Xbox 360?/

No, the game will be on one disk.

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About Xbox 360 "achievements" / the stats page I/

My gamer score on Xbox Live is 145. I have 9 out of 12 Achievements on Hexic HD. I enjoyed the challenge of getting them, and I like competing with my friends to see who can get which Achievements first. I'm 41. Am I childish?

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About Xbox 360 "achievements" / the stats page II/

Frankie I honestly don't see what the big deal is. The stats are kept track of invisibly, and like I said, you don't have to ever visit that page of the menus. Just because we throw a bone to completists and collectors doesn't mean we're taking anything away from people who don't care about such things. Different people -- even among RPG enthusiasts -- care about different things. Some people like wandering the wilderness collecting exotic ingredients and making potions. Others like sneaking around, stealing stuff and trying to get away with it. Some want to rush into heavy melee combat with plate armor and a claymore. Others may prefer ranged combat. Some folks might make a beeline for the main quest, ignoring anything else that comes up along the way. Some folks might be systematic and do one quest line at a time. Others might just do whatever quests come up as they come up, even accepting new quests before finishing others. Some folks might pay a lot of attention to how their character dresses, others might not. Some players might go around listening to every NPC conversation they find, and talk to everyone, others might only talk to NPCs when it's absolutely necessary. Some people may get a horse or steal one, others won't. Some people will use fast travel a lot, some not so much (or ever), and others whenever they're in a rush. Some people will carefully choose their major skills, and meticulously work on advancing them so as to get the greatest benefit when leveling up, and others will just play the game and hardly ever LOOK at their stats. I could go on all day.

Oblivion presents a huge variety in the way people can play the game. Just because you aren't interested in accumulated stats does not mean that those who are are any less of an RPG gamer than you are.

***

About Xbox 360 "achievements" / the stats page III/

I'm pretty sure that EVERY Xbox 360 game has to have Achievements you can earn. Oblivion is no exception. You'll have to wait to find out what Oblivion's Achievements are, though.

Aside from that, there is a stat sheet that shows you current and highest bounty, current fame & infamy, number of kills, number of active and completed quests, etc. Lots of people like to keep track of stuff like that. If you're not interested in it, don't go to that page in the menus

***

On character alignment/

Just remember that "alignment" is not part of Elder Scrolls RPGs. You have Fame, Infamy and Personality stats which will affect how NPCs feel about you, but any D&D-style alignment you'll have to keep in your head as you roleplay your character.

***

Will fog be used to limit few distance?/

There's only fog for atmospheric effect. On a clear day, you can see for a very, very long distance.

***

On the nature of poisons and diseases/

Poisons and Diseases have specific resistances and weaknesses, just as the elemental damage types do. They're not really elemental, but they have similarities to the elemental spells.

***

About dialog voice-overs in mods/

There's a recording feature built-in to the editor and a tool to generate lip synch data. You can create mods with full voice acting if you want. But it's not required -- the dialog features will work even without voice assets, so you can have your NPCs be silent if you wish.

***

What to do if you don't like the quest compass/

You can change the distance at which map icons appear on the compass in a mod. Or put a piece of tape over the monitor where the compass appears. Or do what I do, and ignore the compass most of the time anyway. It is not the big issue you think it is.

***

On creating a mod to prevent autoleveling/

I would recommend playing the game first. I doubt you will even notice that it's happening. There will still be easy encounters, and there will still be super hard encounters.

***

Is Oblivion being dumbed down?/

If we didn't think gamers had patience, why would we be making a game with over 200 hours of game play in it? No, we'd be making an 8-10 hour game, something the "mainstream" gamer can finish in a weekend. We wouldn't bother with stats at all. There'd be maybe 5 different spells, no alchemy at all other than healing potions you'll occasionally find, and we wouldn't bother with putting any details at all into the game world. I mean why bother? The thought that Oblivion has been dumbed down is ludicrous. If anyone truly, honestly believes the game is too mainstream after playing it, I'm willing to bet that they're just being stubborn.

***

Is Oblivion being dumbed down II/

Of course not. Oblivion is an extremely rich, complex game with a tremendous amount of depth, compelling quest lines, interesting NPC characters, a huge variety of player character types and intricate character progression set in a huge, varied game world. Combat, magic, and AI have all been dramatically improved to enhance gameplay while still providing a balance between player skill and character skill, because after all, Oblivion is a role playing game. Yes, some things that were present in Morrowind are not in Oblivion -- but a lot more has been added than removed, and the goal has always been to make a game that is both more accessible to first-time RPG players, and is also challenging and rewarding for more experienced players.

***

Dungeons too small in Oblivion?/
"About the New Pics..."
I don't know what dungeons Desslock explored, but there are definitely some *huge* dungeons in Oblivion. He played for about 8 hours, I guess he just didn't get into any of the big ones. I'm sure he wanted to see as much as he could in the time he had.

***

On jumping high without the jump spell effect/

Dreagon wrote:
But I can't get over a simple three foot obstacle.

How do you know you can't jump 3 feet? The answer is, you don't know that. And maybe if you fortified a certain skill or attribute you'd be able to.

***

Number of spell effects in Oblivion/

The Codex does not list all of the spell effects. I would have thought that'd be obvious. There are over 100 spell effects available to players, and that doesn't count expanding the Fortify/Drain Attribute & Skill spell effects, nor does it count the Script Effects that have been included.

***

What do Elves look like?/

None of the people in those pictures (including the avatar) is an Altmer. There's one screenshot floating around of a Dunmer blacksmith, but other than that I'm pretty sure we haven't released any other pictures of any of the Elf races.

Actually in Mike Ryan's team diary there's an Editor screenshot in which an NPC who is very likely an Altmer can be seen, but not close-up.

***

What's visible of city interiors from the outside/

You can see over city walls from the outside. There are numerous locations, on high mountain peaks for example, where you can see distant cities and what's inside their walls. There are low-detail versions of all of the buildings inside. The high detail versions of the buildings, along with all the other details -- signs, plants, clutter, crates, and of course NPCs, are only loaded in when you go through a city gate.

***

A bit of reflection on Levitation/

Here are some of the primary reasons people used Levitation in Morrowind (gleaned from the multiple threads on the subject):

1. To escape combat
2. To exploit AI that couldn't deal with flying targets
3. To reduce travel time by flying over hazardous and/or impassable terrain
4. To get to areas specifically designed to be levitated to
5. Because it's cool

A few response:

1. In Oblivion, mages have a wide variety of tools at their disposal if escaping combat is the goal. Casting Invisibility on yourself for example is a good one. Enemies lose track of you. They'll wander around, trying to find you, and if enough time passes they'll drop out of combat. Calm will put targets into a stupor during which they won't attack or follow you around for the duration of the spell. Demoralize will make a creature or NPC flee, and Turn Undead will do the same for the undead. Obviously, Paralysis is good for making a hasty retreat as well. These spells and others can of course be used for tactical advantage in combat as well. In addition, pure mages are not necessarily at such a disadvantage in combat anyway. For example, the Shield spell will improve your armor rating, and all of the Elemental shields (Fire, Frost, Lightning) will improve the armor rating in addition to resistance to the elemental magic. Factor in new features such as continuous regeneration of magicka and the fact that spell costs go down and effectiveness goes up as your skill in a spell's dominant effect increases, and mages are much, much more effective than they ever were in Morrowind. In other words, the need to flee combat is reduced.

2. In Oblivion, the AI has behavior to handle it when an opponent is unreachable, so even if Levitation was in, this wouldn't be a "viable" strategy.

3. Horses and fast travel help to reduce travel time.

4. Obviously there aren't any such areas in Oblivion.

5. Yeah, Levitation is pretty cool. But there are lots of other cool effects in the game, new and old, and many of the old with new functionality. There's no shortage of "cool" in Oblivion.

While I'm sure some of you will miss the spell effect out of nostalgia, you won't find yourself NEEDING to Levitate in Oblivion.

***

Mages weaker in Oblivion?/

Now there's no skill-based chance of failing to cast a spell. Skill-based spell effectiveness and cost replaces that. So you can always cast that entry level fireball spell, but it may end up doing very little damage (and using a lot of magicka) if you're Destruction skill level is very low.

Also, spells have a skill level based on their dominant effect -- Novice, Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert, or Master -- and you have to be at that level in that effect's school in order to cast the spell at all -- even if you have enough magicka to cast it. So suppose you learn a high level Summon that requires a Master skill level in Conjuration and uses 150 spell points. Your total magicka pool is 200 points currently, but you're only a Journeyman in Conjuration. Even though you have enough magicka to cast the spell, you can't cast it because youre skill level isn't high enough. But it's certainly incentive to work on advancing your skills :)

***

Mages weaker in Oblivion II/
"Invisibility"
Romanian_Dude2005 wrote:
but since they are making mages weaker this time arround

No, mages are *far* more effective in Oblivion than they were in Morrowind.

***

Mages weaker in Oblivion III/

Spells get more powerful and require less magicka to cast as your skill in the dominant effect's school increases.

***

Spells: hard-coded vs. scripted/

No, there are plenty of hard-coded spells. Script Effect exists in addition to those.
***

Reflection a serious problem for mage characters?/

Oh no. I don't know if that enemy I've never encountered has Reflect or not. Whatever shall I do? Hm. Maybe I'll drink a bunch of Resist Fire Damage potions before I shoot a few fireballs at him -- that way, if he has reflect, I won't get hurt by my own spell, and I'll know he has reflect. I could also cast spells at him that wouldn't affect me at all -- like Calm or Command. If they get reflected back on me, no harm. He hasn't seen me yet, he's just talking to his buddies -- I could try Frenzy, too, and that might make him attack one of his friends instead of me, and if he does have reflect I won't be affected! Maybe I'll summon a skeleton or something first, so if he aggroes on me I'll have a line of defense -- or I could cast Invisibility if he detects me and that'll let me get away too. Either way, I'll know he has Reflect without having caused any harm to myself. I'm glad that, as a mage, I'm prepared for encounters with unknown enemies and have a variety of strategic options available to me.

***

Reflection a serious problem for mage characters? II/

GhanBuriGhan wrote:
Magica regenerates continuously now (See Raptormeats dv diary). About the speed nothing is known.

The rate is based on your Willpower. Atronach birthsign still has no automatic regen (including while resting), but you do get the high absorb chance so that counters it. There are also other ways to restore magicka that we have not talked about yet.

***

Reflection a serious problem for mage characters? III/

DarkAero wrote: First off wtf?

Anyways... have you played a mage in morrowind?
Example of a high level battle:
I'm fighting two golden saints or something. I cast fire spell. Reflect. I'm nearly dead. I drink potion of health. Then I cast absorb health. It's reflected. My magicka is now gone from two spells. I think I should summon something. Drink hugely expensive magicka potions so I can cast again. Cast summon Golden saint. With 100 skill in conjuration I still have 50% chance of failing. I fail. Drink more potion. Cast again while dodging the moster. Dodging monster causes fatigue to go down. Spell is at 25% chance now. I cast and fail. Have to drink more potions to retry. Try again. I finally cast the spell. My golden saint gets killed. Repeat until enemies are dead.

Is this supposed to be fun?

You're making a huge mistake -- you're assuming that everything in Oblivion is identical to Morrowind. We've already described huge changes made to the magic system, the AI, and other parts of the game, and we've said multiple times that we've spent a significant amount of time balancing the game. That includes making sure enemies don't have impossible advantages over you. Removing reflect would make the game too easy for high powered mages. You're just going to have to be careful and use the tools that are given to you, which are many and varied and fit WELL within the scope of roleplaying a pure mage.

***

Reflection a serious problem for mage characters? IV/

DarkAero wrote:
I know we should have faith in the devs and all. But you really haven't given us any specifics on how it will be any different if at all. Your comments thus far have nearly always been to devise new and complex strategies (ie: use spells that won't hurt to be reflected, etc.) or that it will be alot different than morrowind so all this worrying is pointless.

I'm sorry, but what's wrong with me suggesting that mages use all the tools that they have at their disposal? The magic system is complex and diverse. If one is playing as a mage and can't devise strategies other than "blast them with every destructive spell that I've got," then they're not really roleplaying the brightest mage in Tamriel. Advanced mages are supposed to be highly educated and skilled in their arts. If your character is high level, you're going to face tough characters and you are going to have to take care in how you fight them. We are not going to surround you with a dozen 100% Reflect enemies. But you might encounter one really tough enemy with 20%. And by the time you reach enemies like that, your character should have had plenty of experience with the system getting to that point.

It's not rocket science. It's just paying attention to what spells are available and learning when to use what.

As to how the magic system will be different, I'm assuming you missed the latest team diary, which outlines a number of the ways the magic system differs (for example, magicka regeneration is a pretty big change).

***

Reflection a serious problem for mage characters? V/

It's the percent chance that the effect will be reflected back at the caster.
The reflection is instant (even for ranged spells) and cannot be re-reflected. No Zelda-like fireball ping pong. Resistance IS checked however, so if you are unsure about an opponent and just HAVE to blast it with a fireball, boosting your resistance to fire damage will help you avoid reflected damage.
Again. There are spells that affect others, but not the player. Command. Calm. Frenzy. Demoralize. Turn Undead. Even if these are reflected, they will not hurt you, and unreflected they may make a big difference in whether the opponent chooses to fight you (or to continue doing so). As a high level pure mage, you are just going to have to be smarter than running into battle with unknown enemies with "guns" blazing.

***

Reflection a serious problem for mage characters? VI/

RoboWizard wrote: The problem here is that a pure mage is screwed by this trump card, but oh well.

No, they're not. The pure mage is a viable choice in Oblivion, even if some enemies do have a partial reflect chance.

***

Reflection a serious problem for mage characters? VII/

RoboWizard wrote:
Well if nothing else I'll give it to you that all arrows point towards expoenential improvements for pure mages, but my question is: do any of the other classes have their own kryptonite besides the reflection for mages or is it just in place to balance out the mage's naturally strong abilities?

It's there to add more strategy and depth to magic casters other than just blasting away at everything. Without reflect, there's never any potential negative to casting an offensive spell other than it might be resisted (and that it consumes magicka). You are not going to encounter dozens of 100% reflect enemies at the same time. You might find one at a time with a 20% chance, or *very* rarely one with 30% chance but it doesn't really go higher than that. We'll leave it to mod makers to make things impossible for mages, because we're not doing that, despite what some in this thread are insisting.

***

Reflection a serious problem for mage characters? VIII/

Maia wrote:
or they wouldn't have needed CE reflect to make enemies tougher/prevent overuse of the damage spells.

Reflect is in to add challenge, strategy and depth to playing as a mage, not because mages are or could be overpowered. It is not broken in Oblivion.

***

Reflection a serious problem for mage characters? IX/

He's not suggesting that at all. (Here I go again). If you want to bombard something with a Reflect chance with destruction, buff up your resistance to magic and/or the elemental damage you're casting. You can do this with potions if you don't want to wait for your magicka to regenerate. And if you have an absorb magicka chance, you get a reduced chance to absorb a reflected spell. I keep telling you that this is not the big mage-breaking deal you think it is, but you keep insisting I'm wrong. Oblivion and Morrowind are different games.

***

Magic too exploitable?/

DragoonWraith wrote:
Interesting, while I don't think these are really serious exploits, you did miss one massive exploit: Alchemy stacking. Create a Fortify Intelligence Potion, drink it, create another, with better stats (thanks to your improved Intelligence), drink that, and repeat until you have potions that give thousands of Intelligence for millions of seconds (I've done it),

There are now skill-based limits on the number of potions you can have affecting you at once. This was mentioned months ago, actually.

There was a small misunderstandment here, as DragoonWraith added to a list someone else made about what exploits are fixed in Oblivion. Still interesting.

***

Did the developers love Morrowind more?/

Oblivion is infinitely superior to Morrowind in every conceivable way.
***

Usage of scripted spells/

Don't think that our designers haven't made extensive use of the Script Effect. It's used quite a bit. They were just as excited about it as you :)

***

On staffs and their usage/

aelana wrote:
Now that "the veil is lifted"... I wonder if we can get an answer to the ???? on if using staves will raise the skill of the spell used on it... I.E. using a fireball stave would raise destruction (less than casting, but more than nothing)...

:)

Even if we don't...

<<<<< I LOVE THIS UPDATE >>>>>>

No, staffs do not require a skill to use (unless you're blocking with a staff), and you don't get any skill usage for using one. They're kind of like scrolls in that aspect. As enchanted items, they have a maximum charge, and each time you use it the charge is drained by the cost of the enchantment. Once the charge is exhausted, the staff is useless until you recharge it.

Staffs are pretty rare. Some are even artifacts.

***

Implementing Mark & Recall via a mod/

As an experiment, I used a Script Effect spell to implement a kind of mark & recall spell. You'd cast it once, and it would move a special marker to where you were standing. Cast it again, and it would move you to where the marker was. Took about 20 minutes. Maybe I'll release it as a mod after the game's out. Our designers have found some insane uses for Script Effect, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the mod community comes up with!

***

Animation: will "long" creatures look funny when walking slopes?/

"long" creatures like deer, wolves, and horses pitch forward or backward to match the slope of the hill.

***

On spell effect duration icons/

There's a small arc over the top of the active effect icon that shrinks as it gets closer to wearing out, sort of like the enemy health indicator.

***

For-pay mods making fan-made mods illegal?/

Tarnarious wrote:
In other words, if you're going to mod for this game, be sure and read the EULA very carefully....

As long as mod makers don't include copyrighted assets (artwork, text, music) within the mod packages themselves. The main thing you have to avoid is re-distributing copyrighted material. So for example if you can buy horse armor from Bethesda, a mod maker cannot include that horse armor in the distribution files of their own mod. The mod can REQUIRE the horse armor, but the actual artwork itself cannot be re-distributed.

***

Enchanting and soulgems, enchanting without a guild enchanter or enchant skill/

nasos_333 wrote: The bad thing is that soul gems are no longer used for the enchantment creation, so all the adventuring and searching for the best gems and creatures to capture will be gone forever, they are only used for filling up charges for cast on hit enchantments.

That is absolutely not true. Just because you can't create enchantments the way you could in Morrowind doesn't mean soul gems are not required for their creation. You need to bring a populated soul gem to the enchanter.

There is also another kind of stone you can find which will enable you to enchant things without anyone else, but you don't get to pick the magic effect or amount of charge.

***

Levelling up several levels in quick succession still a problem?/

InbredMonkey wrote:
But what is still not clear to me is if like in morrowind, where if you fight alot get a high multiplier on all of your stats and enough points to level up multiple times, then if you took multiple level ups all in a row, your character would get gimped, since levelups after the first would have NO multipliers whatsoever.

That's not the case in Oblivion. You'll get the appropriate multipliers for each level advancement when you finally do get around to leveling up.

***

Enchanting gone or not?/
"New Codex info"
SuperX wrote:
Dont think enchant has gone entirely away from the game, I think I can recall an interview where they explained how they improved the enchantment's glow and did away with morrowind's plastic-esque look. :)

Enchant isn't a SKILL. There are still enchanted weapons and items, and you can create new enchanted items in a couple ways that are not skill-based.

***

On blocking with a shield/

Some enemies are less likely to attack when you block, and more likely to dodge around to look for an opening. In addition, you can only move very slowly when blocking -- and you can only block blows coming from in front of you, so if you have multiple opponents it's probably not a good idea as they tend to surround you.

And of course as others have said, your shield will take damage from each blow, and some will "get through" to you as well, the amounts depending on your block skill and the quality of the shield (as the shield gets more & more damage, more & more of each blow's damage gets through to you). Standing there holding block is not "completely safe."

***

Blocking with a shield vs. dodging/

Matt71 wrote:
If you are going to be dodging the attack, what is the point in holding up your shield?

Edit... Or using a shield at all, it would only slow your type of character down.

Exactly. If you're playing a speedy character, the kind who would dodge around, you're probably only going to use a shield (or weapon) to block occasionally, and instead you'd move to avoid getting hit. On the other hand if you're playing a beefy warrior type, the shield is good for standing toe to toe with an opponent.

***

Can any potion be applied to a weapon or just poisons?/
"Coating arrows with poison"
A poison is a potion with only negative effects. You poison weapons by selecting the poison in your inventory, and then it asks if you want to poison your current weapon or next shot with a bow. If you select a regular potion, you just drink it. So you can't apply beneficial potions to weapons.

***

On leveling/
"7 major skills?"
Pilaf wrote:
Major skills level much faster than miscellaneous skills. That's why they're majors. They're the chosen skills of your "profession" so to speak. You could train misc. skills but not level up from doing that, and for pure RPers, that's an activity reserved for much later anyway, after completing the MQ and fully mastering all Majors.

Not exactly. Major skills START at a higher level than misc skills, but they advance at the same rates for a given skill level. To advance any skill, you have to use it a specific amount -- and that amount increases the higher the skill level. That's true for both misc and major skills, though misc/minor skills don't advance as quickly as majors.

If you advance Major skills 10 times, you can level up. Minor skill advancement does not contribute towards leveling up, but advancing ANY skill in between levels contributes towards increasing the bonus multiplier for the skill's governing attribute. So both majors and minors will contribute towards stat increases when you do level up.

post modified to clear up some confusion

***

On skill progression I/

Skill progression is not based on a linear formula. It's an exponential formula, that starts out pretty flat. So while your misc skills at the beginning may advance slightly faster than your majors at the beginning, the difference is not so great that you'll "catch up" to your majors unless you really, really work at it, which is probably not in your character's best interest (because you start out with much higher skill levels for your majors.)

The curve is not dissimilar to this image.

***

On skill progression II/

It's balanced so that does not happen -- you will quickly get to mediocre levels, then moderately get to good levels, then slowly get to expert levels. We've had a lot of people playtesting the game and the "feel" of skill advancement has been heavily tweaked to the point where everyone's pretty happy with it.

Picking a class is *MORE* important than with Morrowind because ONLY your class-related skills (your majors) contribute to leveling up. You only get 7 of them, instead of 10 (majors & minors) like you did in Morrowind. 7 classes that start at a higher level, 7 classes that contribute towards leveling up.

***

On skill progression III/

GhanBuriGhan wrote:
Hmmm, you are saying yourself that minors quickly improve to mediocre levels. And yet you say the difference stays intact? How?

Look at the curve again. Advancement requirements stay pretty flat for most of it, then jump up sharply towards the end.

GhanBuriGhan wrote:
And minors I take it still play a role in leveling since they contribute to the multipliers?

You can advance minors only all day long and never level up. Only advancing major skills will allow you to level up. That's what I was talking about.

As far as the multipliers go, when you advance a skill a formula determines how much that skill advancement contributes to your bonus multipliers. The formula takes into account whether or not the skill being advanced is major or minor. So minor skills do not contribute to the bonus multipliers as much as major skills do.

GhanBuriGhan wrote:
Also while its "only 7" skills that count to leveling now, all of these 7 are now equal - so there is less fine tuning to start with.

The major skills don't all start out at the same level. Initial skill levels also depend on racial bonuses and other factors.

And I have nothing else to say about this. When you've spent a few months with a few dozen people playtesting your advancement scheme in-game, and you've tweaked and re-balanced and modified your scheme based on their feedback through multiple iterations until everyone was happy with it, then let me know and we can compare notes.

***

On skill progression IV/

While Oblivion's system does allow you to raise all of your skills to the maximum amount -- just as Morrowind did -- even with the new skill advancement formula, it will still take a much longer time to advance your minor skills to high levels than it will your majors. I understand the concerns that some people have -- but in practice it has not been an issue. We don't want to artificially prevent people from advancing whatever skills they want to, which is what it seems some of you might prefer. As the system works now, skill progression feels natural, and the rewards you get for advancing to the discrete levels (Novice/Apprentice/ Journeyman/Expert/Master) come at a good rate. Most characters will focus on their major skills -- after all, that's why most characters pick a class to begin with. But if you choose to raise everything up to 100, knock yourself out. It'll take a long time, but we're not going to stop you.

And no, you won't be able to train your way up. The training system has been completely revised.

***

On skill progression V/

This is what I get for making a quick post when I'm tired. Actually, the amount of skill usage you get for using a skill is the same, but major vs minor does indeed make a difference in the rate of skill advancement. Your class specialization (combat, stealth, magic) has an effect as well. Here's a concrete example.

Suppose you wanted to advance a skill from 15 to 16.

Major, within class specialization: 6.76 uses
Major, non-specialization: 9.02 uses
Minor, within class specialization: 11.27 uses
Minor, non-specialization: 15.03 uses

And those numbers get higher and higher in an exponential curve with higher skill levels.

The amount you get for using a skill depends on the skill. For athletics, for example, you get a VERY small skill usage for every second you run. Magic skills give you a usage either when you cast or when you find a target, depending on the school.

I need more sleep. Note that the exact numbers are subject to change as long as we're still balancing the game.

***

The Sky and The Texture/

GhanBuriGhan wrote:
I would assume two layers of cloud texture that can change and move independently.

Exactly.

***

On the compass being moddable/

Just to clear up a little confusion. The gamesetting indicates the distance at which compass icons appear. These icons show you the direction that things like settlements, shrines, ruins, etc. are in as you're exploring. They fade in as you get closer, and show you the direction they're in. They're actually extremely handy, especially when you're looking for a place to bunk for the night. Anyway, if you set that gamesetting to a low value in a mod, they won't appear until you're very close.

These icons are different from the quest marker. That always shows you the direction you need to go to get to the next step in your quest -- assuming you've chosen to do so. (As I said before, you can pick an older quest to set the marker at if you really don't want to have it there.) You can also pick a place on the map and set your own marker location on it, and have another indicator appear on the compass pointing you in the direction of your marker.

That said -- the compass, the quest marker and compass icons, are NOT the hand-holding, dumbing down babysitter some folks paint them out to be. They are extremely handy. Not everything is marked, and you can still get quite lost. Exploration is still a huge, huge part of the game. And the compass itself is not obtrusive. In fact, when I play I have to remind myself to look at the compass in the first place, because I'm always looking at my surroundings, taking in the view, looking for alchemy ingredients, keeping an eye out for enemies, etc.

***

Quality of the voice acting so far?/

Sean Bean did an AWESOME job in this game. He's excellent.

***

Forest poping in and out of view?/

Kaleem wrote:
This was shown TODAY. At X-BOX 360 launch. Why would they show an old build with problems. Please explain.

And no I have not coded games ever. I was just adding some healthy criticism and my opinion that it will be hard to fix.

As Pete said in the video, he brought a stable build from a couple weeks prior. The process of optimization often leads to temporary instabilities that need to be fixed -- and he decided he'd rather have a few popup issues than risk having the game crash during the presentation. All of these issues -- instability, performance, etc. -- are continually being worked on, and of COURSE will be fixed before we release. If we didn't care about that, the game would be out now.

***

Towns looking empty?/

Actually the number of NPCs walking around in town varies tremendously. Sometimes it'll be pretty busy -- sometimes it'll be quiet like it was when Pete was walking around in Skingrad. It depends on the NPC schedules. There are also certain events where there'll be more people around.

As to the woman and her rumors topic. Maybe if she liked your character more, she'd have more to say. Maybe if you were in a certain guild, or had a certain level of fame or infamy, she'd have a quest for you. Maybe if you'd completed a certain quest, or talked to someone else first, she'd have additional things to talk about. Or maybe someone else will give you a quest that leads you back to her, and then she'll have things you can ask her about or confront her with.

***

Towns looking empty II/

There aren't thousands of people living in each city as their would be "in real life." And everyone who IS in each city has their own schedule -- guards have patrols or stations, folks go to shop, work, eat, hunt, travel to other cities or settlements, etc. and unless there's a specific event that causes folks to congregate, it's difficult to predict when you'll see crowded cities. That same street might have more people on another day or at another time.

There's no contradiction.

As to the outdoor market thing, most of the shops in the cities are indoors.

***

Can any building be entered?/
"Skingrad, can we enter every building?"
Yes, you can enter every interior. I think he was just going to the tavern rather than a house.

***

On the combat system again/

The new combat system feels nothing like Morrowind's. It's more exciting, much more fun, and involves greater strategy. Yes, player skills are involved -- you have to press the attack button (click for normal attacks, hold briefly for power attacks), actively block, and move around. But your character's stats still play a tremendous role in the success of your actions. Everyone playtesting the game has said they have a lot of fun with the new combat system.

And of course it belongs in an RPG, Metalliska -- what would you prefer, you click on your opponent, press "fight this guy", and watch events unfold?

***

On dialog/

It was a representation of the mechanics of dialogue. With 1500+ NPCs, a huge number of quests, over 50 hours of recorded dialogue, do you really, honestly think that that E3 demo shows every facet of how every single conversation in the entire game flows?

Yes, there are conversations and quests that go in different directions depending on how you respond. No, we're not going to give any specific examples of that, because half of the fun of games like this is for you to discover these things for yourselves.

There really isn't any way we can respond to this, short of releasing an entire quest's dialogue -- and that ain't gonna happen. I know you don't want to hear it, but you're just going to have to trust us that the dialogue is better than Morrowind's.

***

On protective spell effects / spell shields/

Elemental shields add to your armor rating in addition to providing resistance to the particular elemental damage.

***

On the leveling system again/

Conceptually, it's very similar -- you use skills to advance them. The number of times you need to use them to advance a skill increases the higher your skill level -- so at skill 5 you may need 9 uses, for example, at skill 30 you might need 50 (these are arbitrary numbers). Point being, it takes longer to advance a skill the higher your skill level is. In Oblivion, the skill usage required for advancement has been tweaked for better balance for every skill.

In addition to the numeric skill value of 0-100, skills are divided into 5 discrete levels -- Novice, Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert and Master. As you attain each level in a skill, you gain "perks" that give you special abilities relevant to the skill in question. This gives additional depth to skill advancement beyond just becoming more proficient in the skill.

At the start of the game, you choose 7 major skills, which defines your character's class. Only by advancing those 7 skill can your character increase in level (you have to advance major skills 10 times before you can level up). When you level up, you get the opportunity to permanently raise 3 of your character's attributes (strength, intelligence, endurance, etc.) You may get modifiers that increase the number of points by which you can raise attributes, depending on how many skills (major or not) you have advanced since the last time you leveled up.

Anyway, Oblivion's skill progression and level advancement is similar to Morrowind's, but it's much more refined and balanced. And hopefully it provides greater rewards and incentive for advancing skills beyond power gaming.

***

Elven Power Crystals/

They're actually called Welkynd stones, and no, they're not used for enchanting. *waves hands mysteriously*

Pete, Vice President of PR & Marketing

Half-hearted updates on Elderscrolls.com?/ When there are new articles and interviews that go up, we're going to put links up to them on the main page, regardless of whether or not we're doing a site update. Not everyone that follows the game and visits the site is aware of every new article and interview. We hope to have some more updates for you shortly but things have been beyond hectic lately and we don't have anyone, including me, that can stop what they're doing to do a site update. I'm out of the country all week so I'm not sure if we can get one done this week, but for sure by next week. *** Levitation: In or not?/ There is no levitation in Oblivion. ...a bit later, same thread... No, we don't get into defending every decision we make in trying to make the best game we can. Sorry. *** Updates concentrating on XBox 360 version of the game?/ Doesn't matter what the reason is, definitely true that the Xbox sold much better than the PC (in fact, it's still selling to this day). Xbox 360 screens are more prevelent because we initially put out only PC shots for quite a while. We're just trying to balance them out, more than anything. I could give you 10 screens and, aside from any interface giveaways, there's no chance you could guess which 5 are PC and which are 360. Other than that, the updates are not platform specific at all. We believe in promoting equally to both platforms. *** On the Bethesda Softworks Email Newsletter/ It's worth noting that Shifty Eyed Dog worked for a long time on the newsletter and getting it right. She deserves a lot of credit for its very existence. We hope to do them as often as we can. (How's that for a non-answer?) Seriously, monthly would be nice. We'll see what we can do. With all the stuff we have coming up next year, I think that should be very easy for us to do. Lots going on. *** On XBOX 360 mouse and keyboard support Currently, the keyboard and mouse cannot be used for game controls on 360. Maybe that will change, maybe it won't. Currently the keyboard can only be used in places where you're entering text or using the Dashboard keyboard. I, personally, hope it's supported someday as I'd love to play first-person games on an Xbox 360 with a keyboard. *** Paying for official mods?/ People here have enough to do without worrying about whether or not fans are going to decide to buy something that is optional after the game comes out. I think folks don't appreciate just how much work would go into doing something like a holiday that they would casually remark that the relative value is a couple cents compared to something else. It's a lot of work to do right. Look, people who want to buy Oblivion will buy it. People who don't, won't. We try hard to make a compelling argument for buying our games, but we never said you had no choice. We just like to make it hard for people to say no by showing lots of cool things, but it's still a choice. Your choice. The same goes for plugins. Get them, don't get them, it's up to you. Nobody's forcing you to do anything and nothing is being done to punish you for whatever choice you make. It's just like the decision to buy an expansion, on a much, much smaller scale. If you wanna spend your dollar on a soda instead of a plugin, or a couple bucks on a burger instead of a plugin, that's your choice. Nobody's stopping you. I'm much, much more concerned with making sure this game is absolutely spectacular and stunning and worth the wait...worth every hard earned penny you spent to buy it...and so is everyone else here. I'll worry about the dollar you might spend on a plugin after we've made you very happy with the game. *** Are birthsigns unbalanced?/ rime wrote: Care to explain to me how "The Lord" would ever be a viable sign in any situation whatsoever compared to all the other signs? No, I'll let you decide that for yourself once you've had a chance to play the game and experience one, or more, of the birthsigns for yourself. It's not up to me to tell you how to play the game or what choices to make. It's up to the individual player. *** Paying for official mods II/ To clarify, it is very illegal for anyone to charge for Elder Scrolls related mods, plugins, etc. There is nothing we have taken out, or scaled back (ie, "let's do three hairstyles and charge for the others") in order to be able to do it later as downloadable content. That's just silly. We'd never do it, the game is too important. There's plenty of stuff we would like to do and just didn't have time for, and new ideas are being come up with all the time for new content. Those are the things we will be featuring. *** Change in update schedule or No More Friday Updates/ We aren't doing "Friday Updates" anymore. There was an update last week, there was an update this week. As I said in the pinned thread, we're aiming for one every week. Aiming, not promising, aiming. We're not telling you when they are coming or what they are or doing the same day every week. This is intentional and designed to undo this "it's Friday where's our update" thing that way too many folks are stuck on. Hope that clears things up. *** On the delay of the game's release / Message to the fans/ So Todd and I were talking last night and decided that we, or I, should post something on the forums to try and bring fans up-to-speed on what's up. So here goes. In short, the game is coming out in early 2006 because it isn't done yet. We still have things that need to be done before the game is released. So we continue to optimize, test, balance, etc. We've already gone way beyond what we did in any game previously in playtesting and balancing this game. Way beyond. But there is work that needs to be done and so development continues to go on pretty much around the clock. We will not put out a more specific date until we are certain we will be ready then. Like system specs, we aren't fans of putting out info that changes later on and only confuses or annoys our fans. We have a number of site updates planned between now and the game's release that we hope to do on a regular basis each week. We'll do the best we can to make it every week, but understand that sometimes PR/marketing stuff gets in the way of game development and so it has to get set aside sometimes for the good of the game (and the people making it). We'll be updating the Codex in stages, adding new concept art, screens, etc. in the coming weeks and months. We're open to doing another fan interview in the coming weeks as well to let you ask what it is you think we aren't telling you. In short, we aren't holding out on you, we just don't want to be done telling you about the game before it comes out. We appreciate your patience and continued support and ensure you that your dedication will be rewarded with what we think is the best RPG you've ever played. Best, Pete (and Todd)

Pete, Vice President of PR & Marketing

Half-hearted updates on Elderscrolls.com?/

When there are new articles and interviews that go up, we're going to put links up to them on the main page, regardless of whether or not we're doing a site update. Not everyone that follows the game and visits the site is aware of every new article and interview.

We hope to have some more updates for you shortly but things have been beyond hectic lately and we don't have anyone, including me, that can stop what they're doing to do a site update. I'm out of the country all week so I'm not sure if we can get one done this week, but for sure by next week.

***

Levitation: In or not?/

There is no levitation in Oblivion.

...a bit later, same thread...

No, we don't get into defending every decision we make in trying to make the best game we can. Sorry.

***

Updates concentrating on XBox 360 version of the game?/

Doesn't matter what the reason is, definitely true that the Xbox sold much better than the PC (in fact, it's still selling to this day).

Xbox 360 screens are more prevelent because we initially put out only PC shots for quite a while. We're just trying to balance them out, more than anything. I could give you 10 screens and, aside from any interface giveaways, there's no chance you could guess which 5 are PC and which are 360.

Other than that, the updates are not platform specific at all. We believe in promoting equally to both platforms.

***

On the Bethesda Softworks Email Newsletter/

It's worth noting that Shifty Eyed Dog worked for a long time on the newsletter and getting it right. She deserves a lot of credit for its very existence.

We hope to do them as often as we can. (How's that for a non-answer?) Seriously, monthly would be nice. We'll see what we can do. With all the stuff we have coming up next year, I think that should be very easy for us to do. Lots going on.

***

On XBOX 360 mouse and keyboard support

Currently, the keyboard and mouse cannot be used for game controls on 360. Maybe that will change, maybe it won't. Currently the keyboard can only be used in places where you're entering text or using the Dashboard keyboard.

I, personally, hope it's supported someday as I'd love to play first-person games on an Xbox 360 with a keyboard.

***

Paying for official mods?/

People here have enough to do without worrying about whether or not fans are going to decide to buy something that is optional after the game comes out.

I think folks don't appreciate just how much work would go into doing something like a holiday that they would casually remark that the relative value is a couple cents compared to something else. It's a lot of work to do right.

Look, people who want to buy Oblivion will buy it. People who don't, won't. We try hard to make a compelling argument for buying our games, but we never said you had no choice. We just like to make it hard for people to say no by showing lots of cool things, but it's still a choice. Your choice.

The same goes for plugins. Get them, don't get them, it's up to you. Nobody's forcing you to do anything and nothing is being done to punish you for whatever choice you make. It's just like the decision to buy an expansion, on a much, much smaller scale. If you wanna spend your dollar on a soda instead of a plugin, or a couple bucks on a burger instead of a plugin, that's your choice. Nobody's stopping you.

I'm much, much more concerned with making sure this game is absolutely spectacular and stunning and worth the wait...worth every hard earned penny you spent to buy it...and so is everyone else here. I'll worry about the dollar you might spend on a plugin after we've made you very happy with the game.

***

Are birthsigns unbalanced?/

rime wrote:
Care to explain to me how "The Lord" would ever be a viable sign in any situation whatsoever compared to all the other signs?

No, I'll let you decide that for yourself once you've had a chance to play the game and experience one, or more, of the birthsigns for yourself. It's not up to me to tell you how to play the game or what choices to make. It's up to the individual player.

***

Paying for official mods II/

To clarify, it is very illegal for anyone to charge for Elder Scrolls related mods, plugins, etc.

There is nothing we have taken out, or scaled back (ie, "let's do three hairstyles and charge for the others") in order to be able to do it later as downloadable content. That's just silly. We'd never do it, the game is too important.

There's plenty of stuff we would like to do and just didn't have time for, and new ideas are being come up with all the time for new content. Those are the things we will be featuring.

***

Change in update schedule or No More Friday Updates/

We aren't doing "Friday Updates" anymore. There was an update last week, there was an update this week. As I said in the pinned thread, we're aiming for one every week. Aiming, not promising, aiming.

We're not telling you when they are coming or what they are or doing the same day every week. This is intentional and designed to undo this "it's Friday where's our update" thing that way too many folks are stuck on.

Hope that clears things up.

***

On the delay of the game's release / Message to the fans/

So Todd and I were talking last night and decided that we, or I, should post something on the forums to try and bring fans up-to-speed on what's up. So here goes.

In short, the game is coming out in early 2006 because it isn't done yet. We still have things that need to be done before the game is released. So we continue to optimize, test, balance, etc. We've already gone way beyond what we did in any game previously in playtesting and balancing this game. Way beyond. But there is work that needs to be done and so development continues to go on pretty much around the clock. We will not put out a more specific date until we are certain we will be ready then. Like system specs, we aren't fans of putting out info that changes later on and only confuses or annoys our fans.

We have a number of site updates planned between now and the game's release that we hope to do on a regular basis each week. We'll do the best we can to make it every week, but understand that sometimes PR/marketing stuff gets in the way of game development and so it has to get set aside sometimes for the good of the game (and the people making it). We'll be updating the Codex in stages, adding new concept art, screens, etc. in the coming weeks and months. We're open to doing another fan interview in the coming weeks as well to let you ask what it is you think we aren't telling you. In short, we aren't holding out on you, we just don't want to be done telling you about the game before it comes out.

We appreciate your patience and continued support and ensure you that your dedication will be rewarded with what we think is the best RPG you've ever played.

Best,

Pete (and Todd)

Sentinel, Designer

New races?/ All of the races for Oblivion are listed in the Codex section of the Elder Scrolls site. There are no new races that weren't already included in Morrowind. *** Do the developers prefer Morrowind over Oblivion?/ Can't speak for everyone here, but I definitely think Oblivion is more fun to play than Morrowind. *** Use of the mousewheel in Oblivion/ The mousewheel allows you to zoom in and out from third person view to first person view. To switch weapons we have a system similar to Morrowind where you assign certain items/weapons to different number keys. *** Blocking with a two-handed weapon/ Lord_Dragoth_Nerevar wrote: i have a question that wasnt answered when i did a search on it. in one of the videos, the dude was fighting what appeared to be a ghost, and he had his sword drawn. as it went to smack him, he put the blade up and blocked. was this actually blocking, or just being knocked back and throwing his sword in the air, because it would be cool to have a diakatana out and block with it. also, how many attack styles have been added? in mw, there was chop, stab, and slash. are they still implemented, or is the system completly different? thx Yes you can block with two-handed weapons, but they will not absorb as much damage as a shield and you will lower the durability of the item. *** In what year does OB take place?/ Freddo wrote: 3rd Era 433 Freddo is correct. 3E 433 *** Extend of face editing options for races/ While there are a lot of facial options and endless ways you can tweak a races face, you won't be able to edit the underlying structure. So an Argonians will never look like an Orc as their nose and mouth are just too different. About the only races that you can make look pretty similar to each other are the Nords, Bretons and Imperials. Though the Nord will be taller. *** Towns looking empty?/ NorthernHick wrote: Fair enough. It just seems to me that Pete's saying that this video is set at a time that will tend to be busier than most others. So saying that the video demonstrates a relatively quiet time in the city...well, you can see why it seems a little dubious to me. I have no doubts that there are moments that are a lot busier; the concern of this thread is that the general feel might be somewhat empty; that we'll often be walking around these grand magnificent cities, and left wondering "Where is everyone?"...as in this video. That video is a little deceiving. Usually when you walk around a city you'll see multiple NPCs nearby, not including the guards. So I think Pete happened to walk down the street when no one was around. If you notice when he's exiting the town, he then passes several people, which is closer to the norm. *** What's "Nirnroot"?/ It's an alchemical ingredient that is also the focus of a series of quests in the game. It's a plant that often resides near water and is fairly rare.

Sentinel, Designer

New races?/

All of the races for Oblivion are listed in the Codex section of the Elder Scrolls site. There are no new races that weren't already included in Morrowind.

***

Do the developers prefer Morrowind over Oblivion?/

Can't speak for everyone here, but I definitely think Oblivion is more fun to play than Morrowind.

***

Use of the mousewheel in Oblivion/

The mousewheel allows you to zoom in and out from third person view to first person view. To switch weapons we have a system similar to Morrowind where you assign certain items/weapons to different number keys.

***

Blocking with a two-handed weapon/

Lord_Dragoth_Nerevar wrote:
i have a question that wasnt answered when i did a search on it. in one of the videos, the dude was fighting what appeared to be a ghost, and he had his sword drawn. as it went to smack him, he put the blade up and blocked. was this actually blocking, or just being knocked back and throwing his sword in the air, because it would be cool to have a diakatana out and block with it. also, how many attack styles have been added? in mw, there was chop, stab, and slash. are they still implemented, or is the system completly different? thx

Yes you can block with two-handed weapons, but they will not absorb as much damage as a shield and you will lower the durability of the item.

***

In what year does OB take place?/

Freddo wrote:
3rd Era 433

Freddo is correct.

3E 433

***

Extend of face editing options for races/

While there are a lot of facial options and endless ways you can tweak a races face, you won't be able to edit the underlying structure. So an Argonians will never look like an Orc as their nose and mouth are just too different. About the only races that you can make look pretty similar to each other are the Nords, Bretons and Imperials. Though the Nord will be taller.

***

Towns looking empty?/

NorthernHick wrote:
Fair enough. It just seems to me that Pete's saying that this video is set at a time that will tend to be busier than most others. So saying that the video demonstrates a relatively quiet time in the city...well, you can see why it seems a little dubious to me.

I have no doubts that there are moments that are a lot busier; the concern of this thread is that the *general feel* might be somewhat empty; that we'll often be walking around these grand magnificent cities, and left wondering "Where is everyone?"...as in this video.

That video is a little deceiving. Usually when you walk around a city you'll see multiple NPCs nearby, not including the guards. So I think Pete happened to walk down the street when no one was around. If you notice when he's exiting the town, he then passes several people, which is closer to the norm.

***

What's "Nirnroot"?/

It's an alchemical ingredient that is also the focus of a series of quests in the game. It's a plant that often resides near water and is fairly rare.

Shifty Eyed Dog, Designer

Oblivion for Macintosh?/ DrSpock wrote: Plus, part of the incentive might be that Bethesda is making this game on Microsoft's console, and Microsoft and Apple aren't the best of friends... Microsoft owns something like 10% of Apple. When Apple was about to dissappear, Microsoft invested a bunch of money in them to keep a competitor around. So in that sense Apple loves Microsoft, and Microsoft has a reason to get more games ported to Mac. I looked at the new games available for Mac and was really suprised to see that they ported Doom 3 over along with some other popular games. So I wouldn't be suprised if even more high profile games get published for Mac. But yes, if you want a Mac version of Oblivion, tell the folks that publish Mac games. Personally, I'd love a Mac version, being a Mac owner myself. PS - MacSoft and Aspyr are the mac game publishers.

Shifty Eyed Dog, Designer

Oblivion for Macintosh?/

DrSpock wrote:
Plus, part of the incentive might be that Bethesda is making this game on Microsoft's console, and Microsoft and Apple aren't the best of friends...

Microsoft owns something like 10% of Apple. When Apple was about to dissappear, Microsoft invested a bunch of money in them to keep a competitor around. So in that sense Apple loves Microsoft, and Microsoft has a reason to get more games ported to Mac.

I looked at the new games available for Mac and was really suprised to see that they ported Doom 3 over along with some other popular games. So I wouldn't be suprised if even more high profile games get published for Mac.

But yes, if you want a Mac version of Oblivion, tell the folks that publish Mac games. Personally, I'd love a Mac version, being a Mac owner myself.

PS - MacSoft and Aspyr are the mac game publishers.

Slateman, Designer

Who wrote the story & dialogue to OB?/ RobertRPG12345 wrote: Was it the devs, or did they hire a professional story/script writer? The devs seem totally awesome at programming & art etc, absolutely no question at all about that. But are they just as good at writing a story and all the dialogue? All of the story and dialog was developed here by us, yes. *** About faction quests/ Each of the faction lines in this game have plots and quests to much greater depth over MW. Quality, not quantity. Don't forget the myriads of dungeons and Miscellaneous quests (which are also done in greater depth than you suspect). Trust me, you have PLENTY to do :) *** Vampire content in Oblivion?/ Correct. There is vampire content (to what extent you'll have to see)... *** Factions: Quality vs. Quantity considerations/ No, I am not making any specific references. It seems that upon each faction that is being mentioned, you would like a full-blown story arc laced with tons of high-quality quests. Which we are giving you in spades... trust me. If we succumbed to everyone's wishes (regarding: Nine Divines, Werewolves, etc.) at that level of detail, this game would never be released this century. Believe me, if we could throw more content in at the caliber of detail of all the rest (which is much already), and had the time in our schedule, we would have. *** Lack of content in Oblivion?/ This is the perfect spot for me to make an observation for anyone concerned with lack of content or that the game will pass by too quickly: I have been playtesting this game for months, by randomly wandering Cyrodiil and just seeing what turns up. Even though I am a designer myself, I am not privvy to every single piece of content that was added. And I have to say with conviction, that I am absolutely astounded how little of the world I have "seen". Every day I test, I find something new and something that makes me say "wow". Be it a quest, a dungeon, a particular NPC, even a breathtaking vista view of the land... I have yet to see all of this game's content. So be secure in the knowledge that when Oblivion lands on your doorstep, you aren't just buying a crappy 30 hour RPG. You are buying a miniature world. Enjoy! :D *** On design decisions - what's in and what isn't, and why/ To make things simple (probably open a can of worms with this, but I doubt it)... When you begin a game project, you have to set a schedule. Basically, we have a series of huge meetings and everyone's ideas go on a sort of "white board". Then it takes series of meetings to decide how long each and every one of those things would take. I was at many a meeting where Nine Divines was mentioned, and we just saw that it wasn't in the cards. Any game project HAS to have a finite amount of time involved. For every day that passes by, the game is costing us time. So, it isn't simple to just keep adding on to the end of the schedule. I for one would have thought the Divines would have been super cool. Werewolves too. I loved Bloodmoon. But sometimes, you just have to draw the line somewhere. We aren't out here to make certain people unhappy. We are fans too... we play tons of games here, believe me. We are never doing anything to spite you guys. We just have to say "ok, this amount of material is going to take this long (and by the way, no matter what the project... that seems to always be an underestimate) and that's all we can do". So, please don't take anything missing from Oblivion as a slight or a personal affront. We just want to deliver the game in a somewhat timely fashion and move to the next project and hopefully add the content you want there. *** On not being able to discuss the game in detail/ Zeravus wrote: That must really suck to want to tell something, but can't. Err... you do want to tell us, right? You do love us? Right?! You have no idea how much I would love to just get this game out to you guys. You're going to love it. :D *** On autoleveling/ MrSmileyFaceDude wrote: I would recommend playing the game first. I doubt you will even notice that it's happening. There will still be easy encounters, and there will still be super hard encounters. Yep. To second MSFD, we don't auto-level exactly to your level. We have all sorts of adjustments available. If we didn't the game would be boring :D *** Automap in Oblivion/ Orcestrator wrote: I never had any doubts. The compass will not be ruining the game. On a similar topic, did you read anything having to do with an indoor map that would help when we are exploring some of those immense dungeons? Here is a quote about what I'm referring to... Michael Ryan On: Labyrinths Because the game has so many dungeons, we tackled the job in stages, chipping away at the lengthy list and adding more and more polish over time. Each builder on the team has a preferred process for designing a solid dungeon, but we all start with the basic layout of the environment. Oblivion has a very powerful (and cool-looking) map feature that can help you find your way through the toughest of labyrinths, but that's still no substitute for a coherent, well-planned layout. Not only will the layout dictate the pacing of your combat encounters in the dungeon, but it will also determine the available lighting options at your disposal (which in turn, have a huge impact on how well the dungeon will actually run). As often as possible, we also try to incorporate elements such as multiple paths, dramatic overlook spots, and cool vista moments. Throughout the process, the dungeon type (marauder fortress, goblin cave, vampire lair, etc.) determines the architecture we use and the types of spaces the layout can and should use. Finally someone noticed :) *** Why do liches float?/ GreatGreen wrote: yeah, but they float, so i guess that could cause some confusion as to what they actually are. :) They float because frankly, they are very powerful, and decide to propel themselves that way. However, they are not non-corporal. They have physical form. *** Ragdoll physics and realistically falling corpses/ Roidrage1212 wrote: I have to agree... The fourth one was very.. .. unnatural. Wow, you guys notice the smallest details :D Not to defend what to you guys looked like an "unnatural death", but I have yet to play a game (on PC, Xbox, Xbox 360, etc) with ragdolling that didn't have the occassional death that looked odd or even hilarious. There are so many variables involved in ragdoll physics, its bound to happen :D *** On how marksmanship work in Oblivion/ PillowTheif wrote: They've made it so you always hit with melee combat, the damage forumla was just expanded upon. I imagine the same thing goes with marksman, that if you shoot at someone, you'll hit, but your arrow might not do any damage. Marksman could aslo effect the speed at which you draw back your arrows, allowing you to fire more in a shorter period of time as your skill grew. Exactly. As Todd Howard has mentioned numerous times, we no longer just depend on hit or miss die rolls. If you aim right, you'll hit. BUT skill determines how well you hit.

Slateman, Designer

Who wrote the story & dialogue to OB?/

RobertRPG12345 wrote:
Was it the devs, or did they hire a professional story/script writer?

The devs seem totally awesome at programming & art etc, absolutely no question at all about that. But are they just as good at writing a story and all the dialogue?

All of the story and dialog was developed here by us, yes.

***

About faction quests/

Each of the faction lines in this game have plots and quests to much greater depth over MW. Quality, not quantity. Don't forget the myriads of dungeons and Miscellaneous quests (which are also done in greater depth than you suspect). Trust me, you have PLENTY to do :)

***

Vampire content in Oblivion?/

Correct. There is vampire content (to what extent you'll have to see)...

***

Factions: Quality vs. Quantity considerations/

No, I am not making any specific references. It seems that upon each faction that is being mentioned, you would like a full-blown story arc laced with tons of high-quality quests. Which we are giving you in spades... trust me. If we succumbed to everyone's wishes (regarding: Nine Divines, Werewolves, etc.) at that level of detail, this game would never be released this century. Believe me, if we could throw more content in at the caliber of detail of all the rest (which is much already), and had the time in our schedule, we would have.

***

Lack of content in Oblivion?/

This is the perfect spot for me to make an observation for anyone concerned with lack of content or that the game will pass by too quickly:

I have been playtesting this game for months, by randomly wandering Cyrodiil and just seeing what turns up. Even though I am a designer myself, I am not privvy to every single piece of content that was added. And I have to say with conviction, that I am absolutely astounded how little of the world I have "seen". Every day I test, I find something new and something that makes me say "wow". Be it a quest, a dungeon, a particular NPC, even a breathtaking vista view of the land... I have yet to see all of this game's content. So be secure in the knowledge that when Oblivion lands on your doorstep, you aren't just buying a crappy 30 hour RPG. You are buying a miniature world. Enjoy! :D

***

On design decisions - what's in and what isn't, and why/

To make things simple (probably open a can of worms with this, but I doubt it)...

When you begin a game project, you have to set a schedule. Basically, we have a series of huge meetings and everyone's ideas go on a sort of "white board". Then it takes series of meetings to decide how long each and every one of those things would take. I was at many a meeting where Nine Divines was mentioned, and we just saw that it wasn't in the cards. Any game project HAS to have a finite amount of time involved. For every day that passes by, the game is costing us time. So, it isn't simple to just keep adding on to the end of the schedule. I for one would have thought the Divines would have been super cool. Werewolves too. I loved Bloodmoon. But sometimes, you just have to draw the line somewhere. We aren't out here to make certain people unhappy. We are fans too... we play tons of games here, believe me. We are never doing anything to spite you guys. We just have to say "ok, this amount of material is going to take this long (and by the way, no matter what the project... that seems to always be an underestimate) and that's all we can do". So, please don't take anything missing from Oblivion as a slight or a personal affront. We just want to deliver the game in a somewhat timely fashion and move to the next project and hopefully add the content you want there.

***

On not being able to discuss the game in detail/

Zeravus wrote:
That must really suck to want to tell something, but can't. Err... you do want to tell us, right? You do love us? Right?!

You have no idea how much I would love to just get this game out to you guys. You're going to love it. :D

***

On autoleveling/

MrSmileyFaceDude wrote:
I would recommend playing the game first. I doubt you will even notice that it's happening. There will still be easy encounters, and there will still be super hard encounters.

Yep. To second MSFD, we don't auto-level exactly to your level. We have all sorts of adjustments available. If we didn't the game would be boring :D

***

Automap in Oblivion/

Orcestrator wrote:
I never had any doubts. The compass will not be ruining the game.

On a similar topic, did you read anything having to do with an indoor map that would help when we are exploring some of those immense dungeons? Here is a quote about what I'm referring to...

Michael Ryan On: Labyrinths

Because the game has so many dungeons, we tackled the job in stages, chipping away at the lengthy list and adding more and more polish over time. Each builder on the team has a preferred process for designing a solid dungeon, but we all start with the basic layout of the environment. Oblivion has a very powerful (and cool-looking) map feature that can help you find your way through the toughest of labyrinths, but that's still no substitute for a coherent, well-planned layout. Not only will the layout dictate the pacing of your combat encounters in the dungeon, but it will also determine the available lighting options at your disposal (which in turn, have a huge impact on how well the dungeon will actually run). As often as possible, we also try to incorporate elements such as multiple paths, dramatic overlook spots, and cool vista moments. Throughout the process, the dungeon type (marauder fortress, goblin cave, vampire lair, etc.) determines the architecture we use and the types of spaces the layout can and should use.

Finally someone noticed :)

***

Why do liches float?/

GreatGreen wrote:
yeah, but they float, so i guess that could cause some confusion as to what they actually are. :)

They float because frankly, they are very powerful, and decide to propel themselves that way. However, they are not non-corporal. They have physical form.

***

Ragdoll physics and realistically falling corpses/

Roidrage1212 wrote:
I have to agree... The fourth one was very.. .. unnatural.

Wow, you guys notice the smallest details :D

Not to defend what to you guys looked like an "unnatural death", but I have yet to play a game (on PC, Xbox, Xbox 360, etc) with ragdolling that didn't have the occassional death that looked odd or even hilarious. There are so many variables involved in ragdoll physics, its bound to happen :D

***

On how marksmanship work in Oblivion/

PillowTheif wrote:
They've made it so you always hit with melee combat, the damage forumla was just expanded upon.

I imagine the same thing goes with marksman, that if you shoot at someone, you'll hit, but your arrow might not do any damage. Marksman could aslo effect the speed at which you draw back your arrows, allowing you to fire more in a shorter period of time as your skill grew.

Exactly. As Todd Howard has mentioned numerous times, we no longer just depend on hit or miss die rolls. If you aim right, you'll hit. BUT skill determines how well you hit.

VXSS (aka Wormgod), Jr. Animator

'Dwarves' having been given name by a race of giants?/ If you are "dwarfed" by something, that something is larger than you. If something is "giant", it can be inferred that it "dwarfs" you. Giant does not have to be a noun. Think of it as an adjective. Ogres can be considered "giants" by anything they tower over. Anything smaller than an ogre can be considered a "dwarf" to the ogre. Theoretically, if an ogre happened across a dunmer for the very first time, he could easily "dwarf" him and label him that, just as the dunmer could label the ogre a "giant". The story about "giants" calling the dwemer "dwarves".... whats so hard to believe about that? Todd here is shorter than me.... I call him a midget. He isnt really a midget though. *** Are all dragons dead?/ All of the dragons didnt die. They have their own means of remaining "hidden" from Tamriel's populace. Whether its shapeshifting, hiding deep in the mountains or jungles, or even in very protective custody of secret Imperial strongholds, they do exist. The reason the dragons left Morrowind was because of the food chain being broken. Cliffracers were in such great numbers that they food became scarce for the dragons, so they moved on. Even if they stuck around and killed the cliffracers off, the food would still be at a shortage. The dragon from Redguard fell easily for many reasons. Cyrus was more than just a Redguard. Playing the game will explain much about his abilities. Also, no matter big the dragon was, he was confined in a rather tight space. Try wrestling with someone in a box the size of a microwave. Plus, Naffy wasnt the smartest of dragons, as working for Lord Richton should say that much alone. His greed got the better of him. Not such a noble dragon. Also, as Battlespire hinted, there is (or was) an elite Imperial dragon mount guard (TES Dragoons). Search for a document relaying a wing mounted guard's final words about his mount, PaprDragn. *** More on dragons/ Dragons are far from "natural" creatures in TES. They play a very large role, especially with the Empire and to simply USE a dragon because every other Tom, Dick, and Harry game does is just bandwagon fodder. We refuse to do that. If there is NEED for a dragon in a title, we decide how to do it best and make it an important part of the game. Like the Empire.... they have a pact with the existing dragons in Tamriel. If the Empire NEEDS a dragon, they call upon it for assistance. BUT, only if they NEED it. Dragons are too few and too important to use just because they are mighty, powerful creatures. Besides, TES dragons are far too intelligent to be USED. If it's a worthy cause, they will assist. See. The Empire uses dragons just as we at Bethesda do. ;) More on dragons, same thread/ Benethor wrote: Couldn't Daedric Invasion be considered a good reason for the Empire to ask the Dragons to help? It's a great reason to ask for help. *** "Is zooming into people's faces necessary?"/ We didnt tell you? We put in a new skill.... "Dermatology". Now, you can make a few bucks analyzing the skin of NPCs and give suggestions as to how to keep their complexion looking good. Can't exactly make this work without getting up close and personal with their pores. ;)

VXSS (aka Wormgod), Jr. Animator

'Dwarves' having been given name by a race of giants?/

If you are "dwarfed" by something, that something is larger than you.

If something is "giant", it can be inferred that it "dwarfs" you.

Giant does not have to be a noun. Think of it as an adjective. Ogres can be considered "giants" by anything they tower over. Anything smaller than an ogre can be considered a "dwarf" to the ogre. Theoretically, if an ogre happened across a dunmer for the very first time, he could easily "dwarf" him and label him that, just as the dunmer could label the ogre a "giant".

The story about "giants" calling the dwemer "dwarves".... whats so hard to believe about that? Todd here is shorter than me.... I call him a midget. He isnt really a midget though.

***

Are all dragons dead?/

All of the dragons didnt die. They have their own means of remaining "hidden" from Tamriel's populace. Whether its shapeshifting, hiding deep in the mountains or jungles, or even in very protective custody of secret Imperial strongholds, they do exist.

The reason the dragons left Morrowind was because of the food chain being broken. Cliffracers were in such great numbers that they food became scarce for the dragons, so they moved on. Even if they stuck around and killed the cliffracers off, the food would still be at a shortage.

The dragon from Redguard fell easily for many reasons. Cyrus was more than just a Redguard. Playing the game will explain much about his abilities. Also, no matter big the dragon was, he was confined in a rather tight space. Try wrestling with someone in a box the size of a microwave. Plus, Naffy wasnt the smartest of dragons, as working for Lord Richton should say that much alone. His greed got the better of him. Not such a noble dragon.

Also, as Battlespire hinted, there is (or was) an elite Imperial dragon mount guard (TES Dragoons). Search for a document relaying a wing mounted guard's final words about his mount, PaprDragn.

***

More on dragons/

Dragons are far from "natural" creatures in TES. They play a very large role, especially with the Empire and to simply USE a dragon because every other Tom, Dick, and Harry game does is just bandwagon fodder. We refuse to do that.

If there is NEED for a dragon in a title, we decide how to do it best and make it an important part of the game. Like the Empire.... they have a pact with the existing dragons in Tamriel. If the Empire NEEDS a dragon, they call upon it for assistance. BUT, only if they NEED it. Dragons are too few and too important to use just because they are mighty, powerful creatures. Besides, TES dragons are far too intelligent to be USED. If it's a worthy cause, they will assist.

See. The Empire uses dragons just as we at Bethesda do. ;)

More on dragons, same thread/

Benethor wrote:
Couldn't Daedric Invasion be considered a good reason for the Empire to ask the Dragons to help?

It's a great reason to ask for help.

***

"Is zooming into people's faces necessary?"/

We didnt tell you? We put in a new skill.... "Dermatology". Now, you can make a few bucks analyzing the skin of NPCs and give suggestions as to how to keep their complexion looking good. Can't exactly make this work without getting up close and personal with their pores. ;)