Well I got my copy on Sunday although I've only played for about 3 hours; I know, I'm really not applying myself ;) . I would only have bought the normal edition but the store I got it from only had the Collector's Edition. Nice scam lol, so anyone who wants the game has to pay extra (I assume the CE was more expensive anyway). How delightfully pointless is that coin [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

Anyway lots of things I like so far! I love the grass that you walk through. So cool to be wading through long grasses and shrubs and such instead of the wilderness that looks like it has just been freshly mown. Very cool. Also cool that it obscures your view of baddies. Which is also improved by the fact that the 'monster alarm' music doesn't immediately start blaring at you when there's a monster within 20 feet of you. A bit more realistic that wolves and things can actually sneak up on you!

I also really like the way the creatures die, which sounds really ghoulish lol, but I mean the graphics. Like in the starter dungeon when I went over a bridge thing and killed a rat on it, the rat keeled over and then slid off the bridge onto the floor. Looked very realistic. And they don't seem to die the same - depending on how you hit them wolves might end up lying slightly differently when they're dead.

I'm a bit iffy on the fighting system - probably just have to get used to it as I can't just hold down the mouse button while the monster comes at me and release it when they arrive like in Morrowind.

Anyway what do y'all like and not like? [img]smile.gif[/img]

I definitely don't like the inventory screen, it was much better displayed in Morrowind. you can't even see your equiped weapon, because there's a large window on top of it. I also don't like the way you can remove items from your inventory. In morrowind you could make a nice big pile of items all on the same spot, this doesn't work in Oblivion.

Of course graphically it's a major improvement, but gameplay-wise i definitely see a few flaws compared with Morrowind. Merchants AGAIN not being able to buy expensive stuff being one of them.

There's also the fact of not being able to wear a shirt under your cuirass, or a pants under your greaves, which doesn't make any sense to me. And why oh why will they ever realize that people can wear more than just two rings and one necklace at the same time ? I even know people who wear rings on their toes for crying out loud.

When you are in the inventory screen, click on your character and hold down the mouse button, you can then zoom in and out by moving the mouse forwars and backwards, you can also rotate. ;)

Delightful indeed. I love the way it's been made to look like it's changed hands often. Totally pointless, but a nice gimmick all the same.

I've had my copy since friday but i'm still yet to play it. I'll be picking up my new system this friday so i'll have the whole weekend to get some first impressions. After reading the CE companion manual (quite interesting for someone who hasn't read a lot of ES lore) i've already formed a few ideas on how the MQ is going to play out. Should be fun.

Trying to map controls onto the different buttons on my mouse doesn't seem possible :( . I have more buttons than an X-Box controller dammit!

I really like the interface in NWN where you can drag and drop different equipment combos into the quickslots and immediately switch between them. In Oblivion you can assign equipment to the numeric keys but I get really confused as to what's equipped and what's not, and I have to memorise what weapon I've assigned to what key. I usually end up removing shields and torches etc since you still have them "equipped" but not visible when using 2 handed weapons.

I'll get used to it I'm sure!

[ 03-28-2006, 08:44 AM: Message edited by: Zink Whistlefly ]

Things I don't like.

You can't equip cloting and armor at the same time.

Horses are way too weak. I don't know if they don't level up with you or what, but everything can kill mines easily.

I have problems with the auto-leveling of ennemies too. It's probably fine when you are a warrior or pure mage, but as a pure rogue it's unbalanced.

Last night I did a small quest in the Imperial city. The end guy was in full Deadric armor with a matching two handed sword against my thief that'S about as skilled at fighting as he was 15 levels ago.

I think balancing the ennemies on your level is ridicullous in a skill based game, your attributes should be considered. My rogue has the fighting skill of a level 5, yet he's facing level 20 warriors and mages. I actually had to cheat to finish that guy and be able to proceed with the game. The guy was killing me in 3 hits and it took me more than 30 to kill him.

I like the quests, a lot of them are really well written, even the Fighter's Guild quests which are pretty formulaic, (Go to Y, kill X, retrieve Z) are well written and interesting.

The voice acting is very good, and the maps are well put together.

One thing I'd complain about is that some of the quests, you need to kill everything in a dungeon. The problem is, sometimes they'll run away, out of the dungeon, and you have to spend forever tracking them down with absolutely no clues as to their whereabouts.

I just got a mission to kill all npcs in a cave. One was an orc in Daedric armor with a two handed daedric hammer doing +20 fire damage. He was killing me in two hits.

Another was a warrior in deadric with a deadric shield and an ember? longsword. It took me 57 hits to kill him.

I've decided this is ridicullous and I'll leave god mode on from now on, as there is nothing my thief can kill. I'll just sneak around, that's what I made the character for, and god mode kill the obligatory commoners/begars/bandits in full deadric.

[ 03-28-2006, 11:36 PM: Message edited by: Luvian ]

I don't like they way you can't name save games. I do like how saving is so fast and you can press quicksave and practically not stop moving. Good for me who quicksaves compulsively.

LOL I just came across a highwayman. By came across I mean that I went up and talked to him not realising he was a highwayman, upon which he demanded my money. Otherwise he would have just stood there minding his own business. I don't think he was really applying himself to his craft :D

I'm also going for the stealth character... I think it'll be tough up until you get to the level that allows your stealth strikes to ignore armor, then it should get a lot easier. [img]smile.gif[/img] I notice that it's getting tougher and tougher to kill stuff as I level up more... seems a bit unbalanced. Personally I think if you're unseen you should get a huge bonus to your damage (more than 3x).

I think i'm probably leveling up too fast. I'm still equiped with the same sword i had at level 5, and i'm at level 20 now. It's a good sword, the Ebaser is it's name i think, but the enemies are getting tougher and tougher to kill, especially the Daedra i run into at my current level. But also creatures like Ogres and Minotaurs deliver very hard blows, they wreck my armour in seconds, and it costs me thousands of Septims to get it fixed again later on, because my own skills aren't high enough yet to repair enchanted equipment. Plus the enchantment on my sword is wearing off faster than i earn money to get it recharged again.

I wish there was some sort of Bag of Holding or some such, because i get encumbered ridiculously fast, and had to leave for thousands of Septims worth of goodies behind. Of course i can always go back to the fort or cave where i left it, but somehow i never get to that, i keep rolling from one situation into the next. :D

The ignore armor hit won't make any difference. At 21 I can sneak up right next to an ennemy and do a x6 melee sneak attack, and it will barely take any health away from the mob. Like I said it took me 57 hits to kill the last ennemy I killed. That sneak attack just lowered it to 51 attacks left to kill it. Yay! Even if you ignored the armor, you'd still have to hit him a least 40 times still.

I actually started a new game as a warrior, pure thief is impossible. I did anything I wanted to do with a thief anyway. Completed the Thief guild and Dark Brotherhood, poked around castles and such, got rich, explored ruins, and I hadn't started the main quest yet. That new Khajiit warrior will allow me to do the Fighter Guild an the Arena, as well as maybe the Mage guild if I have time.

Well that sucks.

However... as opposed to quitting, if I get to that point I'll start creatively tweaking the character, a few more points in various attributes, maybe some better equipment will miraculously appear out of thin additem air.

One of the things I really liked about NWN was that stealth was a real asset.

Just a thought: What's stopping you from re-entering the shadows after each stealth attack? There were plenty of ways of doing this in Morrowind. I can't imagine there being any less in Oblivion.

Trust me, I did so too. My character is set up in a full set of Glass armor and a modified glass longsword with the damage of a daedric one.

All in all, the set give me +10 agi, +10 speed, +5 endurance +40 health, +10 security, +10 sneak, +10 Blade, +10 Light armor, +15 Shield, +20 Chameleon. That's on top of the +30% fire +30% ice resist ring and a stat boosting amulet I got legit. The sword has +7 health +7 endurance +7 magika stealing. I also raised my endurance some with the console. The goal was to make my character more fighter like. The character went from 75! health to 240 or so I think. The battles I mentioned above were with those items and stats.

Because I'm detected and can't. I guess I could get invisibility potions or such, but those were regular fights. If I have to spend 10-15 mins and pull crazy tricks just to beat a random trash monster, there is a problem and I won't get anywhere at that rate.

-I had the same fighting problems with my assassin character. the solution is easy: drop the difficulty slider just a tiny bit. Sad you have to do it, but it majorly affects the damage done/received ratio. Which is JUST what you want to change.

-No Morrowind was unbelievable and just wrong how it worked with sneaking. In no way if I'm seen can I hide again, that's just wrong and I'm glad Oblivion fixed that.

Things I like:
Graphics are nice
Better stories and more variation in graphics and the world.
More alive
Less bugs
More of the same things I loved with Morrowind
You still get plenty of gold from hunting vampires ;)
More goodies and more action in the wild that feels well, just more in place.
No flying birds picking your head all the time!
Still moddable!
What you do during a fight has impact! (Read, you can fight in this game ;) )

Things that bugs me:
Consolly feel - inventory and the journal system.
Less is not more . I want crossbows, medium armours, throwing weapons etc. Give me!!!
Still favours casters a bit too much but well more a matter of taste.
The all knowing watch! If the police here was that efficient there wouldn't be no crimes, but still they let known necromances room around in caverns? - Ok, if you kill a peson in his home, they know you did it! Bad you go to jail! You kill someone in a creepy cavern - they know you did it.
A daedra has his little lair of child sacrificing and all in general be a bad naighbour behaviour - ten minutes walk up the road and the damned guard on horse asks me "whats up citizen"?
They know where you are! You can't hide so start running! If you sneak around being really good at and have a chameleon spell and hits the caster in your enemy group from far away suddenly they know you are there and you can't sneak.
Weapon swapping during fight is hard - but crouching and walk like an astmatic ant is ok.
No magic creation except in the big city after doing several stupid quests!
Scalable enemies are ok - to some degree.
Scalable items are not! Sick highwaymen with Silver weapons and dwarven armour are not fun!

One time I escaped from prison and got all the way to the door leading out of the castle undetected, but I couldn't get past the door without being seen. I decided to just run trough and escape them. I spent something like 15 minutes running trough town with the guards after me, I went in shops and everything, but they wouldn't give up. I eventually decided hiding was impossible and I went out of town and ran off with the guards after me. I almost made it to the imperial city before they killed me and I reloaded.

I don't think you could get them off you without a horse.

There is a mod that change this. I didn't try it yet, but it make it so that when you commit a crime it only get reported in a certain radius around you and if no guard "hear" it you don't get caught. I think it was called "no psychic guards" or something like that.

Sounds like something I will have to check on!
I mean it would be nice to after a week or two find a wanted poster somewhere you haven't visited yet with your (piss-poor-ugly) face on and a wanted text ;)

I jumped through an Oblivion gate and only one guard chased me through... one is pretty easy to dispatch.

I think I'll have to look into the mod... it's really stupid that when you leave a town and go to another town you get greeted at the gate by a guard who somehow knows what you've done.

I don't like all the tabs and I don't like having to dismount from my steed to fight. I also don't like random Imperial horses wandering around (okay, its only happened once), because its so tempting to steal it... and really, I find it hard to resist temptation. I don't like having thief stuff on my character record [img]smile.gif[/img] .

Speaking of which - psychic(sp?) guards suck.

I disagree, slightly. If you remove yourself from the npc's line of sight (either by a lot of running or some tricky manoeuvring) then there's no reason why one shouldn't be able to hide again. Now that the guard is alerted to your presence it might make remaining hidden a lot harder, but it's not to say it shouldn't be possible. That's how it works in real life. Guards that know exactly what you've done and exactly where you are even though they can't see you is NOT how it is in real life.

The 100% chameleon was always cheezy in Morrowind and, unfortunately, it looks like it might be the only practical way of stealthy combat in Oblivion. But i'm looking forward to finding my own ways.

I still haven't played it yet, but i've less than 6 hours to wait. This has been the longest week in memory...

I disagree, slightly. If you remove yourself from the npc's line of sight (either by a lot of running or some tricky manoeuvring) then there's no reason why one shouldn't be able to hide again. Now that the guard is alerted to your presence it might make remaining hidden a lot harder, but it's not to say it shouldn't be possible. That's how it works in real life. Guards that know exactly what you've done and exactly where you are even though they can't see you is NOT how it is in real life.

The 100% chameleon was always cheezy in Morrowind and, unfortunately, it looks like it might be the only practical way of stealthy combat in Oblivion. But i'm looking forward to finding my own ways.

I still haven't played it yet, but i've less than 6 hours to wait. This has been the longest week in memory... </font>[/QUOTE]Well you can remain undetected even after attacking once, but it depend a lot on the embient lights and you need high skill.

I can go in a very dark corner, stand still, shot an arrow, the mob will freak out and look around but won't see me. Once he settle down I shoot again... The problem is that this work only in perfect conditions, a mob 15 or so yards away, a perfectly shadowed corner, high enough skill. And even then, the ennemy is not stupid and eventually he'll run in the direction the arrows came from and now since he's closer and "suspicious" he'll more than likely spot you.

Also, if there are two mobs, the second one seem to have an easier time of it and will come in the direction the arrow came from almost always at the first shot, if he saw it.

I even once killed a zombie by standing in stealth behind it and wacking it with my sword, zombies are not the most preceptive creatures.

[ 03-31-2006, 12:50 AM: Message edited by: Luvian ]

Well it seems like it is way easier to remain hidden after a sneak up kill with closecombat weapon/unarmed then shooting with a bow.

This feels really stupid because the ow makes not any real noice in the game, while sneaking up on someone and whack their neck of with a longsword or stab with a knife yields a Monty Pythonic death of grandeur with enemies falling to pieces and weapons and shields clanging all over the place and the death rattle is not really a rattle - more like a syumphony of agaony lasting two seconds. However, it feels strangely rewarding after slowly creeping up on someone but when their buddy is like 10 feet away round the corner and don't react - silly.

Reloaded the scenario and shot the guy from way off from a corridoor in total darkness, had chameleon on and sneaking slowly. After I hit the guy around the corner knew exactly where I was and my "eye" turned bright golden - even more silly.

Radiant AI?

Do you have a link or a name for this mod? It sounds interesting!

I know, I just can't get used to tabbing instead of right-clicking. It is so irritating when I go to check my map or inventory and just get an insipid swish of my sword because I have right-clicked out of habit [img]graemlins/idontagreeatall.gif[/img]

Heheh, I have been playing the game since it came out and I still keep pressing "M" when I want to see the map [img]tongue.gif[/img]

I disagree, slightly. If you remove yourself from the npc's line of sight (either by a lot of running or some tricky manoeuvring) then there's no reason why one shouldn't be able to hide again. Now that the guard is alerted to your presence it might make remaining hidden a lot harder, but it's not to say it shouldn't be possible. That's how it works in real life. Guards that know exactly what you've done and exactly where you are even though they can't see you is NOT how it is in real life.

The 100% chameleon was always cheezy in Morrowind and, unfortunately, it looks like it might be the only practical way of stealthy combat in Oblivion. But i'm looking forward to finding my own ways.

I still haven't played it yet, but i've less than 6 hours to wait. This has been the longest week in memory... </font>[/QUOTE]Well you can remain undetected even after attacking once, but it depend a lot on the embient lights and you need high skill.

I can go in a very dark corner, stand still, shot an arrow, the mob will freak out and look around but won't see me. Once he settle down I shoot again... The problem is that this work only in perfect conditions, a mob 15 or so yards away, a perfectly shadowed corner, high enough skill. And even then, the ennemy is not stupid and eventually he'll run in the direction the arrows came from and now since he's closer and "suspicious" he'll more than likely spot you.

Also, if there are two mobs, the second one seem to have an easier time of it and will come in the direction the arrow came from almost always at the first shot, if he saw it.

I even once killed a zombie by standing in stealth behind it and wacking it with my sword, zombies are not the most preceptive creatures. </font>[/QUOTE]This sounds precisley like the Thief games. Isn't that fine 'as is'? Oh wait you don't have flashbombs for when you're spotted :-/

I haven't had any problems as of yet, although I'm only a level 5 Assassin. I've done the first few quests for the Thieves’ Guild, and advanced to Silencer with the Dark Brotherhood. (Gotta love Shadowmere!) Haven’t touched the main quest at all.

Most of the weaker NPCs will go down with one sneak attack from my bow. For the tougher ones, I open up with a 3X sneak attack from afar and continue pelting my target with arrows until they fall to the floor. I usually have to run backwards and keep laying into them until they drop, which works fine as long as I have plenty of room to move, simply because my Speed and Athletics are so high I can keep most opponents at a distance with ease. It gets a little hairy in smaller, enclosed areas. In those types of fights I take quite a few hits, but I can use my high Acrobatics skill to literally jump over their head and get behind them. Instead of taking three or four hard hits, I may only take one or two before I can spin around and start shooting again. Plus, being a Vampire, I seem to be able to take more of a beating then before.

*** SPOILERS ***

In one Dark Brotherhood quest, I remember being chased through town by a khajiit enforcer, trying to escape without killing him. I'm running around corners, ducking into alleys, leaping over fences and walls, basically leaving him in the dust because he wasn't nearly as fast and had to walk around all of the stuff I jumped over with ease. I had enough time to stop, turn around, and wait for a few seconds before I finally see him come barreling around the corner. Got to give those NPCs props, they don't give up very easily. I remember another time where I was chased through the wilderness for what seemed like miles by an extremely pissed off Unicorn. (Anyone know of a way to tame them? I noticed that when you get close enough, the “ride” icon appears on your mouse cursor.) The damn thing would just not give up, so it chased me all the way to the Inn of Ill Omen. I come charging down the road, pissed equine in tow, just as some traveler comes out of the inn. I blow right by him and into the inn, but catch a slight glimpse of him pulling out his bow and backing away. I heal up real quick, and slip back outside for a quick peak. The Unicorn and bowman are going at it fight night style, circling each other and attacking. I stand there and watch the show for a second, then decide maybe I should try and help. I whip out my bow and start to close in, only to notice my new “friend” has a nice silver bow that’s better than the rusty iron crap I’m carrying. Deciding that discretion is the better part of valor, I put away my weapon and wait to see what happens. The bowman gets close, but doesn’t quite do it. He falls after a swift kick to the jaw, at which point I rush in, grab his bow, equip it, and just barely manage to finish the job.

Glycerine

[ 03-31-2006, 02:14 PM: Message edited by: Glycerine_74 ]

A couple of others things I like very much - you don't get fatigued when running so you can constantly run and not have to stop and walk all the time. Also that magicka replenishes without having to sleep. I was thrilled when I was healing myself in Kvatch when I discovered this!

Just got the game yesterday... and it is so cool. Although I don't like how all the merchants are heartless extortionists and that disposition minigame confuses the hell out of me.
I also hate that in the Arena you only seem to fight Female combatants for a long time, I'm up to the rank of Gladiator and think he last 5 opponents have been female... beating women for fun is just not cool... :rolleyes: [img]tongue.gif[/img]
The loading times like someone else mentioned, but then again I hardly notice because when playing Halflife 2 and Vampire Bloodlines on my old PC I had to wait 5 minutes for loading times, so it's not much.

By the way I got the Collectors edition... paid $10 more for it... and they had the regular version too... [img]smile.gif[/img]

What I like so far...
Combat... so much better than in Morrowind, you acctually have a chance to block enemies blows.
The graphics are simply awesome, and the physics system too. Really liked it in the Kvatch Oblivion gate, were I killed a Scamp and his body slid down and into the lava... awesome... [img]smile.gif[/img] (bythe way I died in the gate a realised my last save was 2 hours old so I went back and still havn't been too Kvatch yet).

Oh and today I was supposed to go to work but I called in sick to keep playing... calling in sick to play a computer game is something I have not done since the original Baldur's Gate came out... [img]smile.gif[/img]

Like: Mostly everything.

Dislike: There doesn't seem to be any way of precisely placing items in the world. I spent countless hours rearanging clutter in Morrowind. Are houses etc in Oblivion expected to have random clutter patterns?

The npc levelling system seems to place heavy emphasis on either "Powergame" or "Sabotage your skills so that you don't level" approaches. There's no apparent middle ground or "Roleplaying" approach which is where i like to be.

Dislike: 100% spoken dialogue. I was never convinced that it would work for me and now that i've played it, i'm even less convinced. They could've done so much more with 5 gigabytes...

I know, I just can't get used to tabbing instead of right-clicking. It is so irritating when I go to check my map or inventory and just get an insipid swish of my sword because I have right-clicked out of habit [img]graemlins/idontagreeatall.gif[/img] </font>[/QUOTE]I'm glad someone agrees! :D

What annoyed me most about that is the inventory - I set it to "left shift click" only to discover.. that's the key that's assigned to drop stuff. I had to move it down one to the control key. Mucho annoying. Oh well.

I also don't like how there are no real zoom options on the maps. Especially the close up one. It's too zoomed in, but the other one's too far zoomed out. And sometimes, not enough. I like to get an overview - I can't really, not without the map that came with Oblivion and I don't like using that one.