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).