Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

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Neziroth
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Neziroth »

So I finally picked this up, having no time during the summer to play sucked, but winter's here and there's nothing to do so I tackled the game again.

I used my level 23 custom light armor melee / stealth char and I thought this was kinda easy. The main quest is really all I've done, I haven't explored a lot of side quests -- and there are a ton of them. The main quest took me from 23 to something like 28 or 29, but I'm a little disappointed that my attack seems capped (33 with 1h sword Umbra) as does my AC (85), so I'm not gaining a lot of power. :-(

The main quest probably took about 10 - 15 hours of game time tops. It was a lot of dungeon crawling and there really weren't a lot of story driven battles like in the main game. Like... I can really only think of one named antagonist that you have multiple dealings with before finally battling, and (s)he isn't introduced until halfway through.

Mostly, it was go to dungeon x and get item y.

As far as new treasure goes there's two suits of armor that you have to find molds and components to make, one light and one heavy set -- both also have new weapons. They seem to give pretty good stats and look cool. I've only found the gloves mold for the light armor so far and the torso / boots for the heavy armor.

There's also other misc. armor, robes, weapons and items around too -- it's not just limited to the two sets of armor. There's probably hundreds of new items.

You gain a few new powers and the ending is interesting as well, I'll leave it at that.

The world is probably about 1/2 the size of the main game's world, which is nothing to sneeze at. There seems to be plenty of lore and random dungeons to explore, which is nice.

All in all it's a cool little expansion and I recommend it to you if you liked oblivion, especially if your character can still use some advancement.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Funkmasterr »

I got a sword from the shivering isles, can't remember what it's called but it changes to a different sword for day or night.. After I got that (keep in mind I think I'm also around level 40 at least) I could kill pretty much anything in the game in one hit. It was a very easy game but that made it a cake walk.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Neziroth »

That's Dawnfire / Duskfire. It's attack is lower than the sword I'm currently using. The sword I have (Umbra) seems to have maxed it's attack at 33. I dunno, I just got the ability to repair it to past 100% (expert armorer) and it's attack still stayed at 33.

My Blade skill is maxxed as well, so that's not the problem... and I can nowhere near kill anything in one hit -- with either sword.

I'd say check again man, that doesn't sound right unless you have some mods installed or something, I'm playing the original game.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Funkmasterr »

Neziroth wrote:That's Dawnfire / Duskfire. It's attack is lower than the sword I'm currently using. The sword I have (Umbra) seems to have maxed it's attack at 33. I dunno, I just got the ability to repair it to past 100% (expert armorer) and it's attack still stayed at 33.

My Blade skill is maxxed as well, so that's not the problem... and I can nowhere near kill anything in one hit -- with either sword.

I'd say check again man, that doesn't sound right unless you have some mods installed or something, I'm playing the original game.

1 hit might have been an exaggeration, but not by much. Nothing took more than 4-6 swings of my sword, and at no point did I ever have to do anything else, literally. Walk up to something, turn on attack and stand still until sword is swung a couple of times, walk away with full health. The game has a very weak battle system, is it asking that much for games to spend more time in development so that companies can spend as much time on all aspects of it so we can get a good rounded game for once?
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by miir »

Walk up to something, turn on attack and stand still until sword is swung a couple of tim
It's been a while since I played Oblivion but I don't recall combat being something you just turn on.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Funkmasterr »

miir wrote:
Walk up to something, turn on attack and stand still until sword is swung a couple of tim
It's been a while since I played Oblivion but I don't recall combat being something you just turn on.
You're right, I popped it in last night. You have to tap the attack button four or five times to kill damn near anything, hell combat in Two Worlds was more difficult.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by miir »

So in other words, you don't know what you're talking about....
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Funkmasterr »

miir wrote:So in other words, you don't know what you're talking about....

I know precisely what I am talking about - I have every damn achievement and over a hundred hours logged in that game - if I say it's easy, you can rest assured I know what I'm talking about.

Can you seriously tell me that you don't think the combat system is over simplified to the point that you might be able to train a dog to do it? Or are you just being difficult :D
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Sylvus »

Just for the sake of clarification, when you present an idea as a fact (which you often do, explicitly or otherwise), you should back it up by it being true. You claimed the game was easy, and then went on to talk about how you could kill anything in one hit. When that was questioned, you said it took a couple hits but that you could just turn auto-attack on. That also turned out to be incorrect.

While I don't doubt or dispute that you have every achievement and have logged a massive amount of time in the game, presenting information that is factually incorrect on such a fundamental level such as the basic mechanics of the game makes it appear that you have no idea what you're talking about. The statement "if I say it's easy, you can rest assured I know what I'm talking about" seems to have absolutely no credibility when your earlier statements contradict what someone with even a passing knowledge of the game knows as true.

I'm not trying to make an attack here or anything, just trying to clarify why miir might say what he did. Hopefully you'll take that knowledge and avoid a similar problem in the future.

That said, I agree, I thought Oblivion got way too easy after a little while. It's been more than a year since I played it, so I don't remember enough specifics, but I remember creating my own spell (or could you "enchant" a weapon with a spell?) that rendered me, for all intents and purposes, invincible. That pretty much made the game stop being fun for me. But I did really like the Assassin's guild quests.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Funkmasterr »

That was more of a very minor difference because I didn't remember, I was right on the basic principal all along. It is easy - combat is oversimplified and there is no challenge to it ( at all to be honest, at least Two Worlds started out hard before it got pathetically easy, I never got that sense of challenge at any point in oblivion).. The rest of it is really irrelevant detail and pointing it out is nitpicking.

I mean, to raise my skill in sneak I rubber-banded my analog stick up and walked into a corner all day while i was at work and came back to being a master (or whatever they call it)... Then you can sneak past pretty much anything which makes the already super pathetic easy game even easier.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Funkmasterr »

Sylvus wrote:Just for the sake of clarification, when you present an idea as a fact (which you often do, explicitly or otherwise), you should back it up by it being true. You claimed the game was easy, and then went on to talk about how you could kill anything in one hit. When that was questioned, you said it took a couple hits but that you could just turn auto-attack on. That also turned out to be incorrect.

While I don't doubt or dispute that you have every achievement and have logged a massive amount of time in the game, presenting information that is factually incorrect on such a fundamental level such as the basic mechanics of the game makes it appear that you have no idea what you're talking about. The statement "if I say it's easy, you can rest assured I know what I'm talking about" seems to have absolutely no credibility when your earlier statements contradict what someone with even a passing knowledge of the game knows as true.

I'm not trying to make an attack here or anything, just trying to clarify why miir might say what he did. Hopefully you'll take that knowledge and avoid a similar problem in the future.

That said, I agree, I thought Oblivion got way too easy after a little while. It's been more than a year since I played it, so I don't remember enough specifics, but I remember creating my own spell (or could you "enchant" a weapon with a spell?) that rendered me, for all intents and purposes, invincible. That pretty much made the game stop being fun for me. But I did really like the Assassin's guild quests.

I know there was a way to craft armor that would make you invincible (literally, your health just stayed at 100%) but I know it was a pain in the ass to gather the components and I never did it.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Neziroth »

You could enchant armor with the stones from the Oblivion Planes and give the enchanted armor a special name like Neziroth's Gauntlets, or whatever.

Some of those stones were ridiculously good. Like everything else, they scaled in power with your level, so if you took the time to do a lot of Oblivion planes at high level you got a lot of good stones for it.

I never did the mages guild quests (yet) but I think you can enchant armor there too? I'm not sure, if that's where you did it then it's beyond me.

Shivering Isles let's you craft armor too, but it's nowhere near good enough to keep you at 100% health. It's about on par with glass, though if you find certain components you can craft a magical version that still has the same AC, but added effects -- still nothing too amazing from what I've seen.

Dark Brotherhood quests were a lot of fun for sure... I enjoyed the theives guild quests except the ones that required you to steal stuff for x amount of value to advance. Those were just time sink filler quests that could have been more fun -- like steal item X from Lord soandso's bedroom. I like specifics!

Aaaaanyhow... Funk, the game was only easy because you practically cheated to get your sneak skill so high and then you complained that it made it too easy, heh. Shoulda thought ahead on that one.

And combat isn't THAT simple. You have 4 power attacks (Forward, Side - Side, Back, and standing still) That at higher levels have effects like Disarm, Knockdown and paralyze, along with blocking and chasing magic users around, etc. It was by far the best of any TES game so far.

The main game was kinda easy to fly though, but Shivering Isles... I think I died once and that was during a really good fight where you fight a mirror image of yourself. I got schooled the first time because I wasn't used to have to use any potions or magic in combat :-(

Still, content wise, it's a good expansion.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Funkmasterr »

Neziroth wrote:You could enchant armor with the stones from the Oblivion Planes and give the enchanted armor a special name like Neziroth's Gauntlets, or whatever.

Some of those stones were ridiculously good. Like everything else, they scaled in power with your level, so if you took the time to do a lot of Oblivion planes at high level you got a lot of good stones for it.

I never did the mages guild quests (yet) but I think you can enchant armor there too? I'm not sure, if that's where you did it then it's beyond me.

Shivering Isles let's you craft armor too, but it's nowhere near good enough to keep you at 100% health. It's about on par with glass, though if you find certain components you can craft a magical version that still has the same AC, but added effects -- still nothing too amazing from what I've seen.

Dark Brotherhood quests were a lot of fun for sure... I enjoyed the theives guild quests except the ones that required you to steal stuff for x amount of value to advance. Those were just time sink filler quests that could have been more fun -- like steal item X from Lord soandso's bedroom. I like specifics!

Aaaaanyhow... Funk, the game was only easy because you practically cheated to get your sneak skill so high and then you complained that it made it too easy, heh. Shoulda thought ahead on that one.

And combat isn't THAT simple. You have 4 power attacks (Forward, Side - Side, Back, and standing still) That at higher levels have effects like Disarm, Knockdown and paralyze, along with blocking and chasing magic users around, etc. It was by far the best of any TES game so far.

The main game was kinda easy to fly though, but Shivering Isles... I think I died once and that was during a really good fight where you fight a mirror image of yourself. I got schooled the first time because I wasn't used to have to use any potions or magic in combat :-(

Still, content wise, it's a good expansion.
No there is actually a way you can make armor that makes you invincible - I will have to look around for it. It had something to do with using gems/armor that there were only a few of in the game (if you screwed it up or used them for something else you were SOL) but it was enchanting a certain combo of armor/soul gems/souls.. There were actually a few, one that involved reflect, and one that made you virtually indestructible to anything.

The sneak didn't give that much of an advantage to be honest, the only time I died in the game was during the end where the boss is ghetto stomping the main city, sob stepped on me. That was it though.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Dregor Thule »

Could you change difficulties on the 360 version? I know with the PC version combat could actually be quite challenging, at least it was for me. Of course, I forbade myself from doing cheese stuff like making a suit of chameleon armour :P
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Funkmasterr »

Dregor Thule wrote:Could you change difficulties on the 360 version? I know with the PC version combat could actually be quite challenging, at least it was for me. Of course, I forbade myself from doing cheese stuff like making a suit of chameleon armour :P
You could, but it didn't occur to me immediately. About 1/4 way through my time played I changed it to hard - It made me feel like I wasn't playing a LeapFrog game anymore but was still too easy, I thought.

I had some armor that made things easier, but I didn't go way overboard with the stuff I mentioned above, then you only have yourself to blame for over simplifying things. It was much easier to simplify things even further on the PC version too with all of the things you could change.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Kryshade »

Maybe I have my difficulty level WAY to high, but I have to whack on a mob for about 10 minutes before it dies. Pretty much the only way i can beat some mobs is to keep them chain paralyzed. I dunno where the idea of combat being to easy comes from unless you have the settings down really low. It's been about a year since I've played, but I had good weapons and armor and some of the tougher goblins took forever for me to kill!!
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Noysyrump »

I played this game for a couple weeks when it came out. I absolutely LOVED daggerfall, so I was excited (didnt play morrowind, was busy with EQ :p) This game was however, way to simplified, so I got bored quick.

However, I picked it up again a week or so ago, and I am having fun... But yes, now combat is way too easy.

At level 1-5 combat could be tricky, but not too dangerous. but right around level 8 it began to get silly HARD. I was dying like every map. reload, try again. Think thats what made me quit the first time. The idea of scaling levels made it seem like there was zero reason to level. It just made the fights harder. I'd gain a few points for 3 stats, but the monsters would double all there stats with each rank (rat - wolf - bear etc.) But.... I finished the mage quests to gain access to spell making and magic armor. Then whammo. Insta easy. fireshield, shockshield, and all those made me like untouchable. I can beat down 3+ leveled opponents and require 1 heal... /sigh. But I'm still havin fun. Doubt it'll last long enough to try the expansion... well maybe i will.

Think I will crank that diff bar up... didnt even think of it.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Funkmasterr »

Noysyrump wrote:I played this game for a couple weeks when it came out. I absolutely LOVED daggerfall, so I was excited (didnt play morrowind, was busy with EQ :p) This game was however, way to simplified, so I got bored quick.

However, I picked it up again a week or so ago, and I am having fun... But yes, now combat is way too easy.

At level 1-5 combat could be tricky, but not too dangerous. but right around level 8 it began to get silly HARD. I was dying like every map. reload, try again. Think thats what made me quit the first time. The idea of scaling levels made it seem like there was zero reason to level. It just made the fights harder. I'd gain a few points for 3 stats, but the monsters would double all there stats with each rank (rat - wolf - bear etc.) But.... I finished the mage quests to gain access to spell making and magic armor. Then whammo. Insta easy. fireshield, shockshield, and all those made me like untouchable. I can beat down 3+ leveled opponents and require 1 heal... /sigh. But I'm still havin fun. Doubt it'll last long enough to try the expansion... well maybe i will.

Think I will crank that diff bar up... didnt even think of it.
I think the expansion was more fun, and had more variety than the original game, I would definitely say to give it a shot.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

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Oh by the way... After i gained access to the mage guild I made a 1 mana spell in each skillset. Basicly a practice spell for when I'm waiting or running whatever, but it quickly degraded to a macro trainer sesion. I was level 18 or so (and the game was tough, very tough) when i started. 1 night spent macroing my skills up in most of the magics (cant just macro destruction because you can kill yourself, you need to watch it) Restoration and alteration are both major skills for my "cleric" concept class, and just from those 2 skills getting to 75 (max = 100) i gained 10+ levels. I was really worried that all those levels was gonna make the game hella hard, but nope, thats what made it easy. Now I'm level 32 and can cast invis, so I can close an oblivion portal in less than 5 mins. closed 6 last night. :roll:

Just to note. the sigil stones are GREAT home decorations, but they are EVIL. set a few on my windowsill and when i came back they were just rolling around my house at random... very freeky. Think I'll just toss like 20 of em in my basment and leave the 'adoring fan' down there with them to see what happens.

Really dont like the 'level based on skill ups' idea. I like eq's way better. Levels from xp, and max skill based on level. you could macro up a character to 100 in major skills overnight without ever leaving the jail cell. bham insta 40+ and never even killing a rat.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Neziroth »

Morrowind, to my knowledge, doesn't scale levels so much. I only say this based on the fact that I used to walk into dungeons and get rocked by bandits that I couldn't even touch.

Maybe some things do scale, but those guys seemed way out of my league. Morrowind just felt too freakin' lonely for my liking, there was no life-like-ness to the world.

I don't like the scaling levels either, but Daggerfall did it too, and they probably thought "if it ain't broken..."
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by miir »

Morrowind definately did not scale.
I freakin loved that game.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Neziroth »

I never made it very far through it, I've been thinking about giving it another shot though. I've completely conquered oblivion, and my elder scrolls itch isn't gone yet.

Maybe on some cold day I'll fire Morrowind up again. I remember the furthest I got had me doing something in some city ... Vivec City I think? It was so huge I couldn't find anybody and I got bored looking.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Fairweather Pure »

I was thinking about picking up the Game of the Year addition for the 360. It has the original and both expansions. I kind of have a lot of other games to play right now though. I've never even played the game before, but the reviews are glowing so I'm willing to take a chance.
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Re: The New Oblivion Thread!!

Post by Aslanna »

This game is almost 2 years old? Where'd the time go!

Anyway... I tried Oblivion a few (8) months ago and couldn't really get into it for some reason. Maybe because I was so used to EQ. I played it for about 2 hours and then never bothered to play it again. Guess I was just curious as to what all the big appeal was. Graphics? Progression system? Quests? All The Above? I still have it installed so maybe I'll give it another try before deleting it.
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Re: The New Oblivion Thread!!

Post by Winnow »

Aslanna wrote:This game is almost 2 years old? Where'd the time go!

Anyway... I tried Oblivion a few (8) months ago and couldn't really get into it for some reason. Maybe because I was so used to EQ. I played it for about 2 hours and then never bothered to play it again. Guess I was just curious as to what all the big appeal was. Graphics? Progression system? Quests? All The Above? I still have it installed so maybe I'll give it another try before deleting it.

Wait for Fallout 3 later this year! It's going to have the same Oblivion engine but will be set in a much more interesting future holocaust world.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Sartori »

This game is good out of the box, but IMO the best thing about it is the moddability. You can customize nearly every facet of the game for free, and for me it makes it much more enjoyable. I'm trying out a mod right now that tweaks the scaling - hopefully it works out :P
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Re: The New Oblivion Thread!!

Post by Niffoni »

I just played Oblivion for the first time myself. Picked up the all-in-one game of the year edition for the PC. Certainly worth the 60 bucks.

I'm of slightly mixed feelings. The general idea of it really appeals, the main quest is great, and a few of the stories really stand out. Exploring the overworld map is great fun. I spent a lot of time reading the in-game books.

The game is sadly punctuated with a lot of boredom, busy-work quests and no-reason dungeon crawling that made it really hard to force myself to keep at it at times. In particular, all the time you spend in identical mines, ruins, and caves absolutely kills the pacing, and left me wondering on more than one occasion why I bother loading up. Oh. Another Skeletal Guardian. *headdesk*. Random loot was few and far between, and almost never useful, discouraging exploration. I found a pretty good sword in one of the first generic ruins I explored, and never replaced it for the entire game. I think I changed armor twice in about 40 hours. I was able to stretch out my enjoyment of the game by doing a lot of side quests between each chapter of the main story, but once I had completed the main quest, I lost all interest.

My main issue with the game was that I utterly failed to identify with the in-game world. I did at least half a dozen quests in each of the towns, and not one of them stands out as memorable, or even interesting. I couldn't tell you their names. By the end, I didn't care if the world ended, because frankly, the world wasn't particularly interesting or engaging.

I tried to get into Shivering Isles and Knights of the Nine, but I quickly realized that both quests were basically "Find all 8 pieces of the Triforce in 8 of the same generic caves with the same generic monsters you've been exploring for weeks, with no chance of interesting loot or reward beyond the advancement of the storyline". Oblivion is one of the best arguments for shorter gameplay that I have ever seen.

Don't get me wrong, I had a good time exploring for many hours. But once the set pieces have repeated themselves a few times, you realize the game is telling you "Yeah, that's all I got", and there's not much reason to play any longer.

Thumbs up, would recommend, but would not re-play.
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Re: The New Oblivion Thread!!

Post by Siji »

It was boring until I started using the hack codes. That made the tedious quests faster and allowed better exploration of what was available.
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Re: The New Oblivion Thread!!

Post by Canelek »

I found the main arc and the assassin guild quests pretty engaging (especially the main quest scripted events). However, like many have said, it had too much of the generic 'Daggerfall' feel, only with better graphics. Also, unless you set your skills right, you outlevel your skills. And when you do figure it out (or look for hints online), you outskill your levels, meaning you are virtually indestructable.

Flawed, but a solid game when all is said and done.
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Re: The New Oblivion Thread!!

Post by Neziroth »

I do completely agree that this game threw way too much trash loot at you. Niff, you hit it right on the head when you said you kept your same items throughout the game. I did mostly the same thing. It needs a loot table / environment like EQ had, where there's more unique dungeons or areas that have more of a story behind them, or maybe specialized vendors in out-of-the-way areas who sell really useful stuff... or quests that reward you with better things instead of finding everything on (mostly) people that you kill.

I don't even think monsters ever dropped anything of any use at all unless you did alchemy.

I think the only items I got from quests that I actually used were some Tunic and Umbra from the Daedra Shrines (and a few things from the Dark Brotherhood). The game really does use the same idea Daggerfall did for the most part, which is dated now. It was awesome in Daggerfall to have thousands of dungeons to explore, who cared if they were all template pieces thrown together.

Plus some of the monsters were just BS. Gloom Wraiths tormented me for a long time, not because they were hard to kill, but because they took for-fucking-ever to kill with a sword. I had to burn heal potions, if I didn't have any potions I didn't have any chance. That's not difficult, that's uninventive almost a time sink to make you find heal potions.

Shivering Isles does get a little bit better as far as dungeons in the story line, Xidilian or whatever it's called was pretty rewarding at the end I think. Plus there were some more unique quests that didn't involve so much hack and slash.

The only things that were cool about Knights of the Nine for me was 1.) There's an opportunity to get the best theif armor in the game and 2.) The last fight.

I liked the Dark Brotherhood quests, and I even liked the theifs guild's final few quests which were actually challenging. Lucien LeChance (sp) was a cool ass character to boot heh.

The Hackdirt quest is also memorable to me, but that's only because it was loosely based on an HP Lovecraft story, and I'm a fan of his.
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Re: The New Oblivion Thread!!

Post by noel »

Nez, would you like the two Oblivion threads merged?
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Re: The New Oblivion Thread!!

Post by Niffoni »

Funnily enough, Nez, I can only name two of the major towns, but I remember Hackdirt very well, which only appeared briefly for one very cool quest :)

Yeah, I killed an NPC named Umbra early in the game, and picked up the sword I used for the rest of the game off of him/her. Never found out anything more about them. Was that a Daedra quest i missed?

Mentioning Hackdirt reminds me of one thing I really DID like about the game, and one of the reasons I'll still remember it favorably for all its legion of flaws: quests seemed to pop up out of nowhere. I remembered the NPC and her daughter that I was eventually sent to find from some business I did with them much earlier on, and discovered her disappearance from a local many "weeks" later. The quest hadn't been available before. Quests like that suddenly becoming active behind the curtain gave the game a living feel that I haven't seen in ANY of the games that claimed they had a "dynamic world" or "living cities" before. It was only the fact that I never received any worthwhile reward for ANYTHING I did in the game that eventually burned me out on side quests. I still can't think of more than two that resulted in anything I ever used, equipment wise.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Noysyrump »

Just added a few mods myself. Dwarves (gotta have dwarves!) naked women (looks great but makes me feel kinda pervish... but they LOOK GREAT!) and a new combat system... ferget what its called. but it definatly fixed the easy combat issues. I'm still uber but I have to actually heal on occasion.

edit, deadly reflex. Adds decapitations, head crushes, chopping boddies in half, burned to a cinder, and corpse explosions... Recomend for everyone who plays.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Sartori »

How's the combat mod? I'm not too keen on adding any more at the moment unless they're really good.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Winnow »

I played this game for about 30 minutes on the 360 and never returned but I just grabbed the PC version along with Shivering Isles and the Knights of the Nine and am going to give it a go on the PC.

I mostly want to try it so I'll be a little more prepared for Fallout III.

From what it sounds like reading the various Oblivion threads here, it looks like treasure/loot isn't a big deal. I hope that gets corrected with Fallout as it seems boring to go through so many hours of gaming without anything to look forward to besides exploration (which is cool but I like to find things along that way that will help)

The mods seem cool as well. Hoping those are also in Fallout III. It also looks like there's a good chance we don't see Fallout until 2009.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Fairweather Pure »

I had this in my hand earlier today, but instead opted for CoD4 and CoD2. CoD4 is on sale at Meijers for $40 so I couldn't pass it up. I went to Best Buy for Halo 3 which is on sale for $38, but they were sold out. I hope to grab that later this week for the sale price.

I think I'll pick up the GotY edition whenever I see it on sale.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Winnow »

I stopped playing the exact same place I stopped last time. I got out of the sewers, struggling to stay unencumbered and then went to my first mission location to deliver the necklace to a "jafferty" (spelling) monk guy.

The guy offers me some items to help me on my way so I go to the chest and pick everything up to evaluate it. Of course, I'm extremely encumbered now so I start dropping shit...lame ass time consuming click/drag hit "z" to drop (is there an easier way?) I drop a few items and am still nowhere near being unencumbered but I'm now getting the message that there's no room to drop anymore stuff...wtf? I can't move to make more room....the game won't let me teleport because I'm encumbered....the only thing I can do is load the game from my last start point. Extremely poor design. I still have no clue where to sell things. I reloaded the game and tried to go into what looked like a shop and got thrown in jail and then logged.

This game appears to have way too much hassle with regards to inventory. That's not realism...it's annoying. The UI seems ancient (it's only been two years) compared to games like Bioshock and Mass Effect

I guess if there's a mod out there that will give you about 10Xs the weight limit and drop a store every few feet, it might be more fun. The story seems to be lacking as well compared to something like Bioshock or Mass Effect.

Right now, I spend half my time in the game dumping shit on the ground.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Sartori »

wow, what did you roll up a 98 lbs weakling? :P

Most of the stuff in the game isn't even worth picking up, honestly. Picking up everything that isn't nailed down, and picking every corpse clean just because you can isn't the wisest course...especially with iron. Plenty of ways to make money early on that don't involve lugging around every piece of armor and weaponry that you come across. I have a level 13 necromancer that I've put a total of 2 points into strength. If I absolutely need to I can use a feather potion or spell, but that doesn't happen very often. Not trying to get you to go back to playing it or anything, it just sounds like you approached the game inefficiently in regards to loot. Oh yeah, and there are lots of shops in the market district of the city you appear next to when you exit the sewers. That's why it's called the "market" district. And yes the interface is ugly. Mods for that. Anywho, let's hope Fallout 3 is an improvement in every way. :P
Last edited by Sartori on January 27, 2008, 11:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Winnow »

I'm so weak I can only carry around a couple ninja throwing stars as weapons!

If there was a way to destroy inventory, or easier way to drop items, it wouldn't be so bad.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Sartori »

Shift click drops stuff. See my edit above.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Winnow »

I thought it strange that I had to pick the lock of a store in the market district. It was night time though so I guess they aren't open 24/7. I need an Oblivion Wal-mart. Everything has a sort of generic feel to it in Oblivon. Here's hoping that Fallout III comes through with some personality.

I'll try it again for a little bit without picking things up and if it seems like it's going nowhere, I'll screw around with the mods for fun.

Thanks for the shift-click tip!
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Noysyrump »

The easiest way to drop items, are to drop them into a container or corpse. At the bottom of the screen there is a select "loot or drop" bag icon... Wich is of course, great when you check loot on a new corpse and find something 'ya gotta have' that puts you over weight.

Once you exit the newbie sewers, head to town get rid of anything you WONT use, and buy yourself a steel weapon. Then you can go see jaufrey. The loot he offers is poopoo with the exeption of a few potions/scrolls. Then just go wander around and do the miscelaniouse (wow I messed that one up) quests... The black hand quest was well writen and entertaining (thats the assassins quest line, just murder someone to get it started)

The mods are making the game even more fun that it was... I would have ben bored already if it wasnt for the moddability of it all. This game is too close to FPS style gaming and less 'roleplay'. I hate FPS. they give me the twitch and bore me too quick.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Noysyrump »

Sartori wrote:How's the combat mod? I'm not too keen on adding any more at the moment unless they're really good.

Deadly reflex adds a lot of flavor to the combat system... Adds a lot of AI to the mobs, especially any weilding a shield. Gives you the ability to shieldbash, a no damage attack that can stun, and reduces the effectivness of holding up block (wich is gay in vanilla) as it reduces your skill to 25% normal within 3 seconds, so you have to block the attack as it comes not just hold up your shield. You also get a dodge ability wich i havent used much. They also include horse combat, but I dislike the horses so I havent used that at all.

However the main goodness is the decapitation and head crush animations... had 2 last night... Ohhh that squishey noise was so beutiful. skull fragments bouncing off the walls... what a beutiful thing.

Oh and download the eyecandy mod for sure... perv.
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Re: The New Oblivion Thread!!

Post by Noysyrump »

Ahhh this threads keeelin me. How did I miss it earlier. Anyways, yeh mace of molag bal and full deadric, I'll never need to loot anything ever again... /sigh.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Sartori »

Noysyrump wrote:
Sartori wrote:How's the combat mod? I'm not too keen on adding any more at the moment unless they're really good.

Deadly reflex adds a lot of flavor to the combat system... Adds a lot of AI to the mobs, especially any weilding a shield. Gives you the ability to shieldbash, a no damage attack that can stun, and reduces the effectivness of holding up block (wich is gay in vanilla) as it reduces your skill to 25% normal within 3 seconds, so you have to block the attack as it comes not just hold up your shield. You also get a dodge ability wich i havent used much. They also include horse combat, but I dislike the horses so I havent used that at all.

However the main goodness is the decapitation and head crush animations... had 2 last night... Ohhh that squishey noise was so beutiful. skull fragments bouncing off the walls... what a beutiful thing.

Oh and download the eyecandy mod for sure... perv.
I read up on the Deadly Reflex mod, and it does sound fun. The heart beat in your ears while time slows down sounds like a nice touch. The only problem I have is a large amount of comments on the mod talk about crashing and various other bugs, and I have a lot of great mods in already to where if I add much more my framerate will go south. I think I still might give it a shot though - I'll just back up my important stuff. Definitely not interested in horse combat after reading about it and browsing it's feedback. They turn too fucking slow.

Already have eyecandy lol. It actually helps the female models quite a bit - they look pretty crappy default.
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Re: The New Oblivion Thread!!

Post by Zaelath »

Friend of mine got a PS3 and Oblivion for Christmas... I played it on the PC and, well, I think I'd rather smash my face into the screen than watch the torture that interface is on a controller. (it was bad enough on the PC because it was mashed up to make it usable on a controller w/o any extra code)

I think the "cascade of trash loot" feature was probably one of the worst parts, as was the shitty interface for the alchemy.
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Re: Oblivion Expansion: Shivering Isles

Post by Noysyrump »

Yeh think I discuvered a rather nasty bug. Doing the last Deadric quest (requires capturing souls of all the races) I squished the head of an orc, and since then havent captured a single soul... /sigh.

However the combat makes up for the loss of that quest. I've had a few crashes since all my mods, however I was getting autosave crashes just as often before... So thats no biggie
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Re: The New Oblivion Thread!!

Post by Neziroth »

Yeah, I killed an NPC named Umbra early in the game, and picked up the sword I used for the rest of the game off of him/her. Never found out anything more about them. Was that a Daedra quest i missed?
Yeah it's a Daedra shrine, the shrine has you go find and kill Umbra for the sword, and asks you to return the sword in exchange for a mask, if i remember right. I'm not sure about that part. I saved before returning the sword, and decided that the mask wasn't as good as the sword so I reloaded and kept the sword.

I've found one comprable sword since, Dawnfire / Duskfire, which is less damage physically but has 15 magical damage that essentially recharges itself every 12 hours.

Noel, you can merge them if you feel it's appropriate. The Shivering Isles thread is mainly general "Oblivion" talk so I guess it does make sense.
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Re: The New Oblivion Thread!!

Post by Winnow »

I can't get into this game. Major improvements to the UI and game play are needed before Fallout III is released.

I like RPGs but this one is too much of a hassle to play with lots of wasted time between anything interesting. I'd probably still play it if there wasn't anything else around better.
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Re: The New Oblivion Thread!!

Post by miir »

Winnow wrote:I can't get into this game. Major improvements to the UI and game play are needed before Fallout III is released.

I like RPGs but this one is too much of a hassle to play with lots of wasted time between anything interesting. I'd probably still play it if there wasn't anything else around better.
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