Oblivion

[aeternalis]

The forum title suggested people might like to discuss Oblivion, so here is my personal hot take:

It's a perfect postmodern RPG because the game is totally meaningless.

The "Radiant AI" repeats the same lines about mudcrabs, goes about their scripted days, and generally is a complete joke, delivering on absolutely none of Bethesda's promises. A premonitional exemplar of the NPC Meme.

In the main plot, you can go through all of these oblivion gates throughout Cyrodiil and close them, but none of them really matter except for the ones that are core to the main quest, and all the other ones look identical so there's no point. You have no choice at any point and no consequence.

Finally you kill some dude, then you give Sean Bean the amulet MacGuffin Patrick Stewart gave you, and then he saves the day by sacrificing himself while you do nothing.

So basically you watched these two highly-paid actors do the heroic things, and the NPCs just keep calling you the Hero of Kvatch, which doesn't matter anymore and probably never did.

It's a huge open world, but the world is this samey medieval fantasy copy (versus Morrowind which had tremendously rich lore and a very different, alien setting, the world itself becoming a character). It has no depth or life and you have no actual agency in it.

Oblivion was a prediction of the future.

Great job, Todd-- never realized how genius this game was until now.

[Tweed]

This is by design. Bethesda realized they can't make games to save their lives so they stopped. Oblivion and Skyrim are vapid, blank slates. People fill them up with whatever mods they want in order to shape the world as they see fit. You can spend your days playing some balls to the wall overbalanced hardcore mod, or lock everyone up in your rape dungeon, or both.

[Fargus]

[Segata Sanshiro]

The "Radiant AI" repeats the same lines about mudcrabs, goes about their scripted days, and generally is a complete joke, delivering on absolutely none of Bethesda's promises. A premonitional exemplar of the NPC Meme.

Finally an excuse to post this video

[aeternalis]

This is by design. Bethesda realized they can't make games to save their lives so they stopped. Oblivion and Skyrim are vapid, blank slates. People fill them up with whatever mods they want in order to shape the world as they see fit. You can spend your days playing some balls to the wall overbalanced hardcore mod, or lock everyone up in your rape dungeon, or both.

One thing that's funny about Oblivion is there is nothing like a "lead writer" credit. In fact, there are only two writers credited at all (one is Kirkbride, who IIRC was their main "lore guy") and they're under "additional writing".

They have this "Quest Design" category, but IMO, it's telling of their approach that quest design doesn't include "writing". In Morrowind's credits it's "Writing and Quest Design", and Morrowind certainly had some memorable writing.

A philosophical divergence, I think. It's like they wanted to automate the writing through Radiant AI (like an AI Dungeon Master), but it obviously didn't work, so then they tacked on this garbage main quest so there could actually be a story in the game... but it's not a participatory story.

[Fargus]

The "Radiant AI" repeats the same lines about mudcrabs, goes about their scripted days, and generally is a complete joke, delivering on absolutely none of Bethesda's promises. A premonitional exemplar of the NPC Meme.

Finally an excuse to post this video

Shit game, but as a meme it's a gift that keeps on giving.

[Hando]

Oblivion is the defining point at which I pretty much gave up on modern games completely. I fooled myself into believing it might be brilliant, and totally swallowed all of Beth's bullshit, got it on release day and about 3 hours in I felt so duped I could actually feel myself sinking into depression while playing it. Not just a feeling of overwhelming disappointment, but betrayal aswell. It was the last time I ever genuinely anticipated a game release to the point of excitement.
It broke my heart and I've never felt that way about a game since.

[wndrbr]

Oblivion didn't crush my hopes and dreams, but it was the first game that made me realize that sometimes gamedevs suck, and that the next installment in the series may not always be an improvement on the previous installments. I bought the damn game almost on day 1 hoping for a bigger and better version of morrowind, what i got instead was the game we all know and "love".

The defining point at which I became a bitter person happened around the same year, it was the release of Gothic 3.

[Rigwort]

So I had a weird trajectory where I played Skyrim first, thought "hey, this is pretty neat, it's a fantasy world that I can just explore" and then played Morrowind and thought "hey, this is pretty neat, it's a fleshed out fantasy world I can explore". Then I played Oblivion and thought "Eh, this is alright, I like the music and visuals". There is a spot in my heart for Oblivion, but it's mostly for the watercolor-esque graphics and the music more than the world or quests. I should get on playing Nehrim... I suppose the quests were inventive? But they were mostly good when the writing was hammy or stupid.

As an aside, I always took the games headed by Todd to be an RPG session with a DM who justs wants to do stupid-fun kind of things. You know, he gives you magical artifacts, physics and other things to play with and expects you to just fiddle around with those.

[Segata Sanshiro]

As an aside, I always took the games headed by Todd to be an RPG session with a DM who justs wants to do stupid-fun kind of things. You know, he gives you magical artifacts, physics and other things to play with and expects you to just fiddle around with those.

Todd games make sense when you see them as fantasy GTA

[rusty_shackleford]

The attempt to create an actual simulation is laudable and it's a shame they cut back on it in Skyrim.
For example, NPCs will get hungry and if their Responsibility is too low and they cannot afford to buy food, they will attempt to steal food.
...Except if the guard catches them, they just kill them because no prison system for NPCs was ever implemented.
Drug addicts going to the skooma den regularly to get their fix, NPCs wandering across the province to travel for various reasons — shame there was no NPC economy and they typically died while traveling.
A lot of NPCs have various interesting schedules e.g.,
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Wumeek

On the 19th of each month, he gets out of bed at 5am and starts his long journey towards Leyawiin. He crosses the Talos Bridge, turns south on the Red Ring Road, and takes the Green Road all the way to his destination. After 25 hours of traveling, he will book himself in at the Five Claws Lodge. After that, he is supposed to pay a visit to Weebam-Na but doesn't due to a bug(ed note: lol). As a result, he hardly gets any time in Leyawiin before heading back home to his usual routines.

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Category:Obliv ... -Traveling
Cool ideas that were simply unfinished then abandoned.

Also, Oblivion let you cast spells without having to 'equip' them.

[Tweed]

Ultima V did it better.

[KnightoftheWind]

Oblivion as a whole felt very scripted, it seems as though Bethesda was going for a much more cinematic approach when developing the game. And who can blame them?. Lord of the Rings was still fresh at the time, and the next generation consoles were right around the corner. I don't doubt that Microsoft approached Bethesda, advising them to make it as grandeous as possible to complement the Xbox 360. The presence of Patrick Stewart, Sean Bean, it all makes sense.

But as an RPG it suffers because of it, you feel like you don't have any agency whatsoever and the NPCs have little to say aside from the same scripted lines over and over again. Like Morrowind, but slightly worse even. None of it feels genuine, and despite Cyrodill being absolutely beautiful it doesn't feel very lively. The roads and cities are all empty, caves are recycled ad nauseum, it's all just static.

When people say Oblivion is better than Skyrim, I just shake my head. Skyrim took what Oblivion tried to do, and did it 100x better. There's a reason Skyrim is still being modded on a daily basis, while Oblivion is basically dead.

[rusty_shackleford]

There's a reason Skyrim is still being modded on a daily basis, while Oblivion is basically dead.

A lot of this probably has to do with Oblivion being completely unstable and constantly crashing once modded. Skyrim was better in this regard, Skyrim SE is significantly better especially due to the lack of 32bit memory limitation.

[KnightoftheWind]

I have a newfound appreciation for the game, and just how easy it is to mod when compared to Skyrim. As a Linux user who can't access any of the popular mod managers, it's incredibly easy to install the mods I want through just the launcher alone. Maskar's Oblivion Overhaul adds some nice features too.

Whenever I'm in the mood to play Skyrim I just dread having to sift through the literal thousands of options available on the Nexus. Sometimes quantity isn't always good. Oblivion mods are few, but most seem useful and add to the game in big ways.

[Tweed]

how easy it is to mod

Yes, all you need is Oblivion Mod Manager, Wyre Bash, and lots of spare time to manually reorder mods when everything fucks up.

[rusty_shackleford]

something not taught when modding creation engine games is handling record-level conflicts

matorsmash used to be good at automating 99% of it, idk if it's still updated

[KnightoftheWind]

how easy it is to mod

Yes, all you need is Oblivion Mod Manager, Wyre Bash, and lots of spare time to manually reorder mods when everything fucks up.

The mods I use only require the Oblivion launcher itself, and OBSE. I'm sure the more complicated ones require more steps.

[ds.]

Wrye Bash and similar tools are only really needed if you want multiple mods that modify the same cells/NPCs/etc and you want to the modifications from both. And even then, for the most popular combinations (e.g. OOO+UL+BC) there are pre-made compatibility fixes, often included with one of the mods itself as optional files.

[KnightoftheWind]

Came across this obscure cancelled game for the PSP, which appears to be a portable spinoff of Oblivion complete with a different storyline and is set in High Rock, from what I can gather.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrWtz7M_OHc

Given that it looks and plays so well despite it being an early prototype, it just shows what competent developers can do for this franchise. Imagine Bethesda themselves developing for portable consoles, I'm sure glad they never tried. If this was going to be a more linear experience, it would've improved on the empty open world of it's console counterpart IMO and it's a shame Climax was never given the go-ahead.

[Rigwort]

Never you fear, the TRUE handheld Oblivion was released.
BEHOLD: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/OBMobile:Oblivion_Mobile

[KnightoftheWind]

Strangely, in the lore books prior to Oblivion it describes Cyrodill as being an "endless" jungle with only the centre being largely inhabited, yet in Oblivion we see none of that. If they wanted something more akin to a High Fantasy Lord of the Rings, then I can see why they changed it, but wouldn't it be better to set the game in High Rock as the PSP version was going to?. A region known for being traditional?. We even see a hub that Climax used in the prototype, and not only does it look better than most settlements in Oblivion it actually fits the setting a lot more. I feel that Bethesda wasted an opportunity to provide another unique location not seen in any other title, and I can almost imagine it as a fantasy version of Far Cry 3 and Crysis mixed with Mediterranean-style settlements.

Bethesda's writers seem to have ideas that Bethesda programmers are unable to convey, and it's a damn shame. Even if they remade Oblivion with their current engine, I still don't think they could do it.

Edit: Answer found in a Youtube comment?.

According to Kirkbride (and other sources that I can try linking), it was because Todd Howard watched the Fellowship of the Ring in the very early stages of production.

To quote Kirkbride, "Cyrodiil was going to be as described in the first PGE, which the book you’re talking about took its quotes from. The heart of the province being what you think of when you think of a traditional jungle, tumbling down to the fields of large rice paddies that fed the Empire, guarded by Romanesque troops and dragons everywhere. The Imperial City was to be vast, rolling across wetlands and swamps, with large sections lost and overgrown, full of too many cults to count, the oldest temples having obviously been around since the Merethic.

Then Todd watched The Fellowship of the Ring and mistakes were made."

And to quote Todd Howard himself, "We started in 2002 with Oblivion, right after Morrowind. The easy thing would have been to do a 2 year sequel, but I somehow persuaded upper-management to let me take four years and make a next gen game for consoles that didn’t exist yet. That was a stressful time, since we only had final hardware for maybe the last 6 months. So almost all of Oblivion’s development was spent thinking, “I’m not sure this is ever going to actually work.” I was really influenced by the Lord of the Rings movies at that time. It felt real, almost historical, and that’s something I think is key to The Elder Scrolls."

[rusty_shackleford]

Strangely, in the lore books prior to Oblivion it describes Cyrodill as being an "endless" jungle with only the centre being largely inhabited, yet in Oblivion we see none of that.

Wrong, only Morrowind did. Morrowind actually contradicted the existing lore.

From the King Edward book in Daggerfall describing Cyrodiil:

The journey through Valenwood was pleasant. The weather held fair for the most part, with sunny days and cool nights. Bright leaves of scarlet, crimson, gold and green drifted down to form a carpet beneath their horses' feet. Valenwood was very different from the somber, steep forests of High Rock. When they reached the northern border[that is, the border with Cyrodiil], Edward, looking back, saw that the trees were mostly bare, shorn of their glory. Before them lay a wide green land of rolling hills with only a few stands of trees. It seemed to spread on forever.

I challenge anyone to nail Cyrodiil better than Bethesda actually did using that description.

And, Daggerfall again, describing a climate not suitable for what someone would think of when using the word 'jungle':

The late winter weather held fair but cold for their journey, so that they travelled quickly over firm roads. On the last day, spring seemed to come at last for there was a thaw, and the road grew sloppy underfoot, and everywhere one could faintly hear the sound of water trickling and dripping. They came to the great bridge that crossed into Imperial City at sunset.

[KnightoftheWind]

Strangely, in the lore books prior to Oblivion it describes Cyrodill as being an "endless" jungle with only the centre being largely inhabited, yet in Oblivion we see none of that.

Wrong, only Morrowind did. Morrowind actually contradicted the existing lore.

From the King Edward book in Daggerfall describing Cyrodiil:

The journey through Valenwood was pleasant. The weather held fair for the most part, with sunny days and cool nights. Bright leaves of scarlet, crimson, gold and green drifted down to form a carpet beneath their horses' feet. Valenwood was very different from the somber, steep forests of High Rock. When they reached the northern border[that is, the border with Cyrodiil], Edward, looking back, saw that the trees were mostly bare, shorn of their glory. Before them lay a wide green land of rolling hills with only a few stands of trees. It seemed to spread on forever.

I challenge anyone to nail Cyrodiil better than Bethesda actually did using that description.

And, Daggerfall again, describing a climate not suitable for what someone would think of when using the word 'jungle':

The late winter weather held fair but cold for their journey, so that they travelled quickly over firm roads. On the last day, spring seemed to come at last for there was a thaw, and the road grew sloppy underfoot, and everywhere one could faintly hear the sound of water trickling and dripping. They came to the great bridge that crossed into Imperial City at sunset.

Huh, interesting. I guess ES lore changes on a whim depending on the mood the devs/writers are in at the time, go figure. I suppose during Morrowind's era, the devs were thinking of expanding the darker setting to the other provinces, with other strange and bizarre concoctions. In Oblivion you'd imagine all the provinces were just as colorful, and in Skyrim just as grey and decayed. Each game presents a different perspective on the world of Tamriel, not unlike Zelda. I'd imagine is ES6 it'll present a more diverse and sodomite-friendly take!, fun times!.

[Rigwort]

And maybe it's just me, but the idea of the seat of an empire being located in the midst of a dangerous jungle seems too silly. Yes, I know the Khmer empire existed as did the Inca, but they were not able to unify people as widely as those empires situated in more temperate areas. Overall I think one of Bethesda's strengths is making the fantastical mundane and this would have been somewhat silly for me, as the empire is already surround on all sides by different states, has people under them that are better suited to jungles, and it's main strength would be the ability to funnel soldiers to certain areas and having a larger population than its adversaries. Doesn't seem likely if it's in a jungle.

That, and I hate the constant wanking of Kirkbride. He was a better concept artist than he was a writer anyways.

[KnightoftheWind]

I'd imagine there would be plenty of well-maintained roads through the jungles, towns situated within them, etc. I'd imagine the Nibenay Valley would've been made appropriately large to compensate as well. We can imagine for ourselves how it would've looked, but I'm certain the final product would not have lived up to those expectations anyway. Not in the least.

The Elder Scrolls, like Zelda, isn't a story-heavy franchise. It doesn't need an overarching plot to be appealing. But I do wish that these things would remain consistent, even Zelda has iconic landmarks like Death Mountain that mostly persists from game-to-game despite changes in art direction. Elder Scrolls doesn't really have that, not only because they are released far less frequently but because Bethesda can toss out any existing lore at a moments notice. So now we have to assume that Oblivion's interpretation of Cyrodill/Tamriel is more consistent with Daggerfall's, instead of it's immediate predecessor which gave us a radically different version where it's mostly jungle. According to that Youtube quote they were planning on sticking to Morrowind's version, until Todd Howard got a hankering for some Tolkien. And who can blame him honestly. But it creates a disconnect that can't really be explained away.

[KnightoftheWind]

Also:

[KnightoftheWind]

Bringing the scum known as the Blackwood Company to it's knees.

[Tweed]

"Oh this is magical hist sap that even makes argonians go apeshit because we're too fucking lazy to design unique scenarios around character races."

They did it for Morrowind, but God forbid they change anything in Oblivion. If you're an argonian and you take the job to find the escaped slave in Suran you get a special journal entry and can instantly solve the quest.

[KnightoftheWind]

"Oh this is magical hist sap that even makes argonians go apeshit because we're too fucking lazy to design unique scenarios around character races."

They did it for Morrowind, but God forbid they change anything in Oblivion. If you're an argonian and you take the job to find the escaped slave in Suran you get a special journal entry and can instantly solve the quest.

It works in the context of the quest, however, and the twist made for an enticing moral dilemma. After all you do murder an entire village while under the influence of the sap, and I wonder what some alternative path would be like instead of this?.

The problem you are referring to may come from the lack of a dedicated writer during the development of Oblivion, the developers had to take on that role themselves and so they couldn't really afford to delve in deep with branching quests. Especially when they had deadlines to meet and engine troubles to iron out. Given these limitations, and how many people hold Oblivion quests in higher regard (myself included), things turned out pretty well.