Oblivion MULTIPLAYER

[Dark Jaguar]

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3151709

Sorry GR, you poor 360 owner you...

Anyway, this unofficial mod (the reason to prefer the PC version in the end) adds very basic multiplayer. I never expected fully developed multiplayer, but a small mod like this that at least allows your friends to join you in the single player mode is certainly welcome. It's very preliminary, so here's hoping it'll really be added to later. Maybe the mod community will add in all sorts of bonus quests that require multiplayer action.

[A Black Falcon]

Sorry GR, you poor 360 owner you...

Don't worry, he'll just stay in denial about the benefits of modding until he gets a good enough PC, I expect...

[Dark Jaguar]

Really, now that it's been confirmed Jade Empire IS seeing a PC side release, with extra exclusive content at that, I'm pretty much stuck in a position where I'm pretty much never trusting Bioware again when they say "only on console X".

[A Black Falcon]

Since Bioware doesn't look like it'll be making any games anywhere near as good as Baldur's Gate II again anytime soon, I don't care about that as much as I may have a few years ago... I have hope for Dragon Age, but only limited hope, given their last few titles. (not that they're bad games, but compared to near perfection...)

[Great Rumbler]

Don't worry, he'll just stay in denial about the benefits of modding until he gets a good enough PC, I expect...

Denial is cheap though.

[A Black Falcon]

Denial is cheap though.

Cheap but not nearly as satisfying or fun. And this goes for Morrowind too... except without the "denial is cheap" statement, because PCs that run Morrowind aren't expensive anymore. :) But for Oblivion you're right... a PC that can run it well costs a lot. But given how a good PC is useful for so many things, whenever one gets a new computer I'd say that getting anything less than a fully competent machine is quite foolish... (I know, my computer is completely out of date now, but I could get a new one now if I wished. I'm just waiting because it seems like some big advances (such as Intel's next generation of CPUs...) are coming so soon that buying now just doesn't seem like a good idea... as much as I would love to get a new machine.

[Great Rumbler]

In the over 110 hours I've put into Oblivion, I've never once felt dissapointed by what it had to offer.

[Dark Jaguar]

Your point? Are you saying you would... NOT want to have more if it was freely available?

[Great Rumbler]

The PC version having free downloads does not negate the value of the Xbox360 version. That's my point.

[Dark Jaguar]

Sure doesn't, but it INCREASES the value of the PC version.

[Great Rumbler]

Having a Ferrari would increase the value of what I park in my garage, but I enjoy the car I have because it gets me where I want to go and costs significantly less.

[Dark Jaguar]

Except that speed cars are illegal to even fully utilize (max speeds are irrelevent if your state has a speed limit at all), whereas online multiplayer is perfectly legal. Say what you will, but the time will come when you might say "I sure wish I could get some friends to party with me in my world here".

DANGIT I'm trying to impress you and you are ruining it!

[Great Rumbler]

If I had $1200 lying around I'd get a new computer, but I don't!

[ApocX]

I'm glad i got a nice computer two and a half years ago. Oblivion runs okay on my system, turning most of the graphics down.

Seriously though, every single character in this game is HIDEOUS. Sure the graphics are good, but the faces are so fucking ugly.

Also sword combat/most of the quests are pretty bad. The quests are mainly clear out this dungeon, or steal this item.

Pretty great game otherwise, though.

[A Black Falcon]

Seriously though, every single character in this game is HIDEOUS. Sure the graphics are good, but the faces are so fucking ugly.

A problem Morrowind shared. The character graphics only got tolerable when I installed the user-created 'better bodies' mod... but before, that, they were so bad it was almost painful...

[Dark Jaguar]

The game actually looks pretty good when all the graphics are turned up. That said, the faces seem to be intentionally unsymmetrical.

[A Black Falcon]

Morrowind PC's (default) people? They might look better on a low-res TV where you can't tell quite as clearly how awful they look, but on a PC...

[Great Rumbler]

Bethesda can create some wonderfully unique fantasy worlds, but they stink when it comes to doing character faces, female ones anyway.

[A Black Falcon]

It's a common problem, actually. I remember constantly struggling with Bioware/Black Isle's RPGs trying to find decent character portraits and voice sets... most are awful or compeletely wrong for the character I'm trying to create... for Baldur's Gate II I actually ended up using a voice set and character portrait I found online for my main character. None of the built-in ones were good enough...

Wizardry VI does okay, though it only has to do like 16x16 pixel pictures... :D

Pools of Radiance (the original)... um... you can make female characters, but most of the sprites you can choose from are not female looking... and plus, the dock female characters without any benefits -- all female characters have lower strength limits, and they have no other stats boosted to compensate... (Wizardry does a "-2 strength, +1 personality (charisma) and +1 karma (luck, kind of)" thing to try to balance it) The game also has much lower level limits for non-humans than humans in almost all classes (only Elven mages and theives of all races are equal when nonhuman). So basically if you want the easiest time you want all human males, except perhaps your mages.

As for Morrowind, while the Better Bodies mod fixes the characters themselves, it doesn't help with the clothing and stuff (and the clothes really stick out as ugly once you upgrade the character models) unless you add on user-created clothing/armor packs, and those are usually a pain to access... but everything in that game is a pain to access, so that's nothing special. :)

Bethesda can create some wonderfully unique fantasy worlds,

That they do do well, though. The world of TES is about as good as it gets on the issues of world creation and believability (how convingingly real the gameworld seems to be)...