Why is this forum dying?!

Lord Spawn · Post by **Lord Spawn** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 1:23 pm

Why is this forum dying?!
Every time Im here I see 2 or 3 people reading.(max:6)Why is this? Pepole dont klike Oblivion? or they dont have it to talk about or what?
What do you think about it? why are we so few?

Ghost Dragon · Post by **Ghost Dragon** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 1:35 pm

I don't really know but i think Oblivion is a great game. I think a lot of people would like it but want to buy games they can play online, since most people wanna try out xbox live gold.

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 1:40 pm

Lord Spawn wrote:Why is this forum dying?!
Every time Im here I see 2 or 3 people reading.(max:6)Why is this? Pepole dont klike Oblivion? or they dont have it to talk about or what?
What do you think about it? why are we so few?

Dunno, but could be because the game is made so easy quest-wise, fewer people are "stuck" with quests, and thus do not need to post many questions.
I mean with questmarkers, mapmarkers, extensive journal and fast travel it is hard to be stuck with quest, and that is normally one aspect people usually uses forums for.
Build-posts are also limited, because of the reduced complexity compared to the predessors, which also could remove a portion of posts.

But then agian - that is mearly speculations.

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 1:41 pm

Oblivion died because it's not a great game. The fact is it came with many bugs, major ones, and the system it uses wasn't so great. I never liked the leveling system at all, and a lot of the quests are cliche and overdone.

IMO, oblivion is a dungeon crawl, the type of game I HATE!

Ghost Dragon · Post by **Ghost Dragon** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 1:46 pm

Well it can be challenging if people would set the level to the max. I've tried it and i though scamps where as hard as killing 10 minotour lords put together(I died really fast and had around 43 defense)

Siberys · Post by **Siberys** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 1:47 pm

Yeah, but if you're an experienced morrowind player, you know how to avoid ALL of that and can easily beat the entire game on hard.

Ghost Dragon · Post by **Ghost Dragon** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 1:52 pm

I never played morrowwind though I though about getting it but then i got oblivion

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 2:00 pm

Ghost Dragon wrote:Well it can be challenging if people would set the level to the max. I've tried it and i though scamps where as hard as killing 10 minotour lords put together(I died really fast and had around 43 defense)

A game is not "difficult" simply because you can turn the difficulty setting up to make combat harder. A game doesn't get difficult because you have to fight 3 monsters instead of 1. That only makes it possible to make the game more frustrating if needs be.

A game becomes difficult if you need to actually think about where you and when to do so. What choices to make in the game because a choice carry consequences (well, not so much in Oblivion though).... thoese apsects lack hugely in Oblivion.
Oblivion hands you a lot (the aforementioned markers etc) and takes the rest away from you (need for exploration, need for leveling and so on).
The only thing which is positive, is that there is also a larger mod. community out there and hopefully they can do something good (some already have).
But it says very much about a game - in my view - that it is up to the community to make the game. It should be Bethesda who makes the game.

Bethesda has taken the lowest common denominator and went under that bar - at least that is my opinion.

I'm still playing the game though, but only as pass time such as an hour a day because I have little free time at the moment and I know my other CRPGs to well to get much enjoyment out of them at the moment.

This game will drown in the shadows of Morrowind, a game which I didn't even like much either, because it felt as a dumped down version of Daggerfall, but with better graphics .... a trend which they carried into Oblivion. A dumped down Morrowind with better graphics. I wonder what they'll do for ES:V

Ghost Dragon · Post by **Ghost Dragon** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 4:17 pm

Well I look at who is online sometimes, and see theres like 11 guests and just me.

Belthan · Post by **Belthan** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 4:57 pm

Never really paid attention to logged in users & guests count as a symptom of forum health. I logon, read new & bumped threads, reply to posts when they pique my interest or I can add something valuable to the conversation, and log off. I don't really linger like a chatroom or something. To me it mostly matters if people are participating in discussions, getting questions answered, whatever, and it seems like for the most part they are.

Although... now that I think about it, I never got my last question answered

. You wouldn't happen to know the console code to set the quest log to the first stage of the Main Quest mission right after Miscarand, would you?

I have a really weird bug documented in this thread:

http://www.gamebanshee.com/forums/elder ... 79516.html

DesR85 · Post by **DesR85** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 10:44 pm

I also didn't bother checking how many people that frequent a certain section of this forum but yeah, lately, the traffic at the Oblivion section seems to have dwindled to a miniscule number. Only the Morrowind section still have a lot of traffic. It could be because of how demanding this game is on any configuration, be it high-end or low-end. I've seen several benchmarks of this game on different high-end cards and none of them can even reach the 60FPS mark, be it in SLI or even Crossfire configuration. This might be the reason why people gave up on this game or avoided it altogether, I guess.

I gave up on Oblivion after escaping the dungeons in that game and never touched it again. The game lagged terribly on my computer and its not to my taste, to be honest. And I'm also not a fan of dungeon crawling like what Siberys had mentioned.

Lord Spawn · Post by **Lord Spawn** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 2:49 am

Xandax wrote:A game is not "difficult" simply because you can turn the difficulty setting up to make combat harder. A game doesn't get difficult because you have to fight 3 monsters instead of 1. That only makes it possible to make the game more frustrating if needs be.

A game becomes difficult if you need to actually think about where you and when to do so. What choices to make in the game because a choice carry consequences (well, not so much in Oblivion though).... thoese apsects lack hugely in Oblivion.
Oblivion hands you a lot (the aforementioned markers etc) and takes the rest away from you (need for exploration, need for leveling and so on).
The only thing which is positive, is that there is also a larger mod. community out there and hopefully they can do something good (some already have).
But it says very much about a game - in my view - that it is up to the community to make the game. It should be Bethesda who makes the game.

Bethesda has taken the lowest common denominator and went under that bar - at least that is my opinion.

'...'

'This game will drown in the shadows of Morrowind, a game which I didn't even like much either, because it felt as a dumped down version of Daggerfall, but with better graphics .... a trend which they carried into Oblivion. A dumped down Morrowind with better graphics. I wonder what they'll do for TES:V'

Absoluetly RIGHT. You know Xandax, I feel as if I wrote this thread.

The same way I think about difficulty, and Oblivion, altough I never played Daggerfall.
About the consequences I have a good one that suits Oblivion: In the very beggining the emperor asks about The NINE. You have 3 choices. But for real it doesnt matter what will you say coz the emperor only have ONE answer!!!
ARGHHH::::
Consequences, eh? I bet, Bethesda dont know the meaning of this word ...

For others:
Dungeon-crawling.. it is sad but true...Morrowind had dungeons as well and you had to go in then kill those inside. The makers of the game wanted more action (i guess) so they made mor dungeons, simpel isnt it?
I think it could be well ballanced if some modders give the game a few more non-dongeon side quest (or manipulate the main ones , somehow)

but what realy bothered me was the dialouge. I was praying for a game where everyone talking to me. Then i got Oblivion and they do... but for god's sake:
rumors, +2 topic each???!!!! What can I call this? BLAH.. I dont have words for this.
Also as I see the voice acting gives the 'little' modders a headache coz they cant make quests(mean real voice acting ones - well they could use the existing voices but that sounds complicated for me)

About a dying forum: Personally I think the number of active readers does show a forums life. of course I dont mean like if it is 0 at the moment then it is dead, but if I look at it at every day and i see 2 for weeks or months, then I think IT IS dying

EDIT:do some one know about a mod that completly removes the compass thing from screen, or the place and point markers(from only the compass)?

Fljotsdale · Post by **Fljotsdale** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 5:43 am

To answer the original question: yes, I have noticed how unpopular the Oblivion forum is, too. I suspect it is partly because of reasons already posted - but ALSO because very many people are unable or unwilling to purchase the expensive upgrades for PC and X-box that are required to play Oblivion. I couldn't afford it either, but I did, by going without other things.
I'm not sure it was worth it, even though I enjoy the game, because I am already wondering if it will be good enough for other games I am looking forward to in the near future: and I sure can't afford another new machine!

@ Xandax and Lord Spawn:

Daggerfall was the best game Bethesda ever made, imo. But that may just be because it was my very first real rpg game, that I bought for myself, for my own machine.

It was scary! The dungeon maps were hopelessly confusing until you got used to them - and I never failed to almost have a heart attack when something nasty lunged at me from nowhere!:laugh:
And yes: you had to work a LOT of stuff out for yourself; you needed a brain. BUT - apart from the main quest - it did get a bit repetitive, you know! All those identical tombs and non-quest dungeons and towns. They made several types of each and then let the game spawn them at will. Ok for a bit, and handy for getting gold, but otherwise... I LOVED the game! But lets not get things out of proportion!

Yes, you needed far less brain for Morrowind; you didn't have stuff handed to you on a plate, but you generally knew where you were going and why. The dungeon maps were better, though! Even though the dungeons were FAR less scary.
Also, Morrowind didn't really give you scope to build really different types of character and have them work well. You ended up with a tank, whatever you tried! (Or maybe that was just me?)

Give Oblivion it's due: you can make a Thief type and have it STAY a Theif type all the way through. And the Thief Guild quests are beautifully designed for sneaky characters - as are Fighter Guild quests for Fighters, Mage for mage, and, presumably, DB for DB. Morrowind quests could be done perfectly easily by ANY character build.

And - although it is eye-candy - the graphics in Oblivion FAR outweigh anything in Morrowind, which seemed to me almost universally leaden in colour and environmentally boring.
Graphics DO make a difference. No they don't make up for poor storyline - but Oblivion quest storylines are much better than Morrowinds or Daggerfalls - and the NPCs have personality too, which is a big plus (though I do get tired of the repetitive NPC conversations in street and shop!) - and some NPCs make me laugh out loud - Falanu Halaalu (sp?) in Skingrad alchemy shop leaps to mind:laugh: I never laughed once in Morrowind. Nor in Daggerfall, come to that!

Yeah the game has its failings - and some of them you have mentioned - but give it it's due as well! It's a pretty fun game to play, even if there is a lot of hack-n-slash.

And even if it does crash with sickening regularity.

Lord Spawn · Post by **Lord Spawn** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 12:05 am

Fljotsdale wrote:And - although it is eye-candy - the graphics in Oblivion FAR outweigh anything in Morrowind, which seemed to me almost universally leaden in colour and environmentally boring.

Am I the only one who LOVES the green grass and the beautiful trees with painfully SWEET dears????!!! LOL

Fljotsdale · Post by **Fljotsdale** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 7:12 am

Lord Spawn wrote:Am I the only one who LOVES the green grass and the beautiful trees with painfully SWEET dears????!!! LOL

There are no deer in Morrowind.

Not much green grass either, is there?

Not much colour at all, in fact.

Oblivion graphics are so good, I could NEVER kill the deer! I know venison is useful, but I only buy it in shops or find it somewhere. Hypocrisy? Yeah. But I still can't kill the deer. Nor the unicorn. I mean, come on! How could anyone kill the only unicorn?

BTW, I have seen wild horses too - are they escapees or really wild? Can you catch and ride them?

Lord Spawn · Post by **Lord Spawn** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 9:31 am

Lol

I DID killed that Unicorn, and it was almost as much pleasure as killing my first deer in close combat

(chameleon + sneak)

I AM EVIL :devil:

Horses: I tried and I cant

I think they are just there, and that's it....

Ashen · Post by **Ashen** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 9:33 am

The graphics are great, but I think it's the monotony that kills most of us. And it isn't everything, in fact I am not that bother with graphics if the game is great.

Anyway, I don't think the forum is going to die out, but naturally it slowed down and the modding community is still not up to what it is for MW. I agree with the other though, DF ruled and still does, MW after, Obl after these two when it comes to the quality of the game itself. Forum will pick up once the EPs come out, it's the natural way of things.

Lord Spawn · Post by **Lord Spawn** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 9:47 am

Ashen wrote:The graphics are great, but I think it's the monotony that kills most of us. And it isn't everything, in fact I am not that bother with graphics if the game is great.

Anyway, I don't think the forum is going to die out, but naturally it slowed down and the modding community is still not up to what it is for MW. I agree with the other though, DF ruled and still does, MW after, Obl after these two when it comes to the quality of the game itself. Forum will pick up once the EPs come out, it's the natural way of things.

DF=Daggerfall
MW=Morrowid
Obl=Oblivion
EP=???

It is not monotony but a bit of realism. If you are on a continent where is 'x' climate, you wil find ONLY plants and creatures who lives in that climate.
If they ever going to make a game incuding all parts of tramiel then you will see every kind of terrain, until teh :Cyrodiil -> forest+deer

Ashen · Post by **Ashen** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 11:49 am

EP= expansion packs

Yes, and no. It is a fantasy world after all. Great outdoors, I agree, but after a while ... but anyway, as I've said, I don't consider graphics to be a decisive thing in a game of this type at all, only a minor plus or minus. Other things are making me play MW right now.

Fljotsdale · Post by **Fljotsdale** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 5:34 pm

I've played Morrowind so often that the mere thought of it now makes me feel ill...