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Maybe MS learned a lesson. They saw all BS that developers and gamers have to go through with patches, non-supported cards, etc.; and also saw that they could increase performance significantly by not doing backwards-compatibility. And, in the end, decided that this was now the way to go. I'd rather a company learn it's lessons and solve the problems than to stagnate and try to do band-aid fixes forever.

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So we all have to steal... erm, I mean "buy" their new operating systems, of course!

 

I guess this is much closer to the truth. And there is certainly also non selfish reason, why MS decided that HALO 2 will only be compatible with Vista. Not that I care for this game though...

Gerhard

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You don't have to do anything you don't want to. Considering WinXP is going on 5 years old, I think they're entitled to progress forward. After all, PlayStation 3s are coming out and you'd have to buy a PS3 to play the new PS3 games. If I want the latest/greates graphics on my PC, I have to buy a new video card and other hardware. It's the price you pay; and it's not any one particular company-centric. If MS doesn't t want Halo 2 playing on cheesy systems like mine because they don't want people having a less than optimal gaming experience (like I'm having with Oblivion), or if they don't want to have to apply the time, energy and resources toward testing the game on every hardware configuration under the sun, then that's their choice. I'd much rather they put that money into making a quality gameplay experience than patching hardware-oriented bugs for the last year of the development cycle.

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Well, I got Oblivion yesterday and have been playing it for a long time now. It's fucken excellent to say the least. The game world is big but it would've been better if it was bigger still. The AI are excellent and the physics work great. The only thing I have against oblivion is that the models slow the framerate down quite a lot.

 

Anyways, glad I bought the game - very excellent.

 

@oDD: it eats Morrowind, make sure you try it out

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As my friend aptly wrote when he got the game, "I opened up the package, loaded it up, and when the first screen kicked in, I had an instant orgasm."

Edited by Ombrenuit
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Wow, he must be popular with the ladies.

 

So Dram, how is the difficulty? I think my main gripe of Morrowind - alongside the generic repetitiveness - was that it was just waaaay too easy. At level 12, you could pretty much take out whatever you'll come up against. At level 54, forget it. Opponents are nothing more than a wasted few seconds of your time and arrows.

 

Is it hard enough? I realize you might not be able to answer yet, since you just got it... How is difficulty handled (with a slider, I presume)? Can you just steal any-damn-thing not nailed down, and get too rich and powerful too quick, and thus ruin the whole game?

 

I do wish they'd go with more traditional restricted level advancement, like M&B, AO, Gothic, etc. - go up a level, get points to spend on skills and stats, and have to make choices - unlike Morrowind, where you could basically become of God of All Trades. <_< I read one review where it said that you could still max all stats and skills eventually (sigh), but that skills other than your "chosen seven" go up slower. So... um... sounds like Morrowind all over again.

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Spar, I dont understand your arguments against MS. In another thread it was how a windows installation won't run on another computer -you have to re-install it again from the original CD. And now its that they're not making it backwards compatible.

 

Personally I see nothing wrong with installing a relevent configuration for the current hardware. All hardware is different.

 

And you can't be backwards compatible forever. You can't live with the old mistakes of past years. Imagine if we still had to obey the 640kb memory barrier?

As a developer, surely you understand that sometimes when you keep reworking a system to evolve with changing circumstances, it becomes so cluttered that it is best to scrap it and re-write it again?

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Wow, he must be popular with the ladies.

 

So Dram, how is the difficulty? I think my main gripe of Morrowind - alongside the generic repetitiveness - was that it was just waaaay too easy. At level 12, you could pretty much take out whatever you'll come up against. At level 54, forget it. Opponents are nothing more than a wasted few seconds of your time and arrows.

 

Is it hard enough? I realize you might not be able to answer yet, since you just got it... How is difficulty handled (with a slider, I presume)? Can you just steal any-damn-thing not nailed down, and get too rich and powerful too quick, and thus ruin the whole game?

 

I do wish they'd go with more traditional restricted level advancement, like M&B, AO, Gothic, etc. - go up a level, get points to spend on skills and stats, and have to make choices - unlike Morrowind, where you could basically become of God of All Trades. <_< I read one review where it said that you could still max all stats and skills eventually (sigh), but that skills other than your "chosen seven" go up slower. So... um... sounds like Morrowind all over again.

 

The game is much, much more difficult than Morrowind. It still uses the same leveled list setup, but it seems stacked more in the enemies favor rather than yours. But if it does get too hairy for you, there's still a difficulty slider you can use to tweak it so it's easier.

 

Really everything is revamped from MW, though it's all pretty similar. Money is harder to come by, as is armor and weapons beyond the basic set. I've been playing the game about 6 hours now and still haven't come across anything better than your basic short/longsword or battle axe.

 

You can still steal anything that's not nailed down, but it's harder to do since the NPC's will follow you around if you go somewhere you shouldn't, and stolen goods have to be funnelled through a fence now.

 

Like I said before, the game is basically Morrowind, but with everything tweaked so it actually works now.

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Well that definitely sounds improved. I've also just read that stores use levelled lists now, too. I... guess... that's probably... a good thing. Undecided. But at least it keeps someone from stealing everything, selling it all, and then having a full suit of glass at level 3.

 

...stolen goods have to be funnelled through a fence now.

Whoa! Hm.

 

I guess one thing I'm REALLY hoping, is that classes have distinction. I started MW as a thief (duh), and eventually stopped stealing because my multiple residences had too many things to keep anymore, and then became the typical uber everyone-is-a-tank-mage character. Zzzzz... Killing Vivec (I didn't save) before I even knew who he was. :rolleyes:

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You don't have to do anything you don't want to. Considering WinXP is going on 5 years old, I think they're entitled to progress forward.

 

That is formalry true, but doesn't make the argument better. Of course I don't have to, but if game developers latch on to it, I only have the choice of not playing and keeping my system, or upgrade. Not much of a choice I would say.

 

That's like saying "The pilot doesn't have to change direction. If he doesn't, the terrorist is going to kill him, but it is his free choice to either get killed or change direction."

Gerhard

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Spar, I dont understand your arguments against MS.

 

I'm not against MS per se, I'm against forcing concepts on me, that have no functional basis. You can compare it with Oddity's argument that we should enforce a certain playstyle. I prefer to have many options, so that people can tweak their experience, to their like. Oddity wants everybody to play like he himself does. Now guess who is MS in this analogy. :)

 

Personally I see nothing wrong with installing a relevent configuration for the current hardware. All hardware is different.

 

Yes. The major point is, that, in case of a new installation, I have to install all applications again as well. Compare this to Unix. you create a backup of your applications. Install the operating system on a new hardware, put in the backup and everythign works as before.

In Windows if you have installed MS Word, Excel and some other apps, what do you do? Can you simlpy reinstall Windows on a new machine, copy over your installation of Word and run it? It doesn't work. And why? Is there a technical or functional reason why Word has to be reinstalled on a new system? No. It's simlpy bad design, because the way Windows is designed is the way of least resistance. Requiring the user to reinstall everything is easy for the programmer, because he offloads all the work on the user instead of the operating system being properly sealed off from the applications.

Of course you have to install new drivers and such, to use the new hardware, but high end applications ) high end in terms of system level) don't have such dependencies. And now games start to do the same, whcih is even more annyoing.

 

As a developer, surely you understand that sometimes when you keep reworking a system to evolve with changing circumstances, it becomes so cluttered that it is best to scrap it and re-write it again?

 

Of course. But using this argument seems a bit strange when applied to MS, because I'm suspicious if this happens so suddenly. When there is a new operating system coming, that nobody reall needs, because XP and W2K is running fine. So this looks more to me like a move to force it on users with arbitrary limitations, because otherwise users wont buy it, as there is simply no demand for it.

And one thing you can be sure off. MS does NOT do AYNTHING just because it would benefit the user.

Gerhard

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Not to butt in on this part of the conversation :blush: but MS doesn't seem to donate out of goodness - they get humongous tax breaks (imagine the size of a tax break for billion dollar charity?) and create a benevolent image that lets them get little more than slaps on the wrist for monopolistic behavior. Ouch! They give money to universities to put windows machines in the comp labs. ;)

 

When they pull stunts like Xb*x and Vista and DirectX backward incompatibilities, they are merely keeping the world's computer technologies within their grasp. "Something we don't completely dominate? Create a new company division/product/standard!" On a related side note, you've gotta throw in some points for the ineptitude that comes out of the company sometimes.

 

Remember, Gates is the guy who said basically, 'let China steal windows as much as they can, because we'll get them hooked and then they'll become paying customers.' Sounds a lot like a drug dealer. ;)

 

 

Edit: I don't have a direct news link, but a quick search gave me this link which mentions it:

 

http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/552

 

In 1998, Bill Gates stated publicly that if the Chinese were going to pirate, they should steal Windows and get addicted.

 

Edit 2: Nevermind! Here we go:

 

http://news.com.com/2100-1023-212942.html

 

Gates shed some light on his own hard-nosed business philosophy. "Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software," he said. "Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

 

 

Edit 3: oh crap, this was supposed to be a TES IV thread.

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they get humongous tax breaks (imagine the size of a tax break for billion dollar charity?)

Hmm, so MS spends a billion dollars to charity to get a few million back? That's hardly a financial gain. That seems like a negative return on investment to me. Which is the same case for any business. If I "expense a business lunch," I'm still spending $50 for that lunch. And at the end of the year I get back $1 of it. Yayy for me!

 

And create a benevolent image that lets them get little more than slaps on the wrist for monopolistic behavior

No, they do it because every successful company does it. Otherwise, people will feel they are heartless b*stards. Which, they may very well be, but it'll give the appearance that they aren't. It's all part of business ethics and social responsibilty. When you're successful, people expect you to "give back" to the community, otherwise you get a negative image. I kinda find it hard to believe that he wouldn't actually feel good when he donates lots of money to organizations, or to get computers in libraries, or whatever. If your business is computers, wouldn't you rather donate computers? Or would you rather donate fine linens to a non-profit organization's lunch room? Similarly, if your business is making video games and want to make a contribution, wouldn't you have a slight incling to donate what you've created to spread your product and name?

 

Remember, Gates is the guy who said basically, 'let China steal windows as much as they can, because we'll get them hooked and then they'll become paying customers.' Sounds a lot like a drug dealer.

Again, like I said... they're in business to make money. It's a fine line between evil and smart to allow piracy to go on so you can profit at some point in the distant future. It's an interesting tactic, from a purely observational standpoint. Bill Gates also said, I think during that speech, that some day Microsoft will fall. At least he realizes that nothing lasts forever.

 

When they pull stunts like Xb*x and Vista and DirectX backward incompatibilities, they are merely keeping the world's computer technologies within their grasp.

Then the world should create their own technologies and gain independence from the vices of MS by outlawing any MS product. If the trade-off is "DirectX backward compatibility" or "6 to 8 times" better performance (or even 2), then I say go for incompatibility. Yes it will suck for a while, but it sucked for a while when CDs first came out and I couldn't play them in my old cassette tape players. Or when DVDs came out and I couldn't play them in my CD players. Technology happens. Get used to it. Or become Amish. It's just a personal choice as to which way of life you like better.

 

Oh well. I don't really care. I just think it's an interesting dynamic to watch. I try to understand the deeply-rooted reasons why someone might be so against MS that they can't see any positives from them; or who choose to only speak negatively of them. It's a very predictable bunch; so it is intriguing to me to watch... :)

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People ahve been saying 'if you didnt like morrowind you wont' like this' but from what I've played so far, this is 10x better than MW. THe major issues I had wth that game are fixed here, like the zombies AI and gopher quest system.

Stealth is also a lot better. You have a backstab multiplier, pickpcketing and stealth does rely more on standing in darkness, not just skill numbers.

I'm also getting pretty good performance on my medium system (2.3 ghz, 1500 ram, radeon 9600xt) THat's with draw distamces all set to max. I've diesabled things like soft shadows and foliage/grass shadows etc, but the framerate is certainly playable.

Playing a thief is pretty good so far. This is definitely the best stealth system in any RPG to date IMO.

 

Has anyone seen any news of how to disable things like the suck-in animaiton when you speak to people, disable the 'loading area..' text whch you get between cells in open areas, and is totally unnecessary, and maybe make the big xbox hud generally smaller?

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

character models site

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800x600, yes. I don't think bloom makes much difference to framerate, it's a pretty simple effect.

I have most settings to highest, except the shadows, which are a big framerate hit.

People who were complaining about things popping into view obviously didn't have all the distance sliders set to maximum, and as far as I can tell, it isn't much of a framerate hit to do that.

I also notice in this game that monsters follow you though load zones, which is good, and the dungeons I've been to so far a la lot more intersting than morrowinf, with flooded unterwater levels you have to swim through, etc.

Civillisation will not attain perfection until the last stone, from the last church, falls on the last priest.

- Emil Zola

 

character models site

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People ahve been saying 'if you didnt like morrowind you wont' like this' but from what I've played so far, this is 10x better than MW. THe major issues I had wth that game are fixed here, like the zombies AI and gopher quest system.

Stealth is also a lot better. You have a backstab multiplier, pickpcketing and stealth does rely more on standing in darkness, not just skill numbers.

I'm also getting pretty good performance on my medium system (2.3 ghz, 1500 ram, radeon 9600xt) THat's with draw distamces all set to max. I've diesabled things like soft shadows and foliage/grass shadows etc, but the framerate is certainly playable.

Playing a thief is pretty good so far. This is definitely the best stealth system in any RPG to date IMO.

 

Has anyone seen any news of how to disable things like the suck-in animaiton when you speak to people, disable the 'loading area..' text whch you get between cells in open areas, and is totally unnecessary, and maybe make the big xbox hud generally smaller?

I'm enjoying playing a thief here. Not quite Thief, but infinitely better than Morrowind or Baldurs Gate etc with the 'press a button and hope' approach. On a par with Arx Fatalis, with a big open world as a bonus.

fDlgFocus=2.1000 in the ini file - change this to a higher number like 4 to improve the zoom thing. In the CS go to setting and find sLoadingArea. Cahnge this to blank to get rid of the message.

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The loading area fix works, but changing the fdlgfocus has no effect. Does that work for you?

Strange. I haven't tried it myself yet, btu people on the official forums seem to think it works. You're editing the ini file in the "\my documents\My Games\Oblivion\" directory?

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Strange. I haven't tried it myself yet, btu people on the official forums seem to think it works. You're editing the ini file in the "\my documents\My Games\Oblivion\" directory?

Does work for me. It doesn't stop the screen sucking in completely, but at least spares you the close up view of NPCs nostrils...

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