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oDDity

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Yeah, I even got quite a thief moment eariler, whle I was sneaking about a cave, and from round a corner one of the AI said 'what was that' and then ' 'it must have been rats'

ok, they actually said 'it must have been the wind' but it shows that they do hear you sneaking about if you're not careful.

I need to do some testing o see how much relies on your skill level and how much on actual player abilty to stay in dark corners etc.

There's also a lockpicking mini-game when you have to flip up tumblers and invloves accurate timing. It's pretty simple, but it's better than the usual pickpicking mechanics we get in games.

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

- Emil Zola

 

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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!

Crap, I've been pulled in. I have only myself to blame!

 

To keep it short: tax law is more complex than just "I give this, I get that" though, there are literally tons of incentives - both government driven and other - for giving away money as a corporation. I won't pretend to know all the ins-and-outs though. Heck, I just found out last week I can write off part of my rent and computer expenses because I frequently work from home. There's a lot of stuff out there.

 

No, they do it because every successful company does it. Otherwise, people will feel they are heartless b*stards.

Agreed! Absolutely.

 

I don't think they're all bad. I don't remember the donation figures exactly, but I think one year I read that microsoft corp donated something like 14 billion (!) to certain causes. That out of a value of 108 billion. I could be screwing these figures up... anyway, it was generous. You've just got to expect there is motive in there somewhere though, yes?

 

Then the world should create their own technologies and gain independence from the vices of MS
.

Again, agreed. And a lot of that is happening increasingly. There are successes and losses there, though. You've got stuff like openGL which gets squeezed out of the limelight by MS, and Firefox which is taking "some" of the IE market. The problem here is, a corporation is headed by someone making the rules. Masses of non-united geeks have a lot more trouble getting organized. That's part of the reason we need consumer's unions so that big business will stop walking on our faces, shoving products that... okay, that's getting off on another topic, and I don't want to be typing all day.

 

There will be no 6-8 times performance increase. It won't happen. Think about it - a game that currently gives you 30 FPS will be capable of 240 FPS on Vista? I know that's a linear example, but hey - "6-8 times," right? We'd be lucky to see 6-8%.

 

Anyway, a lot of this is just fun banter and only some is true despising of them. I'm not 100% anti-MS.

 

 

 

 

(just 90% ;)) Okay enough of this garbage... back to Oblivion!

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I also notice in this game that monsters follow you though load zones

:blink: Aha, I thought I saw that in a movie! Sweet.

 

Does stealth require a key to be pressed, to put you into "stealth mode?" Or is it automatic? I never liked that about Morrowind.

 

And damnit, you guys have me really curious about Baldur's Gate. Yes, I passed on it. I don't see how all this carrying on (here and elsewhere) couldn't be warranted though... maybe I can find it on ebay for a dollar or something. Great, just what I need, another game I don't have time to play.

 

I didn't play Planescape Torment either. :blush:

 

Tits

Where??

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If MS is as evil as they are, they should stop giving millions of dollars to universities and charitable organizations and just horde all the money they get. They're in business to make money. Not to make you smarter or better off.

 

Do you now talk about MS or about Gates? Gates is giving away the money for charity. MS is giving away free lizenses, which is an entirely different thing.

Gerhard

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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!

 

I take it you are a tax expert then. Just one little story. When I went to school we had bookkeeping, which I hated. Our teacher once told us that (at that time) big companies invested in costruction of hotels and big buildings. In the construction, mind you, not in the building itself. The reason was, that the construction itself mean a lot of spending money and no income, which they can use to lower their earnings and reduce tax this way. I don't know anymore how the details are, but apparently companies spend a lot of money to reduce taxes, because this money spent gives them other benefit AND lowers taxes as well. So it's not as simple a you make it, because tax law is much more complicated when it gets to big numbers, then you just have with your yearly salary.

Gerhard

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oDDity wrote: 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.

Excellent. I trust your general opinions with games, so I am encouraged and can't wait to get a new video card some day. I also hope there's a way to turn off the "zoom-to-face" thing when someone talks to you. After my mind likened it to a 70s cop show quick-camera-zoom, I just laugh every time I see it now. And I hate how the voice's volume goes so high I have to turn my speakers down when this happens.

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You don't really need an uber card to play this. I actually have every setting on highest now and am getting 25-30 FPS at 800x600 and it looks fine.

I only have an old 9600xt.

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

- Emil Zola

 

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:blink: Aha, I thought I saw that in a movie! Sweet.

 

Does stealth require a key to be pressed, to put you into "stealth mode?" Or is it automatic? I never liked that about Morrowind.

 

And damnit, you guys have me really curious about Baldur's Gate. Yes, I passed on it. I don't see how all this carrying on (here and elsewhere) couldn't be warranted though... maybe I can find it on ebay for a dollar or something. Great, just what I need, another game I don't have time to play.

 

Yes, you have to go into sneak mode, but just think of it as crouching, or skulking.

And the good thing about BG2 is that it hasn't dated even though it was released 6 years ago. Still as fresh as a dasiy. That's quality.

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

- Emil Zola

 

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The game is better than TES3, that's for sure, only I'm feeling a bit lost at the moment. Don't know where to go. And afraid to follow the main story. But a good game, still.

 

My card is ASUS Extreme AS850, Pentium D Dual Core 2.80Ghz processor, and 1.00 Gb of RAM. The game runs OK with a few slowdowns on 1280x1024 with 6x AA, but I almost removed the shadows and lowered the view distance a bit so I could change from 1024x9**... Looks great, graphically. I love the catacombs, the grass, the trees, the armor...

 

The AI doesn't seem smart though. They walk around, talk about nothing, go to sleep at night (reminds me of Mount&Blade), and tell the same thing if you click rumors. Also, a "bug" that really angried my - I joined the fighters guild and then was ordered to kill some rats. I killed the rats before I talked to the woman in the house. When I talked to her, she said that the rats are already dead so I failed my contract!

 

I hate the zoom-to-face thing. Especially if it zooms to some ugly orc!

 

Anyone plays warrior classes around here?

Too late to save us but try to understand

The seas were empty -- there was hunger in the land

We let the madmen write the golden rules

We were just Children of the Moon

We're lost in the middle of a hopeless world

Children, Children of the Moon watch the world go by

Children, Children of the Moon are hiding from the Sun and the Sky

 

© The Alan Parsons Project - Children of the Moon

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You can fix the zoom as mentioned earlier, look on the previous page.

 

I think this is the best AI in any RPG to date. Sure. its not astounding, but it's a hubndred times better than morrowind, and the AI do follow daily routines, they pass through zones ike the player, and they are pretty good in combat, they dodge arrows, archers lead their shots, and casters use their pets wisely.

Just try following an AI around for a day, I did for a quest, and they travel through various zones, have conversations with various people, go to bed, open up their shops in the morning, etc.

I'm not sure what it is that people want the AI to do in such a huge game with so many NPCs.

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

- Emil Zola

 

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You don't really need an uber card to play this. I actually have every setting on highest now and am getting 25-30 FPS at 800x600 and it looks fine.

Yeah, I'm leaning toward getting a 6800GS. It sounds like it would suit me well until I do a major overhaul late this year or early next. Plus it's only like $200 instead of $300.

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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.
Ah, in my experience, this is up to the person who wrote the software - they don't have to use the registry, they can store all their settings in a file in the installation folder - like Unreal Tournament - you can copy it anywhere and it will run.

Although it is MS's fault for inventing the Registry in the first place, I don't know what the idea behind it was, It's a useless and unessecary complication.

 

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.

Well I don't know. I'm happy to hear about the "generic graphics interface" idea (not sure what they call it), sure it means all video cards will have to use the same features, but this is one of the kinds of things that consoles have always had over PCs - consistant hardware to develop on.

And the PC hardware still isn't true 32bit AFAIK, so we need to get rid of that limitation.

 

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.
That's an extremely common (and effective) sales tactic, you can't hold it against MS specifically. It actually is called "The drug pusher method".

 

General Oblivion feedback

AWESOME. Coming from you, this says a lot about Oblivion. I was already buying it, but now I'm buying it like, next week or something.

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Well I don't think I have to add any more praise since it's obvious it's a great game if oDD likes it :)

 

Oh but just a side thingy, getting caught stealing or whatever, if you say pay fine, you get taken to the nearest palace to hand over stolen items and the gold. Yes the fences are the only way to get rid of stolen goods. Also I suggest to everyone to do the Dark Brotherhood missions...you get offered Vampirism by someone...

 

Another great improvement is that if you steal something from someones house and they see you, they can come up to you and take it back (they just walk up to you and take it) and it reduces your bounty again.

 

Now to the problems:

* Unfortunately they have'nt improved the "every dangerous animal will attack" thing. Practiacally if you see a wolf or bear, they will most certainly attack you. Also, the wolves hunt alone, never in packs which is a pity.

* If you steal something from a display case and the owner or someone walks in after you've already taken it (so it's gone from the display case) they don't do anything. It would've been nice to have them say "Oh my god! You! Give it back now!"

* The plot is not attuned to be perfectly playable as a sneak as there is usually a lot of light in the plot points, such as in the realm of oblivion. This is a problem as sneak characters won't be able to get the sneak attack bonus too much, which is practically essential in the realm of oblivion as there are many scamps and the sort which are hard to kill. The main problem being that thieves usually don't have too great strength as compared to sneaking.

* Most AI are related to your level. This is good in some cases (such as guards are apparently always 10 or so levels higher then you - good, you can't go purging a town ala Morrowind) but bad in others (monsters. gets fucken annoying when a wolf is a match to a sword). The scaling also means that you kind of lack progression in some ways. I would have much preferred to have set skills which don't change such as if you choose thief in the start you can sneak and use a weapon moderately rather then the whole 0-100 superscale. Basically I prefer set skills rather then RPG type raising.

* Sometimes the AI can fuck up, very rare, but they can. Basically it can happen where you are in a fight and 2 guards are helping you and one's an archer and he hits a friend. That friend then goes to kill the archer. That's the bad scenario. The funny scenario is where a guard is hungry and kills a deer, his friend sees this as a crime and they fight. This happened to me lol. The one that was hungry killed his friend and went to check the deer for food. Of course the deer did'nt have food (I took it as they were fighting :D ) and so he continued hunting. He finally came accross another deer and killed it. This time it had meat (I checked it but left it there) and thus he was happy.

* For some reason, if an AI comes accross you (and wants to kill you) he'll first try to kill your horse, even if you are not near it or on it. Annoying.

* Highwaymen do not yield, they always try to kill you or be killed.

 

 

That's all I can think of atm.

 

A few more things worth mentioning:

* Combat is much much better then most RPGs.

* You can place poisoned items such as apples into an AI's house and he can get poisoned and die. I have'nt tried it but you can buy the poisoned apples from a guy in the Dark Brotherhood.

Horses are very useful and can fight for themselves if attacked (with hooves).

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It's actually kinda neat. You see a cross-section side view of the lock itself, with a series of tumblers. You have to move the lockpick in and out (or, left and right from your vantage point, since you're looking at the side view) and bump tumblers up then hit the mouse button at just the right moment (the top of the tumbler's motion) to open the lock. If you succeed, lock opens. If you fail, picklock tool breaks. If you don't click mouse button at the peak of the tumbler's motion, the tumbler just bounces back to its initial position for you to try again.

 

I gave up playing the game until I get a new video card, so I didn't get very far. So the only ones I saw were simple 'bump one tumbler, click button, open.' I assume it gets a bit more difficult later on... where you maybe have to do multiple/all tumblers; and maybe they get more difficult to engage. I don't know...

 

EDIT: I guess I should've viewed that video before posting. I didn't know you'd seen the whole thing in motion, Sneaksie! LOL. Well, now you know more of what I'm saying. And the exploit you posted looks totally legit. I don't think that would've been an easy video to fake. I haven't tested though.

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So far, I've certainly been enjoying it. Yeah, there are a few problems - the inventory is rubbish (check the official forums as I saw a possible fix, but then the forums died and i need sleep). I've had some graphical glitches - dissapearing npc bodies mostly - conversing with a floating head or disembodied eyeballs is always fun if nothing else. No crashes or plot breaking stuff though. My PC is pretty close to the minimum - 2.4ghz, 512 ram, radeon 9600 pro. Graphics card sems to save me and with the exception of stuttering when it loads a new area it runs fine on medium detail.

For my thief it plays infinitely better than morrowind so far. Yeah, its not as indepth as certain other games, but there's enough player involvement to keep you interested. I've suffered badly with the main quest and particually the first oblivion gate though. My level eight character entered having pretty much exclusively raised non comabt skills, expecting to maybe be able to sneak through. Oops. Hopefully the rest of the main quest will improve to allow more stealth or other approaches than combat, but in the meanwhile there's still the thieves guild and excellent dark brotherhood (designed by a former Thief 2 guy I think) to play with...

Edited by Bob Obo
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Hehe, I'll be setting my TDM lockpicking method to "classic Thief 1/2" style, or whatever we call it. So I don't care what glitzy solution we come up with, just give me the bare-bones :)

 

PS: I've ordered my 6800GS. Should get here by mid-next week or so. At that time, I will revel in the glory of Oblivion.

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I agree, any issues it does have can be easily fixed by user mods. Unlike morrowind, it doesn't have any major, system-wide flaws.

It's generally just irritating stuff, like the way all the NPCs stop and say 'speak friend' or someting equally annoying as you run past them.. Everyone hated that behaviour from morrowind, and there was a user fix made for it, so I'Ve no idea why they included it again.

I've alrady been installing mods, like which which fixes the llimitless leveling of monsters along with the character, one which makes game time realtime, so no 1 hour long days and nihgts, and one which fixes the sneak attack modifier which currently doesn't scale up with player advancment, which makes being a thief near impossible unless you practice fighting skills as well.

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

- Emil Zola

 

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