Re: Well, _I_ care: Skyblivion

On Tue, 7 Jan 2025 10:02:05 +0000, JAB <noway@nochance.com> wrote:

On 03/01/2025 16:14, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

I remember having a lot of fun with "Oblivion". Sure, it suffered from
all the usual Bethesda open-world RPG pitfalls, but its map was just
gorgeous to roam across, and there was so much to do. I played the
shit outta that game back in the day, but eventually I tired of the
experience and I haven't had much inclination to return, especially
given how increasingly dated the visuals have become

>
The two big problems I had with Oblivion were how much of the content
seemed procedurally generated (oh look another dungeon to clear out and
grab some loot) instead of hand written and the main quest was just
repetitive in the extreme. If I compare that to Skyrim, it's quite
different as I felt that like FO:3/NV there were lots of interesting
locations to find and explore.

Oblivions dungeons weren't procedurally generated, but they were all
made from a very small set of assets, which meant there wasn't much in
the way of variety. Give Bethesda this much: they learned from that
mistake and, when developing Skyrim, the dungeons got a lot more
unique features, which give them a much more hand-crafted feel.

Still, while in bulk the dungeons of Oblivion got boring, if you
didn't do too much delving they were still pretty good. I in
particular liked the Ayleids dungeons (those were the ones that seemed
to be made all of white marble). They were usually more trap-heavy and
had a spookier atmosphere. The actual Oblivion-gate 'dungeons', on the
other hand, got very tiresome very quickly.

But Oblivion (the game) was better for its overland journeys, and the
various quests you could come across while wandering. It had a pretty
nice variety in terrain too, which kept the adventure lively. I can
see returning to that part of Tamriel again. It might not keep me
engaged as long as it did back in 2006, but I can see myself wandering
its hills once again.