[OFFICIAL] The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion [Archive]

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FlakMonkey

11-01-05, 04:45 PM

I didnt see any of these around so I decided to make one, as I am more than eagerly anticipating what looks to be a phenomonal game and expirience.

Some discussion points:

How demanding and/or flexible do you think this game will be for people's systems?

How will the mod community react to it and the kit it comes with?

PC vs. Xbox 360

And anything else Oblivion.

Polish Fury

11-01-05, 04:53 PM

I think we can already say that the PC version will win out of the fact that it will have the support of a modding community, while the X360 will not. As far as technical differences, i doubt the X360 version will look any better than the PC version will.

IR1

11-01-05, 04:58 PM

I cant wait. I loved Morrowind and I am anxious to play Oblivion. The PC version I am sure will be quite scaleable, it is a new engine. It would be rediculous for any gaming company to make a game that only will work well on 5% of their target markets systems. However it will help drive people to upgrade so they can see the graphics as they were meant to.

FlakMonkey

11-01-05, 04:59 PM

I figured that the PC version would out do it graphically, but for with the 360 people can play without having a 1000 dollar computer. Or 400 for that matter, as that is the 360's cost. (right?)

IR1

11-01-05, 05:01 PM

Well yeah that is one benefit of consoles overall. However for most people who already have a system a video card upgrade sure is cheaper than a Xbox 360. But if you plan on buying a 360 anyway and mods dont concern you then get the Xbox version.

Polish Fury

11-01-05, 05:29 PM

I figured that the PC version would out do it graphically, but for with the 360 people can play without having a 1000 dollar computer. Or 400 for that matter, as that is the 360's cost. (right?)

That's what i thought, but can anyone explain why there are so many idiots around me telling me that the X360 would look better than any PC. Is this just propaganda from Microsoft or the 360 supposed to have some sort of ungodly power that would stomp any collection of high end PC parts?

FlakMonkey

11-01-05, 05:31 PM

Who ever said that, is not very bright and I bet doesn't go to this forum, or any of the like for that matter.

Polish Fury

11-01-05, 05:37 PM

That's what i figured, he was rambling something about it having 3 1/2 processors, i just gave him my "how do you have enough brainpower to speak" look.

postaldudeleo

11-01-05, 05:42 PM

I personally have some rep within the modding community but.... many of the mods in fact 50% don't get finished due to finding engine limitations or creator getting bored (me :P ). I hope the engine can do ingame movies this time around.

That and no starforce 3 and I'm happy.

Prodigious

11-01-05, 06:16 PM

That's what i figured, he was rambling something about it having 3 1/2 processors, i just gave him my "how do you have enough brainpower to speak" look.
The 360 does have 3 cores. Don't write people off as idiots just because they know facts that you haven't heard of.

The console vs pc debate never ends, and I'm not going to argue which is better, especially because of the unusual circumstances(there are 360 games not coming out till 2006 that simply blow away anything, including unreal engine 3 pc games, yet a lot of current pc games look just as good as 360s launch offerings) and the fact that no one "knows for sure" although many ignorant people on both sides will claim that they know for a fact that what they support is superior and then they proceed to spout out opinions and biased conjecture.

Anyway, I'd say they will both look identical from a LoD perspective. The only graphical differences will be resolution, AF, and AA. Now, 360 games will all be minimum 720p, so on that basis, res will be very close to the 1024x768 that most gamers(face the facts, not everyone owns a 6800ultra or higher with a gig of ram and althon 64 processor. don't believe me? Check ANY videogame hardware survey). Apparently, most 360 games are supposed to have 2-4xAA no matter what because of pushing from Microsoft(they included an edram buffer for this purpose mainly). so expect some AA, equivalent to what most people run on a PC.

The only real difference after everything is said and done, is AF. This is where pc games kill console games. Although devs claim they haven't implimented AA or AF in the trailers, demos of their 360 games, even when it is finalized, don't expect anything spectacular. Although I would hope they'd get around the floor turning into a blur 5 feet ahead of you, textures are not going to look anywhere remotely as crisp in the distance as they will in pc games running 4x or higher AF. It's simply a memory limitation that consoles have yet to get around(although Depth of field will help to counter any AF shortcomings).

Anyway, that's my take on things. This applies to all simultanoues PC/360 games in this year, such as Cod2. I wouldn't expect to see major differences until next year, when devs will be familiar enough to take advantage of the 360 hardware, and pc hardware will have improved enough to give superior raw horsepower. when that happens, I would venture to guess that pc games will have better poly counts and texture resolution, but 360 games will have some nicer effects(since the shader capabilities are beyond DX9, and share some features of DX10 although not most of them) and hopefully better physics due to the tricore architecture.

I don't really care though, because I will own a 360 and a nice pc. It's great having the best of both worlds! :D

YellowDart

11-01-05, 06:33 PM

I thankee Prodigious. I couldn't have possibly put it any better myself. :)

I'll also own both a 360 and a gaming PC (hopefully a new one sooner rather than later)... My main concern is which games to get for PC, and which to get for the xb360. My 9800 is starting to show its age... so Oblivion may actually look and perform better on the 360 than it will on the compy in my sig... I guess it's kind of a crapshoot until I get myself a new top of the line box... and on my salary, who knows when that'll be. :p

Prodigious

11-01-05, 06:43 PM

The general rule of thumb is almost always FPS for PC and Racing/Sports for consoles. FPS are better on PCs for obvious reasons, while sports and racing games tend to play more "comfortably" on consoles(unless you have a premium racing wheel or game pad for pc).

As far as RPGs go, it's a toss up. I've always enjoyed traditional turn based rpgs like FF much more on consoles, while open realtime rpgs such as TES, Vampire the Masquerade, Deus Ex, etc on PCs. The one exception was Morrowind, which felt stiff and crappy on the Pc(even after all the patches) yet enjoyable on Xbox.

Narcissus

11-01-05, 06:47 PM

Scalability of graphics and whatnot was one of the big things that the developers apparently felt bad about for kind of ignoring in Morrowind, and will definitely be in Oblivion.

Can check out their site, www.elderscrolls.com , if you feel like. Nothing terribly amazing, but some of the interviews are great, and they have links to the Oblivion demo vids from E3.

Speaking of which, I'm going to go back to drooling at them now.

Polish Fury

11-01-05, 06:50 PM

I guess i seemed a little harsh with that comment, but i dont appreciate people who come around telling me that their console of choice is going to blow my PC out of the water. Keep in mind these are the kind of people who have only ever played Halo 2 and The Sims, and i normally have little patience with them (I thought H2 was a great game. But shall we get back onto topic?

z0n3

11-01-05, 07:04 PM

When is the release date for Oblivion?

Prodigious

11-01-05, 07:08 PM

Was Nov22(for 360 at least). but unfortunately, it got delayed :(

Apparently it will be coming out sometime feb-april 2006. sucks but there's nothing we can do.

FlakMonkey

11-01-05, 07:14 PM

Where did you hear that. Where I check it is still listed as 12-05-05.

GamFAQS and Gamestop.

postaldudeleo

11-01-05, 07:43 PM

Check back on Christmas. It'll be there.

ajrettke

11-01-05, 07:44 PM

the 360 at launch won't be more powerfull in terms for graphics power or CPU power than a high end PC. I would say it would be on par with an average gaming rig...and just show it's age as time goes on.
In the past the games only needed to drive 640x480 res! Now that they're finaly getting into higher resolutions with the 360 you won't be seeing the 50+ average FPS either.

Prod you list some good arguments for the 360, but I still think when it comes to actual launch and actual performance it's just not gonna be what a above average PC can do.

Now why is the console good? cuz it's only 400 bucks and most people have no idea or want to play a computer game. They like the interaction with controllers and 2+ people which a computer doesn't offer. (I personaly hate controllers...but love the 2+ aspect)
The graphics on a xbox will blow away most peoples dells because they don't have video cards (let alone the 360). But for a PC gamer...360 can't touch it

Now onto Oblivion!
PC hands down! The control offered by a keyboard/mouse as oppossed to a controller offers more options for inputs, binds, save/load, moding, interaction, and control. It's just too hard to have advanced controls without a mouse (a joystick mouse blows IMHO)...and having 104 keys and 2+ mouse buttons doesn't hurt the keyboard!

TheGreySpectre

11-01-05, 07:50 PM

Morrowind for the PC was 40x better than morrowind for the xbox for the simple reason of you could mod creaper to have 500,000 gold so you didnt have to spend 10 hours trading with him to get your moneys worth on high end items

and if you didnt want do the house quests you could just build your own house

I suspect Oblivion for the PC will be similar for similar reasons

OC Noob

11-02-05, 12:15 AM

I would say it would be on par with an average gaming rig...and just show it's age as time goes on.

Naw, if you guys take a simple look at the Unreal Engine 3 game Gear of War you will notice the 360 will easily out perform your highest end PC when that game comes out.

Now does it have more raw power than the highest end PC?

I doubt it, but it is 99.9% built for gaming and that makes a huge difference.

If it weren't true it would be getting an Unreal Engine 3 game that blows away DIII/HL2/FEAR when the PC has nothing of the sort.

I'm sure PC gaming will catch up soon, but its pretty obvious by looking at 1 game which has more juice for gaming. Are there even any games in developement with the UE3 for the PC?

And I'm not trying to damage anyones manhood and its always possible I'm wrong, but why wouldn't PC game devs be licencing the UE3 like lots of 360 devs are? Heck, even Bioware will be using it for their next RPG.

ps also, I am still undecided, but think a high end PC has more raw power, but a pound of 360 gaming power is worth about 1.5 or 2 pounds of a high end PC due to it not being a jack of all trades kind of machine and hardware uniformity. For example, look at Conker's Bad Fur Day and what Rare did with the Xbox crappy hardware. No way is someone running that on a PC with a GF2-3 (sharing system ram), 64 mb of ram and a 733 PIII. I don't think a PC dev could do that if given the time, but its also not like they are developing and always optimizing for 1 set of static hardware like console devs get to do.

pps I agree TES:IV will be better on PC due to mods and they should look about the same due to the engine being developed for a quick port to PC.

hagrid

11-02-05, 12:44 AM

Naw, if you guys take a simple look at the Unreal Engine 3 game Gear of War you will notice the 360 will easily out perform your highest end PC when that game comes out.

Now does it have more raw power than the highest end PC?

I doubt it, but it is 99.9% built for gaming and that makes a huge difference.

If it weren't true it would be getting an Unreal Engine 3 game that blows away DIII/HL2/FEAR when the PC has nothing of the sort.

I'm sure PC gaming will catch up soon, but its pretty obvious by looking at 1 game which has more juice for gaming. Are there even any games in developement with the UE3 for the PC?

And I'm not trying to damage anyones manhood and its always possible I'm wrong, but why wouldn't PC game devs be licencing the UE3 like lots of 360 devs are? Heck, even Bioware will be using it for their next RPG.

ps also, I am still undecided, but think a high end PC has more raw power, but a pound of 360 gaming power is worth about 1.5 or 2 pounds of a high end PC due to it not being a jack of all trades kind of machine and hardware uniformity. For example, look at Conker's Bad Fur Day and what Rare did with the Xbox crappy hardware. No way is someone running that on a PC with a GF2-3 (sharing system ram), 64 mb of ram and a 733 PIII. I don't think a PC dev could do that if given the time, but its also not like they are developing and always optimizing for 1 set of static hardware like console devs get to do.

pps I agree TES:IV will be better on PC due to mods and they should look about the same due to the engine being developed for a quick port to PC.
It will outperfom a top end 7800 SLI rig? Dam!
What about load up time for the HD?
I think I will stick with a PC. My son liked morrowind(last one) so I think he will enjoy this one too. Guess I need to go buy it...

OC Noob

11-02-05, 01:35 AM

It will outperfom a top end 7800 SLI rig? Dam!
What about load up time for the HD?
I think I will stick with a PC. My son liked morrowind(last one) so I think he will enjoy this one too. Guess I need to go buy it...

Answer that question for yourself, but my point is a 7800 SLI won't be running UE3 games when the 360 will and its visuals are much better than any engine that we know of that will be used in gaming in the next year.

So I do believe the 360 will have better visuals than PCs regardless of raw hardware power. Will people run UE3 games on 7800's SLI'ed? Probably, but it won't be until well past the time that its running on the 360.

Get what I mean?

ps this is, of course, speculation on my part, but I'll bet my 360 and PC that in 5 years that devs will tweak more out of the 360 then devs will out of those SLI'ed bad boys, In fact, in 5-6 years games could be 2x as good on the 360 vs that SLI setup like Conker's is to anything you can run on a 733 PIII w/ 64 mb of shared ram and a GFII/III. And of course in 5-6 years the lower end PCs will blow away the 360 and we might be having this discussion again.

Its the whole pound for pound thing and how the systems are structured/developed for.

I don't know how load times will be as that depends heavily on how the game is made, but I would not, not stick with your PC as its a staple for gaming and you can always pick up a 360 later when its cheaper and have both. Not to mention it won't take too long for PCs to take back the advantage and be running UE3 games at 1600 x 1200 with everything maxed.

I'm talking about short term from roughly 01/06 to 06/06 possibly 01/06 to 12/06 that it will take for PCs to start seeing games like GoW.

Technology changes quickly and a major weakness of consoles are their hardware inflexability... yet stangely enough thats also one of its major strengths. Its a double edged sword I guess.

I'm just trying to say that people seem to be underestimating what MS and Sony have managed to do at a relatively cheap price point. I just get way to wordy when trying to make a point.

Heck, we could be running multiple core CPUs, using 25 gb/s system ram and have moved away from x86 if not for tech companies milking us for more cash and this wouldn't even be a debate:p

ps TES:IV doesn't even look all that great with its stiff, unnatural character movement. Yeah, I guess everything else is stunning, but its going to be great due to radiant AI, tons of content, physics and gameplay. Not because one system will render foliage at 30 meters while the other does it at 25.

o0OBruceLeeO0o

11-02-05, 02:21 AM

Polish Fury

11-02-05, 06:30 AM

pps I agree TES:IV will be better on PC due to mods and they should look about the same due to the engine being developed for a quick port to PC.

I dont think you understand, and it has been said once before in this thread i belive. Oblivion was in development before the SDKs for the 360 were released. Its not going to be a "quick port" to the PC, if anything it would be the other way around.

I saw the Preorder card for this game for the xbox360 the other day at Best Buy. It said "xbox live enabled"... Does this mean you can play this game online? Like mmorpg style? Or will it just be for updates and things of that nature? Anyone have info on that?

Bethesda has expressly said that there will NOT be online multiplayer. I assume that the "xbox live enabled" sticker refers to patches that can be downloaded over xbox live.

hagrid

11-02-05, 03:31 PM

I saw the Preorder card for this game for the xbox360 the other day at Best Buy. It said "xbox live enabled"... Does this mean you can play this game online? Like mmorpg style? Or will it just be for updates and things of that nature? Anyone have info on that?
Off-topic, but I like your avatar. It was funny because I saw it while I was watching Bruce Lee's Jeet Kune Do intructional video. :)

I wonder if they will be like the PSP and have wireless?

OC Noob

11-02-05, 10:56 PM

I dont think you understand, and it has been said once before in this thread i belive. Oblivion was in development before the SDKs for the 360 were released. Its not going to be a "quick port" to the PC, if anything it would be the other way around.

I was thinking it was coming out for PC later because all the news I've read was pretty much 360 news. In fact, they are both to be released on 12/5/05 if it doesn't get pushed back like some rumors are saying.

MS included some niffty software to make porting stuff from the 360 to PC and vice versa very easy so I don't care how they do it as long as we are playing it soon:)

Bethesda has expressly said that there will NOT be online multiplayer. I assume that the "xbox live enabled" sticker refers to patches that can be downloaded over xbox live.

And possibly user made mods. We'll have to wait and see, but Bethesda is working/has been working on over-coming the hurdles to allowing user made content/pluggins via Live.

We'll see in a month I guess or, if its true its getting pushed back, in Q1 of 06.

http://xbox.gamespy.com/xbox-360/the-elder-scrolls-iv-oblivion/633042p3.html

Polish Fury

11-03-05, 06:40 AM

I doubt there will be user-made mods over XBL. Not only would it be a legal nightmare, it would increase the development cycle for patches, as Bethesda would have to divert manpower to test and verify these mods before they could release them. I doubt MS will want the end user to go and fetch mods from the internet using the X360, it would make the development and distribution of 360 cracks much easier. We've all seen what you can do with a copy of mechwarrior and an edited save file, can you say TES:IV mod hack? With their new console, i would say that Microsoft is most likely going to make their platform as secure as possible, if this means sacrificing user-end mods in games I'm sure they will do it.

OC Noob

11-03-05, 08:54 AM

John G

11-03-05, 09:03 AM

I would expect patches, updates, and probably also a limited amount of Bethesda approved mods. They might even develop some extra content and charge small amounts of money for them. It'll also be interesting to see if they try to bring what would be PC expansions to the 360 over Live.

TheGreySpectre

11-03-05, 09:40 AM

on 360 however you won't be able to do your own mods easily I would guess even if they do overcome the hurldes it wont be as simple as opening up the construction set making a mode and saving it

PingSpike

11-03-05, 10:15 AM

I don't think we'll see user made mods for the Xbox, I'd be pretty surprised if we did. The main reason is microsoft doesn't want to deal with all the conflicts user made mods are sure to cause. The goal of a console is to be simple to use, you put the disk in and it plays. You don't have to download the latests drivers, tweak video settings, edit config files, etc. Bethseda can make sure their own mods don't screw anything up, but they can't count on that from user made mods without creating an expensive department designed to test and release them all.

Polish Fury

11-03-05, 03:18 PM

I did read the article, and that is the impression i got based on it and past experience of microsoft.

OC Noob

11-04-05, 09:00 AM

on 360 however you won't be able to do your own mods easily I would guess even if they do overcome the hurldes it wont be as simple as opening up the construction set making a mode and saving it

They said user made mods for the PC would work on Elderscrolls without alteration, but that was x86 so who knows what kind of conversion would have to be made for the 360.

They must have something in mind with a construction set though otherwise they wouldn't even be exploring the possibility.

I just thought it was interesting that someone was exploring the option on a console.