Oblivion: A Ways To Go

I’m a pretty big fan of Oblivion. I loved Morrowind, and Oblivion seemed to be a pretty big improvement. The more I play Oblivion, though, the more I see areas in which I’d love to see improved. Graphics are nice, but what about the style? Sound is good, but is lacking in voice acting. Do you agree? Read this article on areas I think could use some improvement, and I’d love to see in other games as well as the next Elder Scrolls game.

Graphics - Oblivion is one of the most graphics intensive games on the market currently. And for good reason, the game looks great. HDR, lovely textures, and some very detailed buildings and environments make the game pretty stunning to play in. More than once your going to be impressed by the graphics in Oblivion you can run it at High settings. I have no problem with the graphics, but I miss Morrowind’s style.

Ah, Morrowind. That game is likely my favorite RPG of all time, though I would have to seriously consider that since I like a variety of different types of RPGs. Still, it was a great game, and had some really great style. The style that Morrowind offered seems to have all but disappeared in favor for what is basically a traditional, medieval setting with a few twists. Instead of avoiding cliff racers and nix hounds, you have wolves and bears. Instead of going seeing wild guars, you have deer. It seems that it has taken out some of the unique flavor Morrowind offered, to bring a more bland experience.

And this is not limited to animals. A huge variety of cities were present in Morrowind. The twisted towers of mages to the Eastern seas, the huge sections that formed Vivec, or the giant mudcrab shell that formed the inner workings of Redoran are just but a few examples of how Morrowind was reflected on the cities. But in Oblivion, this style is missing. They are still varied, and have some strong points, such as the churches. Still, the fantasy and lore of Morrowind is missing in the cities, creatures, and even environments.

Story - Morrowind had just as disjointed as a story of Oblivion, but at least it was more open-ended in completion and offered a more feasible plot. But since both games had a pretty terrible story, comparing the two seems somewhat pointless.

Having a better storyline is something that Elder Scrolls always has had a hard time grasping. There are no epic battles, tragic sacrifices, brutal betrayals, or heart-felt connections. In fact, Oblivion’s story was the downside of the game, as trekking through the lands of Oblivion got really repetitious, really quick.

The biggest thing that Oblivion needs in terms of story is cut scenes. This could come in two flavors. First, it could offer a third person cut scenes, such as Grand Theft Auto provides. This would put to good use the armor you spend a lot of time collection for your character, as you can see it from a third person view once and awhile. The second option is probably more likely, which is a Half-Life 2 approach. The cut scenes are there, but are completely from your characters point of view. This somewhat happened in Oblivion, but bad animations and scripting make them fairly bland. Story isn’t really the focus of Oblivion anyway, but I just wish that completing the storyline was a bit more motivating.

Sound - Most of the sounds in Oblivion are wonderful. Just great. What it doesn’t do well, though, it voice acting. To their defense, it is the first title they decided to completely voice all the characters, and let me tell you that is no small task. Still, it is really lacking.

None of the voices stand out, in fact they all start to sound very similar after playing the game for awhile. The lack of variety in conversations also get annoying, and you soon start hearing the same things over and over. The voices of Oblivion just aren’t that great, lack variety, and just need more character as well. I honestly can’t remember anyone’s voice in the game except for the King. Heck, I even remember “Where’s your uniform?” from Morrowind.

The solution is simple. Just more. More variety, more actors, more voices. It’s no where close to being easy, but it’s the only way to really do it. The second key is more character. I can’t ever tell if I’m listening to an elf, or a 20 year old, or a 60 year old. They all sound the same, and need more character depending on age, race, size, attitude, etc. Very rarely will you meet an NPC that has a significant difference in voice. That is a problem

AI – Radiant AI is nice. But I’d prefer I like to call “obvious AI.” Here’s an example, lets say you’ve just walked into a store. With obvious AI, there is a random roll. 5 out of 10 times he’ll be waiting behind the counter; 2 out of 10 times he’ll be chatting with a customer; 2 out of 10 times he’ll be reorganzing his inventory out front; and 1 out of 10 times he’ll be sweeping. As soon as you come the owner will say “just a sec”, as you see him place the broom in the corner as he walks back to his station.

That’d be great, and it’s not hard to do. It’s not dynamic AI, even, it’s just a few random tasks to make a person seem more real. It doesn’t really matter if the NPCs actually all go and visit their parents and eat dinner if you never see it. Make the AI more obvious is the key. Make the beggers actually go around and beg to people. Make the guards check in barrels and comment on how they need some action, or if they’ve fought recently about how long it’s been. Have festivals, certain days off, pubs that fill up at night. Right now the world doesn’t seem that much more dynamic than Morrowind, because it’s not obvious about doing so.

Size - The game is too big. It’s as simple as that. I love exploring, I really do. But exploring has got to be rewarding in some fanshion. Right now, exploring has it’s benefits, such as shrines. But the fact is that the game could be a lot smaller and more fun. Make everything more hand crafted, put more stuff happening in less area, and essentially focus on quality instead of quantity. A lot of Oblivion’s winderness seems like filler, and it is. It would be a lot better to have less space, but in fact that makes exploring better.

To counter-balance that, just take out that helpful compass. I have a much better time if an NPC says “go to the island in the lake of the waterfall” rather than having a helpful compass guide me right there. This makes exploration a more integral part of the gameplay, and it’s also more fun doing things on your own. Make the size similar to Gothic, but perhaps a bit larger. But make the dungeons larger and more unique, with interesting stories to go with each one. Make everything feel a part of the world, as much as a world is part of it, and make the history blend with the land. It would work great.

Missions - I think a real useful feature is having quests be more random. You can be rather light with the random factor, and just have 7 “starting” quests and you only get 4 on your first run through, for example, and each time you might get 1 or 2 different quests. Or have true random variables, like get X from X dungeon for X person, but hopefully with more variety than that.

It all comes down to variety, and trying to think of unique mission ideas. Oblivion did a fairly good job with this, but it could use room for improvement. I always had more fun with a new character in Morrowind than I did Oblivion, and that I think comes down to mission variety. I do like Oblivion’s end-game content, so when you finish you can still do things with your faction.