The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion

Happy Birthday, and say goodbye to your social life. I only put about 40 hours into it (only!) and barely scratched the surface of what there is to do. I've had the most fun so far with the Assassin's guild...

My second playthrough of the games took me about 175 Hours, and that's with knowing exactly what to do and how to do it and I only got up to Level 27. This game will own your life, I've actually just fired it up myself to be honest. The best piece of advice I can give you is to try and level yourself up a bit before trying some of the more interesting quests, the monsters level up with you and it's quite silly to be closing an Oblivion gate and only having to fight Scamps.

Also try out the Assassin's Guild as soon as possible, it gets you some cool armour, gets you some cool equipment and forces you to explore the world but doesn't require intensive monster fighting.

I stopped at around 80 hours, and I didn't even touch the fighter's guild and a hearty portion of the miscellaneous quests. It's a great game, and has possibly one of the best scores Jeremy Soule's ever done.

The first playthrough took about 250 hours (granted 10 of those was the fucking legwork to get a cure for vampirism).

The additional stuff really adds to the game, BUT, it kinda breaks the balance as well at early levels. I'd suggest seeking out the Wizard's Tower and Deepscorn Hollow when you're Level 10+ and leaving the Crusaders until you're in your 20s.

What class are you playing as, because you might actually want to get the Oblivion Gates done at a lower level if you're a sneaky character. Unless you're a very good warrior or spellcaster you might just get a bit fucked when you're fighting the demonic hordes.

I got fucking Vampirism back in November and haven't touched the game since. I'm about 100 hours into it and haven't even started the main quest at all though. I love this game but I think I'll have to wait until my girlfriend is out of the country doing research before I ever finish it.

Do the assassin's quest first is my advice. You'll get some really nice weapons, and an awesome set of light armor (which allows for more loot carrying!).

Looks like the site revamp cost us the old thread. Too bad, because there was a TON of great info in there. I always forget about this title and end up going back to it after a couple months. It is great for that, because it's so damn big can pick up a new quest and get right into again.

Just got this recently, and it's great to play whenever there's a free couple hours. I am worried that I leveled a bit too much before taking on the main quest, though. I pretty much did most of the Thieves Guild quest-line (except the last mission, which is impossible since I can't kill 'anyone' in those fucking sewers).

Playing main story quests now, I get goddam pwned by imps and clanfears. The "Siege of Kvatch" took forever, and I basically just ran through the first Oblivion excursion because more than two Daedra at once is basically automatic faildeath.

Does anyone know if this evens out later? Or am I doomed to have to run/sneak past every enemy encounter on the main quest?

As long as you level up properly you're fine but without correct stat boostage you're fucked.

Playing anything other than a beserker warrior or a mage kinda screws you as well. Because trust me the Daedra get a lot nastier as you go up in levels.

So that's super awesome because I'm basically a straight-up Thief.

I was around level 7/8 when I started the main quest. I figured this was still low enough for the game to be reasonably playable, but if there's no way to catch up to the enemies I can really see myself just never playing this game again.

Which sucks.

There is a difficulty slider, use it, it helps.

Wow. That's handy.

Actually, I'd tell everyone NOT to level up.

I went through the whole game as a Level 8. See, your skills with swords, armor, and all that stuff goes up with how much you use it, not with leveling. So I got up to Master level on those skills and since the creatures are still level 8 they became ALOT easier to kill.

But if you level up you get access to different weapons, but it doesn't mean shit when your enemies also get the more powerful weapons you do.

I think thats the point of the difficulty slider. If you never level up your basically only progressing half the game. Where's the fun in saying you beat a game but never even laid eyes on a piece of daedric or even glass armor? Just lower the difficulty if your having that much trouble but the entire game as a level eight seems mind-numbingly dull.

I think I stopped leveling a bit before 20, so that I could go in and do the gates without much difficulty as a stealth character. My ex leveled like mad, and she had all the hot gear stored in her houses. I think 20 is a decent level to do the main quest without it getting really tough, or having to adjust the slider though.

I got this game around November and only got maybe 20-30 hours into it before I stopped. Partly because my son freaking dominates the 360 now that he plays COD4 online, and partly because I read somewhere about the Umbra sword and how you can get it before you even have access to that quest. Well, I spent many hours working out the strategy to kill that bitch, and after I did...well, I just felt like I had cheated and it took some of the fun out of the game. I suppose at some point I will get back into it. I was working on the Mage's Guild when I quit.

I got this game a few months ago, but as a complete RPG virgin (FF never did anything for me), I think I totally fucked up the leveling. My battlemage was getting rocked by bears one morning when I woke up, and I was completely underpowered to handle it.

I'm planning on restarting it after I finish the Half-Lifes in the Orange Box.

Wait- tell me battlemage isn't code for your anus.

Got The ps3 GOTY edition. Great game. about 15 hours in. I've trying to stick to the main story line but I keep getting side tracked by some of the side missions.

This site: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Oblivion

has an awesome list of everything to do in the game. The site shows you how Most missions have so many different ways of finishing them.. its kinda mind boggling. Plus it has a really indepth guide as to what missions you wanna complete first, last and leave incomplete..

I did that too. Found the umbra sword and ebony armour (its ebony right? pretty sure its heavy armour) and found myself alot heavier with less loot being carried but alot stronger. The umbra sword is dead now, cuz I can't repair it until I becomea journeyman of armour or some shit and it costs an arm and leg to get it repaired by shop. good thing I can repair that kick ass armour.

Great way to get some gold is to go to the mine outside Chorrol and clear out the bandits there, the bandit leader usually has pretty great enchanted armour which sells for about 5k a pop. The respawn rate is fairly quick as well.

Just started a new character, an Orc focusing on blade and bow at the moment with The Atronach starsign and some spell schools as major talents for later on in the game.

Oblivion was exceptional when I played it back on the PC. I will probably pick it up for the PS3 at some point when I find it for like, £10.

Hey Doc,

Here is the original thread. Lots of great tips, etc. to refer to.

http://chud.com/forum/showthread.php?t=76648

picked this up a week ago and I swear I'm this close to asking one of my friends to bring me some heroin just to have something new in my life.

 

gonna go until i can't, and the new one should be out and old by the time I pick it up. yay

Listening to the soundtrack now... so many happy gaming memories.

 

Oblivion was the game I popped my 360 cherry with.

Have recently been replaying Oblivion (during my increasingly-scanty free-time gaming moments lately), and in honor of being only a few weeks away from Skyrim, I thought I'd drift back down memory lane and post some of the biggest "WTF??!?"-moments that I encountered while playing Oblivion:
 

• My adoring, slobbering Adoring Arena Fan dies (because I finally snapped and murdered him), and I forget about him. Later, he returns from the grave while I'm in a dark cave, and I see the room light up for no reason...then I turn around and see a tiny manchild with a torch staring at me while I sneak around.

 

• When the big Amber-crafting Orc armorer in The Shivering Isles offered to "help me put my armor on," I fled the room. I can still see him undressing me with his eyes...

 

• One day, I slept in one of the Fighter's Guilds, and when I woke up, a man and a woman came out of the next room with no clothes on...then they tried to walk off separate ways in a discreet manner. I know it was impossible for them to really be doing anything, but it was real suggestive.

 

• I go to see Ongar in Bruma. Of course, he's drinking at Olav's Inn. As soon as I enter, everyone gets up and walks around. When they do, Ongar sneak-walks around back of the room, opens one of the guest-room doors, goes halfway inside, and stays crouched down, looking towards the bar room like he's peeking through a hole and listening. I crouched next to him and listened too, but nothing happened. When I talked to him, he acted like everything was normal. He must have been hitting the Skooma pipe.

 

• Also, in the same tavern, I was just sitting in the bar, when suddenly, Gromm gets up and punches the guy next to him, then everyone gets in on the fight, and guards rush in. There were, like, ten people just punching each other.

 

• A couple months ago, I was at the stables outside Skingrad, and a sheep was running toward the city gates, like he was late for something.

 

• I got a Frenzy spell, and used it on my Adoring Fan to watch him fight a bear. He lasted about 3 seconds.

 

• I went to Hackdirt and slept in the Inn. So I take my clothes off to sleep, and when I wake up, there's a half-naked man standing over me with a club. I thought I was going to get raped.

 

 

Anyone else wanna step up and shine?

 

Yeah this and Crackdown were the 1st two games I bought when purchasing the 360.
 

My adventures are somewhat hazy due to the amount of hours I've spent playing game over the years. I will say I have currently about 190 murders on one particular character's stats screen...

 

 

Edited by Dr Syn - 10/18/11 at 3:29pm

See once I ran up 100 hours on Oblivion, I kinda put it down and never tried it again. It just seemed so big and my story had been so unique the first time, I didn't want to sully it with a repeat. As a consequence, much like the comedy video I posted over in the Skyrim thread, I slated my thirst for immersion and total escape to other worlds as the years progressed in open worlds like GTA and Red Dead, epic role players like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, games like the Assasins Creed series and to a degree, kinda forgot my first 360 love.

 

All this Skyrim anticipation has made me reflect on Oblivion for the first time in years, how utterly mind-blown I was by the graphics levels (that was the first time I truly stopped in a game and admired pavement or watched a sunrise) how utterly open and free everything felt and how it truly hit me that gaming had finally arrived to a point of imagination and immersion I'd been dreaming of and hoping for since I was a wee kid of five playing on my Commodore 64.

 

A new AC or Bioware role playing offering comes out every other year - but this is a new Elder Scrolls people. This is a fucking EVENT.

 

I get the feeling Oblivion and Skyrim may end up being viewed as nice little bookends for this particular console generation.

the score is one of the best video game score's i've ever heard. even my girlfriend wants me to leave the game running so she can flip to it on the stereo when she is puttering around the house.

 

I still can't get over how...'epic and huge' this game feels. A lot of games are big, but this felt fucking EPIC from the get go.

Getting inducted into the Dark Brotherhood is still one of my favorite suprise moments in any game.

 

I mean I had never played an Elder Scrolls game before, and so the idea that this was so open-world still kinda didn't sink in fully with me yet. So naturally I'm testing the waters, and just randomly decide to whack some innocent bystander on the head with a sword, and then head to sleep. Next thing I know ths creepy robed guy is standing over me, and I find myself getting missions from some shadowy assassin's organization.

 

Then I found out that those weren't even MAIN quests, and my mind was blown.

 

If you haven't yet, I'd recommend giving Morrowind a go as well. I actually liked it better than Oblivion, because it felt bigger and more fantastical to me. The graphics are a little dated, but if you thought Oblivion was deep (and enjoyed it), Morrowind is worth your attention.
 

 

@ Leto II

 

"Anyone else wanna step up and shine?"

 

- I actually stumbled across a YouTube video montage of the Adoring Fan getting killed in a multitude of horrible and hilarious ways. I wish I could find it now. I laughed hard, though, seeing him get swept off ledges, or murdered by minotaurs, or immolated by fire traps. Brought back a lot of memories, but the most prominent was climbing a mountain to kill some oaf in the Dark Brotherhood, and watching my Adoring Fan get poleaxed. Because of a strange clipping glitch coupled with the powerful enchantment on the guy's axe, A.F.'s lifeless corpse went cartwheeling down the hill at high speed, careening off rocks and the like, with his limbs jiggling all over because of the rag doll physics. After the murder was complete, I made it my mission to find him and pay my last respects. It took a while, he flew a long way. 

 

- Did you ever find that unicorn in the glade, getting attacked by minotaurs? In my heroic fury, I leapt in, attempting to save the unicorn from his assailants, and may have accidentally walloped him once or twice with my warhammer. At this point he engaged ME. As I thought about it later, I wished Oblivion had multiplayer of some form, because I'm sure it would have been hilarious to watch as I fled across the imperial province, cursing like a sailor as this enraged unicorn rammed me in the ass repeatedly. See, I didn't want to kill him, because he is the best mount in the game, and I thought to maybe grab a Calm spell or something and chill his ass out. So I finally made it to whatever city was closest... to my relief, he did not follow me inside. However, when I came back out to get him, I found that the good citizens had come to my defense against this mad unicorn, and he had (quite stunningly) laid the smack down. Bodies all over, guards, stable hands. Anyone who happened to be in the vicinity. It was ugly. I never found the unicorn again.

 

** HERE BE SPOILERS**

 

- In the Arena questline, once you find the Grey Prince some proof of his lineage, he decides to off himself in the arena... by letting you kill him. Well, my blade skill was maxed by this point, so I decided I would be smart and raise my hand-to-hand skill a bunch, since the guy is a beast HP-wise and all he does is stand there. Of course, the crowd went wild as I smacked this poor guy around the arena floor for the next half an hour. During this period of time, I discovered that the Grey Prince has three lines of combat dialogue for the fight, presumably meant to be heard once as you pull out your sword and snuff out his life. However, since I was wildly flailing away at him with my little Imperial fists, he was in a nonstop loop of "I'm the spawn of evil! Again, hit me again! Kill me, I can't do this any longer!" The longer it went on, the more the soundbites ran together, until he was wailing "I'm the spawn of kill me I'm the spawn of again, hit me I'm the kill me, I can't again, I'm the spawn of again.." I suppose it was sort of sick, but if definitely got a laugh out of me the last time I ran the Arena.

 

- And possibly my favorite Oblivion memory, since it was so hilariously ridiculous: I was decently leveled by this point in my first run through the game, and was pretty exclusively using Marksman. I had that bow you get from the Dark Brotherhood quests, and some arrows with a damage health enchantment. If you've ever used one, you know that the damage health effect makes the character fly into the air on death. So I walk into this fortress ruin, and at the bottom of the stairs, I can see a table with a bandit sitting at it. A female bandit is patrolling around behind him with a dog. As the female bandit turns her back on the dog, I let loose an arrow, which kills the dog. He flies into the air, lands at the bottom of the stairs, and severs the tripline that is strung across it. At this point, the large spiky ball trap that is hanging from the ceiling is loosed, it swings down and obliterates the female bandit. She sails across the room, landing half on the table, and half on the male bandit that is sitting there. She slides down onto his lap, then onto the floor, dragging bowls and lanterns off the table as she does, and lands in an ungraceful heap on the floor. At this point, after about ten seconds of silence, the male bandit at the table turns his head and says "What was that? Did you hear something?" Absolutely slayed me. I guess they have a LITTLE bit of work to do on the enemy AI for Skyrim, at the very least. 

 

This was the game that made the 360 for me. Good times.

In the meantime, though,