General Elder Scrolls questions
Discussion
Its been donkeys years since Ive played a good RPG - cant wait for Oblivion on the 360! How long did each of the previous elder scrolls games take to finish?
Kameo can be beaten in 6 hours - I took over 20, because I like farting about and searching for things, Im wondering how much of my life Oblivion might to take up when it comes out, as Ive not played any of the previous elder scrolls games before
Kameo can be beaten in 6 hours - I took over 20, because I like farting about and searching for things, Im wondering how much of my life Oblivion might to take up when it comes out, as Ive not played any of the previous elder scrolls games before
Bob, You could play the last game Morrowind for months and still have things to do, if you just went for the main quest it can be done in 25hrs or so of play (although I have seen a video of one guy doing it in under 15 minutes, though he doesn't exactly play conventionally, drinks loads of knowledge potions, learns to fly and then speeds through loads of different caves knowing the exact paths to get certain bits and then flies to the end boss)
If you were to take in all the side quests (things like getting bitten by vampires and becoming one are possible) you could spend months living out your life in the world, buying houses and exploring all the caves and tombs in the area.
Oblivion promises more of the same but looks 3 times as good, has a better way of talking to characters, better combat, generally better everything. If Kameo took you 20hrs or so then bank on losing at least a couple of months playing Oblivion.
If you were to take in all the side quests (things like getting bitten by vampires and becoming one are possible) you could spend months living out your life in the world, buying houses and exploring all the caves and tombs in the area.
Oblivion promises more of the same but looks 3 times as good, has a better way of talking to characters, better combat, generally better everything. If Kameo took you 20hrs or so then bank on losing at least a couple of months playing Oblivion.
steve_evil said:Sounds really good. A couple of months of how much playing per night? Grand Theft Auto San Andreas took me a few hundred hours of fooling around (only 100 hours of logged playing time, according to the game) to get 52% of the way through just game. And a year of my time to get that far
Bob, You could play the last game Morrowind for months and still have things to do, if you just went for the main quest it can be done in 25hrs or so of play (although I have seen a video of one guy doing it in under 15 minutes, though he doesn't exactly play conventionally, drinks loads of knowledge potions, learns to fly and then speeds through loads of different caves knowing the exact paths to get certain bits and then flies to the end boss)
If you were to take in all the side quests (things like getting bitten by vampires and becoming one are possible) you could spend months living out your life in the world, buying houses and exploring all the caves and tombs in the area.
Oblivion promises more of the same but looks 3 times as good, has a better way of talking to characters, better combat, generally better everything. If Kameo took you 20hrs or so then bank on losing at least a couple of months playing Oblivion.
Im hoping Oblivion will offer the same or more. steve_evil said:Cool. I read somewhere the game was 16 square miles in size. If the whole thing is on foot, I wonder if that might be the size of one san andreas island, or perhaps the whole game. Im guessing it would take over an hour to run from one end of san andreas to the other. Perhaps its all relative and seems bigger because its in 3D, I played 8bit games which took longer than that, to run from one end to the other.
I would say at least equal to San Andreas, probably more.
It has taken me ages to get through San Andreas but somehow it just doesn't seem as much fun as Vice City. Sure it's huge, but there don't seem to be as many interesting things to do. The horrible selection of music doesn't help and nor do the huge distances you have to drive to get anything done.
For those of you with an RPG bent (ooer), try Baldur's Gate (and BG II). I don't know how many hundred hours I spent on them, but they are both vast.
Mike
For those of you with an RPG bent (ooer), try Baldur's Gate (and BG II). I don't know how many hundred hours I spent on them, but they are both vast.
Mike
steve_evil said:I didnt play morrowind, or any of the others. I think the last RPG's I played were final fantasy 1, Ultima 1 or 2, a few gameboy and other NES titles, Zelda (the original... im really giving my age away arnt I
You can get a horse in it that I know of, The island isn't quite as big as Morrowind was but it's still a bit huge.
) Dragon Warrior I, etc 
Yep, its been a while
The Elder scrolls aren't quite as RPGish as those games, I would think of it more along the lines of a first person medieval style Grand Theft Auto where you get to choose your own missions and can be good or bad, there's no dice rolling or numbers running in the background, if you swing your sword and it's headed towards someone's face it's gonna hit them hard in the face, so you better be prepared for all the other consequences of doing that. They've really improved the combat from the old ones and it looks a lot better now.
steve_evil said:Cant wait - tomb raider and halo are the only other games I can see myself buying, ive not been following the press stuff, but isnt TR due out very soon?
The Elder scrolls aren't quite as RPGish as those games, I would think of it more along the lines of a first person medieval style Grand Theft Auto where you get to choose your own missions and can be good or bad, there's no dice rolling or numbers running in the background, if you swing your sword and it's headed towards someone's face it's gonna hit them hard in the face, so you better be prepared for all the other consequences of doing that. They've really improved the combat from the old ones and it looks a lot better now.
It should be renamed Xbox Death as far as Im concerned. If you dont die setting it up, you'll die trying 
Officially on their website it is spring 2006 and they will make an announcement in the next few weeks, Gameplay have it down for the 24th march, which would be ideal as I have the weekend off for my birthday and could nerd it up big style on this, have just been and played through morrowind in the last couple of weeks and it was immense, this should be even bigger.
So the release date is still to officially be announced, but late march/early april is about right I reckon.
So the release date is still to officially be announced, but late march/early april is about right I reckon.
Steve_evil said:Tell me more about classes. In traditional D&D, you choose a class and thats it for life. You should be able to choose a mix of two classes (right?) - meaning you are limited to the strengths and weaknesses of those two classes unless you start the game again?
Officially on their website it is spring 2006 and they will make an announcement in the next few weeks, Gameplay have it down for the 24th march, which would be ideal as I have the weekend off for my birthday and could nerd it up big style on this, have just been and played through morrowind in the last couple of weeks and it was immense, this should be even bigger.
So the release date is still to officially be announced, but late march/early april is about right I reckon.
And what of "progression" - Do you know if the game will be in "free to explore and take on anyone" mode, or will certain skill levels need to be high enough to take on certain foes? It was always great ranking characters up, from level to level, before taking on bigger foes that were indefeatable earlier on in RPG type games.
As for classes, there are about 20 set classes which give you bonuses to stats that you would need for that class, so thief classes get bonuses to agility, stealth and lockpicking etc... You choose one of these about halfway through the first training dungeon, or you can create your own class, you then get to play as this class for a bit before being asked again as you leave the first area, so if you want to change your mind or tweak your custom class a bit you can.
The levelling up works a bit different to other RPGs, quite complex but i'll do my best to explain it, you pick 5 major skills and 5 minor skills for your character (if you create a custom class, if not these major and minor skills are set out for you based on the class you pick) all of the remaining skills are classed as your miscellaneous skills. All of these skills improve as you use them, so jumping around all the time will raise your acrobatics skills, using swords or knives will raise your blade skills etc. Where it gets complicated in regard to levelling up is that only the skills in your major and minor pool will contribute to levelling up, every 10 skills you level up in your major or minor pool will level your character up and allow you to raise their base attributes like strength and intelligence.
An example would be a thief character:
Major Skills: Blades, Stealth, Security (lockpicking), Acrobatics, Marksmanship
Minor Skills: Speechcraft, Mercantile, Light Armour, Armory (repairing weapons and armour), athletics.
Miscellaneous skills: everything else
So playing the game as a thief I start picking every door and chest I see, thus my security skill goes up, every time my security skill goes up by one it adds towards my 10 points needed to level up my character. I might also decide to learn some spells and start to heal myself with a heal spell, this will raise my spell skills, but as this skill isn't in my minor or major list it doesn't count towards the 10 points, it doesn't stop me from becoming a master in that particular skill, it just doesn't really help to level my character up.
The long and the short of it is that you can specialise in everything you want to, if you play it for long enough you could max out all of your skills and be a jack of all trades master of everything...
All sorts of other little things effect your levelling up, like you can pay people to train you rather than using one skill over and over, but it's a really simple system that works really well.
As for the enemies, most of them level up as you do, so if you're a level one character you'll face enemies at around your level, and they'll get tougher as you do, there are other characters/monsters about that are just tough from the start, vampires and demon lords that you'll need to put some time in to beat, but you're free to try and take them on from the start if you can find them, you're also welcome to try and take on the local guards in any of the towns, but you'll probably get your ass kicked if you do. From my time playing morrowind it's safe to say that there will be so much hidden stuff in there that you could spend years searching tombs to find all of the weapons and armour, there's also supposed to be a unicorn somewhere that you can catch and have as a mount if the horses in the game get too boring for you.
>> Edited by steve_evil on Thursday 2nd March 09:02
The levelling up works a bit different to other RPGs, quite complex but i'll do my best to explain it, you pick 5 major skills and 5 minor skills for your character (if you create a custom class, if not these major and minor skills are set out for you based on the class you pick) all of the remaining skills are classed as your miscellaneous skills. All of these skills improve as you use them, so jumping around all the time will raise your acrobatics skills, using swords or knives will raise your blade skills etc. Where it gets complicated in regard to levelling up is that only the skills in your major and minor pool will contribute to levelling up, every 10 skills you level up in your major or minor pool will level your character up and allow you to raise their base attributes like strength and intelligence.
An example would be a thief character:
Major Skills: Blades, Stealth, Security (lockpicking), Acrobatics, Marksmanship
Minor Skills: Speechcraft, Mercantile, Light Armour, Armory (repairing weapons and armour), athletics.
Miscellaneous skills: everything else
So playing the game as a thief I start picking every door and chest I see, thus my security skill goes up, every time my security skill goes up by one it adds towards my 10 points needed to level up my character. I might also decide to learn some spells and start to heal myself with a heal spell, this will raise my spell skills, but as this skill isn't in my minor or major list it doesn't count towards the 10 points, it doesn't stop me from becoming a master in that particular skill, it just doesn't really help to level my character up.
The long and the short of it is that you can specialise in everything you want to, if you play it for long enough you could max out all of your skills and be a jack of all trades master of everything...
All sorts of other little things effect your levelling up, like you can pay people to train you rather than using one skill over and over, but it's a really simple system that works really well.
As for the enemies, most of them level up as you do, so if you're a level one character you'll face enemies at around your level, and they'll get tougher as you do, there are other characters/monsters about that are just tough from the start, vampires and demon lords that you'll need to put some time in to beat, but you're free to try and take them on from the start if you can find them, you're also welcome to try and take on the local guards in any of the towns, but you'll probably get your ass kicked if you do. From my time playing morrowind it's safe to say that there will be so much hidden stuff in there that you could spend years searching tombs to find all of the weapons and armour, there's also supposed to be a unicorn somewhere that you can catch and have as a mount if the horses in the game get too boring for you.
>> Edited by steve_evil on Thursday 2nd March 09:02
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