TES IV:Oblivion new screeshots

Thx dude!
Though the guy in armor ive seen it before..(Months ago when the first screenshots came out via what magazine was it?)
 
Minerel said:
Thx dude!
Though the guy in armor ive seen it before..(Months ago when the first screenshots came out via what magazine was it?)
Click to expand...

Game Informer. Ya, some of those shots were in the magazine but they couldn't be posted until now as scans aren't allowed.
 
Althoughthe characters are looking good, I especially like the look of the forrest and in fact the lanscape and "horizon" in general.
 
*Sigh*

Some of us HL2.net forumites need to group together and pull an Ocean's Eleven type heist. There is no way I can afford all of these awesome looking games (and the hardware to run it).

I would love to know what system that is running on. TES: Oblivion looks drop dead gorgeous.
 
blahblahblah said:
*Sigh*

Some of us HL2.net forumites need to group together and pull an Ocean's Eleven type heist. There is no way I can afford all of these awesome looking games (and the hardware to run it).

I would love to know what system that is running on. TES: Oblivion looks drop dead gorgeous.
Click to expand...

:) Ocean's Eleven was bad ass. Andy Garcia was super cool.
 
blahblahblah said:
*Sigh*

Some of us HL2.net forumites need to group together and pull an Ocean's Eleven type heist. There is no way I can afford all of these awesome looking games (and the hardware to run it).
Click to expand...

Sounds like a plan.:E

blahblahblah said:
I would love to know what system that is running on. TES: Oblivion looks drop dead gorgeous.
Click to expand...

The only thing I know is that there is no way my computer would run it.
 
I cant imagine when all that next-generation games will be coming
 
Wow, young woman is sweet. Looks really soft, but pulls it off, like Invisible War didn't :P
 
blahblahblah said:
*Sigh*

Some of us HL2.net forumites need to group together and pull an Ocean's Eleven type heist. There is no way I can afford all of these awesome looking games (and the hardware to run it).

I would love to know what system that is running on. TES: Oblivion looks drop dead gorgeous.
Click to expand...
I'm in!

Ha ha, Our money spent on PC video games (*Cough* except you damn people who pirate games *cough*) is starting to pay off!
 
Prince of China said:
For a second, I almost thought they were real people.
Click to expand...

My first thought on the old lady pic was, "well that's not very impressive, it just looks like real... oh wow." :D
 
I wouldn't say they look real...everything seems to have something similar to the glow in Guild Wars.
 
whoa, go post-processing.

i wonder what card will be required to run this 'decently'
 
What the hell is so great about those?

Its just a nice looking outdoors version of Doom 3 with bloom on 64 by the looks of it :rolleyes:
 
Im happy now.

edit: azzor, you plainly know nothing about Elderscrolls..
 
Heh, Imagine trying to create something as big as Oblivion and in fact the other Elderscrolls games...on the Doom 3 engine :)
 
azz0r said:
What the hell is so great about those?

Its just a nice looking outdoors version of Doom 3 with bloom on 64 by the looks of it :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Hah, that's funny. :rolleyes:
 
Bleh, too much bloom effects. It looks as if your character is constantly drunk, I'm sorry but the graphics would be ten times better without that lame effect.
 
Pretty sure on the PC verson you will be able to disable things like that, you normally can.

The xbox 2 verson wont though, mwaha.
 
I hope so, I mean it was nice the first time I saw that effect in Guildwars but after an hour or so it was hurting my eyes! Nah I'm just kidding I guess it's a matter of personal preference.
 
As long as the gameplay matches the graphics I'll be happy, although I didn't like the Morrowind: Elder Scrolls III gameplay much.
 
Well in morrowind I know they took a bit out from Arena and Daggerfall though the graphic were(and still are pretty nice) top of the line back then... to bad the actual visual engine was poor on how it drew things.

I believe they are adding more fighting. The overall landscape will be bigger, though less&smaller dungeons.

Mortiz I suggest you get some fight mods for morrowind, really improves the experince.

The game looks very nice though. Im sure my system will be able to handle it....... or 99.9% chance it wont be able to handle it..

I love morrowind, very addicting at first. In fact the most addicting game I ever played at first.
 
I probably should have included this in my first post...

Here's all the available info on the game:

Main site:
http://www.elderscrolls.com/home/home.htm

Official game annoucement:
http://www.elderscrolls.com/games/oblivion_overview.htm

Oblivion FAQ:
http://www.elderscrolls.com/games/oblivion_faq.htm

Todd Howard interview:
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/theelderscrollsivoblivion/preview_6111720.html

Todd Howard's letter to the fans:
http://www.elderscrolls.com/codex/team_rpgnextgen.htm

Gamespy Preview: (Has lots of good info)
http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/the-elder-scrolls-iv-oblivion/558955p1.html

PCAction Preview: (If you can read German)
http://www.pcaction.de/?article_id=336635

Description of the combat system in play by one of the devs:

MrSmileyFaceDude said:
You're walking through a seedy part of a town in Western Cyrodiil. People mill about, some engaged in conversation, others minding their own business, out on their own errands. Suddenly, an ugly man decides he doesn't like you. Maybe he's drunk, maybe he's just a bully, maybe he's just showing off in front of his friends -- but for whatever reason, he has taken your measure and decided he can best you.

He comes charging at you, with a nasty looking mace in his hand and a look of hatred on his face. Onlookers move back to make room for what should be an entertaining fight.

Quickly drawing your sword and shield, you wheel around to face him. He's upon you pretty quickly though, and you barely have time to raise your shield [hold right mouse button] before his first blow thunders down upon you.

But you block well, and as he recoils from the collision, you quickly perform left & right slashes with your sword [left click, pause, left click]. The bully realizes this isn't going to be easy.

He backs off a bit, and starts dodging around you. First to the left, then to the right. You maneuver to keep him in view, looking for an opening. Suddenly he steps back, raises his mace in both hands, and steps forward, bringing the mace towards your head in a crushing blow!

But you're quick -- you step to the side as he attacks. As he passes by, you execute a spinning maneuver and slash him in the side [hold left mouse button and left maneuver key]. The hit is solid, and your foe staggers from the blow.

But it's not over yet. The bully swings his mace wildly -- his first swing misses, but the next one connects for a blow that sends you staggering. Pressing his advantage, the bully bears down on you with a power attack of his own. OUCH. This isn't going well. You take a glance at your health meter, it's getting a bit low. You quickly back up out of the bully's reach and raise your shield [hold right mouse button].

He's hurting, too. You circle each other for a time, looking for an opening, trying to recover some fatigue. Finally the bully charges forward with a devastating overhead blow, perhaps hoping to break your shield. But the shield holds and the recoil send him staggering back. This is your chance! You perform a mighty forward power attack [hold the left mouse button, press forward] and connect solidly. The blow staggers your foe once again, and you perform 3 slashing attacks in rapid succession [left mouse button, pause, left mouse button, pause, left mouse button], and finally the bully collapses to the ground, defeated.

The crowd disperses, going back to their own business.
Click to expand...

Info about the thief/stealth system by one of the devs:

EmilPags said:
Hello. I'm Emil Pagliarulo. You might remember me from such Thief missions as A Tale of Two Taffers, and When Blackjacks Collide.

Ba-dum-dum! But seriously, folks.

Emil here. For those of you who don't know me, nice to meet you. Those of you who do might recall that I was indeed a designer on the Thief series. I did work on Thief Gold, and was a designer of Thief 2, Thief 2 Gold (R.I.P. along with the rest of Looking Glass) and Thief: Deadly Shadows.

First of all, let me just say thanks for this thread. Seeing how passionate you are about stealth in Oblivion makes any improvments to the system that much more worth it. I was really surprised by how many of you are Thief fans, and how many of you are really invested in Oblivion's stealth experience. So I wanted to jump in here and respond to all your comments (and all my PMs!), and let you know that we are listening, and we do care.

Secondly, thanks for all the great suggestions and design ideas. Just about everyone who has posted in this thread (and others like it) has brought something new to the discussion. Whether it be an idea for a type of quest, or a method for improving the overall stealth/thieving/assassin experience. Please, keep them coming. On a personal note, it's this type of passion shown by the players that really motivates me to do the best work I possibly can. And I'm certainly not alone in that regard.

And last but not least... When having a discussion like this, I think it's really important to draw the distinction between the Thief games and stealth/thieving in the Elder Scrolls games. Thief: Deadly Shadows is a game about being a thief in a fantasy setting. It is about sneaking. And hiding in shadows. And lockpicking. And pickpocketing. And wall climbing. And disposing of bodies. It is all of those things...and NOTHING else. Thief: Deadly Shadows' 3+ years of development time was spent solely on developing those stealth systems, and believe me the team could have spent a lot more time if given the opportunity.

Now take a look at Oblivion, and you'll see that there's stealth/thieving, but sooooo much more. Oh boy, is there more. Spellcasting. Melee combat. Individualized NPCs. Dialogue. Joinable factions. Multiple questlines. A huge landmass. Large-scale battles between the Nazis and Americans. Okay, everything BUT that last one. :)

The point is, there's just no way ANY game that offers as much as Oblivion does could have a stealth/thieving system as robust as that seen in the Thief series. It's just impossible -- unless you want a development cycle of 6+ years. And really, nobody wants that. Take blackjacking, for example. That's one of THE core systems of the Thief series. Strictly designed, heavily tested, and really fundamental to the core gameplay. That's just not true for Oblivion, so the chances of something like that showing up are very unlikely. And rope arrows? If Thief: Deadly Shadows didn't even have time to get them right, you can be sure we're not even going to go near something like that.

Now for the good news. The Red Sox won the World Series! The Curse has ended! Southie rules!! Woohoo!!!!

Ohhhhh....you want good news about Oblivion... Okay, I have that too!

Leveraging our strengths as a next-gen RPG, there are so many things we CAN do to make Oblivion's stealth/thieving/assassin gameplay better than it's ever been in an Elder Scrolls title. Like designing quests that better take a stealth skillset into account. Building spaces that are more fun to break into, with multiple entrances. Improving NPC AI to respond better to a player using stealth, and give more appropriate audio feedback. Adjusting light levels to really have an impact on stealth and sneaking. Making lockpicking a more satisfying experience. And simply designing an RPG with a better fundamental understanding of what makes stealth gameplay fun. These are the things we're looking at and working on. These are the ways Oblivion's stealth/thieving system are really going to outshine any other RPG out there.

So in closing, let me just say thanks again, and keep those ideas coming. And remeber, Wazowski. I'm watching. Alwways waaatttcchhiiinnnggg....
Click to expand...
 
i believe it when i see it in-game
words cant describe how hot that looks though, WOW
 
why do the screenies look like console game shots - low res and blurry?
 
Sorry for digging this up, but I didn't want to start an entirely new thread. Here's a pretty good fan interview with the devs that was just released for anyone who's interested:


From: http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=33750


Answers from Todd Howard, Executive Producer.

1.)Will Oblivion retain Morrowind's linear quest concept for the main quest, or will it be possible to approach this from many different angles, changing the final outcome in the process?

Overall, the main quest is more linear than it is wide-open, but it does have sections where the actual goals for you become more open. As much as possible, we try to allow you to finish each quest in as many ways as possible. The actual very end is the same no matter what you did to get there. There are little things we can do well with our kind of game, like “get this item from this character” – especially now with our new AI system – where even something that simple opens itself up for tons of different gameplay options.

2.)Altering the level of difficulty in Morrowind and its expansions was very simple. You slid one generic bar up and down and it increased or decreased the difficulty of some aspect of the game. In this next installment of the Elder Scrolls series will players have more control over specific aspects of the game?

Unknown right now, we do plan on having a difficulty slider that affects how easy and hard the game is. But how it does that has not been finalized. I’d be interested to hear people’s opinions on that one. Would they like separate “damage” sliders vs “skill use” sliders? Good one for the fans to chime in about.

3.)The TES series has always offered the player other options besides the main quest and side quests. Will Oblivion expand on that concept and offer other activities/professions?

I’d like to think we’re expanding that idea. There is tons to do other than the main quest, and we hope that we’ve got a better handle on what kinds of things the player may want to do and how to deliver that. I don’t know if I would say “expand” as much as “improve” the concept of freeform gameplay.

4.)The population in Cyrodiil, the assumed main setting for Oblivion, is said to be ‘thousands upon thousands’. With such a small NPC bank, how do you plan on emulating this massive crowd?

With the number of NPCs we have (around 1000), it’s dense. It’s an insane number for us to pull off, so I can’t say we’re at-all concerned with the number of characters in the game. If anything, it’s too many, but we always do that. All of our lore is obviously written as ideal, to say X province or city has so many people, but you can’t always actually pull that off on screen, or even store it, so you try to create a scale that feels good in game, that plays well and is fun. So the scale of the terrain and the number of NPCs is always geared to the gameplay more than the lore saying how big or small something is.

5.)In regards to the new Radiant AI system, it has been stated that NPCs will be able to think and react independently of scripts. Does this mean that a player could order an NPC to do something (if in the position of a guild head, etc.), or perhaps find a random unscripted quest due to independent NPC actions?

Yes, we can do those things. I’m not saying they are in there, and we’re toying now with watching NPCs do things and how we can really get the player to affect that or have more fun with it, or even see it. So I won’t give specific examples right now, but we’ll be trying some similar things in places. I can tell you that our goal for the Radiant AI was the “Fargoth” quest in the beginning of Morrowind, which took some heavy scripting to get Fargoth to behave well, sneak around, steal the ring, put it in the stump, and such. Our early goal for the Radiant AI was that kind of thing just “happening”, without any scripting. And it works - which is great. But if we didn’t tell you what Fargoth was up to, you would have never noticed, or it would have looked really odd. Anyway, that’s the stage we’re at, we have the behaviors, and we’re trying to maximize the player’s perception of what’s happening.

6.)The armorer skill in Morrowind was limited to repairing objects; the bus 'stopped there'. Do the developers plan on expanding the abilities of this skills in Oblivion, and if so, how?

One of the things we’re not ready to talk about.

7.)In Morrowind beast races were restricted by their physical attributes from utilizing closed faced helms as well as boots, and were not given a boost in hand-to-hand attacks based on their claws. What, if any, special rewards are going to be awarded to beast races in Oblivion, to balance this lack?

Well, Oblivion handles those races differently in many respects, so I can’t really talk yet about specific perks and such. Suffice to say, each race will have it’s own perks, and they should all balance well.

8.)How do you expect the Oblivion Magic system to differ from Morrowind's?

Another item, we’re not ready to go into detail on. But I can tell you that we felt Morrowind magic was too weak, in terms of being able to use it as your sole way of playing the game. That was really a reaction to Daggerfall, which was too magic heavy. Anyway, our goal is that you could play the entire game just using magic, and have that balance the same way combat or stealth does. To really be successful playing Morrowind, you had to use weapons, and we want to avoid that.

9.)In Morrowind it did not matter where you struck an enemy in melee combat; a hit was a hit, and the damage was determined independently of where your blow landed. In Oblivion will the point of a weapon's impact, on both armor and flesh, factor into a more or less devastating attack?

It won’t. We did have that in Morrowind for a while and found it just made it too action heavy. That if you were good at it – you could easily go for the head and really kill people. And on the converse, if NPCs could do it to you and you would die faster. I think with this game, your character’s appearance is almost as important as your stats, and some people simply like their character’s look without a helmet. So we treat armor rating as one number for your whole body and the damage is based on that.

10.) A developer recently stated, on the forums, that sneaking was going to get some 'tender-loving-care'. Is there anything you would be willing to share with us about these changes at this time?

That part of the game is working great, really good stuff we’ve been spending more time on recently. Emil Pagliarulo, who worked on the Thief series, has been working on that, and it’s much more realistic, using light and shadow and how you are moving. It’s always been tricky for us because you have physical things affecting sneaking, and then abstract things, like your character’s skills, so I think we’re getting a better balance of how that plays out and giving the player feedback on if they can be seen, and NPCs searching for you and you can hear them say things like “I know you’re here somewhere…” kind of stuff.

11.)What options will there be for the player who wants a home? Will we be able to purchase or own one or more, and to what extent do you expect the player to be able to modify this home?

We have some plans, but we’re not ready to talk about that either.


12.) Could you give the fans any information regarding the behavior of water--eg. flowing and making puddles--and if it will be able to be above or below "0" level?

Sorry, can’t talk about that yet. Yes, there will be water, and yes, it will look and behave great.

13.)Will Oblivion return to the location based music concept apparent in earlier installments of the TES series, with dedicated music for dungeons and different aspects like timing and weather?

More on that later, but it’s bigger and better than we’ve ever done. Really excited about the music and I can’t say a word yet.

14.)What changes can we expect in the CS? Specifically, can you say anything about modeling and texturing, the dialogue editor, or the scripting language?

Modeling and texturing will still be done in StudioMax, and not our editor. The dialogue and scripting system have been wrapped into a new “quest” system. Once you see it, you’ll never want to go back to the old way. “Quests” are really collections of data in the editor you can manipulate as a whole, and turn big things on and off and track the state of a quest. It really has a workflow that’s a lot closer to how you design a quest on paper. There are a lot of other new features, but the core world building in the Construction Set remains like Morrowind with cells and object references.

15.)Will interior and exterior cells be separate in Oblivion as they were in Morrowind? If so, will creatures other than the player be able to enter and exit these interior cells?

Yes, they are separate, and yes, any character or creature can walk between them. And it happens constantly with the Radiant AI.

16.)Are there plans on utilizing the entire viewable map area this time, including the water areas as places of interest and underwater quests?

I’m not sure what this question is asking. The entire map we create for the game is open to you, just as it was in the previous games. We do have a “border” to it, that you can’t go out of, but that’s obvious. In terms of water, we do limit it actually. We find that spending a long time underwater isn’t really that fun. Plus combat underwater always has odd issues. So we do use underwater stuff, but we intentionally keep it to short exploration things, such as finding a new area or item, and keep the amount of underwater combat down.

17.)Those of us who are explorers wish to know how you are planning on implementing a border for the map [province]. Will this be similar to Morrowind's infinite ocean?

There is a “border” – you basically hit an invisible wall and the game says “you’ve reached the edge – go back”. So no, there is not infinite water. Cyrodiil is surrounded by the other provinces, so we have to do a border. As much as possible, we try to make this a physical barrier, like a mountain, but that just looks odd sometimes, so we go with the game message. But because you can now see so far, we’ve had to build miles of landscape into these provinces, because even though you cannot “go” there, you can stand on a mountain and “see” there.

18.)Can you give examples of the extent the Havok engine will allow players to interact with the environment?

Havok is by far the most fun we’ve had working with middleware. The depth it can add is amazing, especially to a game like ours, where we have so many items around. So anything you can pick up gets havok. Also, our artists can create areas of the world that react to physics, such as doors or chains that hang from the ceiling. We’ve been having a blast lately shooting arrows into things and watching them react. So from a visual standpoint, such as bodies falling down stairs, or books and plates flying around, it is fantastic. From a gameplay standpoint, we’re just starting to work those elements into things like our dungeons. One thing I can say is that the telekinesis magic is getting an all-new level of cool. More on that when we start talking about magic.


19.) What audience is Oblivion going to be aimed towards; Specifically, what do you believe the final ESRB rating are you working towards?

Our audience is game players who love fantasy and great games. As far as ESRB rating, I don’t really know, and to be honest we don’t shoot for one or another. We said this with Morrowind as well: We make the game we want. If it’s M, so be it. There’s a certain tone we want to the game and mature situations. There’s also going to be a realistic amount of blood. Nothing crazy, but enough to make it really feel like you just hit a guy with a sword. That may get us an M, it may not, I don’t care. You didn’t ask, but I know nudity is an issue with fans because it was in Daggerfall and such. That’s something I wouldn’t do even if we were allowed to. I think it distracts from the tone of the game. Maybe I’m still too immature (note from Pete: I can vouch that this is, in fact, the case), but when I see breasts in a movie, I still yell “boobies!”.

20.) And lastly, considering that every piece of new information is being scrutinized heavily by the TES fan base, how much weight does the online community have with the decision making process?

The people who’ve bought and played our past games have a huge amount of weight, because ultimately, that’s who we’re making the game for. But keep in mind, we’ve sold millions of Elder Scrolls games, and 99% of the people who’ve bought our games are not online talking about them. We get phone calls, we get letters, we do our own surveys to see what they like and don’t like. So we’re at no loss for fan feedback.

And believe it or not, we read it all. We read the forums all the time, we read all the letters, all the reviews and all the surveys. We also spend a great deal of time looking at other games, and other fan communities to see how those games are received. I can honestly say our fans are the best I’ve seen. I’ve come to realize that our games have become as much a part of our fan’s lives, as it is of our lives, and that does create a bond and a responsibility to do something we are all excited about.

There are obviously some issues that fans discuss where they simply don’t have all the necessary info for us to really do exactly what they want. This goes for many things regarding Oblivion, because it’s still in development, and people are forced to discuss things they haven’t seen. But with regard to our past games, where the experience is there for you to play and see and comment on, feedback on that really drives us to create the next game and make it even better more than anything else.
 
I just got my PC Gamer (US) a couple of days ago. This quote blew my mind.

PC Gamer said:
Most impressive is the foliage and terrain of the forest environments. We'll make a safe guess and suggest that Oblivion's forests are the most likelike outdoor environments ever seen in a PC game. The developers have gone to almost absurd lengths to make it this way; for example, soil erosion is modeled in the game engine, based on terrain studies by geologiests. Eureka!
Click to expand...

I seriously can't wait for this game. I may hold off upgrading my rig until I get a firm release date so I can see Cyrodil in all of its beauty.
 
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