Syscrusher

About MeEdit

I'm a middle-aged gamer from the Midwest of the United States. Oblivion was my first video game purchase since the days of Pong. Seriously. My wife bought it for me on a lark, and I got hooked. Then she got hooked. Now we play together on our PS3, with one of us running the controls and the other acting as spotter and co-solver of puzzles.

Professionally, I am an IT consultant and (in my spare time) an Open Source software developer. As a programmer, I appreciate the quality not only of Bethesda's work, but also of the third-party libraries they chose to include for physics and for plant rendering.

We also play other games, but Oblivion remains our favorite because of its immersive feel and deep attention to detail in the game world. I also play Fallout from Bethesda. I'm not crazy about the genre, but I appreciate the game mechanics for a lot of the same reasons as why I love Oblivion.

LinksEdit

[My Oblivion review on Amazon.com]

Wish List for TES VEdit

I think Oblivion is a fantastic game, and have played it for hundreds of hours. I eagerly await the next game in the series (yes, Bethesda, that's a gentle nudge!). Here are my wish-list items for that game, in case Bethesda reads the wiki. By the way, Bethesda: If you would ever come out with an enhanced version of Oblivion with some of these features, I would absolutely buy it for the PS3!

General Game MechanicsEdit

• Keep the "sandbox mode"! I've played other games that are more closed-path, and the sandbox is so much more fun. Oblivion is the game to which I keep returning, largely because of its open-ended play.
• Likewise, keep the option of first-person game play. This feels much more immersive to me, and is hard to find in an RPG game. It seems as if everyone who creates RPGs offers only third-person, and if you want first-person you are stuck with a boring "shooter" game with no real plot line or characters.
• For allied NPCs, offer the ability to assign general tactical options along the lines of those in Dragon Age: Origins. At the very least, every allied NPC should have a dialog option to order him or her to stay out of the way during combat and let the PC fight alone. Having to replay a big battle because my character died is all part of the game. Having to replay it because a friendly ran into my Fireball spell and got killed, thereby getting me a murder in my stats, is annoying.
• Even if the next TES game is set outside Cyrodiil, make Cyrodiil part of the game world so one can go back and visit. It's too good a game area to abandon!
• Provide a Construction Set for the PS3 version, or at least allow mods to be ported from the PC version. The fact that players can create mods for Oblivion in a quasi-supported way is, in my opinion, one of the game's most brilliant features. Please don't throw away this stroke of genius in the next edition, and please make it available for the PS3 users as well. Not all of us run Windows!
• Offer designated "sparring areas" within the fighter's guild halls, where one can strike and be struck by NPCs without penalty, but still accrue experience points (perhaps up to a limit per level). If the player is willing to roleplay combat practice in realtime, they should be able to do so just as spellcasters can. Perhaps one way to balance this would be to have a "Want to spar, friend?" dialog offered by certain NPCs, who will spar with you only until you advance one point in a martial skill, then will not spar again for the rest of that in-game day.
• For each skill area, in addition to the current level of the skill, display how many points that skill has advanced since the last level-up.
• Marksmanship skill should probably advance slightly faster, because it takes a very long time to fire enough arrows into enemies to go up one point, even at mid-levels.

ContainersEdit

• Make shelves behave more automatically. The realism of the current model is commendable, but it's too realistic from a physics standpoint and makes it too difficult to place objects.
• Include alchemical sorters in the game, at least as an option for the player character's dwelling and the Archmage Quarters.
• Document the difference between safe and unsafe containers in the manual, for the benefit of new players. The first time I played Oblivion, I lost about 6 Sigil Stones and a lot of other loot because I naively assumed Cloud Ruler Temple would be a safe place to store things once I joined the Blades. It's not a problem that most containers are unsafe. It is a problem that the player has to learn this the hard way. A reasonable player would assume a torn grain sack in Imperial City is unsafe -- but they are safe! A reasonable player would assume that a chest in the hall of a friendly faction would be safe -- but they are not. Document this, please.
• Show a different cursor icon for safe vs. unsafe containers.

Transport and TravelEdit

• During fast travel, provide a popup dialog offering a choice of whether to bring along or leave behind the player character's horse. Or make it automatic if the destination is a safe area like a town, but optional if the destination is wilderness.
• Make horses behave as containers, to simulate saddle bags or packs, with a designated weight limit as with characters. The incentive for bringing along a horse to the adventure is that the animal can help carry my loot back to town.
• Perhaps consider offering other modes of transport, such as boats or wagons. Could my horse pull a wagon to increase carrying capacity? Perhaps a "gypsy" style wagon could serve as a mobile dwelling!

DwellingsEdit

• Offer more choices of houses that can be bought or acquired. In each town, there should be at least one low-end starter house and one upscale mansion.
• Houses should start out completely empty when purchased. Let beds, furnishings, and containers be purchased from stores and carried home. So what if a chest of drawers might weigh 150 points? Feather potions are your friend! I know it is possible to have movable containers in the engine, because some of the "covered pots" can be picked up with the grab control. I'd like to be able to customize my house and arrange it as I prefer.
• Provide larger display containers (for houses) for interesting and unique items acquired during adventures.
• When you become Guildmaster of something, your quarters should have more than one container. {ahem....Archmage Quarters}
• Consider offering a by-the-week or by-the-month rental of a room at an inn, and making the room's containers safe during the rental. This would offer low-level characters a way to obtain safe containers, but over the long term it is inconvenient and costly enough to retain the incentive to buy a house. The game should pop up a dialog when the rental is about to expire, with about 24 hours of notice.

Magic and LoreEdit

• A book in the Arcane University should describe the locations of the Doomstones. They have instructors who lecture about the stones -- surely someone has cataloged their locations in the Mystic Archives. Or perhaps the player character could compile this book as a side quest...
• Expand the alchemy ingredient list. This is such a wonderful part of the game -- take it to the next level!
• There should be a way to obtain enchantments on a par with those from Sigil Stones, after completing the main quest. This of course may be "not applicable" to the next game in a literal sense, but the genera idea stands. I would suggest that there be some other rare enchantment tool -- perhaps the Varla Stones -- that can enchant like a Transcendant Sigil Stone. Make it expensive. Make it not easy to obtain the ingredients. But make it possible to do so, for high-level post-main-quest characters.

Roleplay OptionsEdit

Yes, there are some of us old-school roleplayers out there who care about more than just slaughtering enemies. Oblivion is pretty good for roleplay, but the next generation should be even better.

• Offer the player character with sufficient fame opportunities for marriage to NPCs, who would then co-reside in the PC's house. I don't care a whit about in-game sexual encounters -- the real world is more fun for that -- but in a realistic world, isn't it likely that the Champion of Cyrodiil might be considered a good catch for one of the unmarried nobles? I would envision the co-residency working similar to the live-in housekeeper for Rosethorn Mansion, except with more familiar dialog options.
• Introduce the concept of accidental killing of friendlies during combat, where your character must pay a fine of restitution to the family, or similar penalty, but is not invited to the Dark Brotherhood as a "murderer". Yes, it is possible to ignore Lucian's invitation, but this is troubling to good-aligned characters when there was no intent to kill someone. Make it possible to atone for the killing and clear one's name.
• Add street (stall) merchants and caravan merchants.
• Add more varied random dialogs to the wandering NPCs in towns.