Oblivion

[elmuerte]

I'm feeling lonely.

Then finish the Arena quests, you'll get an addoring fan

[Roderick]

Duncan, that makes good sense.

And I wondered whether or not I could let them both survive. Still, in my little alternative version of events, it remains weird nobody had any responds programmed into them. Seems like an obvious thing: hey, my life-long mentor and the guy that helped me become the emperor just died. I probably shouldn't just leave him lying stone-cold on the battlefield, but then I have work to do and everything.

[elmuerte]

Martin propably knew he was going to meet him soon enough

[toblix]

Any chance of seeing screenshots, or bettar yet, video of these magnificous environments? They sound cool, and I'm never giving the game another chance ever.

[elmuerte]

I wish I could return to that painting :/

I would paint a house there, and a lot of gold.

[Moosferatu]

Neverwinter Nights 2 is looking a lot nicer. So is the Witcher (although that might not count as it's on a modified NWN engine).

They just posted some new screenshots on the official NWN2 site. I enjoyed this exchange in the comments over at Shack News.

Obsidian Art director about two months ago-

"Oh fuck! Oblivion owns us hardcore! Art Team- copy Oblivion STAT!"

Indeed. Because Obsidian's Art department certainly never could have come up with the revolutionary idea to make a generic fantasy setting with forests, plains, villages, and stone cities.

[Oath]

From what I've heard, the writing is solid in NWN 2 too. With Chris Avellone writing, I don't really have any reason to doubt that either. So yeah, it's probably going to be quite good if they manage to straighten everything out before production ends.

[Moosferatu]

miffy, you might want to hold off getting Jade Empire. It looks like an improved version is headed for the PC.

[edit]Shack appears to have removed the story for some reason.

[brkl]

Oblivion is now M because users can modify the game to include nudity. Search for a link yourselves.

It's odd, I've always felt laws and such should make sense.

[elmuerte]

http://biz.gamedaily.com/industry/feature/?id=12604&rp=49

Oh yeah it's awesome. I'm laughing my ass off. So because of those niples it's now not suitable for americans below 17 instead of 13

PEGI rated it 16+ for it's violence. That I understand. But changing T to M because of the virtual boobies.. geez.... Oh right.. it's also because of the violence. But that violence was always there, looks like ESRB simply fucked up.

[Moosferatu]

Well, they claim that the video Bethesda sent them wasn't representative of the worst gore and violence in the game.

[DanJW]

Europe laughs at USA's nipple phobia.

[elmuerte]

It's a game where you play some person with a huge sword or axe and medival stuff like it to be used against enemies.

What did they think it was about? Ponies?

this link is rated AO

Oblivion - Topless women.

Apparently a little extracting, editing, and renaming was all it took to reveal the prerendered nipples and breasts of the females found in the fourth installment of the Elder Scrolls series. Thanks to the resourceful and unpronounceable Maeyanie, who says, "This was actually insanely easy. The files were all included in the retail game. All it took is extracting the files from the .bsa archives, noticing the skins already had the proper anatomy, figuring out that Bethesda WANTED us to do this, and renaming "femaleupperbodynude.nif" to "femaleupperbody.nif"... and it was done."

Uh oh, they "hid" it in there and wanted us to find it! Quick, write to your local senator!

[miffy495]

...and yet this patch doesn't change the fact that they still all look like they had their faces flattened with various kitchen implements.

[Duncan]

Well, they claim that the video Bethesda sent them wasn't representative of the worst gore and violence in the game.

I think it's a safe bet that the nudity thing was entirely responsible for the reclassification (the unmoddable 360 version isn't getting re-rated) but to be fair Oblivion is more violent than you might assume. Anything from the Dark Brotherhood questline is pretty grim, like the severed human heads and dead bodies hanging from meathooks.

[elmuerte]

What about all those flaming bodies in the towers in the oblivion gates.

They couldn't have missed that. Anyway, I think either ESRB is full of it or they dropped the ball. I think Bethesda was surprised when they received the T rating.

[OftenK]

Hmm...the deed to my new home/castle (Frostcrag Spire) says I can "rename the manor by sumbitting proper forms and payments to Cyrodiil Construction Charter and by filing duplicate forms with the Documents Division of the Imperial City Archives". I don't know what or where either of those organizations are. Anyone know if you really can rename a house, or if the deed is lying?

[Noyb]

I think it's a safe bet that the nudity thing was entirely responsible for the reclassification (the unmoddable 360 version isn't getting re-rated)

No, the 2pi version was changed as well: http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/t/theelderscrollsIVoblivion/default.htm

Rerating games based on 3rd party patches is pretty ridiculous. You can't see the files normally, and you'd pretty much have to be trying to use the mod. Plus, as one of the announcers of the PC Gamer podcast said, any kid enterprising enough to be able to install the mod is capable of seeing far worse online. The announcer also suggested making a mod for Harry Potter which replaced his iconic scar with a female nipple, notifying the ESRB, and seeing their reaction then.

[ThunderPeel2001]

I'm surprised at the complaints about the architecture...what more do you people want? Cheydinhal looks different from Chorral which looks different from Leyawin which looks different from Bruma which looks different from Anvil and so on.

I agree, the architecture is pretty damned good, it's the people that let it down. (How long does it take to make someone who looks remotely human on the character generation screen?! ) That, and the mid-sentence accent/voice changes.

Still, it's nothing that ruins the game.

[Trithemius]

Also, as far as "narrative meaning", it means that the Oblivion crisis is an actual threat, because it wouldn't be much of anything if you didn't know any of the casualties because they were all nameless and expendable.

Yep! I think this was an astoundingly clever bit of engineering on the designers part. I wonder if it was unintended at times, but I am quite prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt.

[elmuerte]

Bah.. investing in stores suck.

It's actually nothing more than a one time donation of 500 gold so they have 500 more to buy goods from you. Nothing much to gain from that.

[Duncan]

Bah.. investing in stores suck.

It's actually nothing more than a one time donation of 500 gold so they have 500 more to buy goods from you. Nothing much to gain from that.

Well, you can sell all your hot-ticket items for more money, so there is money to be gained from that. It becomes pretty annoying when you can't sell these awesome things for more than a quarter of what they're worth. I'd agree that it's something of an underdeveloped idea, though.

[General Fuzzy McBitty]

Anyone know of a way to get objects to respawn?

I stole all of the good china off the Duke of Somethings table months ago. The food is just sitting on the table... and no one ever resets it.

These people can't live without china forever!

[Oath]

I stole all of the good china off the Duke of Somethings table months ago. The food is just sitting on the table... and no one ever resets it.

These people can't live without china forever!

The cold war of dinnerware has begun.

[Trithemius]

Well, you can sell all your hot-ticket items for more money, so there is money to be gained from that. It becomes pretty annoying when you can't sell these awesome things for more than a quarter of what they're worth. I'd agree that it's something of an underdeveloped idea, though.

I'm actually a bit sad that there is no bartering like there was in Morrowind. I think it would be quite neat to be able to barter expensive heavy armour for expensive light armour, for example. I expect that some merchants might have more cash lying around (merchants in the Imperial City, vs. merchants languishing in the backwaters of the province) but I still have fond memories of trading ebony armour for glass armour in Morrowind.