Oblivion:Gripes/Notes

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This article provides Notes gripes, as part of the Other section of the Gripes article.

Most solutions to problems are usermade mods, or to "refrain" from using an exploit or triggering a bug. That's ridiculous. If you buy a game it should be good and playable out of the box, and not require heavy modification or specific action/inaction from the user to be enjoyed. The game as-is is badly designed with many flaws.

Just about all games have at least some glitches, and as game complexity increases there is exponentially more ways for things to go wrong. Also, many times porting the game to different consoles has unexpected results and often go unfound due to the lack of resources to thoroughly test the game on all consoles. For example, Sonic Adventure DX on the GameCube. Furthermore, some glitches are quite amusing, and are good for a few laughs or even to exploit if you deem it necessary. Refraining from doing things is a valid way of fixing problems that you’re making. Just like when you play Need for Speed Games (especially NFS:Underground 2) where you don’t have to be a ricer to beat the game but many people think just because it helps that its required to do. You don’t have to exploit the item duplication glitch, but I am sure that some people had lots of fun doing. Maybe some people had a good laugh duplicating large amounts of unnecessary items. Some people probably, like me, un-patched their game to have fun with it a bit before it was gone. If glitches are large problems that prevent normal game play then yes that is a big problem, like a glitch causing you to not be able to beat the game or something of that nature, but small things that can be easily avoided shouldn’t really be that big of a deal. Huge amounts of inaction are relatively easy, seeing as you have to do nothing to prevent the glitch from occurring. Moreover, many of these problems probably could be easily solved by Bethesda if they took more user feedback; perhaps similarly to the amount of feedback the Rune Scape community is used to giving. Unfortunately most large software companies are unwilling to stick with a single title for extended periods of time. The lack of long-term devotion to game titles is relatively widespread with a few exceptions in the game industry and the trends don’t seem to be showing much change.

Just have fun with the game, you do know its a game right?

Saying Oblivion was bad out of the box is ridiculous. Sure, it has...all these gripes, but most of them are simple things that just annoy a few people. I have it on the 360, so I get only 1% of the mods out there and this is one of my favorite games of all time. I have almost 1000 hours into it.

Seconded. It does have its flaws, but all in all it's pretty solid to the sheer amount of content and diversity in the game. Sure, many places could be improved, and if you lean too hard on many of the effects systems the gameplay side of the game will start to break down. However, at some point in the development process of the game, everyone has to cut their losses and say it's finished.

The game is good and playable out of the box. Just because the game is missing something the previous installment in the series had, does not mean it's a bad game. Oh there aren't any lanterns in Oblivion, boo hoo. Bethesda removed a lot of features from what they had in Morrowind, only to do what they had kept, spectacularly.

Out of the box? No, not quite out of the box, simply due to the bizarre-ness of some bugs (Like the duping bug). However, they should be fixed by official patches at this point, and a great many of them are not.

Duping has been fixed. And you don't have to dupe if you don't want to. It's not like the action of duping is something you do regularly.

With the introduction of more advanced games, there is obviously going to be more problems that can be easily overseen by the developers (especially with a game as Immense as Oblivion). That's the exact reason there are sites like this, to encourage people to create patches and mods. I have to say, the first time I played through Oblivion, I found it very entertaining and easy to play without patches or mods. Besides, most of the problems are little things that barely affect the game. Not once did I find the game flat-out "Unplayable" out of the box because of a little glitch. If you're having a problem enjoying the game, it is probably because of your system, or that you just don't like this genre.

Good out of the box? "Good" by who's standards? When were you put you in charge of quality control for the universe? I was quite satisfied with the game out of the box, and only downloaded addons to increase replay value and to keep the game fresh. If you think a game is sub-par and call the solutions unacceptable, make your own game.

I'd like to see you make a game as big as oblivion without making and mistakes, Problems and glitches

On X360, to download the patches that fix some very serious and annoying bugs, you have to connect to Xbox Live, which is annoying and expensive.

To download patches, all that is required is the Free Silver Membership in XBox Live. The only "expense" is whatever you pay your internet service provider for a broadband connection.

It would be nice to be able to put the patches onto a CD/DVD and install them that way. Would never happen in these days of DRM and such but it would be nice.

The lack of open ended combat in a structured environment ruins any feel of achievement once you have completed a guild. Mages guild has the orrery and there are always necromancers and new potions/ spells to make. Thieves guild can always steel and sell, but you get no quests except to transfer messages, which is annoying if you did the quests just to be a more powerful member. Maybe you could be asked to kill someone, or have generic "Targets" to kill, who hide out in caves or travel. A set of ten would be enough, if done in different orders. In the arena you can only fight Minotaurs etc. if you could fight challengers, that would also be fantastic. Fighters guild isn't much of a problem because you can randomly go and kill goblins etc. One,Of course there are going to be necros! two its a thieves guild not "the dark brotherhood".

My main problem with Oblivion is Kvatch. After spending upwards of four years in prison after saving the city, you'd think the fires would at least be out by now. Seriously, in the Knights of the Nine expansion, the Anvil Chapel cleans itself up, so why can't Kvatch? I know there's a mod for the PC users out there that will restore the city, but as a console user, I don't have access to it. I think that another city would be a nice addition to Cyrodiil. Especially, from looking at the ruins of Kvatch, it was obviously once a great city. It even had it's own Arena. Also, it's pretty high up in a mountain or really big hill. But there's no snow unlike Bruma. A chance for a different view. Mountainous/hilly, but not freezing cold.

The Bruma Mages Guild isn't restored either, and that's just one building that's part of a large faction. After eliminating Mannimarco, the next sensible step would probably be to restore the guild that was destroyed by him, but apparently not.

Look, most of the gripes in this section can be easily remedied by PLAYER CHOICE! The whole point of the game. Be who you want, do what you want. The other gripes seem to be technical, i.e Why can't I make a quest for someone else to do? Try making a game and then programming the option to be aloud to design a quest for someone else. Then try programming the ingame A.I to allow the chosen NPC to follow through with your custom quest. If proffesional games developers like Bethesda or unproffesional (but still as good as pro) Modders can't design this type of idea than it should be pretty obvious why it's not in game. Remember, this game is all about choice...

"You try making a game and see how good you are!" is not a valid response to complaints. These people are not game developers, no, but they are qualified to comment on what is "fun" or "not fun."

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