Oblivion:Gripes/User Interface

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This article provides User Interface gripes, as part of the User Interface section of the Gripes article.

Lack of tooltips or other context help on the interface means that you NEED to read the manual in order to completely understand it. In general, just adding tooltips would help immensely.

Thats what the manual is for, reading.

A game should be intuitive enough that a manual isn't required. A manual could and should serve as a quick introduction to the lore of a game, but a manual read should *never* be required. It's just bad design.

A game should be intuitive enough that tooltips or other context help on the interface aren't required.

And it should be noted, none of this IS required. You can quite easily play the game without reading the manual. You'll lack some information at the start, but practical experience should work in its place. It doesn't take much to figure it out on your own.

The game is generally intuitive enough for most people to very easily pick up and play.

Unlike in Morrowind, Oblivion's map feature doesn't automatically texture on the world map sections of the world a player has explored. This can make it downright frustrating to retrace a long path and lends a somewhat empty feel to the map.

In Oblivion, the important places of the game are directly added to your map and you thus know where you've been and if you missed any feature of the lands you traveled through. Unlike Morrowind; Oblivion doesn't offer much "hidden" areas that you might want to explore.

Unfortunately, you can be very close to an undiscovered location but not have the system recognize it and add it to your map.

Likewise, there are many important locations NOT marked on your map, like Doom Stones, Rune Stones, Wayshrines, and Ayleid Wells.

There is no in-game editable journal to note things such as rumors or to-dos.

You can pause and then alt-tab and open up Notepad or any other program to edit notes. It is inconvenient though. (May lock the game up)

Three words: Write. It. Down.

as far as I can tell there is no dialogue review, which is nice to have.

An in-game way to mark and positions on maps would be very useful.

Open your world map in the journal and Shift + Left-Click to place a marker.

The X button in the XBox version does allow you to add, move or remove a marker on the World Map screen.

The Square button in the PlayStation 3 version does allow you to add, move or remove a marker on the World Map screen.

As handy as the little blue marker can be, a way to make multiple, labled markers (that don't show up on on your compass) would be endlessly useful, marking wayshrines, being able to refind favored ingrediant locations, etc... Surely I can't be the only one to think so?

Why does the time pass so quick? You take one step walking and the time increases by one minute. Do the people in Cyrodiil walk slowly or is the orbit of the planet they are on quicker?

For the record, 2sec real time = 1min game time, 1min real time = roughly 30min game time, so 1h game time = 2min; 1 day game time = about 48 min real time. First, it's a different planet so it's quite possible it orbits the sun faster; Next, hours, minutes and seconds are entirely arbitrary divisions devised thousands of years ago so there's no reason why they should be the same on Nirn; Lastly, I'd rather have a sense of time passing in the game without having to spend hours of real time to get it.

Using the console command "set timescale to <qty>", you can change the rate at which time passes. However, it's impractical for time in the game to pass in real time, seeing how the world of Cyrodiil is much smaller than our own.

I'm sorry to become one of these people but I think that all of the important structures such as wayshrines to show. I mean, if daedric shrines show, why not wayshrines? (obviously this is because daedric shrines give quests but still...)

I could be wrong, believe me I'm just guessing, but maybe because bethesda knew they were going to do the "Knights of The Nine" expansion they decided not to let the shrines show so that people could find them instead of just fast traveling to them to get it done quicker. I realize there is a flaw with what I've said in that after you've done the quest they still don't show up but maybe that's so that the map doesn't get cluttered?

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