Ladders. Don't forget ladders. Too hard for Oblivion, F3 and Skyrim.
"We're going to have the most amazing visuals for you, the Imperial City, the capital of the entire Empire, is here for you to explore!"
Maybe twenty houses with ten NPCs. Changed Cyrodiil from jungle/swamp/tropical zone to Ye Olde English Countryside. Because jungle/swamp/tropical stuff is too hard.
Oh hell, I'll just repost portions of the RPGCodex review of Oblivion which had collected many of the lies Bethesda sprouted:
http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=129
"However, with Morrowind I think we saw that our kind of game appeals to a wider audience, given the game's success among more casual gamers who are neither "hardcore" nor "RPG geeks".
Gavin Carter
That quote is probably the best and most honest description of Oblivion I've ever seen. It's a game for casual players. Hardcore fans of the series or RPG geeks need not apply. You shall not find depth or challenge in Oblivion.
"I think it's fair to say that a game involving a demonic horde invasion qualifies as a dark game."
Gavin Carter
While that may be true in theory, Oblivion is not such a game. First, there is no demonic horde invasion going on there. The demons did open portals all over the place, but instead of invading, they are patiently waiting for you to show up and close all those portals in not very timely manner. Second, the rest of the world doesn't seem to care much and if they do, they hide it well.
"I even ran into a gate to Oblivion and decided to enter and see what lay within."
Gavin Carter
Our friend Gavin was surely jesting with us, because every gate is more or less the same... If you recall, the Oblivion plane was a tightly guarded secret and the reviewers, who were invited to Bethesda, were prevented from entering Oblivion gates. Now you know why. Uninspiring would be a good word, which is disappointing, because a lot could have been done there.
"There are fewer skills, but they'll be better balanced."
Gavin Carter
some skills have been merged - one Blade skill for all bladed weapons, one Blunt skill for all non-bladed weapons, some skills have been dropped, some concepts have been changed - enchanting is no longer a skill, but a service, staffs are "rocket launchers" and can't be used as melee weapons, crossbows are gone again, etc.
While Bethesda tried to invite people to play straight classes with extra bonuses, I don't really see a reason for a fighter to pick Blade, Blunt, and Hand to Hand skills and spend time raising all three, considering that these skills are practically the same and have the same perks. I don't think that many thieves would agree with Bethesda's suggestion to use bows for stealth kills and blocking (yes, blocking), and I don't think that pure mages' problems have been fixed by the rocket launchers because every character can use them, so in the end, the most viable option is still the fighter/mage/thief character, mainly due to the poorly developed & supported concepts of straight fighters, mages, thieves.
"The magic system has so much more in it, that it would take me 100 pages to answer it all."
Todd Howard
I'd really like to read at least the first 10 pages, because all I can think of are the newly added cast-n-fight feature, the staffs (a.k.a. rocket launchers), the recharge stones as an alternative to soul gems, and the above mentioned portal stones for enchanting. I can't believe that Todd wasted 100 pages for what I fit in one sentence.
"Well, most good RPGs have action."
Pete Hines
Of course, they do and since Oblivion is a good RPG, it has plenty of action. It seems to me that all problems in Tamriel are solved through violence (which causes more problems down the road, but that's a different story for another Elder Scrolls game). I can't really blame them considering how awful the persuasion mini-game is. I mean, if I had to choose between trying to quickly admire, boast, coerce, joke (yes, all of them at the same time) and hitting someone in the face with a hammer, I'll probably pick the hammer.
"So even though we have this really deep RPG, we recognized that no matter how many parts the game has -- combat is the number one thing people do a lot of, so we need to make it great."
Todd Howard
From the role-playing point of view, Oblivion combat sucks. You always hit to please the action crowd and your skill determines damage to please the smaller RPG camp. Needless to say, 15 points of damage are more then 8 points of damage but when you always hit, it's only a matter of time (and health potions).
"But let's face it - when you talk about ranged combat in an RPG, you're talking about bows."
Gavin Carter
If you recall, there was a huge uproar when Todd announced that crossbows and throwing weapons have been axed (or blunted), but - BUT! - bows will be done in a grand, never-seen-before, I-can't-believe-it's-not-a-crossbow way. Frankly, I don't see what all the fuss was all about. Other than "look, my arrow is sticking out of that guy's ass, isn't that cool?" wow factor, I can't say that this "grand" way is much better than, say, what I've seen in Interplay's Stonekeep 10 or so years ago or what Painkiller's crossbow had to offer a few years ago.
"The player needs a certain size and a large number of choices to really make role-playing feel meaningful"
Todd Howard
Well, hopefully one day Todd will make such a game, but let's talk about Oblivion for now... Even people with zero imagination would find that dialogue options are incredibly limiting, and that even the most basic and logical options are not there. You can't talk to hundreds of bandits and marauders you will find in ruins, caves, and forts. You can't handle such encounters peacefully by persuading them, fooling them, bribing them, and not to mention joining them. Once they see you, it's fight to the death, and considering that everything is scaled down to your level, the outcome is predictable and rarely challenging.
"We track that on a faction basis, as well as every individual. You can make friends anywhere in the game, it's just harder with enemy factions."
Todd Howard
No kidding. When enemy factions such as the Necromancers cult and the Mythic Dawn cult see your friendly face, they tell you how they gonna own your ass (I guess they haven't been told that enemies are tied to your level, ensuring their untimely death), and, without giving you a chance to say something positive, they attack.
"The political landscape of the game world is highly fractured following the emperor's assassination, and you will have to be cautious of the motives of those who would befriend you."
Gavin Carter
You wouldn't be lying to your old pals, Gavin, would you? You shouldn't be cautious of the motives of those who would befriend you because a) you don't have a choice and even if you suspect something there is not a damn thing you can do about it, and b) Ken Rolston has this "no betrayal" rule (Douglas Goodall: ""No betrayal" meant that key NPCs couldn't turn on the player, lie to the player if they were honest in the past, nor could an NPC steal an item from the player, etc.").
"I'd say the "Radiant AI" system, and the NPC life. It's something no one has ever tried on this scale, and we're just starting to see how powerful it is, and how we can translate those NPC behaviors into meaningful gameplay."
Todd Howard
Sounds cool, too bad it sucks. To review briefly for people with link-clicking phobias: NPCs walk around, go to work, to taverns, back home, to sleep, etc. They stop and chat throwing random lines at each other. It was supposed to add a degree of realism, but somehow Gothic games did a MUCH better job there. Maybe the devil was in the details. I've never seen an Oblivion blacksmith doing something, he/she was just standing there, while a Gothic blacksmith was actually making swords, going through the full sword-making cycle, forging, cooling, sharpening blades. There are ships in Oblivion and sailors walk to and from ships, but they never DO anything, but fake activities. Overall, 5-year old Gothic did a much better job creating an immersive world with seemingly alive people than what Bethesda did today, so sadly RAI is neither revolutionary nor evolutionary.
