Oblivion Q&A [Archive]

bapenguin

01-25-2006, 06:10 AM

The Official Elder Scrolls Forums (http://www.elderscrolls.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=223640) has a Q&A session up with some of the Oblivion team answering tons of questions. There's lots of good specific information here regarding everything from specifics of in game actions all the way to the technical details.

Did you do different optimizations for the various architectures, especially for multiprocessors versus single processors to avoid the overhead cost?
Some of the optimizations for the multicore Xbox 360 processor made it over to the PC side. It should perform faster on a multiprocessor system than a single processor system. At the moment I can’t provide data on how dramatic the difference is.
My next processor is definitely going to be a dual core!

The Letter 3

01-25-2006, 06:13 AM

My next processor is going to be a mouse running in a wheel.

Fyd

01-25-2006, 06:27 AM

hahaahahah good one the letter 3

Taco

01-25-2006, 06:43 AM

chingtastic

01-25-2006, 06:57 AM

Speaking of Obliviion, any news on the release date? I'm just waiting to quit WoW for this one!

Citizen Philip

01-25-2006, 07:05 AM

I had a dual core coming in today to replace what I thought was a damaged FX-53. I spent an hour unbending pins with a small scewdriver, and it actually worked. I was amazed, my dual core has now been put off though.

The worry I have is that my motherboard is AGP. It's a 939, one of the first 939's, so I can throw and processor into it, but I'll be screwed when I want to upgrade my video. Which is crappy, when I bought it there were no PCI Express 939 boards, 2 months later there were.

I don't imagine fixing the bent pins will cause a problem, and I don't suppose a warranty covers that either: I heard if you use a .5mm mechanical pencil can be used to fix bent pins as well.

I too have an AGP board and I want to get a PCI-E mobo, but since I can get a super discount for ATI cards at work (albiet slowly) I can't uprade until I get my discounted video card first. It's very annoying.

Taco

01-25-2006, 07:10 AM

They were not bent, they looked more mauled ;), like 30 of them in a couple sections. No idea how they got that way but it was pretty major surgery to get it to fit in the socket again, so I was surprised when the thing posted.

In any case, the system I bought(in 2004) was so high end at the time that it's really still a pretty high end system now. No upgrades likely for another year.

Reanimated

01-25-2006, 07:13 AM

My next processor will be tri-core... oh wait, I already have one in my 360.

My next PC processor will be quad-core, then.

Citizen Philip

01-25-2006, 07:15 AM

Last night I just hot my Tsunami case, OCZ PSU, Raptor 80GB, one of dem new Soundblaster Xfi or whatever, DVD burner, new kb + mouse. Still have to wait on my 22" CRT.. and of course all the expensive stuff. Hopefully done in 2 months.

BTW: What is the deal with Oblivion? I played Morrowwind for 3 hours, where I managed to travel to another city, and using what I considered an exploit stole some armour from a vendor by standing around a corner and opening a box. Oh yeah, I drowned, found a shipwreck and a dungeon with mean people who killed me. I have friends who rave about it, but I never got into it.

Taco

01-25-2006, 07:20 AM

Grimgrock

01-25-2006, 07:22 AM

Still no official word on when the game is coming out. At this point, I'm thinking the latest rumor of March isn't happening.

Librum

01-25-2006, 07:25 AM

BTW: What is the deal with Oblivion? I played Morrowwind for 3 hours, where I managed to travel to another city, and using what I considered an exploit stole some armour from a vendor by standing around a corner and opening a box. Oh yeah, I drowned, found a shipwreck and a dungeon with mean people who killed me. I have friends who rave about it, but I never got into it.

Oh, that's nothing. Just play an Imperial with high personality and get to where you can taunt anyone into picking a fight with you so you can kill them 'legally' and then take whatever cool stuff they have. I filled my house with such ill-gotten gains.

I'm fairly confident the game will run on the system I just put together, though I have no doubt that it won't run the thing on full blast, whatever that will be. Looking forward to it all the same.

Reanimated

01-25-2006, 07:30 AM

Still no official word on when the game is coming out. At this point, I'm thinking the latest rumor of March isn't happening.

Word from IGN editors on their boards is that the game is with MS cert right now and a "gone gold" announcement could be imminent.

Citizen Philip

01-25-2006, 07:37 AM

Oh, that's nothing. Just play an Imperial with high personality and get to where you can taunt anyone into picking a fight with you so you can kill them 'legally' and then take whatever cool stuff they have. I filled my house with such ill-gotten gains.

I'm fairly confident the game will run on the system I just put together, though I have no doubt that it won't run the thing on full blast, whatever that will be. Looking forward to it all the same.

I guess I didn't give it enough time? I guess I've always been partial to RPGs with an isometric interface, maybe WoW has helped with this problem.

I do remeber playing the Blackisle Games and Fallout, where you could pretty much shoot anyone and take their stuff too. Loverly.

chingtastic

01-25-2006, 07:42 AM

Word from IGN editors on their boards is that the game is with MS cert right now and a "gone gold" announcement could be imminent.

Excellent!

51|RandoM

01-25-2006, 08:00 AM

Can't believe those Raptors haven't changed in years. I bought two of them when I bought my system, and the price and technology hasn't changed. Guess they don't need to really, they are still one of a kind.

The raptors have changed.

36 GB raptor
74 GB raptor
74 GB raptor(significant refresh)
150 GB raptor(Raptor 150)
150 GB raptor (Raptor X... has a clear window on it for the blingers).

If you just bought raptors, I hope you got the refreshed 74 GB, or the new 150 GB models. The latest refresh of the 740GD is 00FLC0, and that is the one you want, if you for some reason don't go for the 150 drives.

Taco

01-25-2006, 08:04 AM

I missed those 150's somehow, didn't think they were 10k. I didn't realize there were two versions of the 74, thought the 74 was an improved version of the 36(beyond just the capacity). In any case, I have a pair of 74's, how can I tell?

I bought them 1.5 years ago, btw, not recently.

Citizen Philip

01-25-2006, 08:04 AM

The raptors have changed.

36 GB raptor
74 GB raptor
74 GB raptor(significant refresh)
150 GB raptor(Raptor 150)
150 GB raptor (Raptor X... has a clear window on it for the blingers).

If you just bought raptors, I hope you got the refreshed 74 GB, or the new 150 GB models. The latest refresh of the 740GD is 00FLC0, and that is the one you want, if you for some reason don't go for the 150 drives.

What's the deal with the refresh? I got my OEM 74 GB drive sitting at home in bubblewrap right now.

Grimgrock

01-25-2006, 08:42 AM

Word from IGN editors on their boards is that the game is with MS cert right now and a "gone gold" announcement could be imminent.

If this is true, that is excellent news.

However, there was a question about system requirements that they couldn't answer properly in that FAQ. This leads me to my original conclusion. In-house testing and what is probably an "independent" test with MS would take place after the official system requirements are decided upon so that they can have the right testing environments.

Of course... it is MS. Perhaps testing isn't... No, I won't be the one to say it.

Reanimated

01-25-2006, 08:55 AM

What does that have to do with the 360 version?

Mason

01-25-2006, 10:27 AM

I guess I didn't give it enough time? I guess I've always been partial to RPGs with an isometric interface, maybe WoW has helped with this problem.

I do remeber playing the Blackisle Games and Fallout, where you could pretty much shoot anyone and take their stuff too. Loverly.
Once you start traveling around, doing faction quests and growing powerful in various illegitimate ways, it becomes pretty interesting. And you might've picked a difficult build, an armored sword-and-board warrior type (with plenty of enchanted items as backup) is way more powerful than most magic or ranged builds. The game is paced pretty well for a primary warrior, but it can be slow going for other builds.

Busted_Astromech

01-25-2006, 11:42 AM

Of course, comparing it to a game like Fallout, while its closest comparison, isn't really accurate. Fallout is still a thousand times more directed than Morrowind. As long as the whole "the world is empty" thing doesn't bug you, Morrowind's good. But if it does cause you problems, well, you're out of luck, because that's the entire game.

Steele Johnson

01-25-2006, 12:30 PM

if this game is anything like Morrowind, I'm going to pass. That game bored me to death no matter how much I tried to get into it. Plus, that soundtrack loop was a real turn-off. It made me feel like the development team was really lazy (the lack of npc's was a sure indication).

Taco

01-25-2006, 12:32 PM

Damn straight Bethesda's lazy. Morrowind had no content to speak of!!!

Wayfarer

01-25-2006, 01:20 PM

My sarcasm meter just asploded

MrPoo

01-25-2006, 02:38 PM

Indeed. Morrowind (just like The Elder Scrolls and Daggerfall) was not perfect, but pretty amazing nonetheless.

I made it a great deal farther in TES:MW than in either of its two precedents.

I loved Fallout 1, but its sequel was so dammned bugridden within 10 months of release, along with crappy patches ("Right, your savegames won't be compatible! Sorry, start over!") that I've effectively removed it from memory.

Although, come to think of it, I did finish Fallout 2.

Hmm.

Taco

01-25-2006, 02:50 PM

Having played through both half a dozen times I can say Fallout 2 was better than Fallout 1. No denials about the bugs(incompatible save games made it worse), but damn was it worth the wait.

Fallout 1 was better than everything else.