The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. PC, PS3, Xbox2.

While you can play Knights of Nine or Shivering Isles at any time once you emerge from the sewer and one day has passed within the game, keep in mind that the game's difficulty will scale as you level up. On the other hand, they are designed to be played after the main storyline has been completed. What I mean is that, if you attempt to complete the add-ons first, your enemies might have less hit points but, random level-based loot drops might not be as impressive and your character won't have enough points put into strength or endurance (been awhile since I played so I forget, but whichever governs carrying capacity) to cart away the plunder you do get.

Personally, I thought the game felt "broken" when playing the DLC first and much more natural when the main storyline had been completed prior to playing KO9 or SI. Sure you might get some nifty weapons and armor, but they don't make the main quest that much easier and besides, the main quest can be completed relativley quickly if side quests are ignored.

Also, for what it's worth, I've played Oblivion both ways.

Also also, I highly recommend playing Morrowind to anyone who hasn't. Oblivion did a great job of injecting a little more realism into the franchise with 4, but the island of Morrowind just had a certain panache that I felt was lacking in Oblivion. Don't get me wrong, Oblivion is a great game and I don't fault anyone for this, it's just the setting of TES3 felt more like true High Fantasy whereas TES4 felt a little more like Medieval or even Low Fantasy.

As far as Todd and the gang cranking out another one...

(From Softpedia News, 18 Aug 2009)

Bethesda is slowly becoming one of the most important video game developers and publishers in the industry, making a name for itself by releasing some pretty important games, although a bit on the buggy side.

One of the most important franchises for the developer is The Elder Scrolls, which has seen its award-winning fourth iteration, Oblivion, gain a lot of fans all around the world, even though it wasn't one of the most perfect games on the market.

But Oblivion appeared a long time ago, so at this year's QuakeCon Bethesda's Todd Howard was asked whether or not we could expect a new Elder Scrolls game in the near future. Apparently, the executive revealed that the company currently had no plans to continue the franchise. This caused a lot of concern among average gamers, but one of the leaders of the studio, Pete Hines, went on to clarify the statements made by Howard.

?That was not a direct quote from him,? Hines said. ?That was someone's interpretation of what he said. I know, I was there. At his QuakeCon talk he was asked when TESV is coming out and Todd replied, ?Don't look for a new Elder Scrolls game in the near future.? He also went on to say how much the franchise means to us and that it definitely will continue. He just wasn't going to provide any timeframe on ?when.? This should not be news to anyone that has been paying attention.?

Hines then revealed that the franchise was important to the studio and that a new game would appear when the time was right: ?Both Todd and I have said repeatedly that, of course, we're going to do another Elder Scrolls game. The last one was enormously popular. So was the one before that. You get the idea. So do we.?

The Bethesda executive also clarified a few things regarding an Elder Scrolls MMO and how his studio wasn't involved in it, as the team from ZeniMax Online was handling the project and would announce something when the time was right.

Overall, there will certainly be plenty of adventures for players to experience in The Elder Scrolls universe so you can just relax and hope that Bethesda will release a great and non-buggy game.

 

I whole-heartedly agree. Completing everything in the original content will make the game easier. Though I had a method to quickly level up. I joined the Dark Brotherhood and I went into the living quarters. I got onto some barrels in a corner and did three things, I jumped up and down in sneak mode while casting a spell of my choice. Doing all three will increase Acrobatics, Sneak, and Whatever Spell You Chose. You just constantly level up and nobody can stop you. That made the enemies harder and I loved the fights with fixed enemy lvls in the Brotherhood and other guilds. Then I did the invisible armor glitch and nobody could see me kill them. I am the ultimate force in Oblivion.

 

You have to share that invisible armor glitch trick. How do you do that exactly?

 

Join the Mages Guild and get 5 Grand Soul Stones. Make sure they have souls of course. You also need Chameleon as a spell and also have most of the missions in the Mages Guild done. Now enchant 5 pieces of armor (I used clothing considering nobody can see me anyway) and each piece of clothing or armor will have 15-25% chameleon on. It is best to have it go over 100% so you will be entirely invisible. Nothing on you will appear and it is hilarious to just attack someone when you are in their face. Also, somehow guards can still see you when you commit a crime. They will run up to you and if you choose to resist they will back up and run away.

 

Absolutely love this game, my favorite RPG if not my fave all-around game. I never played played the earlier ES titles - and only tried Oblivion since my dad bought it on a recommendation from his RPG-o-phile buddy. My dad played a couple hours and stopped- way too much thinking involved, he went back to playing the original '03 COD as always - but I tried it and loved it. Logged 103 hours on my Redguard and still have a ways to go in the Main Quest and Mages Guild (completed the other 3). I enjoyed not touching Kvatch until level was in the mid-teens (the most challenging timer to do it, I can confirm!) and only started doing Oblivion Gates after level 30 - good loot FTW! Love how high you can pump acrobatics - Boots of Springheel Jak + Acrobat's Amulet + Ring of Skimming = ridiculous!! In the final escape from the last quest of the Thieves Guild, de-equip the boots for the big fall down the chimney, you can survive without em and have an awesome +50 acrobatics boots for the rest of the game. Oblivion will tide me over indefinitely...no need for number 5 for a while! I also like playing it after it's been out for a while, since the Oblivion UESP wiki is extremely thorough at this point, with every bug addressed. I also love wandering around the Imperial City playing Two-Face - I flip a coin every time I see a citizen...that toss determines their fate > As long as they have no in-game value, of course.

 

It's especially fun when you max out Speed and play a Khajiit or Argonian. Then you are the fastest thing alive. Better when you equip anything enhancing Speed and also where the Gray Fox's Cowl. And using the invisible armor glitch as well and you can't be stopped. Which reminds me, why is it that Argonians can still turn into vampires when they are immune to disease and poison?

 

So...has anyone else picked up the first J. Gregory Keyes Elder Scrolls novel (The Infernal City) yet? No? You guys are slackers. I've fought mudcrabs more fearsome than you. But seriously, I actually had a writeup on it finished about a month-and-a-half ago, but I misplaced the file while saving it to my computer.

Anyways, the first time I read it, I took a bunch of continuity notes, and so far it's not a bad start to what could be a damn good fantasy series. The book doesn't waste much time, and Keyes gets things moving right at the very beginning. The chapters each switch between four characters, two more prominently than the others, though I think the one of the others is going to start getting more attention from this point forward in the books. The novel does a good job of setting itself in the Elder Scrolls universe. From magic, to geography, to the various races, the author shows that he really did make an effort to familiarize himself with the preexisting lore, and he's doing a good job writing a compelling story within it.

He's demonstrated this skill several times before, with his incredible Babylon 5 "Psi Corps" trilogy, as well as his Star Wars NJO books. One really gets the impression that Keyes is himself a fan of the actual games, or else he did unheard-of amounts of research on them prior to writing the novels. I was concerned that Keyes would only be using Oblivion itself as his main continuity-touchstone (being the most recent game in the series), but amazingly, there's a LOT of lore and information that comes straight out of Morrowind, the previous game. Longtime fans of the series like myself should be thrilled with this, in principle. Vvardenfell itself plays a huge role in driving the events of this story, plus there's some REAL freaking shocking things that occur on certain regions of the island proper. Some fans may not like what happens here.

For the most part, the book takes place in a city in Black Marsh (Argonia) called Lilmoth, and in the Imperial City in Cyrodiil. One of the main characters enters into Elsweyr; some are headed toward Morrowind, and some are in the titular Infernal City (Umbriel).

The main characters are:

• A 20-ish Breton girl named Annaïg, daughter of a man that once served the Empire in Black Marsh. When the Argonians took back control of Black Marsh from the Empire, he became a drunk and a do-nothing. She's one of those character types that yearns for adventure, etc. etc. She's a well-developed main character, even though I like the other characters slightly more.


• An Argonian named Mere-Glim, who is the Breton girl's best friend. We don't know a ton about him early on, other than he's an Argonian that doesn't like trouble and likes to drink.


• An Imperial, probably in his late 20s or early 30s, who just became an Inspector in the Penitus Oculatus -- what I'm guessing is the new version of the Blades -- but even though his title is "Inspector," he seems more like a CIA operative than any type of government bureaucrat. Based on what I've read of the faction so far, it would be awesome to see in a future game.


• The Imperial Prince, Attrebus Mede. He's gallant, for lack of a better term, and really seems to be a decent guy, interested in doing good by the Empire and its people. Has seen action, but things are not quite what they seem with him (without spoiling certain events in the novel).


• A Dunmer assassin, named Sul, who plays a key role in the events surrounding Umbriel's appearance, and what transpires on Vvardenfell during the novel.

Highlight for big-time lore spoilers:

The author talks a great deal about "The Red Year," when the floating Ministry of Truth in Vivec City fell to the earth and "blew up" a sizeable chunk of Vvardenfell, somehow causing Red Mountain to explode. Apparently a ****ton of Dunmer died that year; Sul the assassin is directly linked to this event.

Some other things I noticed:

• The player's character from

 

I really enjoy the game, but I am struggling building my character because of the leveling system. He just seems so off balanced due to the way it works and some skills (that I need) taking forever to level.

I fooled around with the optimal leveling guide to ensure I get the skill bonus I need when I level up... but man, that is going so slow. I end up grinding more than actually playing the game, so I got burnt out and set it aside for the time being.

 

It's been my experience that grinding skills to get better bonuses isn't really necessary. I prefer to just play the game at a natural pace, and when I level up, I just take whatever bonuses come my way.

 

Yeah, since the world is levelled to your character, you could play through the whole thing without worrying about it.

What was always more important to me was levelling up the individual skills you assigned as your majors, and for that all you needed to do was keep using that skill.

The trick is to find a major skill you can spam out of combat. Some examples:

Conjuration: just kept spamming the default skeleton over and over. Not only does that rapidly increase the Conjuration skill (and allowing better spells), but because it's a major, it also levels you up after a while, allowing you to increase Intelligence/magicka and cast better spells.

Sneak: get into a sneak position with someone close by, and with their backs to you, just run into a corner while sneaking. The Sneak skill levels up in no time, repeating the same process used with Conjuration.

Athletics: just constantly run and jump, and it increases in no time.

Unlock spell: keep casting it on a door that's already been unlocked, and it will still level up the skill.

Invisibility: again, just keep casting it on yourself. You run out of magicka pretty fast, but then just enter wait mode, wait an hour, and your magicka is instantly refreshed. I've also found that holding down block while a weapon is drawn speeds up the time between spell casting.

But yeah, there are some skills that take forever to level up, especially the combat only ones like block, armour and weapons.

If you can conjure a skeleton though, you can always use him as a sparring partner.

 

Just sneak when someone's sleeping. Much easier than waiting for them to turn their backs or something.

Jumping is Acrobatics.

 

I knew it was one of the two. I only ever noticed that increasing after falling from a great height. Which is another way to increase it!

 

So about the magic thing. Obviously some spells take way too many magic points to cast than what I'd ever get from leveling up. I figure you'd need some enhancements with magical fortifications but when enchanting robes and crap I can only get bonuses of about 50 + points or so... What gives? How does a man make a wizard that can cast the mean spells. And I mean REAL MEAN!!!

 

Well there's eight items of clothing you can wear. So enchant 50+ magicka for each = 400 magicka above what you already have.

Also, the more you level up in a magical skill (destruction, illusion etc), the magicka requirement goes down for each spell. For example, at Conjuration level 1 (working comepletely from memory so won't be 100% accurate), a skeleton costs 80 magicka. At level 50 conjuration, that same skeleton might cost 40 magicka, and so on.

So it is possible to cast the most powerful spells within a reasonable time frame.

 

+50 is the maximum you can get per enchantment from sigil stones.

But there is a method you can use to make any enchantment you want be on your character permanently, meaning you can also get as many such enchantments as you wish.

First of all, you will need to be able to dupe items. To dupe, you just need any number of scrolls. Select the scrolls from your inventory and then drop the item you wish to dupe. The result will be you dropping a number of that item equal to the number of scrolls you had selected. Some items can't be duped, such as quest items, nirnroots and weapons/armor that don't have exactly 100% health.

So what you do is take any enchanted item and duplicate it so you have exactly 2 copies of that item. Then equip one of those copies, and then duplicate the copy you're not wearing. This will cause the item's effect to be on your character permanently. You won't be able to equip that item again, so you'll have to either find another item with the effect you want, or enchant your own.

Using this method, it is possible to get your magicka in the thousands, if not higher.

 

Or even your horse, so you don't have to wait until they go to sleep, or stop when they wake up.

Or endlessly pickpocket the Annoying Fan, though you can't do that while afk...

 

I managed to do the afk sneak thing with my Xbox by strategically wedging a pencil between the thumbsticks. So pathetic.

 

All right then. The less-MP-for-higher-level thing is good news, naturally. I knew I should've picked the mage for my sign. At any rate, I believe I understand now. Thanks. And does this game have any high-money scamp or mudcrab merchants?

 

alas, no. they seemed to go with a more serious tone with this game. i kinda liked the silliness implicit in MW better. the only dose of that you get is from sheogorath, which is to be expected.

 

On the other hand, though, merchants don't run out of gold when you sell things to them, so you'll get your money easier in this game.

 

But most of them don't have a lot in their budget unless you're an expert at Mercantile and invest.

 

That's where duping really comes in handy. If you're desperate for cash, dupe 50 varla stones or something and sell them all one at a time.

 

The two best ways to make money, imo, are the Arena and the Ayleid Statues quest (The Collector). Beware, they'll level you quite a bit.

The XBox didn't get that handy "keep walking" button? My god.

 

No. I imagine it would be pretty annoying. Why would you need it in Oblivion anyway?

 

The Collector quest is great for making money. I loved finding them for that guy then stealing them back from him and selling them during the Thief's Guild quests to meet the larger fencing quotas