Worrying Oblivion preview

Mr. Teatime · Post by **Mr. Teatime** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 1:14 am

[ Game -> Preview ] - More info on <a href="http://wikipocalypse.duckandcover.cx/in ... e=Bethesda Softworks">Company: Bethesda Softworks</a> | More info on <a href="http://wikipocalypse.duckandcover.cx/in ... le=Fallout 3">Game: Fallout 3</a>

Ok so there's nothing here to do with FO3 aside from the fact that
the same engine is being used. But I felt this deserved a newspost
because it appears the one thing that I truly hated in Morrowind is
back with a vengeance in Oblivion - at least according to one preview (link below) - and that doesn't bode well for it
not appearing in Fallout 3 (apologies for the double negative). The
'loading pause' every 10 seconds, where the game freezes as it loads
the next bit of land. Anyway, <a href="http://blog.wired.com/games/index.blog?entry_id=1422030" target="_self">here's the preview</a>, and a quote:


<blockquote>
You don't see the problems for the first hour,
because you're exploring a massive underground pathway that takes you
through dank sewers and pitch-black caverns. You can't see more than a
few feet in front of your face, sometimes, so everything looks decent
-- not incredibly impressive, but fair enough.

When I got outside, things got hairy. I could see across to the
other side of a lake, but it was completely undetailed. Just big,
formless blobs of blues and greens. I turned around and looked at my
more immediate surroundings and realized that the draw distance was
awful. As you walk around, the ground teems with individually rendered
blades of grass, bushes, mushrooms, all sorts of stuff. But only a
small radius around your character is fully realized -- the rest of it
is drawn in, quite visibly, as you move around.

This is the HD Era? Watching bushes and trees pop up out of thin
air as I walk around? At one point I was heading towards what I thought
was an empty forest clearing, when big-ass chunks of building started
magically appearing. Come on. (Or maybe I was doing so well in the game
that its denizens had started building shrines to my glory.)

Things get even worse when I jump on a horse. Now, I'm actually
trotting at a steady clip, and Oblivion starts not just to have draw-in
issues but framerate problems as well. It's chugging. It can't keep up
with my speed, and quite frankly the horse isn't even going that fast.
At some points, I keep seeing the "Loading Area..." message pop up
every couple of seconds, which brings with it another framerate
stutter. It's herky-jerky-all-over-the-place as I climb up the hill to
the gate of Oblivion. My reation to the graphics has, over this
sequence, gone from "unimpressed" to "nonplussed" to "annoyed."
</blockquote>
I hated this in Morrowind. You know
why I can't comment on whether Morrowind was good or not? Because the
game insisted on pausing every 10 seconds to load the next block of
trees. I don't know why this happened, I don't know the technical
reasons, but it utterly killed the game's immersion for me and I
couldn't muster the energy to continue, and it was uninstalled. I tried
several times over the next few months to play again, and the same
stupid loading stutter prevented me from moving much further than the
first village. 
To Bethesda: I really don't care if the
graphics aren't state of the art. I think Gothic 2 looks pretty neat
and it doesn't have the 'loading pause' that your games appear to.
World of Warcraft looks great, but has low system requirements because
it's got fantastic art direction but not a high polygon count. Please
do something to get rid of the loading stuff. Thanks.Meh, it's something that really bugged me. Anyone else experience the same thing, or was it just me?

Spotted @ <a href="http://www.rpgcodex.com">RPG Codex</a>

Blargh · Post by **Blargh** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 1:40 am

When the pushed envelope falters. Hand without fingers, hand without fingers. Oho.

Aonaran · Post by **Aonaran** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 3:26 am

Early builds have popping issues, it's a product of the optimizations. It has been stated that these versions that are going around are not the final build, hence they are previews. I wouldn't start bitching until after game release.

Mister Leckie · Post by **Mister Leckie** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 3:27 am

For those of you who haven't visited the site I suggest you do, there is a pretty nice fan comment on the article, which I agree with whole heartedly.

I'm unsure if Bethesda has declared Beta on oblivion or not, but the game is not complete. Bottom line.

If you visit www.theelderscrolls.com and take a look at the screenshot you'll notice that this "draw distance" problem is not evident. And I seriously doubt that bethesda would heavily doctor the images that will represent the game's look and feel.

If I had to guess, I would imagine that the author of the preview in question a) was playing a build of the game on an older PC, or b) had aquired an older build of the game.

There is no reason why oblivion should have the issues described by the article. A game which chuggs and pauses to load every few seconds when you perform simplistic tasks designed to be used often...the game bcomes "UNPLAYABLE".

Bethesda is not near naive enough to release a product which is unplayable.

Oh, and about this whole element of doubt when dealing with the fact that bethesda is developing the rest of the fallout series....well to be frank I'm excited about bethesda developing Fallout 3.

Bethesda is not going to take the old "Put some shit in a box, sharpie Fallout 3 on the front, assume people will buy it cause it's got the word Fallout on the front" approach. They are willing to take time, put in some blood and tears, into making this thing.

First of all, fallout is the spiritual successor to Wasteland. Fallout was a huge reinvention of the Wasteland series...and it turned out great. It played almost nothing like wasteland did, yet it was fantastic.

I'm willing to keep an open mind here, I believe that Fallout 3 will retain all the elements that make a game "fallout", speaking in terms of art direction, story telling, and the awesome sense of humor we've come to love in the series.

But in terms of perspective and game play I would image Fallout 3 will be pretty different from the first two, call it a reinvention of the series.

And I am willing to embrace that reinvention and hope for the best.

I'll never understand what the beef with the first person perspective is...there is nothing more immersive than being in the first person...your avatar is living and existing in a world which you can interact with on the most personal level, through the view of the avatar, everything is as if you are there, everything is perfectly to scale, ect.

So 1987 (I think): Wasteland comes out, 1997: Fallout comes out, a spiritual succesor to wasteland, 2007 (an educated guess): Fallout 3 comes out (hopefully containing the spirit of fallout, but another reinvention of the series keep it fresh and up to date.)

Anyways, thats my two sense.

Feel free to flame away.

Naked_Lunch · Post by **Naked_Lunch** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 3:27 am

I think Kathode said on the offishul forums somewhere that these were indeed final, or near-final, builds

Mister Leckie · Post by **Mister Leckie** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 3:34 am

Naked_Lunch wrote:I think Kathode said on the offishul forums somewhere that these were indeed final, or near-final, builds

I just smell bull, I just do not believe the final product will have anything near these issues.

They describe it as being pretty much unoptomized...and I don't think the final build will be this way.

baby arm · Post by **baby arm** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 3:47 am

Greg Wak posted:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey Kathode, any last minute tweaking left?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

kathode posted:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nope! Everything is locked down and has been for a while. I can't say exactly where we are in finalizing things, but I will say that I'm now giving my next project a minimum of 50% of my time each day. Excited to lose the chains, so to speak, and get the next thing going, but very proud at the same time of the three or so years that I've put into Oblivion and the work we've done.

Mister Leckie · Post by **Mister Leckie** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 3:54 am

baby arm wrote:Greg Wak posted:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hey Kathode, any last minute tweaking left?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

kathode posted:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nope! Everything is locked down and has been for a while. I can't say exactly where we are in finalizing things, but I will say that I'm now giving my next project a minimum of 50% of my time each day. Excited to lose the chains, so to speak, and get the next thing going, but very proud at the same time of the three or so years that I've put into Oblivion and the work we've done.

Feel free to call me stupid if you'd like...but still I don't believe the problems will be that bad in oblivion.

Spazmo · Post by **Spazmo** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 4:06 am

Why not? They were in Morrowind.

Mister Leckie · Post by **Mister Leckie** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 4:49 am

Spazmo wrote:Why not? They were in Morrowind.

Media from Oblivion:

http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/702/ ... ids_1.html

How about those videos, all rendered in game. No draw distance problem what so ever.

Media from morrowind:

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/elderscr ... tml?page=5

If you look closely you'll notice the draw distance problems are present in the morrowind media, and not in the oblivion media.

Which leads me to believe the problem has been taken care of.

I highly doubt bethesda has doctored the oblivion media to hide the draw distance problem until you get home and play it.

I'm pretty sure we won't be dealing with this problem.

Mister Leckie · Post by **Mister Leckie** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 5:11 am

Mister Leckie wrote:
Spazmo wrote:Why not? They were in Morrowind.
Media from Oblivion:

http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/702/ ... ids_1.html

How about those videos, all rendered in game. No draw distance problem what so ever.

Media from morrowind:

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/elderscr ... tml?page=5

If you look closely you'll notice the draw distance problems are present in the morrowind media, and not in the oblivion media.

Which leads me to believe the problem has been taken care of.

I highly doubt bethesda has doctored the oblivion media to hide the draw distance problem until you get home and play it.

I'm pretty sure we won't be dealing with this problem.

Edit:

X360 Launch Demo: In Town (11/22/2005)

Watch this video, linked on the IGN page listen above, the question of the "draw distance" problem of trees popping up randomly, ect. Is answered from the horses mouth.

Also they adress the chugging and loading issues as well.

If you feel like watching the video it's near the 2 minute mark that all this is adressed.

baby arm · Post by **baby arm** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 5:21 am

Have you ever seen a pirate wedding?

Mister Leckie · Post by **Mister Leckie** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 5:29 am

baby arm wrote:Have you ever seen a pirate wedding?

I have now.

baby arm · Post by **baby arm** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 5:33 am

They can be a very special event.

Someday, I hope to know this joy myself.

Blargh · Post by **Blargh** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 6:31 am

Is it also expected to be a pirated wedding ? An extra petal to strip away, throw to the ground and dance upon, as it were ? Yes no ?

baby arm · Post by **baby arm** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 7:46 am

I just want a jaunty hat.

Koki · Post by **Koki** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 8:03 am

Blogs are swell guy, but I'd like this to be true. This would make me laugh.

Thor Kaufman · Post by **Thor Kaufman** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 8:12 am

Hotdogs, Armour hotdogs. What kinds of kids love Armour hot dogs? Fat kids, skinny kids, kids who climb on rocks, tough kids, sissy kids, even kids with chicken pox love hotdogs, Armour hot dogs, the dogs kids love to bite.

Blargh · Post by **Blargh** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 8:27 am

baby arm wrote:I just want a jaunty hat.

*laughs*

Impeccable taste, sir. May that want not languish unfulfilled.

St. Toxic · Post by **St. Toxic** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 12:33 pm

Ho ho ho, what a fanbase Oblivion has.

Edit: Seriously, the commentary to the article, the foaming on the forums... Insects, buzzing, rolling around around in dust, unaware of the world outside. Why did they move the rock? Why won't anybody crush them?