Once More Oblivious
As already announced today on the Livestream, Kahdzbar is not the only Let’s Play I’m exhuming. Starting around this time next week, I will be resurrecting my tech-aborted LP of Oblivion, which will be continued on a weekly basis for the foreseeable future.
I’ll be picking up where I left off–stranded in Bravil, contemplating the Dark Brotherhood plotline. I’m not sure I can recover my original save, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to regain the handful of levels and smattering of meager equipment that I’d accumulated when I left off, and I don’t plan to return to any of the questlines I’d already started. Either way, I should be fine.
One thing that’s exciting is that I’ve acquired all of the expansion material, which I have thus far not had access to. This means Knights of the Nine, Mehrune’s Razor, Shivering Isles–I’ve never played any of ’em before. It’ll be interesting to see whether I can sustain a blind Let’s Play in this format–whether I can deliver entertaining commentary on something I’m experiencing for the first time. If the answer is yes, it might motivate me to do an LP of my first Skyrim run. It would mean breaking my Bosmer dynasty from Daggerfall through Oblivion, but I think I could just about be persuaded to trade in a line of solemn shadow warriors for a single inveterate nudist. And besides, despite his long track record of failure and incompetence, I’m rather more fond of Cahmel than I am of my more successful, well-balanced characters.
Anyway, be on the lookout for that. I’m off to go fill up my gameplay buffer.
I got all this Oblivion stuff a while after it came out, but here’s my impressions of it. Starting with what I liked and finishing when I can’t remember if a mod is DLC or community made:
Shivering Isles has the best quests in Oblivion, the most interesting areas, the most creative items and has the most interesting characters. Knights of the Nine is a competently realized Arthurian quest (pilgrimage aside) with an interesting mechanic and a memorable final battle.
Frostcrag spire is a creative looking player home that while sparse has a dramatic location, interesting utilities and convinient teleports.
Vile Lair is about as out of the way as Thieves den, and doesn’t offer a whole lot of interesting content.
Battlehorn castle is generic, and has a taxidermy sidequest. So that’s kind of fun.
The thieves den is a ship in a cave it shouldn’t be able to fit into. Also some skeletons. On the other hand, you get recruitable merchants.
The Orrey is a boring fetch quest. and Spell tomes are kind of fun, but not very useful at higher levels.
Mehrunes razor is a hard to get to hole in the ground with minimum writing, a boring reward, shoddy level design and one non-hostile character who might have been interesting if you met him for more than five minutes. He’s a member of the Morag Tong. That’s all we find out.
I don’t need to talk about horse armour.
I say it with a heavy heart since I’d like to see your reactions to some stuff but I seriously think you should do an actual honest run of Shivering Isles before doing an LP of it. If you approach it “Cahmel style” you’ll likely be missing out on a lot. As is often the case with parts of the game based on an idea and not central to the plot it feels like the writers have been given a lot of freedom and there is a ton of neat little touches hidden in books, sidequests, dialogues and out of the way places. At the very least play through whole of it and don’t drop it halfway like Cahmel does with most questlines. I think you’ll enjoy how the storyline ends.
For Our Lord Sheogorath, without Whom all Thought would be linear and all Feeling would be fleeting. Blessed is the Madgod, who tricks us when we are foolish, punishes us when we are wrong, tortures us when we are unmindful, and loves us in our imperfection.
I totally agree with that guy about the Isles. It would be funner for you if you play through them on your own. Besides, Cahmel works best with unintentionally crazy NPCs. Sheogorath is written to be off his rocker, and every named NPC is in a race for second.
It would probably be a lot more entertaining if you RP’d it as you being in the game some how. Not that I’m implying you’re crazy or anything, and that you would fit right in with Sheogorath and that crazy Bosmer guy.
I always play High elf. Swords plus destructtion magic plus acrobatics equals Jedi motherfucker. Atronach birthsign too.
The Book of the Bootlord, Second Verse, Chapter 3:
1. And so did it occur that the Bootlord, awash with power, would sometimes choose style over substance;
2. That at the behest of his allies, the business of combat was turned a spectacle, with the Bootlord indulging even the most outlandish requests;
3. Fire and lightning, water and stone, hook and hand; no path of conquest was the Bootlord too alien;
4. But while this showman’s path was simple at first, eventually the Bootlord’s foes learned of his tactics, and adapted, grouped, and overwhelmed;
5. And while the allies started frantic debate, deliberating among themselves the various ways their savious could prevail, the Bootlord simply shrugged, looked in the face of utter defeat, and charged;
6. And when the allies ended their debate and turned to face the Bootlord, they saw naught but fallen foes everywhere, the imprints of a single boot still visible on some of them;
7. For while fun and games have their time and place, true danger to Humanity will always be met with the full force of the boot.
All praise be to the Bootlord.
I’m glad you’ll be playing more Oblivion, so I won’t have to.
What Jarenth? No reference to terrifying visages appearing? I am disappoint.
That would be biting the hand that feeds. Though my subconscious seems to have worked ‘the face of utter defeat’ in there.
Do yourself a favour and play through Shivering Isles for yourself normally – just play it. It’s really, really good, and you’ll be horribly missing out if you only do it for the LP. Seriously, man… Just take an extra week off of the LP and just play ShivIsles properly.
You definitely have to do Shivering Isles, believe me, the insanity of your “normal” Cahmel LP is gonna mix perfectly with the insanity of the realm of madness.
My problem with shivering isles is it basically takes the madness = randomness approach, which I never really liked.
Quick question to anyone who knows weapon mechanics better than me: do blunt weapons have any point to them, aside from role playing? They seem to do less damage than swords, not to mention have less reach. It seems like they would have AP, but I don’t think Beth implemented that into anything.
So, Brink is F2P this weekend if you feel like being bored for an hour or so and then pissed.
Also, Morrowind and Oblivion are on sale for ~$15 together, both GOTY editions.
Blunt weapons deal more damage, but are slower(remember that damage is affected by your skill, which is why a dedicated swordsman will see blunt weapons that couldn’t kill a rat). It’s a nice option, but not worth the trade-off IMO. Especially since all the good weapons in the game are blades*.
Rutskarn, you’ve reminded me that this game exists, which means that I am once more going to play it. I’m thinking of a no-merchants playthrough, and you’re responsible. >|
*Marksmen get screwed over even more than blunt-wielders, but that’s a rant for another time.
Whenever I play a Marksman, I always remembered having a crapton of enchanted ammo that I never used because it was really expensive and nothing with enough HP that warranted the expense. Everything else just got mowed down with stealth attacks, unless it got into melee range, where in which case, I usually got a sword enema. I also remember there not being a single bow of note, aside from that sexy one the Dark Brotherhood gives you… and that’s only because it was some time around the mansion murderthon.
So point taken.
Yeah, for me Marksman=win button. Straight out of the gate I would run all the way through the Arena questline, kiting enemies who never landed a single hit on me. I actually did a run completely naked except for the bow once, to see if I could.
So if Marksmen weapons are underpowered, it’s to make up for the fact that a mobile marksman is invincible.
Until you have a mission that takes you underground, at which point you are suddenly forced to shoot people from 2 feet away. Or an escort mission. Or one with a time limit.
Stupid Felldew quest.
I think blunt weapons might stagger the enemies more, being heavier.
Rutskarn – You’re not spoiled about the Shivering Isles? Do I read this correctly? If so, approach it with an open mind and try to find all the little details and references. Though you still have all the Dark Brotherhood to do… and it makes more sense to do that first.
Im gonna read the whole thing again 😀
“The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is a great game, by a good company, with many exceptional qualities. It’s just that I can’t play it anymore.”
good start
I think it would be more fun if you livestreamed it but a let’s play is also good!