The Witcher Compared to ES IV:Oblivion and Others

[dyrestraits]

Giving The Witcher to an Oblivion fan is like giving pearls to pigs or what know a pig of what a melon is? Ok I'm a little rude, it's just for joking. The more disappointing is how many from the young generations seems enjoy use Oblivion as THE standard to compare anything.

Just for the record, in case you think I'm in the 'young generations', I'm not. In fact, just yesterday I got my USA Social Security package informing me of my options for retirement. My own experience with 'computers' harks back to the Commodore VIC-20. Anyone here remember the Vectrex? And, for added value, my older son (who's approaching his 40th birthday) is manager of a comic books and game store where they host Dungeons and Dragons (and the like) table top games. We also have gaming consoles here in addition to a few PCs at our home.

 

[serdinq]

Oblivion fan considering this game as a RPG reference is a senior? Well it's words... could be true or not, just a trick to raise the value of your words.Ha well ok I believe your words so why are you considering Oblivion as a reference? I'd be very curious to have an explanation from a senior.

 

[qbert123]

For the creativity of very few people I agree but you simulate to pretend that players of a game with mod = modder. I hope you know what a lie it is. At best modders are 0.1% of the players of the original game and the percentage of those that achieve something really interesting is a lot lower.

Where exactly are you getting these figures from? And who are you to judge whether a mod its interesting or not? What may seem trivial to one, may be monumental to another.Creativity on the smallest scale is a far grander thing.

 

[sig970]

One more fan of both games. After playing Oblivion, I thought that it was the greatest RPG of all time. The Witcher is different. There are faults, some of which will be corrected in the EE, but I have fallen in love with The Witcher. I never thought anything would even come close to Oblivion. I give The witcher high marks for a few different reasons that I give Oblivion very high marks. The Witcher was, and is, excellent, and left me with one very strong feeling: I want more.Let's continue to have very high quality PC RPG's come out. We all win in the end.

 

[serdinq]

Where exactly are you getting these figures from?

From approximate number of modders and approximate number of players plus an approximate number of pirate players. ;D Be serious if I don't have the right numbers it's quite obvious that there's much much less modders than players for most games.

And who are you to judge whether a mod its interesting or not?

The same who can give his opinion about any game. You juste spite a typical reaction about mods, excessively indulgent because it's free (more free rocks to eat) and it's from your community (players not from thief professional game makers stealing your money).

 

[serdinq]

After playing Oblivion, I thought that it was the greatest RPG of all time.

Well have you discovered RPG through Oblivion? Did you ever played games like Gothic 1&2 with NOTR, Fallout 1, Ultima Underworld, Dungeon Master, NWN2 MotB or even NWN2, Baldur's Gate series, Arx Fatalis, Ultima 7 and even Morrowind?Ha well ok it's cool you enjoy The Witcher, I also enjoyed it alot. I'm just worry how many people enjoyed so much Oblivion because it is going to setup a poor standard for future CRPG to come.

 

[sig970]

Serding, I have dabbled in different RPG's in the past, but Oblivion showed me just what a RPG could be. The Witcher has opened up doors as well. It;s different, and unique. I give it the highest praise, and look forwrd to more.

 

[username_2075709]

After playing Oblivion, I thought that it was the greatest RPG of all time.

Well have you discovered RPG through Oblivion? Did you ever played games like Gothic 1&2 with NOTR, Fallout 1, Ultima Underworld, Dungeon Master, NWN2 MotB or even NWN2, Baldur's Gate series, Arx Fatalis, Ultima 7 and even Morrowind?Ha well ok it's cool you enjoy The Witcher, I also enjoyed it alot. I'm just worry how many people enjoyed so much Oblivion because it is going to setup a poor standard for future CRPG to come.

I liked Oblivion and TW. Different games, different strengths. In Oblivion for example I was often happy to just get on my horse and go for a ride through the wilderness and find new areas. (maybe I'm more easily amused than you)For a long time I've been a Ranger fan (before LOTR movies made them popular) and Oblivion lets me roam the lands Rangering as much as I like. I can be an archer/swordsman/magic user. (many other class combinations too)I can RP a warrior, a thief, a good guy, a bad guy, a wizard. Or all rolled into one. Similar to Baldur's Gate in that sense but more choice in Oblivion. TW only lets you RP as a Witcher.Why do you think Oblivion is a bad example of a RPG? Since you're asking others why they think it's a RPG at all.I think the aim when making a new game is to be better than an old game.So if the people who made Oblivion make a new game and fans say "hey wow this is better than Oblivion" then I will likely be interested in that game.

 

[dyrestraits]

I liked Oblivion and TW. Different games, different strengths. In Oblivion for example I was often happy to just get on my horse and go for a ride through the wilderness and find new areas.

Ahhhh....another gamer after my own heart. There are times I start up Oblivion, mount my trusty Shadowmere, and simply trot across the landscape in search of....adventure. As for SERDINQ questioning whether I'm a senior or not, come now. It seems you only wish to argue rather than discuss. Therefore, there'll be no Orens for you. However, my 4 grown children and six grandchildren can certainly attest to how old I am.And, just to clear up one matter: I never did elevate Oblivion to the RPG to compare all other RPGs to. Perhaps you need to read my original post in which I referred to other RPGs. Oblivion pretty much becomes the point of comparison as it's one of the most recent ones that have been played by many, many fans of RPG games. To deny it to be an RPG really dents your own credibility.

 

[ulteriormodem]

Oh goody another apples vs oranges thread.Look I enjoyed Oblivioin, for a while, but for whateve reason to me at least after that while it became tiresome and repetative. I got to the point where if I saw one more freakin gate I was going to scream. The storyline was a bit weak as well. Yes I completed it. In my opinion Morrowind was far superior to Oblivion.Neverwinter nights & NwN2 dont even get me started on that story arc the ending made me so freakin mad I nearly tossed my mouse out the window.The story line, depth of charecters and the interactions with them is where witcher shines. Im looking foward to the enhanced edition which hopefully will make it even richer. Not to mention getting drunk, getting into a fist fight, and getting laid... what more could you want?In conclusion their all good games in their own right, some are prettier than others, some have more depth than others. Apples and Oranges.

 

[qbert123]

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. There is no right answer nor a wrong one. There really is no reason to be so argumentative when someone basis a reference on what they have experienced (which is bound to be different than what others have experienced) Both are excellent games, both have strong points as well as weak. Oblivion has seen it's day of glory and in my opinion , that day has passed. Perhaps now it is time for The Witcher to be recognized for the truly great RPG that it is. p.s. someone should really update the auto spelling check on this forum to include "witcher" in it's dictionary (it's the ocd, drives me crazy seeing the red underlines)

 

[serdinq]

I never wrote Oblivion is not a CRPG just that it's far to be as good than the best CRPG when The Witcher is much closer to the top despite some significant flaws.Oblivion didn't work well for me because of many reasons:

• Fight system is perhaps a little better than in Morrowind because of the mana regeneration and because it's easier to mix swords and magic. That said the fights are under the average, less interesting than in Morrowind. And when compared to some other CRPG it's just poor fights. Ok the main reason is probably that there's a difficulty level problem and perhaps a mod solve that well. But the point is it doesn't work as well than in Morrowind. In Morrowind you had many opportunities of very interesting long range fights. Oblivion is far to have this diversity. And Morrowind is far to have a really good fight system. It's just poor in comparison with fights in Gothic 1&2+NOTR, even the old Dungeon Master has a much better fighting (something quite surprising). CRPG Team fights are most often much better, many iso CRPG single character fights are better, most of the (rare) CRPG turn-based fights are a lot more interesting.
• Yes horses are appealing and fun but the strong pleasure is only during a short time and they have a terribly bad effect on exploring. They break the mood of exploring with curiosity. You often have to jump down, do something go back to the horse and use it again and so on. A superficial and fast tourism has good point but it's poor in comparison with an exploration with full curiosity. Don' t hope let the horse back and deeply explore it won't work because the world isn't setup for that, too many wide empty area with only some fancy landscape.
• Graphic style is very cute but almost always just cute and with no mood in most area. Plenty modern CRPG are doing much better, even Morrowind with it's poor graphics and too grey style had much more area with a real mood.
• Secondary quests probably show one of the best mini story set for quests alas it's also the worse of the game and probably the reason I felt the game so superficial. If their story are often quite good their implementation is most often very poor. The weakest point for most is they don't implement any good hints and most just end in following stupidly the cursor, I can't imagine a more childish implementation of quest progression design.
• Problems to solve, riddles, puzzles merged to the quests, tricks to find through good hints, using your mind a little, all of that is very limited because of the poor quests design and stupid cursor. Yes there's a few good exceptions but too few.
• Towns are overall good but the biggest town is a big failure. It seems non natural, a bit empty. Something is wrong about people walking in the town and that doesn't work well at all.
• The multiple area behind the portals look too much the same, it's very fast a total pain to get there, the repetition effect is horribly boring.
• The main quest suffer of many parts that looks non realistic, the portal management in the main story should have require much more tuning to feel a little realistic. The war in the big town looks weird I stop play the game at this point.
• The free roaming is very badly managed, it's so free that it makes few sense and break mood and most fun of exploration. That point is also linked to the lack of alternate choices and quests links.
• The world is wide but doesn't live well. A first cause is that it's density is too low, too many empty area. A second cause is because events are too often very isolated so you end almost in multiple little worlds living side by side with no or few links.

To summarize, exploration doesn't work that well despite and because the horses and many other weak points, puzzling is a lot too rare so poor for the whole game, the cursor is often a childish implementation of quest level progression, the fights are bellow the average and less good than those in Morrowind when Morrowind fights doesn't reach the quality of fights in most of the best CRPG, the mood is often broken because of a wrong graphic style, the main town is poorly done because not well animated at all and that destroy the mood, the world living is poor.That's a lot against this game, a lot too much and it's over me to understand how many people could be so fanatic about it.

 

[sig970]

After playing Oblivion, I thought that it was the greatest RPG of all time.

Well have you discovered RPG through Oblivion? Did you ever played games like Gothic 1&2 with NOTR, Fallout 1, Ultima Underworld, Dungeon Master, NWN2 MotB or even NWN2, Baldur's Gate series, Arx Fatalis, Ultima 7 and even Morrowind?Ha well ok it's cool you enjoy The Witcher, I also enjoyed it alot. I'm just worry how many people enjoyed so much Oblivion because it is going to setup a poor standard for future CRPG to come.

Serdinq, I have not had exposure to all of these games. If you had to pick the best 3 to round out my RPG experience, not counting Oblivion, which would you give the highest marks too?

 

[solaiii]

If it wasn't for Oblivion Game of the Year Edition, probably wouldn't have picked up The Witcher. Both games are very different in significant ways, but I find each enjoyable for different reasons as well.

 

[serdinq]

Well have you discovered RPG through Oblivion? Did you ever played games like Gothic 1&2 with NOTR, Fallout 1, Ultima Underworld, Dungeon Master, NWN2 MotB or even NWN2, Baldur's Gate series, Arx Fatalis, Ultima 7 and even Morrowind?Ha well ok it's cool you enjoy The Witcher, I also enjoyed it alot. I'm just worry how many people enjoyed so much Oblivion because it is going to setup a poor standard for future CRPG to come.

Serdinq, I have not had exposure to all of these games. If you had to pick the best 3 to round out my RPG experience, not counting Oblivion, which would you give the highest marks too?

Well some of the best I listed above are quite old and technically out dated. You'll need to be a hard fan to play them now. Their mainly problems of graphics and for few strange controls that require some effort to master. It's hard to advise them to anybody. That doesn't mean they cannot be used as a reference base.For example Ultima Underworld has a modern design but the graphics are very old, it's almost packs of pixels and the controls are unusual. It's still a total reference for puzzling of any kind, 3D area design and merging of story elements and action. Another example is Dungeon Master, it is even older, but it's the emperor of puzzling of any kind and despite the movements aren't continuous (you move square by square), they are "real time" and it's a surprising excellent fight system. Dungeon Master is less modern than UW so the story elements are minimal it's more a H&S.Alas those old references are so old that if you aren't a total CRPG fan I can't advise them. If I stick to CRPG not too old and advice 3 that could be:

• Gothic 2 plus Night Of The Raven it's expansion pack. It's not two games, the expansion pack upgrades the original game and adds to it details, more depth plus a new area that is merged well to the whole game. Another plus of playing Gothic2 with NOTR installed is that it setup a better difficulty level. I advise you read a bit some forums to get some basic advices to start the game without to spoil it. Also I advise forget the walkthrough and there's two types of control, choose the Gothic 1 like style. Another option is to start with Gothic 1 but G2+NOTR has a better density. Take care that Gothic 3 isn't a good alternate choice, despite tons of improvements its fight system have few big holes that destroy the charm and it doesn't have the same density than the previous in the series.
• Fallout 1: This one is older but it doesn't feel so old. Here you get a major free roaming CRPG with a story that leads your adventure despite it's free roaming taste. You'll also get a sample of a good turn based fight system (only the fights are turn based). Take care it's the Fallout 1, not the 2. If you become a fan then you could try the 2 but I strongly advise to start with the volume 1.

For the third advice, without too pick among too old games, the choice is difficult:

• I think that NWN2 Mask of the Betrayer could be a good third advice but risky because of some special gaming elements that could discourage some players. Also it's an expansion pack so you'll need get NWN2 too. NWN2 is a great game too but it's high linearity could hurt. So it's difficult to advice them as a third choice.
• Arx Fatalis could be another good advice because it is a sort of modern Ultima Underworld. It has much more modern graphics but it's overall quality is a little lower than UW and it has some designs that could hurt a little more modern players. For example some places could look a little empty of population, probably because of performance limits at its release. Also it starts a bit slowly (unlike UW) and take some time before to reach it's full quality. Because of that it's hard to pick it for a third advice.
• Baldur's Gate is a rock solid CRPG, it could be a good third advice but it's so known that you probably already tried it.
• Morrowind has flaws and graphics are a little weird. But if you can go over that this one too could be a good third advice. But it's perhaps a problem to play it after Oblivion.

Well ok to pick a third choice it will be NWN2 Mask of the Betrayer or if you like puzzling try Dungeon Master, don't stay glued with first steps try push further it's better once you have choose your companions in the startup dungeon and enter in the real dungeon. Both are risky advices but I think they worth it.

 

[serdinq]

which would you give the highest marks too?

My own top? It's not my advices, I advise more those I quote in the previous post. My personal top would be at his time (this constantly change):

• Gothic 2 with Night of the Raven installed
• Fallout 1
• Ultima Underworld 1
• Dungeon Master 1
• The Witcher
• Gothic 1
• Neverwinter Night 2: Mask of the Betrayer
• Baldur's Gate 1
• Ultima 7
• Baldur's Gate 2: Throne of Bhaal
• Ancient Domains of Mystery (Rogue ASCII game, quite modern, for masochists but if you get into its spirit you'll get a great thing, I never finished it)
• Neverwinter Night 2
• Arx Fatalis
• Divine Divinity (Average CRPG but after a first part and a first average dungeon the first half is a world setup and quests design quite fascinating)
• Temple of Elemental Evil (Average CRPG but perhaps the best turn based CRPG fight system)
• Icewind Dale 1 (bellow the average CRPG but ton of fights setup highly tuned with a careful design for each fight or almost, traps, ambushes, attacks from behind, long range clever setup, waves, and so on)

EDIT: I quote I forgot console RPG, I could rehash the list but also i have bigger holes than in computer RPG, well I haven't played all computer RPG with a high reputation from specialists. The list rehash with some console RPG won't be for this time.

 

[username_2081916]

I'm not going to get into which RPG is the "best" or which are alike, I'm merely going to state, in short, what I think a game requires to be called an RPG.Of course we have all the statistics, leveling, skills, quests and so on but what really makes an RPG for me is the story, and the way its handled. I want a story that really drags me into the world and really makes me feel like I'm a part of the game. An RPG, once again - for me, is a game that lets you get into the role of a character, hence the ROLE in ROLE-PLAYING, and actually play it out. A lot of "RPG:s" these days are primarily focusing on combat and leveling, but seems to have forgotten all about the the story and the actual role-playing elements. I'm not going to say which games out there are true RPG:s and which are not. In the end, it all comes down to different opinions, but if you ask me, a game that's labeled as an RPG should at least have some kind of role-playing element (which for the most time comes with a deep and intriguing storyline and choices that actually mean something in the game) and not just grinding and leveling.But hey... That's just me.-----I've yet to play The Witcher (I actually booked the Enhanced Edition today), but by all I've read and seen of the game it seems to fit perfectly into my definition of a role-playing game.

 

[Evolution101]

I can't say I was a huge fan of NWN 2, but II thought Mask of the Betrayer was brilliant, almost felt like playing Planescape: Torment again, almost

 

[bearded_bard]

The best RPG? For me it's still Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn (10/10). Find me another RPG with so many possible party members, each one well developed, with a personal backstory and specific, well-written interactions with the other characters and with the protagonist , with so many classes (each one with a stronghold - something which I'd REALLY like to see in other RPGs).Neverwinter Night 1 was a game for multiplayer, because the single player game sucked (compared to BG, at least). The world had no depth, you could enter only in a handful of houses and buildings, one (boring) party member, too linear, etc.KOTOR 1 (9/10) and 2 (8/10) are also excellent (although the last part of the second feels very, very rushed). Gothic 3 (7,5/10) was pretty good too.Mass Effect (9/10) is great and pretty much on par with the Witcher; however, while the main story is brilliant, its sidequests are rather boring and repetitive.

 

[Snusmumriken]

First Oblivion gate shut - cool.Tenth Oblivion gate shut - hmmmm.Twentieth + Oblivion gate shut - run straight to sigil stone with a big train chasing you.The very essence of the game - Oblivion itself, is the most boring part.

Remember reading on the Bethesda forum before the release of TES:IV where someone asked the devs if the plane of Oblivion could take many different forms, being as it is a plane of chaos. The devs' answer: "Yes, the Oblivion plane will have many different forms" (or something like that. Yea, right... Never finished the game after 10th or so tower climb. Wonder what Beth were thinking when they designed those? Old-fashioned platform-climbing?