ok computer
May 27, 2006 8:25 AM   Subscribe

 
Thank god for people who have a lot more time on their hands than I do.
posted by borkingchikapa at 8:55 AM on May 27, 2006


Is this something I'd need to have a lonely, unfulfilled existence to understand?
posted by matthewr at 9:56 AM on May 27, 2006


Nah. Lots of people love watching a physics-engine demo if bodies are being flung about.
posted by solipse at 10:19 AM on May 27, 2006


As someone who's finally laid there 100+ hour character in Oblivion to rest, I declare this completely awesome.

Note to naysayers: If you can't tell the difference between this and any other domino hijincks, it's worth noting that that's a pretty remarkable thing.
posted by Alex404 at 11:14 AM on May 27, 2006


If you can't tell the difference between this and any other domino hijincks, it's worth noting that that's a pretty remarkable thing.

I'm not sure I understand your point here. In every case that I've seen extensive sequences of this nature (Source, Oblivion, etc) the session was created in the editing package, not manually through the client.
posted by prostyle at 11:53 AM on May 27, 2006


I don't even understand how he could do that. Every damn time I get to the counter at a shop, some dagger goes flying. Probably involves prodigious use of stealth and quicksaves.
posted by graventy at 11:54 AM on May 27, 2006


And, that would be how he did it, probably. heh.
posted by graventy at 11:54 AM on May 27, 2006


Correction: probably involves the use of the level editor.
posted by T.D. Strange at 12:38 PM on May 27, 2006


I'm not sure I understand your point here.

I was just pointing out that we live in cool times when a video game can have a physics engine tacked on to it (for little then novelty, from what I can tell) capable of carrying out such a simulation so well.

Though I guess the swords balanced on their tips was pushing it. (Not that it wouldn't be possible... in theory)
posted by Alex404 at 2:04 PM on May 27, 2006


I like this video more than the adoring fan bowling and adoring fan at dive rock but it could have been better. It's hard to tell what's going on in spots.

BTW, if you've been to the elder scrolls board you'll thank god in heaven for metafilter. If you have proper grammar and spelling you're automatically better off than 90% of the occupants there.

I'm on my second character in oblivion. It's a great time waster.
posted by puke & cry at 2:20 PM on May 27, 2006 [1 favorite]


Does anyone else find it painfully ironic when folks post to a community website complaining that OTHER people have too much time on their hands?
posted by Justinian at 2:21 PM on May 27, 2006


*raises hand*
posted by puke & cry at 2:26 PM on May 27, 2006 [1 favorite]


And, apparently, the dominos went down more slowly than the game seems to. Great concept, poor execution. No engine stability in my case (although complaints are rife from people I know), but I have an unholy load of broken quests (include high level mage and assassin quests). Thus it languishes on my hard drive, alone and unfinished. Maybe in a few patches or something.
posted by Samizdata at 3:07 PM on May 27, 2006


Yeah, a lot of people are pretty pissed off about the game due to the broken quests and other bugs. Thankfully the only bug I've run into I was able to overcome. Apparently sometimes the gates controled by pushblock in ayleid ruins just don't do anything, leaving you trapped inside. Thankfully I was able to find another way out.
posted by puke & cry at 3:20 PM on May 27, 2006 [1 favorite]


Well, I play it on the 360 and have had no problems at all. Thanks for this post.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 4:47 PM on May 27, 2006


I just wish in-game movies didn't always have to include an annoying white noise soundtrack.
posted by NationalKato at 4:56 PM on May 27, 2006


It took about 25 mods to get the gameplay to where I really liked it (a ton of those are just nice toucheslike plants disappearing after you harvest them, maybe four of them completely overhaul game balance), but Oblivion rocks. No crashes, etc. That said, it's understandable other people might have a problem - most Bethesda games are very fragile out of the box and need several patches before they work well for everyone.
posted by Ryvar at 5:05 PM on May 27, 2006


I have an unholy load of broken quests (include high level mage and assassin quests). Thus it languishes on my hard drive, alone and unfinished.

If you have the PC version (which it sounds like you do,) you should avail yourself of the console commands to try to work around bugged quests.
posted by blenderfish at 6:01 PM on May 27, 2006


The best part of this game is the immense opportunity to just completely go off the beaten path, and cut a swath of blood through everything and everyone you encounter.

After a series of quicksaves and quickloads while trying to get into a guard's office for some quest or another, I got fed up with getting caught. I was caught, yet again, but decided, "what the hell, I've got the game saved," and fought back. After 5 or 6 soldiers joined in, I died.

But that didn't deter me. I quickly reloaded the game, slid the difficulty slider down, and did it again. This time, I ended up killing all the guards in the room. That alerted all the guards outside. I killed them. Then, because I was killing people, the civilians started attacking me, too. At one point, I was running away from a mob of about 20 guards, a few shopkeepers, and one stubborn old woman armed with nothing more than her grey hair and fists.

Of course, I aimed for her, first.

When I finally tired of the sport, I had killed everyone I could find in the Imperial City (short of those NPCs that just don't die). I'd obviously broken the game beyond repair, as there was no one to sell me anything in any of the shops.

It was still a fine site seeing the streets littered with all those bodies.
posted by thanotopsis at 7:57 PM on May 27, 2006


thats awesome, thanotopsis
posted by Satapher at 10:28 PM on May 27, 2006


I had a fantastic bug with my first Oblivion character - after I did the first Oblivion gate in Kvatch, I went through into the city, stabbing wildly at anything and everything in sight, and all was well. Problem was, as soon as Berich Inian (the delightfully surly chap who opens the gatehouse for you, and a name I would come to know well) told me to follow him, he promptly disappeared into thin air. After a few minutes of wandering in and out of the chapel and around the gatehouse in confusion, I decided the people of Kvatch were clearly too rude - if Berich was any example - to be worth saving, and gave up in favour of wandering aimlessly around the countryside hitting identikit trolls over the head, and watching married couples blithely try to recruit one another for the Fighters' Guild.

Anyway, a bit later in my adventures, I got in a bit of trouble with the law. It seems I'd inadvertently picked up an apple - not eaten it, just picked it up - in the inn where I was staying, and the Cheydinhal guard didn't look kindly on such rampant criminality at all. So off to the guardhouse I went, to pay my fine and be relieved of any other ill-gotten fruits. And who should I find when I got there? Berich Inian! He took one look at me, let out a mighty scream, raised his sword and charged off in the general direction of Kvatch. From that point on, wherever I went, I'd be accompanied by Berich, who'd always leg it away to save his beloved city, occasionally stopping to bop a bandit over the head on the way. He got hopelessly confused in the Imperial City and actually ended up in the bedroom of the person I was stealing from, which didn't impress the Thieves' Guild much. Soon after that, I also managed to acquire a whole retinue - not only did Berich show up whenever I fast-travelled, got arrested or left certain places, but the whole party of Fighters' Guild adventurers I'd helped in a much earlier quest did, too. They didn't actually do much (except for Berich, who screamed and ran away to Kvatch), but good help is so awfully hard to find.

It was such a fun bug because it provided a great little story for my character - much moreso than the actual game ever did - she rode around the countryside righting wrongs and killing rats, always accompanied by her loyal (but irredeemably dense) retainers, who she hired on the cheap, and poor old Berich Inian, who had suffered a serious blow to the head some time back and now perpetually believed he was still fighting the battle for Kvatch.
posted by terpsichoria at 1:28 AM on May 28, 2006 [4 favorites]


That was beautiful, terpsichoria; heart-string-tugging buddy movie and Pythonesque Don Quixote in one.

Browsing Wikipedia's entry for Don Quixote, to put my spelling mind at ease, I came upon the promise of an unknown country: "Hanna-Barbera released a short-lived children's cartoon based on the story called The Adventures of Don Coyote and Sancho Panda."
Doesn't that sound fantastic? Your story is even better than that.

posted by NinjaTadpole at 5:01 AM on May 28, 2006


Now if they could do this with 100% Adoring Fans, it would be 200% more awesome!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 8:01 AM on May 28, 2006


That story set me to a'giggling, terpsichoria.
posted by picea at 9:22 AM on May 28, 2006


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