The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Difference between revisions

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{{quote|''I was born 87 years ago. For 65 years I've ruled as Tamriel's emperor, but for all these years, I've never been the ruler of my own dreams. I have seen the gates of Oblivion, beyond which no waking eyes may see. Behold! In darkness, a doom sweeps the land. This is the 27th of Last Seed, the Year of Akatosh 433. These are the closing days of the Third Era and the final hours of my life.''|'''Emperor Uriel Septim VII'''}}
|'''Emperor Uriel Septim VII'''}}
 
'''''[[The Elder Scrolls]] IV: Oblivion''''' is a [[Role-Playing Game]] developed by Bethesda Softworks and released in 2006 for PC and [[Xbox 360]] and one year later for the [[Play Station 3]].
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What follows is a lengthy quest to save the province of Cyrodiil, heart land of the Empire which spans the whole continent of Tamriel from destruction at the hands of Mehrunes Dagon, the daedric prince of destruction.
 
The game boasts a huge open world with sixteen square miles of terrain to explore, hundreds of dungeons, eight cities filled with [[Non-Player Character|NPC]]s that have their own daily routine and enough quests to fill hundreds of hours of play time.
 
The player has the opportunity to join several factions, such as the Fighter’s Guild, and all have their own storylines spanning several quests.
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** Additionally, due to a scripting error when you {{spoiler|become Duke or Duchess of Mania/Dementia}} the two groups will greet or refer to you only in the feminine. It's "fixed" in the Unofficial Patch, for those that don't find it entertaining.
** But seeing as both of them come from their respective wellsprings rather than being born, the males aren't really even needed.
* [[Ambiguously Brown]]: Or perhaps Ambiguously Blue, in this case. There are a few [[NPCs]] running around which either had their races incorrectly flagged in the CS, or are showing signs of mixed heritage. One noteworthy example is a guard seen in Anvil(who guards the chapel and warns people of the scene inside with KOTN installed) who is definitely a Redguard in skin tone and appearance but has an Imperial voice. Cutter, the emo Dementia blacksmith in Shivering Isles, looks to be a Dunmer, but has yellow eyes(the CS lists her race as Bosmer). There are also two female Dementia residents, both Imperial, who have blue skin tones.
* [[An Axe to Grind]]: For some reason, governed by the Blunt skill. The official explanation is that the act of swinging an axe is more akin to using a club than a sword.
* [[Anime Hair]]: Several elven NPCs have magnificent gravity-defying 'dos. For example, [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money|Umbacano]], [[Loony Fan|the Ador]][[The Scrappy|ing Fan]], and [[Cool Old Guy|Modryn]] [[Badass|Oreyn]].
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* [[Arson, Murder, and Lifesaving]]: Vilena Donton gives you one of these when you complete the last mission for the Fighter's Guild.
* [[Artifact Title]]: Averted... in a manner of speaking. It is the first Elder Scrolls game since ''[[The Elder Scrolls: Arena]]'' where the actual Elder Scrolls are seen, but they still don't play a part in the ''Main'' Quest, but rather in the [[Sidequest|Thieves Guild quest line]]. {{spoiler|You get to steal one!}}
* [[Artificial Atmospheric Actions]]: Oh so much. In particular, [[Procedural Generation|procedurally generated]] [[NPC]] conversation can be a bit vapid.
{{quote|"Hello."
"Hi."
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"Bye." }}
** An especially amusing one can randomly occur while sneaking around in Bandit lairs. After the main quest is completed, there's a random chance that certain of the bandits might start singing a song in your honor. That won't stop them from trying to kill you once you're spotted.
** [[Lampshaded]] by some of the idle dialogue (which unfortunately you never hear due to an oversight. A mod that fixes enables them can be found [https://web.archive.org/web/20120121054049/http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=38466 here])
{{quote|''"Everyone is talking, but no one has anything to say." }}
* [[Artificial Stupidity]]: The Radiant AI system is commendably ambitious, but it does fall flat very frequently and very visibly. Part of the problem is that [[NPC]] behavior is driven by ''motivations.'' One quest involving vampire hunters can be botched if the vampire hunters get too jealous of each other's inventory items, whereupon they'll start pickpocketing one another until they're all angry enough to draw weapons. In some cases "good" characters will murder unarmed innocents simply because they've been [[Dronejam|Drone Jammed]] into a corner.
** NPCs who are following you have a terrible tendency to get in your way during combat, which often results in your accidentally killing them. Which could result in other NPCs turning hostile on you, or failing a quest, if the outcome depends on a particular NPC's survival. Cue [[Cluster F-Bomb]].
** Some characters have a bad habit of forgetting they need to unlock a store's front door in the morning, even if they have the appropriate key and locked it the night before. Others will end up [[Suicidal Overconfidence|trying to pick fights with]] ''[[Too Dumb to Live|daedra]]'' [[Too Dumb to Live|who just spawned from an Oblivion portal]].
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** If you put an actual chainmail shirt on a female character it turns into a [[Mini-Dress of Power]].
* [[Cold Flames]]: The Will O Wisp enemies.
* [[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard]]: The infamous psychic guards, who will come to arrest you even if your crime could not possibly be noticed (such as attacking an [[NPC]] in a place with no one to see or hear you do it, then killing them).
* [[The Chessmaster]]: Mankar Camoran. To A lesser degree, The Gray Fox.
* [[Chekhov's Skill]]: J'skar, the lovable Khajiit prankster of the Bruma Mages Guildhall, is shown to only be really good at invisibility. {{spoiler|When Mannimarco attacks Bruma's guildhall, his invisibility mastery is what makes him the sole survivor.}}
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* [[Dead Star Walking]]: [[Patrick Stewart]] as the doomed [[The Emperor|Emperor]]. There's even a mod that replaces Uriel Septim's head with Patrick Stewart's.
* [[Dem Bones]]
* [[Did Not Do the Research]]: In the form of [[Useful Notes/Swords|weapon weights]], making them insanely heavy. Further, all "better" materials are much heavier, even when they have no reason to be (Steel is a mixture of iron and carbon and carbon weighs less than iron, making it unexplained why steel items weighs about a 6th more than iron. In Morrowind the two weighed the same amount)
** Iron vs. Steel errors are found in many [[RPG]]s. One material that is uniquely peculiar in almost every way is glass, especially the armor.
* [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?]]: The climax of ''Shivering Isles'' pits you against {{spoiler|Jyggalag, the Deadric Prince of Order}}.
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* [[Empty Levels]]: Leveling up in a manner that is remotely intuitive - say, by choosing your main skills as those you expect to use often and leveling up when you have the option on the assumption that gaining a level will make you stronger - will result in a character's abilities increasing minutely while the enemies around you transform from annoyances to nightmares. Many people just bypass the whole aggravating "leveling up" process by never sleeping.
* [[End of an Age]]: It is heavily implied that by the time of the next game, the Empire will be over. [[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim|As for the answer to that...]]
* [[Enemy Chatter]]: Nothing special, but occasionally if you're quiet and just stand around and listen, you will hear enemy NPC'sNPCs talking amongst themselves (Necromancers, bandits, marauders, vampires, guards, etc).
* [[Escort Mission]]: A few, but by far the most annoying one is the quest The Wayward Knight. Farwil Indarys, your escortee and complete [[Leeroy Jenkins]], will run into battle against enemies far stronger than he, and even worse will completely ignore environmental dangers. He'll even follow enemies off cliffs!
* [[Mr. Fanservice]]: Lucien Lachance is quite popular among fangirls. "Hot damn!"
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* [[Freudian Excuse]]: {{spoiler|Bellamont,}} the assassin who betrays the Dark Brotherhood has one in the form of his dead mother. It's a bit more justified than most Freidian excuses simply because {{spoiler|it was, in fact, the Dark Brotherhood who killed his mother.}}
* [[Game Mod]]: Enough of them to build several whole new games. In fact, several mods are there for ''just that purpose''. Sadly, [[Sturgeon's Law]] is in effect for many of them.
** [[Nehrim]]: [https://web.archive.org/web/20131104163552/http://www.nehrim.de/indexEV.html At Fate’s Edge] by [https://web.archive.org/web/20131114070929/http://www.sureai.de/ SureAI] is one of the better ones, expansive enough to warrant its own page here.
** Some of the more renowned mods include Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul (removes leveled enemies in favor of hand placed, as well as other tweaks), Deadly Reflex (A complex combat overhaul), Martigan's Monster Mod (adds literally ''hundreds'' of new monsters, many of which are hand made) and The Lost Spires (Lengthy quest mod with a complex story about the ancient history of Tamriel).
** Don't forget Kvatch Rebuilt, which sees the burnt town restored and, well, rebuilt. Trade And Commerce lets the player own a shop to sell goods through rather than having to sell everything to stores. Then there are mods which completely rewrite lore, such as A Path Of Dawn which lets the player join the Mythic Dawn, and many, many mods which expand on the Dark Brotherhood. Player homes, armor display mannequins, weapons and armor and even tweaks to the crime system, merchant system... beautification mods, mods to make the game run better on lower-end systems, level uncappers... if you can ask for it, there's a good chance a mod exists for it.
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* [[Hyperspace Arsenal]]: While you're not able to carry an infinite amount of stuff, you can pack several hundred pounds worth of stuff into an invisible pocket. Each item has a weight value, and based on your Strength stat, you can carry so much stuff(1 point of Strength = 5 pounds of encumbrance). Warriors who raise strength can carry more things(up to 500 pounds with a max 100 strength), and spells/effects such as Feather exist to lighten your load even further. Also, being highly skilled(Expert or Master rank) in either of the Light or Heavy armor attributes decreases the weight of armor you have equipped- at Master skill rank, heavy type armor will weigh nothing when worn. It's possible to actually have more items in your inventory than you can carry, but you will not be able to move, and negative effects such as Burden or Drain/Damage Strength can lower encumbrance. The only visible items in your total inventory are whatever you have equipped at the time.
** But this largely seems to affect the player only. NPCs usually only carry a limited stock of goods and rarely pick up anything, and even Burden spells are rarely effective to keep them in place.
** This is taken to extremes due to a bug that effects the Duelists in the Shivering Isles. Each one carries up to several THOUSAND''thousand'' copies of their weapon in inventory with no ill effects, though trying to take all those weapons for yourself (through pickpocketing/character death) can either leave you over-encumbered, or glitch the game severely. The Unofficial Patch fixes this.
* [[I Am'm Dying, Please Take My MacguffinMacGuffin]]: The plot that is presented to us at the beginning of the game plays out this trope to a tee., Withwith the Amulet of Kings being the [[MacGuffin]].
* [[I Hate You, Vampire Dad]]: {{spoiler|The Grey Prince}} invokes this on himself.
* [[If You're So Evil Eat This Kitten]]: The final step to being initiated into the Mythic Dawn is to murder a prisoner as as sacrifice to Mehrunes Dagon. {{spoiler|If you try to infiltrate them, you'll be presented with an Argonian they've captured. It's up to you if you want to save him and blow your cover, or [[Shoot the Dog|kill him to keep the ruse]].}}
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* [[Impossible Item Drop]]: Sometimes common enemies carry random valuable loot.
* [[Impossible Thief]]: The Dark Brotherhood agent that asks if you want to join will ''always'' appear when you rest, even if this rest will take you into a dream world that needs a special amulet to enter.
* [[Indestructible Edible]]: Many of the places you visit, from caves to ancient dungeons that have been abandoned for hundreds of years, will have perfectly edible food stashed away in containers. Then again, this is a world that seems to lack any stortsort of refridgerationrefrigeration or food preservation yet all foods you find will be perfectly fresh, even stuff found on the floor.
* [[Infinity-1 Sword]]: Umbra. Not quite as spectacular as the Plus Ones, but is the best one-handed weapon in terms of damage and can Soul Trap, and you can get it even if you're fresh out of the tutorial... of course, killing Umbra to get her sword and gear will be nigh impossible unless you're well prepared.
* [[Infinity+1 Sword]]: Several, as befits the series. Some examples:
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** Mazoga the Orc, [[Character Development|at least when you first meet her]]. She takes an exceptionally rude and peremptory manner with you and Weebam-Na, and [[They Call Me Mister Tibbs|insists]] that you address her with her self-given style of "Sir Mazoga".
* [[Jerkass Gods]]: A few of the [[Our Demons Are Different|Daedra]] [[Eldritch Abomination|Lords]], namely [[Person of Mass Destruction|Mehrunes Dagon]], [[The Chessmaster|Boethiah]], [[Lawful Stupid|Jygg]][[Light Is Not Good|alag]], and [[Blood Knight|Mo]][[God of Evil|lag]] [[Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil|Bal]]. However, not all of them: most of them are [[Blue and Orange Morality|just really weird]] rather than evil, and some like Azura and Meridia actually seem [[Dark Is Not Evil|nice]]... [[Good Is Not Nice|Sort of]].
* [[Just Before the End]]: The end of the Cyrodillic Empire to be exactly. The Septim bloodline is gone and the empire itself in a weakened state. Npc'sNPCs in the game already talk about the High Elves planning to go against the empire and, after finishing the main quest, they tell some of the provinces plan on seceding. {{spoiler|Turns out that in [[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim|Skyrim]], the High Elves formed their own Empire, slowly picking away territory. And, like the NPC'sNPCs said, 2two of the other provinces did indeed secede. By the time Skyrim's story starts, the Empire is only a shadow of its former self.}}
* [[Karmic Death]]: In one ending of the Umbacano questline, {{spoiler|[[Hoist by His Own Petard|Umbacano is killed by the evil Ayleid powers he sought to control]].}} In the other, ''you'' kill him.
* [[Kill'Em All]]: There are lots of scripted NPC deaths in the game. Let's leave it at that.
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* [[Loads and Loads of Loading]]: Some can experience issues with this, particularly on lower-end systems. Especially if one has a lot of mods in their game.
* [[Locked Door]]: Probably the most egregious example is with barrels. Just how do you lock a ''barrel''? And even so, why can't you just take a mace to it?
* [[Lord British Postulate]]: Mehrunes Dagon is actually killable, he just has a ridiculous amount of health and regeneration. If you can figure out how to hit over 10000 (see [[Game Breaker/Video Games/Roleplaying Games/The Elder Scrolls|the Game Breaker page]]), you can actually ''one-hit kill'' him.
** Alternatively, use Wabbajack, then wail on the poor Daedric Prince. Cue [[I'm Melting|melting]] [[Crowning Moment of Funny|god]].
*** By "melting god" the refer to the fact that the Mehrunes Dagon character has no proper death animation programmed, and as a result of dying, the skeleton literally gives way and the 3D character model simply collapses to the ground. This will effectively happen with anything that has no proper skeleton installed, but is quite visible here just because Dagon is so damn BIG.
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* [[No Ending]]: Aside from the fact you can continue playing after the game is over, the fact that the Uriel Septim line {{spoiler|has ended}}, the game finishes with a major question unresolved. {{spoiler|Who will be Emperor?}}
* [[No-Gear Level]]: Happens during Sanguine's shrine quest, where you cast a spell on the Countess of Leyawiin and her company that causes them all to be stripped naked. It also causes the player to lose their equipment and entire inventory, so you've got to face the guards unarmored and unarmed.
* [[Non-Lethal KO]]: NPC'sNPCs that are flagged as essential will only be knocked unconscious if their health is reduced to zero, rather than killed, to prevent the player from making quests [[Unwinnable]].
* [[Non-Mammal Mammaries]]: The lizard people, Argonians.
** The females of the three Daedric races (Dremora, Golden Saint, and Dark Seducer) and other lesser Daedra (Flame Atronachs, Spider Daedra) have breasts, despite the fact that Daedra cannot produce life.
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* [[Pressure Plate]]: You see these a lot in forts and Ayleid ruins.
* [[Psycho Serum]]: Hist.
* [[Punctuated! For! Emphasis!]]: [[ThisPunctuated! IsFor! SpartaEmphasis!|Malacath. Is not. Popular. At parties!]]
* [[Randomly Generated Levels]]: Like Daggerfall, Bethesda built the non-quest non-Oblivion dungeons out of existing dungeons pieces and randomly spliced them into a "new" dungeon that gets used for every copies instance of that dungeon. Unlike Daggerfall, you [[Bizarrchitecture|aren't busy getting lost]], and the dungeon pieces are are much more distinct looking, making it very noticeable (Indeed, there were a few instance of "leftovers" from quests in some dungeons in early versions). Additionally all spawns and loot are randomly chosen from leveled lists.
** The terrain is also computer generated through simulated soil erosion. It sounds neat, but it is very noticeably featureless as a result.
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* [[Vendor Trash]]: Copious amounts of it.
* [[Vicious Cycle]]: The Greymarch. Also, the fate of the Ascended Immortals in Kamoran's Savage Garden/Forbidden Grotto.
* [[Video Game Caring Potential]]: Depending on how attached you become to some of the [[NPC]]sNPCs, you may reload certain battles multiple times to ensure that they survive past the time they're flagged as no longer essential, up to and including the ending.
* [[Video Game Cruelty Potential]]: The game allows you to kill any non-essential characters in the game (although this may result in you failing quests that you haven't even started), and essential characters can just be knocked unconcious over and over again.
** The sheer amount of videos on [[YouTube]] about killing certain people (or yourself) in Oblivion is astounding, but admit it, starting random rampages and mercilessly massacring the guards and citizens of Cyrodiil is ''fun''.
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* [[Weaksauce Weakness]]: One Dark Brotherhood quest requires you to assassinate a man who's allergic to honey; your handler suggests tricking him into drinking a bottle of mead, which paralyzes him, making him easier to kill.
* [[Wham! Episode]]: Through the last three games, the Emperor has been the [[Big Good]] who the player has been doing all the missions for. In this one? He dies. At the end of the tutorial mission.
* [[What Happened to the Mouse?]] -: Jagar Tharn's child. According to an ingame book, he fathered a child with Barenziah, the queen of Morrowind, when he seduced her in order to fool her into showing him the way to the Staff of Chaos. Then this child just fades into space ace. Also, lore says that after the events of the very first game, the Staff of Chaos was put away somewhere in White Gold Tower, yet in the game it is nowhere to be found.
** In-game, several quest-related [[NPC]]sNPCs are usually disabled and removed from the game once their related quest is finished. Often, this is done without any in-universe explanation whatsoever. The most egregious examples are J'Skar (the sole survivor of the attack on the Bruma Mages Guild), and Nelrene (the Dark Seducer involved in the conspiracy in the "Lady of Paranoia" quest, even though she ends up helping you in the end).
* [[Wide Open Sandbox]] - Larger than ''Morrowind'' <ref>By raw square footage anyways. Morrowind's design makes traveling in a straight line impossible without levitation, and it implements a large vertical component not present in Oblivion</ref> but still far smaller than ''Arena'' or ''Daggerfall''.
** [[Law of Conservation of Detail]]: The size comes at the cost of much of the detail gained in ''Morrowind''. Almost everything not quest related is generated from random lists in place of ''Morrowind'''s hand placed loot, and like ''Daggerfall'' dungeons were <ref>that is, they are the same in every game, but initially created in this fashion</ref> randomly generated by combination of existing parts instead of hand crafted and the world is largely flat.
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