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Games => General Gaming => Topic started by: idolminds on Tuesday, October 17, 2006, 04:31:25 PM

Title: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: idolminds on Tuesday, October 17, 2006, 04:31:25 PM
Bethesda Softworks Announces Knights of the Nine™ for Xbox 360™ and Windows

New Faction and Quests to be available for Download and at Retail on November 21

October 17, 2006 (Rockville, MD) — Bethesda Softworks® today announced plans to make its new Knights of the Nine™ content for The Elder Scrolls IV®: Oblivion™ available for the Xbox 360™ videogame and entertainment system from Microsoft and Windows via download and a new retail Windows product. Knights of the Nine will be available through Xbox Live® Marketplace for Xbox 360 and www.OblivionDownloads.com on November 21st.

Knights of the Nine will also be available as a Windows boxed product at retail on the 21st. The retail version of Knights of the Nine is a compilation that will include all the other Oblivion downloadable content released to date: Horse Armor, The Orrery, Wizard’s Tower, Vile Lair, Thieves Den, Mehrunes’ Razor, and Spell Tomes. Bethesda Softworks will publish and distribute Knights of the Nine at retail directly in North America and through a co-publisher arrangement with Ubisoft in Europe.

“We’re pleased to bring this new content to Xbox 360 and to Windows gamers who have been so supportive of Oblivion,” said Vlatko Andonov, president of Bethesda Softworks. “To date, the response to our new downloadable content has been terrific – it’s easily the most popular downloadable content on Xbox Live Marketplace for Xbox 360and has been very popular for Windows as well – and we think the opportunity to enjoy an entirely new faction and quests is something our fans will be eager to try.”

Knights of the Nine features an all-new faction and quests for noble characters and answers many of the questions surrounding the Ayleid ruins found throughout Oblivion. Players can join a new faction and found their own order of holy knights – leading them into battle against a sorcerer-king and his demonic minions while exploring massive dungeons and searching for legendary relics – the holy armor and weapons of the Divine Crusader.

Released in March 2006 for the Xbox 360™ videogame and entertainment system from Microsoft and Windows, Oblivion is currently the highest rated game available for the Xbox 360 according to MetaCritic.com and GameRankings.com. The game has won countless awards and accolades to-date including G4’s “Best Game of 2006” and the #1 ranking on PC Gamer’s (UK) list of the top 100 games of all time.

In addition, Bethesda Softworks announced in September that Oblivion will be coming to the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system in North America, and that a version for the PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system is also in development for release next year. The PLAYSTATION®3 system title will contain the Knights of the Nine content.

For more information on Oblivion, Knights of the Nine, or Oblivion downloadable content, visit the official web site www.elderscrolls.com.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Xessive on Tuesday, October 17, 2006, 04:43:53 PM
Well, your wishes have come true ;D
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Tuesday, October 17, 2006, 04:49:41 PM
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How much will it go for; retail boxed version for the PC and all?
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: idolminds on Tuesday, October 17, 2006, 04:58:04 PM
That is a very good question. Currently if you buy all the downloadable content online, its a total of $14. KotN is supposed to be a big quest line and a whole new faction, so it might go for a little more than most.

I'd guess $20 for everything.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Tuesday, October 17, 2006, 05:03:43 PM
Looks like boxed version for PC will go for around $20:
http://pc.ign.com/articles/739/739797p1.html
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Xessive on Tuesday, October 17, 2006, 05:07:33 PM
Idolminds is an educated guesser :P
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: idolminds on Tuesday, October 17, 2006, 05:15:19 PM
Damn I'm good.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Quemaqua on Tuesday, October 17, 2006, 07:03:25 PM
Well, fuck.  Now I feel like a tool for having purchased the online content.  I'm guessing the online version without the extra stuff is cheaper?  It better be.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Pugnate on Tuesday, October 17, 2006, 08:16:06 PM
Well, your wishes have come true ;D

haha
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Xessive on Tuesday, October 17, 2006, 08:30:34 PM
Now, please wish for Oblivion to have a full expansion and for EA to close down.

If those wishes come true, I'll have to make a list for you :P
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: idolminds on Tuesday, October 17, 2006, 11:18:13 PM
You know, I reinstalled Oblivion to kind of "get ready" for this...but the magic is gone for me. My first play through I did damn near every quest except finishing the main storyline, and I really wont feel like doing it all again.

Maybe when  build my new system I'll play again so I can crank the visuals up for a change.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Quemaqua on Tuesday, October 17, 2006, 11:30:52 PM
I really enjoy even going through the same stuff.  Not sure why.  I was the same way with Morrowind, though that was a bit more because the game was more lore-centric.  Oblivion is less so.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Wednesday, October 18, 2006, 01:59:04 PM
Now, please wish for Oblivion to have a full expansion and for EA to close down.
I don't mind EA's games; a lot of them are quality stuff. I just hate their practices.

I just wish they'd stop milking gamers for their games that they make 7 expansion packs for (with a lack of content, in which they could've had 3 expansion packs, instead and made more gamers happy on the "banf for your buck" aspect).

I wish they'd stop w/ the BF 2142 "spyware" and in-game ads. Those got to go.

And I wish they'd stop making yearly sports games, in which they don't change much in the game features and gameplay department -- and worst of all, charge FULL price for them.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Saturday, October 28, 2006, 07:16:29 PM
Wallpapers up for KOTN:
http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=2472

Quote
ES4: Knights of the Nine - Wallpaper @ Official Site
by Dhruin, 08:41:26

Bethsoft has kicked up a Knights of the Nine wallpaper with their latest newsletter, available in 640x480, 1024x768, 1280x768 and 1600x1200 resolutions.

Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Xessive on Saturday, October 28, 2006, 11:13:15 PM
I kinda wish I could blast the graphics quality in the game so that all the characters has that much detail!
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Sunday, October 29, 2006, 06:31:11 AM
I kinda wish I could blast the graphics quality in the game so that all the characters has that much detail!

Oblivion looks great -- and I definitely don't have everything jacked up all the way, either. No real need for framerate killing. I want the game to run great, most importantly -- and still look quite decent while running fine. If I have to sacrifice a few graphical bells and whistles, so be it.

Oblivion is one of the best RPG's ever made. Period.

I can't wait for Knights of the 9.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Saturday, November 04, 2006, 08:41:52 AM
Knights of the 9 interview w/ Pete Hines now. (http://www.killerbetties.com/knights_of_the_nine_pc_xbox_360_qa_pete_hines)
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Quemaqua on Saturday, November 04, 2006, 10:12:36 AM
That seems like a very reasonable price point.  20 bucks for the new quest line and all the other DLC stuff.  Again, it makes me mad because I *own* the DLC stuff already and wouldn't have purchased it if I knew I could just wait for a little set like this, but then again, it's so fucking cheap that it really doesn't piss me off at all.  I haven't made a disk backup of that stuff yet, and if I buy this set, it'll save me the trouble.  So... yeah.  I want to be pissed, but I'm kind of not.  And for the 360... ten bucks for 10 to 20 hours of content doesn't seem bad at all.  Pretty sweet.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Xessive on Saturday, November 04, 2006, 11:04:32 AM
That seems like a very reasonable price point.  20 bucks for the new quest line and all the other DLC stuff.  Again, it makes me mad because I *own* the DLC stuff already and wouldn't have purchased it if I knew I could just wait for a little set like this, but then again, it's so fucking cheap that it really doesn't piss me off at all.  I haven't made a disk backup of that stuff yet, and if I buy this set, it'll save me the trouble.  So... yeah.  I want to be pissed, but I'm kind of not.  And for the 360... ten bucks for 10 to 20 hours of content doesn't seem bad at all.  Pretty sweet.
And so, the wisdom of MysterD's patience has been revealed. :P

It is an amazing deal. I like Bethesda! Just like Bioware (and a few other developers) they seem to work with the gamers and fans in mind.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Quemaqua on Saturday, November 04, 2006, 11:36:28 AM
I agree.  They aren't perfect, but I've always liked them, and I think it comes down to the fact that they really love what they do.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Xessive on Saturday, November 04, 2006, 12:29:02 PM
I agree.  They aren't perfect, but I've always liked them, and I think it comes down to the fact that they really love what they do.
Yeah, and I forgot to mention Blizzard! They seem dedicated to the art game-making. When you love what you do you have the opportunity to be brilliant at it.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Pugnate on Sunday, November 05, 2006, 11:24:40 PM
I'd add Electronic Arts to that list as well.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Quemaqua on Sunday, November 05, 2006, 11:50:03 PM
Har har.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Friday, November 10, 2006, 07:57:38 AM
Knights of the Nine pricing and distribution has been clarified by Pete Hines (http://bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&threadid=72713)

Quote
Knights of the Nine Clarified [November 09, 2006, 9:59 pm ET]

Pete Hines from Bethesda Softworks sends along a clarification on how the Knights of the Nine expansion for Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion will be distributed for those who have already shelled out for the downloadable content it will include, offering an alternative way to get the new campaign. Included in this update was word that the PS3 edition of Oblivion is delayed until Q1 2007. Here's word on Knights of the Nine:


First, I wanted to clarify a couple things on Knights of the Nine. The retail version of Knights of the Nine is a collection (for PC) that includes Knights of the Nine plus all the other DLC released to date. That’s why it’s $19.99.

If you want just Knights of the Nine for PC, you can download it for $9.99 and get just that DLC without the rest of it.

Same on 360…800 points for just Knights of the Nine.

A retail version for 360 isn’t technically feasible at this time. If/when it becomes a possibility we’ll let folks know; it’s certainly something we’d like to offer. Release date for Knights of the Nine is 11/21 for the retail version as well as the 360 version on Xbox Live. It will be available to download for PC (from www.obliviondownloads.com) on 12/4.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Quemaqua on Friday, November 10, 2006, 09:35:46 AM
I'll be paying the extra $10 just to get the disk and stuff.  That doesn't seem all that outrageous to me, and I'm a freaking completist so what choice do I have?  Heh.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360) - UPDATED w/ Info on story
Post by: MysterD on Tuesday, November 14, 2006, 02:52:51 PM
IGN impressions of Knights of the Nine for the PC (http://au.pc.ign.com/articles/745/745711p1.html)

Quote
Oblivion: Knights of the Nine Hands-On
We tangle with Cyrodiil's latest challenge.
by Charles Onyett

US, November 13, 2006 - Since its release last March, anyone who cared about the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has played it to death by now. Bethesda's been regularly rolling out new content to keep things fresh, however, albeit at a price. On December 4, 2006, the biggest expansion yet is scheduled for release. Named Knights of the Nine, the new quest line kicks off in the city of Anvil and sends the player all across Cyrodiil in search of artifacts and pieces of armor. We got a chance to go hands-on with a preview version for PC, and here's what we found so far.
Cool.

Quote
It seems an eldritch evil named Umaril, an Ayleid Sorcerer-King, has started causing trouble again. More specifically, he's responsible for murdering the clergy of Anvil's chapel.
That ain't right!

Quote
After speaking with a rather energetic prophet on the streets of Anvil a questline kicks off sending you to nine shrines across Cyrodiil. Along with the quest you get a map that marks all the shrines' locations. Though fast travel isn't possible, the spots are easy enough to get to even if you're just starting a new game.
Wow -- you can't even fast travel to those locations AFTER you find them???

Oblivion MAKES you find a location once -- then you can fast travel to it.

Quote
The point of all that traveling is to gain favor with the gods of the land so Pelinal Whitestrake, Divine Crusader, will help you out. His aid is required to find the Relics of the Divine Crusader which, according to the insane Anvil prophet, must be acquired in order to beat down Umaril. Once you mutter some prayers at the ninth altar, Pelinal summons you to a misty plain and explains all the specifics. He then marks your map with the location of the first relic, a helmet. Into the dungeons you go.
Cool.

Quote
We bashed our way through with a low level character, encountering a few feeble axe and bow wielding skeletons. It seems this expansion, at least from what we've played so far, functions much like the rest of Oblivion: everything auto-levels with you. Of course with a more powerful character you could likely breeze through much faster with skill ratings or customized spells that rapidly vanquish even the hardiest enemies, but it still seems viable at low levels.
Okay.

Quote
Snagging the helmet opened up the way to the next Relic, a chest piece. This one was located in a church south of the Imperial City. Instead of something like the cavernous or elven ruins we've seen so many times already in Cyrodiil, this church dungeon was different. We arrived at the church's basement to find a cadre of spirit knights waiting to test our mettle. As we descended the steps to their circular stone chamber, what we can only assume was their leader strolled up and basically told us he and his friends were going to kick our ass. It was around this point we stopped playing, but had we continued we would have had to fight about eight ghost knights in successive rounds of one-on-one combat. Our Oblivion battle skills are a little rusty at this point, so we weren't doing so hot.
Cool.

Quote
Aside from the added story and dungeon areas, Knights of the Nine so far gives you one hell of a powerful ability. Successfully visiting all nine shrines unlocks Pilgrim's Grace, which fortifies all your character statistics (agility, personality, speed, strength, etc.) by 10 for 300 seconds. The only down side is it can only be cast once per day.
Niceeeeeeeeee.

Quote
In addition to that power, it seems some new characters will be introduced as well. As we approached the final shrine, we ran into some guy on a horse who was apparently on the same quest we were. After a brief conversation, he says (rather ominously in our opinion) that he might see us again. Is he a friend? The evil doer in disguise? Some idiot who we get to see puncture himself in a spike trap later on? Someone we should have immediately stabbed in the face?
Intriguing.

Quote
As for the new armor set, weaponry, and Auroran enemy types, we'll have to keep playing. Check below for high definition videos and screens of our adventures.
I'll be looking forward to this -- and the extra DLC content coming w/ it, once it is out.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Tuesday, November 21, 2006, 03:14:20 PM
I'll be paying the extra $10 just to get the disk and stuff.  That doesn't seem all that outrageous to me, and I'm a freaking completist so what choice do I have?  Heh.

Que, wait til next week...
It looks like Circuit City next week will have Knights Of The Nine retail expansion for $9.99.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: idolminds on Tuesday, November 21, 2006, 04:26:02 PM
Wow, saw it on a bittorrent site and its just over 1GB in size. Pretty substantial, considering all the other addons were no more than 50MB total. I'm guessing the bulk of that is the new voice acting.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Tuesday, November 21, 2006, 04:30:11 PM
Wow, saw it on a bittorrent site and its just over 1GB in size. Pretty substantial, considering all the other addons were no more than 50MB total. I'm guessing the bulk of that is the new voice acting.
Probably.

Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Xessive on Tuesday, November 21, 2006, 06:00:29 PM
Wow, saw it on a bittorrent site and its just over 1GB in size. Pretty substantial, considering all the other addons were no more than 50MB total. I'm guessing the bulk of that is the new voice acting.
I checked it.. That's all of them plus the patch in 5 different languages. The English alone is about 208 MB (KotN + all the DLC's +  patch v1.1).

Some guy extracted the English only and set up a torrent here (http://www.mininova.org/tor/492371).
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: idolminds on Tuesday, November 21, 2006, 06:08:34 PM
Huh....well how about that....
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Tuesday, November 21, 2006, 06:34:18 PM
Are web-sites going to be reviewing this expansion???

BTW, a bunch of screenies can be found here:
Click here! (http://www.elderscrolls.net/oblivion/kotn.php)

Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Xessive on Tuesday, November 21, 2006, 07:04:49 PM
Man, I haven't played Oblivion in so long!
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Tuesday, November 21, 2006, 07:13:40 PM
Man, I haven't played Oblivion in so long!

Maybe I should some do some Oblivion quests, in the meantime....hehe.

I can't wait to get that expansion next week! :)

$10 for it at CC sounds good to me.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Xessive on Wednesday, November 22, 2006, 10:28:02 AM
Ok here's a little annoying thing I noticed about the Knights of the Nine disc.. Now all the DLC's are in separate installers instead of the zips. So now each and every DLC you install (including KotN) will gunk up the Add/Remove list, which also means that they infest the registry with some more useless data. The disc doesn't even have a proper installation, it auto-opens the drive folder and you have double-click all the components you want. I don't understand why they just didn't put everything into one proper installer with KotN.

As much as I support Bethesda, this is crappy.. Although one thing you can do is just install everything, copy the files to another folder, uninstall everything then copy the files right back. Tedious, but it works.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Wednesday, November 22, 2006, 02:45:07 PM
That is kinda' crummy.

They should have an install file that allows you to install it all at once, if you so choose to do so.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Xessive on Wednesday, November 22, 2006, 07:42:31 PM
Man, I started playing Oblivion again and I'm enjoying it a lot more than the first time! And for some reason it's running even smoother!
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Wednesday, November 22, 2006, 08:44:11 PM
Man, I started playing Oblivion again and I'm enjoying it a lot more than the first time! And for some reason it's running even smoother!

Yeah, it does run better w/ the latest patch.

And performs much better w/ newest vid card drivers; at least w/ my NVidia GF 6600 GT, that is...
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Xessive on Wednesday, November 22, 2006, 10:47:13 PM
Yeah, it does run better w/ the latest patch.

And performs much better w/ newest vid card drivers; at least w/ my NVidia GF 6600 GT, that is...

Well, the patch is the same one from June. The only thing that's been updated since is my video driver. I haven't tweaked the game at all, but it's performing better! Even better than when I tweaked it back in the summer.

I just added some custom hi-res textures, some new character models (Ren's Beauty Pack), and I just built myself a sexy mystic elf chick. I was gonna go with Monk class, but this time I'm gonna make her an Agent; good with stealth, archery, and smooth talking.

Ungh I just remembered how much I hate the Oblivion gates.. They're so tedious! And there are so many treasures and items that are bound to disappear for good when I take the Sigil stone because I can't lug them out. I think this time around I'm gonna get a weight mod.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Quemaqua on Wednesday, November 22, 2006, 10:50:09 PM
Fuck that shit.  If you're going to get everything out of a gate, just plan on making multiple trips.  Either haul your ass back to town and sell what you're carrying before heading back, or just leave the gate and drop everything outside.  It's not like anybody's going to come up and take it.  I don't know why, but weight mods piss me off.  The game already has weight mods -- they're called feather-enchanted shoes, rings, armor, whatever, not to mention the learnable feather spell and strength spell.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to giving this a shot.  Was playing Oblivion again for a while and then stopped when Gears of War came out.  Maybe I'll jump back into it.  Should update my vid drivers, though... been a while.

Oh and X, be careful when removing that beauty pack.  I got rid of it and it caused me some brief problems with savegames that weren't actually using it.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Xessive on Wednesday, November 22, 2006, 11:11:17 PM
You might not believe this, but I have never enchanted anything in Oblivion.. Primarily because I still have no idea how to enchant an item. I focused entirely on physical gameplay the first time. I normally carried a couple of Feather scrolls in case I get encumbered, but this time I think I'm gonna try to actually make good use of enchantments and actually learn a few useful spells like Feather.

The Oblivion gates are just so tedious though.. The first time when I went into the great gate it was awesome! I really loved how different and infernal that domain was. But after doing it about 4 times I was sick of the stupid Oblivion Gates popping up ever-frickin'-where! I did about 22 gates before I got utterly disgusted of them and started ignoring them.

Oh and with the character packs, you always gotta be careful. The first pack I tried was called "Beautiful People" (v2.2), and even though people generally recommend it, it doesn't work well for me. For some reason it disables all the regular hairstyles. Anyway, it added too much for my tastes and purposes so I took it off. I got "Cosmetic Compilation" (v1.22) and that keeps me happy ;D I also added "Danis13 BEAUTY FACES" which basically has enhanced face textures for all races. Smoother too.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Quemaqua on Wednesday, November 22, 2006, 11:36:01 PM
Well, I don't think you're really expected to do 22 gates.  I mean, they're just another random dungeon thing to fiddle with, really, except for those provided in the story segments.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Thursday, November 23, 2006, 06:46:25 AM
Well, I don't think you're really expected to do 22 gates.  I mean, they're just another random dungeon thing to fiddle with, really, except for those provided in the story segments.

Right, Que.

It's not required to do all of the Oblivion gates. I think, just like the Battlefields in Beyond Divinity, they are there and generally randomized as a quick means to try and LEVEL UP your character fast in combat.

There are some main quests involving some Oblivion gates, but those are the Oversized Obliv gates -- and those are actually required.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Xessive on Thursday, November 23, 2006, 07:32:15 AM
Yeah I didn't figure that out until I had closed like 18 of them or so.. Then the main attraction was daedric equipment which sells very nicely. Plus it's in my nature to neutralize any threat. Just knowing that there's something that can attack me hanging out near by is enough for me take it upon myself to eradicate it.

Anyway, for some reason the game is a lot more fun this time around, and a little easier too (I haven't touched the difficulty slider). I haven't died yet.

Oh I added one little plugin that I think makes a lot of sense; "Increased Bow Damage." It makes sense because now I don't have to frickin' pincushion a scamp before it dies! A scamp takes about 4-5 well aimed arrows now, instead 15 or more! My enemies would literally look like porcupines by the time I was done flinging arrows at them. It was ridiculous, and ranged attacks accomplished nothing but provoke the enemies and alert them to my location. Now it's a little more balanced.

EDIT:
You guys might enjoy this plugin: Dwemer Spectacles (http://www.tessource.net/files/file.php?id=5198)
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Quemaqua on Thursday, November 23, 2006, 11:20:15 AM
Yeah, that's a pretty fun plugin, but I don't have much use for it.  And I don't remember ever having that much of a problem with my bow guy.  Were you using poisons?  You may as well not even consider the bow unless you're going to be poisoning your arrows.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Xessive on Thursday, November 23, 2006, 12:15:02 PM
Yeah, that's a pretty fun plugin, but I don't have much use for it.  And I don't remember ever having that much of a problem with my bow guy.  Were you using poisons?  You may as well not even consider the bow unless you're going to be poisoning your arrows.
Yeah, the ranged damage was decent if you added a poison, otherwise it was pretty pathetic. I don't wanna have to use poisons all the time, in combat I need to get some arrow damage in on my opponent before they actually reach me (I switch to melee only when I need to). I generally only use poison when I'm trying for a one-shot kill or conducting an assassination.

I also found the Arrows Rebalanced (http://www.tessource.net/files/file.php?id=3469) plugin, which basically varies the types of arrows a bit and the their speeds (there's also Arrows Rebalanced Mark II (http://www.tessource.net/files/file.php?id=3740), it depends on preference). I think it fine-tunes the archery in Oblivion.

I'm gonna see if I get some goggles and enchant them with Night-Eye, so I can have night vision goggles :P
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Quemaqua on Thursday, November 23, 2006, 12:36:12 PM
Yeah, that's your mistake.  Since poison can be applied to an arrow on the fly (just load your inventory, game is paused while you do it), you can really do a ton of damage ranged if you're using poisons.  A good damage health will take almost anything down quick, even if you switch to melee after and don't have a super strong character.  The exception seems to be magical characters like Atronachs and such.  They seem generally resistant to poisons, which is where my first character had a lot of trouble.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Xessive on Thursday, November 23, 2006, 02:25:55 PM
Yeah, that's your mistake.  Since poison can be applied to an arrow on the fly (just load your inventory, game is paused while you do it), you can really do a ton of damage ranged if you're using poisons.  A good damage health will take almost anything down quick, even if you switch to melee after and don't have a super strong character.  The exception seems to be magical characters like Atronachs and such.  They seem generally resistant to poisons, which is where my first character had a lot of trouble.
I don't know, I usually have some good running space to just shoot and keep moving around them, so they rarely land a hit on me. As soon as my acrobatic skill goes up I'll be able to attack while I jump, so I can do my classic overhead arrow drops  :-[ I am so grateful for the dodge moves too :D Atronachs can be a bitch.. The little Fire atronachs are easy, but the Storm and Ice dudes are tough.

You're right about the poison damage, it can be really helpful. I just wish I could poison a batch of arrows ahead of time though, not just on my next shot. It would have made more sense if each poison vial would work for like 5 arrows or something. That way I can have a set of poison arrows to equip.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Quemaqua on Thursday, November 23, 2006, 03:36:33 PM
That I agree with.  It would have been nice to queue up poisoning a number of arrows at once.

And running around is great until you get stuck in a tight space where you have to fight maybe 4 or 5 Atronachs at once (i.e. if you do some of the main quest stuph after leveling a lot).  Then the usefulness or running around drops like... a lot.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Xessive on Saturday, November 25, 2006, 03:58:06 PM
I love Oblivion ;D And with the new Natural Environments (http://www.tessource.net/files/file.php?id=2536) plugin it looks even sweeter!

There is one tiny thing I'm beginning to dislike though. It's not a big deal at all, it's just a little thing I noticed a while back, but I've only started really paying attention to it recently.. Why do all Elven females sound like Bea Arthur?? It didn't bother at first because I thought it was only certain older female elves (specifically Altmer and Dunmer), but then I started noticing that even the younger Bosmer, Dunmer, and Altmer women have that same voice.

The other voice thing that kinda bugs me is the sudden voice changes of the beggars.. I'll talk to an old beggar hag, and she'll sound like an old hag, but when I ask her something general (i.e. Rumour) her voice will suddenly change to a younger, livelier (kinda sexier) voice! Same thing happens with old male beggars, but their voice changes to a stronger, deeper, richer one.

Their tiny issues, and the game is still amazing regardless.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: idolminds on Saturday, November 25, 2006, 04:38:36 PM
Yeah, I didnt care for the voice acting for exactly that reason. Its impossible to record dialog for ALL those NPCs. I liked that in Morrowind where they all said "Hello" or something simple when you met them. You could record a couple hundred of those easily and make people seem like they have unique voices.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Quemaqua on Saturday, November 25, 2006, 05:06:27 PM
Except they didn't.  Morrowind had the exact same voice actors as they do for Oblivion, and none of them sounded any different.  The only difference here is a few of the "race voices" are now switched (i.e. the Norn male/female actors will sometimes do an Orc voice... not sure if there are others that moonlight as other people).  Anyway... that never bothered me.  The beggar voices do, though.  That was a sad oversight.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: idolminds on Saturday, November 25, 2006, 05:36:02 PM
I know...I just wish they did. Morrowind "Hello/Greetings/whatever" in a ton of different voices, then the rest just text would be fine by me.

Its like....all the characters in Zelda have a unique voice *in your own head*. If they only had like 5 voice actors that spoke everything it would suck.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Quemaqua on Saturday, November 25, 2006, 06:31:57 PM
Well I agree, voice acting isn't all that important to me.  I'd rather see the budget spent on a ton more writers writing a ton more unique dialogue, but whatever.  That ain't the way the world works.  I still think the voice acting is pretty damn good and we're pretty lucky on the whole.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Xessive on Saturday, November 25, 2006, 07:39:52 PM
Yeah, all-in-all they did a great job on Oblivion. It was just some minor things that they overlooked. Though I really wish the Elven women didn't all sound like frickin' Bea Arthur! I like Bea, but her voice (or its likes) is not my idea of sexy. On the bright side, at least they don't all sound like Marge Simpson or her sisters.

I suspect the push for "everything is spoken" was promoted from the Xbox 360 development or fanbase. I can imagine the console argument being "a game that's all text? That sucks! I wanna play not read a novel! That's why I bought a 360!"

Personally I agree with you guys, I wouldn't have minded at all if the speech was all just text with no voices. Although having the voices shows off the lip sync too ;D

EDIT:
I forgot to add that a group of dedicated players/modders went ahead and made the Unofficial Oblivion Patch (http://). It's got quite a barrel of fixes and enhancements!
Quote
This mod is a joint effort to fix the vast amount of bugs currently existing in Oblivion v1.1.511, fixing over 600 bugs so far! If you're experiencing a bug with Oblivion and it's not fixed by our mod please by all means report the bug to us in as much detail as possible so we can try fix it! Also if you find any: levitating trees or rocks, see-through or fall-through walls\objects or other stuff out of place, please let either of us know. To get the exact location, use the console commands sdt 0 and then tdt; please note the Cell (not PC Cell) and Pos values and indicate what's out of place. You can use tdt again to toggle the debug display off. Thank you and we hope you have a better Oblivion experience!

And here's IGN's Hands-On (http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/745/745711p1.html) preview of Knights of the Nine.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Wednesday, November 29, 2006, 05:51:53 PM
I bought this -- thank you CC for your flyer w/ it for $10 (price matching!) and the Best Buy bonus $1 coupon; hehe.

Xessive, yuh -- the install is at least fast, thank God. Clicking on every one of those zips/exe's is annoying. Would've been nice to have had the option to have one BIG EXE to install EVERYTHING!

Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Monday, December 04, 2006, 02:36:31 PM
A- from Gameplay Monthly (Online) for KOTN (http://www.gameplaymonthly.com/reviews/oblivion-kotn.php)
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Monday, December 04, 2006, 08:19:17 PM
8.3 from GameSpot for ES4: Knights of the Nine (PC) (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/theelderscrolls4knightsofthenine/review.html?page=1&sid=6162682&part=rss&tag=gs_pc&subj=6162682)
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Pugnate on Monday, December 04, 2006, 10:53:58 PM
Quote
The other voice thing that kinda bugs me is the sudden voice changes of the beggars.. I'll talk to an old beggar hag, and she'll sound like an old hag, but when I ask her something general (i.e. Rumour) her voice will suddenly change to a younger, livelier (kinda sexier) voice! Same thing happens with old male beggars, but their voice changes to a stronger, deeper, richer one.

Hahahahahah....

Well, while I agree with Que that money can be better spent on dialogue  I don't think it would take a whole lot to get some consistency. The things Xessive mentioned are 'take you out of the game' moments.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Quemaqua on Tuesday, January 09, 2007, 02:33:44 AM
So I purchased and beat this, and I have to say it was worth every penny.  It's got a couple of very minor bugs, like a one piece of dialogue that didn't have an associated sound and one piece of dialogue that had an extra word and bit of silence at the end of it that obviously wasn't supposed to be included.  Also, the music in the training area of the priory is dungeony music... which doesn't seem entirely out of character when you first explore it, but it never changes even when  it gets fixed and inhabited.  Lastly, the priory shrine in the chapel doesn't seem to work and always tells me to repent my wicked deeds, despite the fact that I have no bounty on my head.  I can't 100% confirm this as a bug, but I'm pretty sure I got blessings from other shrines just fine.  Still, that's pretty much a non-issue anyway.  For the most part, everything worked great!  Quests were all really fun, and a few were surprisingly deep, those making up for a few that were a bit too simple.  It's got a nice little story to go with it, some people to get to know, and by the end of it you've been all over the place, seen some unique stuff, and fought some cool bad guys.  I really couldn't say how many hours it was, being that I didn't play it straight through (I can't do anything straight through in this game... I'm easily distracted), but I do know that I didn't fully explore the one really big dungeon that's included (there are a couple, but I'm talking about the most significantly sized one).  Difficulty was about standard, though there were definitely some tough parts that took me by surprise.  Some nasty zombie mobs in one spot that were really hard to kill, and a couple other places where you've got the potential to get gangraped by a large number of mobs at once.

So yeah... anybody that's been holding off, don't bother.  It's really great.  I'd say go for the retail package and get all the other stuff, too.  I really don't care how pissy people have been about all this, but the downloadable content mods thus far have all been really great.  For twenty bucks with the retail package you're getting an awful lot of small stuff that just makes the game nicer.  It's certainly far from necessary, but I had fun exploring all the new stuff and playing with the new toys.  And I'm surprised at how well the game has stayed balanced.  I still feel like I'm very much earning all my rewards, and there's still plenty of challenge.

I'd give Knights of the Nine an A-, or thereabouts.  High 80s, whatever.  Retail package is a little bit slapped together install-wise, but the content is good stuff.  Small stuff, but nice.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Tuesday, January 09, 2007, 03:34:03 PM
I really do need to play this.

I bought it when it first came out -- for $10 on sale and installed it a bit ago, but that is all I have done w/ it!

Yuh, all of the separate installs was annoying, but still simple enough.

But, yeah -- NWN2, GW: Nightfall, and Dark Messiah side-tracked me from KOTN.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Wednesday, February 07, 2007, 08:16:33 PM
Well, I got back into Oblivion.

Basically, I been playing this KOTN retail expansion, which comes w/ all the current DLC stuff included! :)

Mehrunes' Razor (DLC)
(click to show/hide)

KOTN:
(click to show/hide)

That is pretty much it, so far.

Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Quemaqua on Wednesday, February 07, 2007, 11:17:45 PM
Good stuff.  I haven't done Mehrunes' Razor yet.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: beo on Wednesday, February 07, 2007, 11:29:23 PM
i just downloaded (legally!) kotn. considering the retail expansion costs £15 ($30) here, and the download version was only $10/£5, it seemed like the way to go. even if i choose to buy the other bits (i'll probably pick up mehrune's razor), it's a hell of a lot cheaper than retail.

haven't gotten that far in yet, just doing the pilgrimage - but so far, so good. i'm guessing it will pick up a bit after i've got past this section.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Xessive on Thursday, February 08, 2007, 05:00:01 AM
Oh yeah, I thought the pilgrimage was a little tedious and boring but necessary :P It gets much better from there.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Saturday, February 10, 2007, 05:52:52 PM
Since I done some wandering in Oblivion, I decided to run all over the world and whatnot.

I'm pretty much wandering the world just finding locations (namely to add another place to jump to on the map) and working on my skills to level up and all, hoping to run into any of those shrines for The Pilgrimage KOTN Quest.

I've already found 3 of them.

I been enjoying this a lot. :)

I like running around, hoping to find areas and stuff. That was pretty much the FIRST thing I did in Morrowind -- just to travel the area and find quests and stuff to level my character up, while doing main quest stuff here and there. :)

I do wish you could add mapmakers to the World and Local Map, since those shrines DON'T wind up adding themselves to the map AFTER you find them and all.

Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Saturday, March 03, 2007, 07:24:33 PM
My KOTN Progress....
(click to show/hide)


Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Xessive on Sunday, March 04, 2007, 07:12:36 AM
My KOTN Progress....
(click to show/hide)



Sweet. I'm glad you're enjoying it :)

I just formatted my system and reinstalled Oblivion, and it's running even better :P I started from scratch and this time just for the fun of it I'm playing as a Wood Elf Acrobat. The first thing I noticed is that I always seem to be looking up at everyone! I know that Bosmer are slightly shorter in stature, but I'm about a head shorter than the female Bosmer as well! Meh, still fun. Makes me an even more stealthy acrobatic ninja elf!
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Sunday, March 04, 2007, 07:19:49 AM
I tried the other quest, where you have to, I guess, walk across the air and grab the Mace -- but I keep fallin'.

hehe.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Xessive on Sunday, March 04, 2007, 07:23:14 AM
I tried the other quest, where you have to, I guess, walk across the air and grab the Mace -- but I keep fallin'.

hehe.

Haha I did it from the first try :P
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Sunday, March 04, 2007, 07:23:42 AM
Haha I did it from the first try :P

:(

How the hell did you do it, dammit? :P

EDIT 1:
C'mon, X -- did you use the "force" or something? :P

EDIT 2:
I even tried jumping across w/ the "feather" effect; that didn't seem to work, either.
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: Xessive on Sunday, March 04, 2007, 09:07:41 AM
:(

How the hell did you do it, dammit? :P

EDIT 1:
C'mon, X -- did you use the "force" or something? :P

EDIT 2:
I even tried jumping across w/ the "feather" effect; that didn't seem to work, either.

Hehe sort of :P

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Sunday, March 04, 2007, 03:11:48 PM
MyD's KOTN Progress
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Oblivion: Knights of the Nine announced (PC/360)
Post by: MysterD on Sunday, March 04, 2007, 08:05:29 PM
I defeated Umareil.
Ahuh, this was a pretty good expansion. :)

I'm ready for what's next, which would be Shivering Isles.