I spotted this link on digg - a multiplayer mod for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, called MultiTES4. At the moment it’s extremely basic: “2 people running around Cyrodiil”. While its never likely to develop into anything to rival World of Warcraft, it is an interesting project - something I always wanted for Daggerfall and Morrowind.
Slashdot’s coverage of the Oblivion saga continues. Some lawyer named Jack reckons that “the game content will spawn ‘an even worse disaster’ than occurred during Hot Coffee”.
Just to recap on Grand Theft Auto’s mod, Hot Coffee - from Wikipedia:
When installed, it unlocks a hidden part of the game which involves having sex (featuring oral sex with an “invisible” penis and dry humping) with the main character’s girlfriend to try to improve the relationship between the two.
The Oblivion mod, on the otherhand, unlocks this:
Does anyone think that is worse than GTA’s Hot Coffee mod? I think that Jack Thompson preys on the cluelessness of American parents in order to make a name for himself. This Oblivion issue has been blown way out of proportion, but Jack Thompson wants people to believe that World War III has started and he is the only guy who can save us from the enemy. Jack: this is not going to make you a guest on Oprah. Silence you furry fool. You’re finished here, you understand?
The DaVinci Code hype has gone beyond a joke.
I went to see American Dreamz yesterday, the American Idol parody. Such an easy target, but this was a weak effort. The early rounds of the real American Idol are infinitely more funny (see William Hung). However, Hugh Grant is no longer the most annoying guy on Earth, he’s actually not too bad (please don’t kill me).
From ClanBase - news of a major security flaw in the six year old Quake 3 engine:
Today, on milw0rm.com, a hacker nicknamed Landser has released a hack that exploits a serious leak in games based on the Quake 3 Engine. It grants hackers full access to take over your computer.
Technically, the leak creates a unsuspicious “boundary error” when sending malformed messages from the gameserver to a client during the remapShader process. Once a buffer overflow occurs, the computer is fully exposed to any type of activities.
This also affects Enemy Territory, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and any other games running the Quake 3 engine. The patch is out, but PunkBuster anti-cheat program is slowing things down, so you if you plan on playing league games this week, don’t upgrade just yet.
In other news, the Swedish Quake legend Blue is back dueling in the Eurocup after five years absence. Will be interesting to see how he does in Quake 4
Soccer - Ireland’s squad was announced for the training camp in Portugal and upcoming friendly vs Chile. Great to see Steve Staunton building a team for the future, with many young faces in the side including the 17 year old Terry Dixon from Spurs. A big surprise to me was the inclusion of Shelbourne’s Jason Byrne. In the past, I have always campaigned for the managers to look to the Eircom League, and in particular to the likes of Jason Byrne, when we had no options (other than David Connolly) up front.
However, at the moment our strikers are better than I can ever remember, with Robbie Keane in flying form at Spurs, Stephen Elliot looking very lively for Ireland last season, and Kevin Doyle named Fan’s Player of the Year at Reading, making the team of the championship, and spawning a 58-page thread of appreciation on the Royal’s forum in the process. Thats not to mention Clinton, who has often done well for us.
Since Jayo’s inclusion is obviously just a token, why not give Georgie a few minutes to dazzle the palta-eaters over in Chile? 
Still, at least theres good news for one Cork City player, as Denis Behan has been called up into the U-21 side to play Azerbaijan.
I’m getting tired of all this talk of tech-savvy militants leading al Qaeda’s cyber-terrorism department. Perhaps there is a room full of Islamic extremist hacker nerds somewhere preparing their weekly status report for Osama, but if that is the case, then I seriously doubt that they are focusing their activities on modifying computer games, as Yahoo suggests.
The makers of combat video games have unwittingly become part of a global propaganda campaign by Islamic militants to exhort Muslim youths to take up arms against the United States, officials said on Thursday.
Here is the shocking truth: whenever a new game is released, a number (directly proportional to the popularity of the game) of buck-toothed, short-sighted computer gamers immediately knuckle to down to the business of modding. From Barney Deathmatch Classic to Zombie Horror - sometimes its for the fame, sometimes to provide something valuable to the community, sometimes as a learning experience, sometimes its just for a laugh, but please find me the kid who thinks his mod is going to contribute to the destruction of the Western World, I would like to interview him for my book.
The ESRB would also do well to take note. Bethesda Softworks, the makers of the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, have been battling since the game got its rating bumped up to M for Mature last week due to a third party modification which created topless characters. Slashdot have been covering it for a few days now, and they point out that the ruling has required Bethesda to pull all of the current stock of the game to relabel.
John Romero blames the modders, for “financially screwing the company they should be helping” - which is possibly the stupidest thing I have heard since “Islamic militants are using video games to train recruits and condition youth to attack U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq”.
Don’t be ridiculous, it will never get old! Anyone who plays Oblivion should enjoy this one.
Like so many important events, a new Elder Scrolls chapter only comes along once every four years. When I bought Daggerfall in 1998, I spent every moment thinking of it. I was lucky that my brother kicked me off every two hours so he could have his turn, otherwise I would not have eaten or slept that summer.
I never looked forward to a game as much as I looked forward to Morrowind in 2002, and it delivered. Although my addiction could not compare to the affliction of 1998, the game was 10/10 for me. Hard to believe that it was four years ago. I had similarly high hopes for Oblivion. 93% in PC Gamer beat all of the high profile Christmas releases. Extremely positive reviews all-round, even from those who were not impressed by its predecessor. Here are my thoughts, and for a game of this significance, I will start with the cellophane wrapper.
The Packaging:
Bland design, recycled from Morrowind / Bloodmoon but without the impact. Gimmicky “collectors edition” contains a dull poster map (a poor imitation of the highly useful and aesthetically pleasing map that Morrowind offered), an uninteresting “guide to the empire” (Daggerfall’s well written and presented masterpiece is rolling in its grave), a bonus DVD which I will never watch, and one gold coin with some lame mottos on it. Not a good start, and but these things are superficial anyway.
On the box it says Minimum Requirements: Windows XP. Just like AOE3, they have decided to ignore the w2k faithful for absolutely no reason. Incidentally, it has been announced that the PC version of Halo 2 will only run on Windows Vista. This in itself is not a problem, since Halo 2 will probably be as bad a game as its predecessor, but apparently Microsoft are trying to ensure that a number of other upcoming releases will also run exclusively on Windows Vista. I hope that there are no important games sucked in by this tactic… aside from decimating their potential market, the lack of hardware support and general teething problems that are always present in a new OS could damage the launch of any game that is restricted to this platform.
First Impressions:
Surprise: it actually works perfectly in win2k. I wonder how many win2k users opted not to buy it because of the alleged lack of support? Another pleasant surprise: it detected my optimal settings as “Ultra-high quality” (AMD 4000+, 7800gt). The intro consists of the traditional monologue of Uriel Septim, who has aged a bit since the Daggerfall days, and now speaks just like Patrick Stewart. I think I spotted a Star Trek “to boldly go where no man has gone before” tribute in there. Using a big name like Patrick Stewart for a little task like character voice acting shows how far the Elder Scrolls and Bethesda Softworks have come since the days of the primitive (albeit ahead of its time) Arena, and that shockingly bad bowling game. The character creation has evolved nicely; the extensive ability to customise every facial feature would make any plastic surgeon jealous.
The game starts in a dungeon. I don’t know why these games always start with you escaping from your prison cell. For maximum impact, you need a small coastal village, in close proximity to a city, with trees and inns and blacksmiths, and perhaps some light entertainment.
Emerging from the dungeon… something is wrong… its too quiet. It took me a minute to realise the void was caused by the lack of “LFM BRD NEED TAHNK NO NEBWS!” / “wtB 10 leather plz”. Strangely enough, I missed it. I wanted a gnome to go “choo choo” while a female night elf danced on top of a bar. I wanted to gank some horde. Instead, I trundled through the silent wilderness, nothing but the dull echo of my footsteps to keep me company. Stopped off at the capital city… felt too much like boring Vivec, so I left. Stopped by Odiil farm and robbed all their carrots. Nobody at home, so I robbed their house too. I cried silently to myself, and then resumed my lonely journey.
The less you wear, the faster you move. This means I’m naked at all times, but nobody even notices.
The AI:
I didn’t know what to think when I saw a Khajit bandit fighting a wolf. Should I help him? I decided that I should, and I killed the wolf. The Khajit thanked me with his axe.
The AI has progressed well. People go in and out of buildings, go hunting, help you fight, follow you upstairs if they think you’re going to rob them, shout at you for barging into their house. Your influence on an NPC can change the course of his life.
You will observe conversations along the lines of:
Man: Hello
Elf: Good to see you
Man: I heard Gweryne Selvilo loves cheese.
Elf: He does love cheese, and sheep too.
Man: Yes, Gweryne Selvilo loves cheese and sheep.
Elf: Goodbye
Man: See you
Yes, its often repetitive, sometimes silly, but a step in the right direction. Will be interesting to see how this evolves between now and Elder Scrolls V.
The Graphics:
When I finally did escape the boring dungeon, I was not blown away by the graphics. WoW has me spoiled. But Oblivion’s strength really shows when you come face to face with the characters. Look at these realistic faces:
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I think I went to school with the guy on the right.
Some Good Things:
Some Bad Things:
Some Advice:
Second Impressions:
I’m thoroughly immersed in the game now. I’m in the fighters guild, and in the mages guild, and the story has advanced a bit. Thankfully there haven’t been any totally stupid essential quests like “find a tiny cube in a huge dungeon”. Despite all the advancements, it feels like Morrowind Part II to me. Advancing in all the guilds is nothing new; I’ve done it before twice. Even the storyline is treading very familiar ground. The game is enjoyable, and I will play it to the finish, but I can’t help feel that maybe I have grown out of this genre 
Rating:
Overrated, too familiar, but still very good overall: 8/10
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