Pete Hines, VP of Public Relations, took the helm and decided to answer another set of questions regarding not only Oblivion, but Bethesda as a whole. We'll go ahead and make a fantastic list.
- Shivering Isles isn't a standalone game because they want you to keep the character you've worked so hard on... they want you to be able to trek back and forth between the main game and the expansion with that character.
- Bethesda is sticking to the first-person view of their RPGs and think JRPGs are all the same, too linear, etc. Obviously, they haven't played that many JRPGs or they probably wouldn't say that. For the most part, it's true, but there are some amazing non-linear titles from Japan. The Romancing SaGa games are fantastic non-linear JRPGs.
- There is a slight desire to create an MMO, but only if Bethesda can find a way to move the genre as a whole forward. They've been very focused on single-player interaction, making the world alive and not so "get this quest to get the items certain monsters may drop but probably won't so you can get an item to activate another quest to get more items that, in the end, amount to you accomplishing nothing at all." That's me quoting myself, not Pete Hines.
- About the PS3 and 360 versions, now Hines says this: "Sometimes folks see stuff there that's real, and oftentimes it's imagined. The PS3 and 360 versions are for all intents and purposes identical." What? Stop flip-flopping.
- Last but not least, Pete Hines says that "right now there are no plans internally for us to do anything other than role-playing."
Bethesda is going to go with those answers and we're gonna take them. But if he said before that the PS3 had some differences to the 360 version and now he says they're the same... which is true? Why the doublespeak, Mr. Public Relations? If they're the exact same, that's perfectly fine – just say so and stick to it. Anyone else want to offer up non-linear JRPGs also?
_thumbnail.jpg "Red Baron Arcade")
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-20-2007 @ 4:23PM
Bangbang... said...
The VP of public relations doesnt know anything, and will say what ever it takes to sell his product. That's his job.
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2-20-2007 @ 4:28PM
jay said...
valkyrie profile is pretty "non-linear," whatever that means. That is becoming one of those buzzwords i'm beginning to get fed up with. I know he doesn't explicitly say "non-linear" is better, but that is becoming the general belief. I dunno, i tend to like my stories with a beginning, middle, and end. I have a hard time seeing what's wrong with that. Don't get me wrong, I do like to have choice in my games, but I feel like this word "non-linear" is a getting a bit too much play and is a bit overrated. With that said, I'm still excited about Oblivion
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2-20-2007 @ 6:30PM
aragorn said...
Maybe the whole 'jrpgs are linear' thing is overstated, but on a whole, that's a critisism that can be leveled at nearly every genre out there, not just rpgs.
anyway, i am glad to hear that bethesda is gonna stick with the rpgs, cuz honestly... that's all they're good at. Call of Cthulhu was just a pain to play, and Star Trek Legacy just had so many problems (side note: like myself, nearly every fan-review of the game mentions that they got the game only for the defiant... just like me).
I'm also glad that they're not diving into the MMO ground. it's treacherous, as it's a major undertaking, with long development times, and a potentially limited insallment base, and two many companies dive right in, cuz it's cool in concept.
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2-20-2007 @ 8:22PM
Azorean said...
#1 if that was the case he would have said that the PS3 is more powerful right?Since they already sold all they are going to sell on the 360 at regular price why not try to appeal more to the PS3 crowd maybe it's because they don't want to be known as liars.
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2-20-2007 @ 11:19PM
Bangbang... said...
Azorean:
He did say that the ps3 version was superior
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/762/762882p1.html
-From IGN:
According to Hines, the shader functionality that would re-render the low-res textures would inevitably make its way to the 360 build and PC in future updates. However, certain optimizations that take advantage of the system's hardware will remain exclusive to the PS3 version of the game.
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2-21-2007 @ 3:39AM
Tom said...
I think a more fitting term would be "open-ended", not "non-linear". It took me about 40 hours to finish the main quest in Oblivion. I still go back to it from time to time, to explore new dungeons and improve my abilities. The game apparently boasts hundreds of hours of play time to finish everything, but with the main quest done there's just nothing driving me to keep playing. I think the game should have been demanded more from me. For instance, if I had to spend 80 hours raiding dungeons in order to acquire the skills and weapons needed to close the Great Gate at the end, then I might still be playing it.
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