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Oblivion's Missing Physics Acceleration
Posted by
Zonk
on Mon Apr 17, 2006 12:46 PM
from the sour-apples dept.
from the sour-apples dept.
An anonymous reader writes "An article on GamesFirst discusses how much better Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion would be if it supported true physics acceleration. From the article: 'Oblivion lacks Casual Physics, and the result is a splendidly beautiful world that still requires a blind eye in order to buy into the environment...' How would Oblivion be different if there were more than just Rag-Doll physics, if bad guys reacted to the swing of your sword, or if mist realistically moved around you as you walked."
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Living In Oblivion 296 comments
The Elder Scrolls series is well known among PC gamers as the high water mark for an open-ended RPG experience. The series, set in the world of Tamriel, has a staggering breadth and depth thanks to the exacting standards of the team at Bethesda Softworks. The newest title in the line brings Tamriel to life in a manner that is renewing the faith of even the most jaded CRPG player. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion may not be the perfect game for everyone. For those willing to give it a shot, Oblivion treats gamers with a level of respect that is unique, uplifting, and (hopefully) inspirational for game developers in all genres. Read on for my impressions of a truly unique game.
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"Lacking" isn't the right term. (Score:5, Informative)
Casual physics can actually subtract from a game, because it prevents you from making the obligitory tradeoffs between realism and fun. You don't wany full realism in a fantasy setting, quite honestly. If you're not going to use them though, please, pay attention to balance and details. It's that lack of attention to detail that makes the physics stand out in Oblivion. Stand out in a bad way, that is.
As an aside, this guy says that Oblivion is close to perfect in visual presentation. I'd disagree. It's great, and shaders are nifty and all, but... Well, let's just say that more notes being played doesn't mean it's a better symphony. Use discression with the shaders, guys. Just because you can is no reason for you to make every single thing shiny.
Also, all the Oblivion fanboys out there can hold off on flaming me. I'm totally addicted to the game, and I think it's great. It's OK to see negatives in something. Just because you spent $60 doesn't mean you'll be less of a man if let somebody give honest criticism.
Re:"Lacking" isn't the right term. (Score:2)
Re:"Lacking" isn't the right term. (Score:3, Informative)
It's changed, just changed for the worse. There were no object interactions in Morrowind (you couldn't move things around in the game world while the game wasn't paused), so most of this stuff is actually new. Enemies going flying in Morrowind was non-existant compared to Oblivion. If you shot, let's say a Cliff Racer, it fell straight down. When you shoot a flying enemy in Oblivion, it flys back and to o
Re:"Lacking" isn't the right term. (Score:2)
Floated straight down seems a better description.
Re:"Lacking" isn't the right term. (Score:2)
Re:"Lacking" isn't the right term. (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it really more fun when it takes 30 sword slashes to cut down an opponent in an RPG? Is it more fun when you hack a guy 15 times in the face with a dagger, then stab him and the knee and he dies? Is it fun when you block a swinging mace with your wooden bow and you don't even get knocked backward? Or how you can carry 349 of 350 pounds, and then pick up a coin and be completely immobilized?
Yes, many of these are gameplay mechanics that can be fixed without buying a $250 PCI card, but they are also elements that accelerated physics could really spruce up. Just because Oblivion in particular is a good game, doesn't mean it wouldn't be better if the world were more believable.
Parent
Re:"Lacking" isn't the right term. (Score:3, Interesting)
The most common example is "stacking stuff" and breaking the 'freaking scripting. You've got a bad guy, you've got a castle. You are to go into this castle after the bad guy has revealed himself to have a climactic battle with his accountant. So instead of playing along with the game, the player stacks up a bunch of ra
Re:"Lacking" isn't the right term. (Score:3, Interesting)
History is on my side. Problems frequently move back and forth between hardware and software as complexity of processors and processes increase in a cyclic pattern, but after time the processes end up staying put based on simple clasification. Processes with low IO ra
requirements change? (Score:2, Insightful)
How about if.... (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe... (Score:2)
Does physics really add that much to an RPG? (Score:5, Insightful)
Except for some of the silly physics (like being able to run the horse along a steep cliff without falling), I don't think Oblivion would gain much from being super-real-istic. I don't play Oblivion because I'm interested in real-world physics.
Re:Does physics really add that much to an RPG? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, you p
Re:Does physics really add that much to an RPG? (Score:2)
Re:Does physics really add that much to an RPG? (Score:3, Insightful)
But the game is immersive. The *story* is immersive, to be specific: you actually can enjoy the interactions of the characters and your choices do make a difference.
Meanwhile, making the "game world" a FPS with a physics engine is no guarantee of immersion. The story can still be poorly written and artificial stupidity can ruin the experience.
People who think that high en
Re:Does physics really add that much to an RPG? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's ludicrous. The statement should read: "The more realistic the fantasy world, the more of a real world it becomes."
If Oblivion's engine was realistic, then there would be no point in locks or lockpicking as I'm sure a fireball could set any door on fire and windows could be broken to crawl into any area. Also, item prices would change as supply and demand affect the worldwide economy. And you know what else?
There'd be no fucking monsters made out of ice cubes or perky, nubile spider-women who can shoot lightning.
I think the word you're looking for is not "realism" but "consistency" which has nothing to do with the physics engine and everything to do with how that engine (no matter how realistic or fantastic) is applied to everything. BUT... in video games, as in movies, you need to have something called suspension of disbelief. Otherwise, if I decided to just keep walking east, I wouldn't hit a magic force field that says, "You can't walk over there." Otherwise, I'd be wondering... where exactly are all the kids in Cyrodiil?
Personally, I prefer being able to walk up to a group of guards and hit them with a sword to send them flying like so many Agent Smiths. For every moment I have where I say, "Oh, that's stupid, why can't I carry this candle across the room" I have another one where I jump off the side of a cliff and get a one-shot kill mid-air on some bandit 80 feet below me, then land on the ground and eviscerate his companions while I simultaneously pick flowers. That is what Oblivion is about.
As far as the original submission, they asked: "How would Oblivion be different if there were more than just Rag-Doll physics, if bad guys reacted to the swing of your sword, or if mist realistically moved around you as you walked?"
I wouldn't care. It's already a fun game. This is what saddens me about the tech demos I'm seeing lately: "Look, the car falls apart realistically!" While that gets me to geek out for a few minutes I wonder if so much effort will be put into gameplay.
One look at the current quality of the average game and I think I have my answer to that question.
Parent
Re:Does physics really add that much to an RPG? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think all 'graphics vs. gameplay' arguments are typically wrong in their assumptions about how games are made and sold.
The fallacy of the 'lets do less of x and more of y' is that x is typically very well defined and achievable with a limited budget and schedule with the proper people and tools, sub
Re:Does physics really add that much to an RPG? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the tradeoff I'm talking about here is system specs. Oblivion is a good game, immersive, fun. It was a good game back when it was called Morrowind and ran on computers that would be laughable by today's standards.
Now, I'm not saying they should have kept the graphics the same in Oblivion. But I'm saying they could have and if the rest of the game is solid, that wouldn't make it a not-fun game. Since systems have gotten better, then they can choose to improve the graphics and thats great. But the sort of casual physics they're talking about in that article isn't something that could realistically be done on modern systems. I was even surprised that the physics in Oblivion could be done until I realized that they had an on-off switch for it, so stationary objects weren't simulated. Meaning they had to do at most a couple dozen nodes at once - not a big deal.
Or, to put it another way. I can make a game that solves compressible Navier-Stokes to derive the weather patterns so that the player can influence the weather via the butterfly effect. Or I can stick in a random distribution. If its free, I might as well do the former. But it isn't, so if I want anyone to be able to play my game, I choose to do the latter which is almost as good. Putting in by hand swirling smoke gives you something which takes you as a developer more time to do, but the benefit is that the computational difficulty drops and you have spare cycles to do even more interesting stuff. I'd rather have my cycles used for a really clever AI, or even an evolving world, than simulating the grass. And since I have a finite computational power, thats a choice that must eventually be made.
Parent
Re:Does physics really add that much to an RPG? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Does physics really add that much to an RPG? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Does physics really add that much to an RPG? (Score:4, Interesting)
You should download BTMod [beider.org], it makes life much more pleasant for PC players of Oblivion. It gives you larger maps and inventory/spell screens, works great.
I haven't had any problem with the voices (maybe because I'm not a native speaker), but one thing that ruins immersion for me is the way opponents level. I understand why, it makes balancing much easier and keeps the game challenging and fun througout. But it takes some of the tension out of exploring - you know you will always be able to take out anything you bump into when you enter a cave, you will never accidentally stumble into the dread lair of the dead God while you are at level one. So neither do you get the sense of accomplishment of levelling your character and coming back later for some "who is the tough guy NOW, eh?".
It also constantly makes me wonder at later levels, if a group of bandits all have legendary elven weapons and magical armor, why don't they sell it and buy a luxury house with servants to take care of them the rest of their lives, instead of lurking in a cold and dank sewer all day waiting for a passerby to rob for scraps?? I'm considering downloading the mod that makes high level weapons and armor much more rare.
Still, amazing game though. The radiant AI is a bit wonky sometimes, but you occassionally get some really jaw-dropping stuff. For instance, when I killed one bandit his magic sword fell clattering down a mine, and another bandit dropped her lousy iron knife, picked up his sword and ran at me!
And all the great books...
Parent
Physics Realism? Pfft. There're bigger problems. (Score:5, Insightful)
You can steal a horse in one town and ride it to the furthest town away that you can get to, and everyone will know that it's not your horse. You can pick up an alchemy book to read it with no one in the room and put it back down when finished only to be accosted as soon as you open the door. If you kill a guard in an alleyway, every single guard in town will come straight for you to kill you.
Until the game gets social realism down, a few odd-looking collisions means nothing for my immersion.
Re:Physics Realism? Pfft. There're bigger problems (Score:4, Informative)
Here is one among many: http://www.oblivionsource.com/ [oblivionsource.com]
If you can't find a mod for it, mod it yourself and let everyone else enjoy it!
Parent
Re:Physics Realism? Pfft. There're bigger problems (Score:2)
There will be great mods for Oblivion. Almost none of them are ready yet though.
Re:Physics Realism? Pfft. There're bigger problems (Score:3, Insightful)
If you can't find a mod for it, mod it yourself and let everyone else enjoy it!
What if I want to play a game, rather than write and exchange mods?
Re:Physics Realism? Pfft. There're bigger problems (Score:2)
Re:Physics Realism? Pfft. There're bigger problems (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Physics Realism? Pfft. There're bigger problems (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Physics Realism? Pfft. There're bigger problems (Score:5, Informative)
If you're getting caught stealing in Oblivion, you're doing something wrong. Use sneak mode and make sure nobody sees you taking stuff. If nobody sees it happen, you get no bounty. If you have no bounty, guards won't try to arrest you. Sure, you still can't sell stuff to normal shops, but it's easy to join the Thieves' Guild to get access to fences (you have to advance in the guild to get access to better fences).
In all, I like Oblivion's theft implementation a little bit better. Sure, I have to seek out a fence to sell my stuff, but at least I know exactly what stuff is stolen and I don't have to keep track of who I stole it from. In Morrowind, the same "Stolen Property" flag was there, but hidden. If you didn't keep good track of what you stole and kept, you could find yourself weaponless or armorless if you ever got caught by a guard (because they took all of your stolen merchandise, just like in Oblivion). More importantly, if you stole an item from a shopkeeper, you could never sell that type of item to them again (whether it was the same item you stole from them or not). Even worse than that, some NPCs would even refuse you service if you ever stole from them (most notably enchanters, where they would refuse to enchant items for you if you stole from them -- whether you were caught or not).
Is it realistic that guards know exactly what you've stolen at all times, even if it was something you stole many game-months before? No. Does it hurt gameplay? Not really. Not nearly as much as it did in Morrowind.
Parent
Re:Physics Realism? Pfft. There're bigger problems (Score:2)
As for the "stolen" flag itself, a merchant should be able to recognize his own goods, and then figure out the rest. How
Re:Physics Realism? Pfft. There're bigger problems (Score:4, Funny)
Of course they know. They check the license plate and the bumper sticker - it's pretty obvious.
Parent
Re:Physics Realism? Pfft. There're bigger problems (Score:2)
Just wait for Crysis. (Score:2)
waste of time (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow...who cares about Oblivion (Score:3, Insightful)
Kvatch is burning (Score:2)
Re:Kvatch is burning (Score:2)
There you go adventurer; resume disbelief and on your way!
Obviously... (Score:2)
Smells like a press release (Score:5, Interesting)
'smells like a press release to me. Nobody has an AGIA physics accelerator card yet. That's like saying the game would be better on a blue-ray disk. I wholeheartedly hope that physics acceleration will become a more standard piece of gaming kit at some time in the future, but nobody has one yet.
The success of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion makes it the perfect example of what's missing from our current conception of next generation games... Oblivion lacks Casual Physics, and the result is a splendidly beautiful world that still requires a blind eye in order to buy into the environment.
Or maybe the success of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion shows that Casual Physics are not necessary for a great game.
Re:Smells like a press release (Score:2)
Not the only realism problem... (Score:4, Funny)
Easy, actually. (Score:5, Funny)
2. Ignite said hands.
3. ????
4. Profit!
Parent
Re:Easy, actually. (Score:3, Funny)
The tricky part is getting the fire off your hands and somewhere else. :)
Too realistic means unplayable (Score:3, Insightful)
Just insisting that swords actually hit a vulnerable point with enough force to cause damage makes play too hard. Guns, yes; we can do guns. (Basic problem of video games: players can shoot well and move adequately; little else can be done well through a game pad or keyboard.)
We know how to do much better game physics. What we're actually getting, though, is mediocre physics for everything in the environment. Which is all Ageia delivers; it's not better, you can just use it on more objects at the same time.
Question: If we had a first-person combat game that took two real joysticks to play, and considerable practice to learn, but let you do real martial arts, would you play it?
Yes (Score:4, Insightful)
GPL for those who don't know is a very though historic formule 1 game that focusses on realism. It was so realistic that it took fans a lot of time to realise that all the setups of the cars had been done wrong. Modern F1 games are made to ride as low to the ground because of airodynamics BUT the F1 cars in the era simulated do not even have wings.
So while all the players tried to get the cars as low as possible they were in fact making the cars impossible to handle. The cars instead needed lots of clearance in able to fully use their shocks to get around corners.
GPL is harder then most driving games as you need to special controls of being able to break and accelerate at the same time. So the usual joystick setup of only one axis for both just isn't good enough.
GPL is also a game in wich you shouldn't mind loosing. You probably just won't be good enough to beat the AI drivers. Then again the thrill of coming 10th in that game is infinitly greater then coming first in lesser race sims.
So I would like to play a game with more realistic combat, not to realistic offcourse (just as I can pause GPL for a bathroom break and don't actually have to fit enough to handle a high performance car) but giving me a real challenge in actually having to do some fighting and not just push a button.
I liked Oni. While not realistic you could at least use all your different moves to great effect. Far better then the regular hit or block. Still love that move where you ran to the side of badguy then swung around his neck kicking his companions in the face before snapping his neck.
But why can't we have both? GPL has lots of helper functions wich if all turned on make the game a lot easier. No fun, but a lot easier.
In fact all the really though sims do this.
Morrowind in fact had three different attack moves. Probably considered to complex for console players but there is no reason it couldn't have been an option in Oblivion.
So yes, I would buy such a game and I think I am not alone. True for every Operation FlashPoint fan there are plenty of gamers who could not handle the fact that bullets arc BUT that can be a selling point as well.
To me Oblivion is a nice game, just as soon as I got the instant kill mod because the current fighting get to bloody boring. Especially those damn gates. Endless non roleplaying level with boring enemies dropped around the place. Yawn.
Parent
Hey, hey, wait a minute! (Score:2)
Sure, new solutions are appearing to more accurately reflect "accurate" physics, but the developers still have to cater for the large masses, not design for today's cutting edge graphics cards only. This game is bad enough as it is already. I have no doubt that if Betheshda could've made assumptions that most of the gamer community would have graphics cards supporting the real-time near physics accelerati
If you want a real physics model (Score:4, Insightful)
Meanwhile, um, Oblivion is a magical fantasy-based role playing game. I can't speak for anyone else, but I play games like that because they're NOT perfect models of reality. When I want reality, I turn off the computer and take a walk with my dog.
Asshole physics engine (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Frustration (Score:2)
My problem went away after a while. Not sure what I did, but apparently, clearing the cache might do the trick. Hold down A (or was it the XBOX button?) during start-up. Either that, or re-boot a couple of times.
Either way, my lock-up problems are gone. Hope you have the same luck.
Yes you do. (Score:2)