They are vastly different games with vastly different goals (while Fallout was fairly non-linear, it wasn’t nearly as open ended as TES games have their goal as). Can’t judge based on Oblivion.
You feel that Oblivion was more non-linear than the Fallout games?
I guess I should clarify that the reason I am worried is because in interviews with Bethesda re: Fallout 3 the developers have said that they’re going to go with what they know:
“You could make some fairly safe leaps of faith that it would be similar in style. We’re not going to go away from what it is that we do best. We’re not going to suddenly do a top-down isometric Baldur’s Gate-style game, because that’s not what we do well.”
Obviously.
I saw that as saying the game will be in 3d. Though it may also indicate that there won’t be turn based combat in this one… which would be a loss.
Really? I couldn’t disagree more. Oblivion seems non-linear because you can travel anywhere in the world from the very beginning, and do any quest you choose. But I find that illusionary. Virtually all of the guilds have a single path of quests to follow, and those quests must usually be solved in more-or-less the same way (do I kill the NPC with my sword, magic, or do I backstab him?). If I play through Oblivion a 2nd time, the order I do things will likely be different, but what I actually do is going to be pretty much the same in the end. I can’t choose to turn the Gray Fox in to the guards or side with the Daedra, for example. In comparison, when playing through the Fallout series its branching quests and multiple dialog options tailored to my characters skills and attributes means I can have wildly different playing experiences. That just seems more “truly” non-linear to me.
I consider true non-linearity to be able to go anywhere and start any quest at any time. In Fallout you had areas that were just too difficult for a early game character. It forced you into certain areas. Oblivion (and Morrowind) allows you to say screw the main quest and play 100 hours and have nothing to do with Tiber Septim’s heir if you choose not to. You don’t really have that freedom with Fallout or Fallout 2.
I would call that open-ended with a linear main plot, but it is really a semantic argument to be made about how to refer to two great games.
True… but then again, I’d also say that the main plot really doesn’t matter in Oblivion ;). It’s just another quest… just a larger, more fleshed out one :D.
Well in the original Daggerfall, there was a quick travel, but travel times were much longer (it could take weeks to traverse the world), and the time factor actually had a big impact on gameplay. In Oblivion you can get from one side of the world to the other in the same day with or without a horse, and the passage of days doesn’t have much consequence anyway.
Also, they should stick with the “only quick travel to places you’ve been before” rule with the cities too, forcing you at least to “discover” each new city/town on your own.
Daggerfall also had teleportation and beacon spells at the Mage’s Guild, and you had to work your way up to be able to use them - so it was a nice privilege that made me feel special. 
I’ve been playing around with the CS the last few days. I’m trying to learn how to make quests. It’s not very intuitive for someone inexperienced in modding, but it’s still one of the easier modding tools I’ve played around with. I’m not sure how long it’ll hold my interest, but I should at least be able to finish the one simple quest I started with.
I’ve created a pure mage character (all 6 magic skills and light armor… I’d have taken unarmored if it was a category, but since it wasn’t, I figured I should at least have some degree of protection)
The advancement for my character is pretty gimped. Since willpower is possibly the most important stat, and I have all 3 willpower skills (alteration, destruction, restoration) as primaries, in order to get a +5 bonus, I’d need to level up only on those three skills. Any time I level up my other primary skills takes away from my willpower attribute bonus. I’m deciding whether or not to recreate the character, replacing alteration with something else, to be able to build up my int and willpower through alchemy and alteration as secondary skills.
By the way, conjuration levels up really fast. Like alchemy. I haven’t even been summoning equipment, just creatures, and I got it from 35 to 55 by level 4.
The summoning equipment thing is awkward. Summoning it one piece at a time is time consuming and awkward, especially with only 8 total hotkeys. I think they probably should’ve broken it up into summoning entire armor sets, the quaity of the sets getting better as you go up in level and get better spells.
So I can’t really recommend either conjuration or alchemy as a major skill - they might level you up prematurely. On the other hand, if you don’t have them as a primary, you’re basically guaranteed a +5 bonus to intelligence every time you level just by using them casually because they advance so fast.
I’m not trying to min/max, but I want my secondary characters to at least not be totally gimped in levelling, so I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do to make a mage.
Maybe restoration, destruction, mysticism, illusion, light armor… and… and… block, maybe? hide behind a shield while mana recharges? blade, for daggers… not sure.
For those of you playing stealthy type characters you MUST join the dark brotherhood. Its like a completely different game, much better than the main game. Never in a game before ive been given a quest thats made me go “shit i dont think i can go through with that”, i had to turn off the game and come back a few hours later just to get through one of the missions.
The dark brotherhood quests are fun. But like the rest of the game, they basically tell you exactly what to do, to the point of giving you a pointer. There’s no real challenge in figuring out how to accomplish your mission, you just do exactly what they tell you.
They could’ve made this really, really great if they’d have made it more unclear, made you figure things out on your own, rather than leading you by those nose through each quest.
Oh i wasn’t talking about the difficulty, none of the quests so far have been very difficult. What i meant was, and im going to try not to spoil anything here, the mission where they throw a twist at you actually make me feel kinda shitty while i was doing it. I dont know if you’ve gone through all their missions yet but if you havent i highly recomend it.
Senor, had they done that, there would have been just as many cries, and posts all over message boards, that the missions were too hard and too vague and how was anybody ever supposed to figure them out? I bought an RPG not a puzzle game!
Personally, I don’t like puzzles in my games. I’ll do the paper’s Cryptoquote for my puzzle needs. I don’t want my advancement in an RPG to hinge on that. Hell, I can’t even be bothered to pick locks here.
Ahhh, I’m a dumbass.
I must’ve quickedsaved my game the other night, and then instead of loading the last save, created a new character (which I then used quicksave with). Lost several hours of play since my last autosave (lots of outdoor time). grrr.
Be careful on autosaves too. They happen quite often. I’ve learned my lesson. Now I always save before leaving…and if I crash, I start back up and save.
I’m so envious of you all! Sounds like you’re having fun with it.
I got a nice surprise: the new computer I ordered is arriving much earlier than estimated…and right on my birthday! I can’t wait for Weds. Will I be disciplined and transfer all my programs and files first, or download Oblivion and dive right in? Hmmm.
Has anyone else gotten their new machines yet? I wanna hear happy camper stories.