The Demo Site

A brief guide to The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
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Introduction:

Like other games in the Elder Scrolls series, Oblivion is a
pretty open game, at least it is once you get out of the initial
dungeon you're in. You can follow the main quest, join a faction,
or just wander around the landscape as you please. Naturally
you're going to run into a few monsters, but by and large the
game automatically adjusts the types of monsters you encounter to
correspond to how much experience your character has, so you do
at least have a fighting chance of survival. Oh, and there are no
cliff-racers. Thank god.

In The Beginning/Character Generation:

The first level of the game, set in the dungeon where you're
imprisoned, is pretty easy to beat, essentially being a tutorial
level. It is, unfortunately, unskippable. Mainly because this is
where you choose your character's attributes and skills. You get
to choose your character's race, star sign, class and so forth.
You can also create a custom class if you like, though selecting
a certain class doesn't mean you're stuck with using a certain
set of skills. A warrior can still use magic, it's just going to
be harder for him or her to learn and make progress in than a
mage style character. If you're just getting into the game,
Spellsword is a good character to start with since you get a
decent balance of magic and bottom-kicking skills.

Skills/Levelling Up:

Each character has a number of primary skills, the actual skills
you get depending up on the choices you make during the first
level of the game. To level up you have to advance these skills
individually, till the bar on your skill status screen is all
red. To advance skills you have to use them. Block, for example,
will go up a tiny bit whenever you manage to stop an opponent
smacking you in the face. Destruction, on the other hand, will
advance when you use a magic spell from that school. Once you've
advanced your skills enough, the game will tell you you should
rest and meditate. Just using the 'wait' option won't work,
though. You have to actually find a bed, either in an inn or
somewhere else, and sleep. Then you'll be given three points to
spend on your character's attributes such as endurance, luck and
so forth, all of which are fairly self explanatory.

Equipment:

You can get your hands on a whole variety of weapons and items.
Some can be bought from shops, while others can be found on the
bodies of your fallen foes. It's always worth seeing just what an
opponent's carrying - the higher the level you are, the cooler
the equipment they'll be carrying is. Don't bother grabbing
everything a enemy has, since you have a limited carrying
capacity (though if you want to haul loads of stuff you can buy a
feather potion). It's usually worth taking half-decent weapons,
since if your weapon becomes unusuable you can just dump your old
one and use the one you picked up instead of repairing it. And
lockpicks are both light and useful so always grab them. But only
take really heavy stuff if it's worth a fair amount of money or
if you're using it to replace one of your own items.

Enemies/Fighting:

If you've got some half-decent combat skills then you'll want to
get up close and personal with your foes. Honorable combat
involves blocking your opponent's strikes, then hitting back with
your weapon. Unhonourable combat involves running around the
opponent circle strafing, killing them by taking nary a hit.
Circle strafing, for those who don't know the term, means you
keep your vision focused on the opponent, but move around them
always facing them. The AI can't seem to cope with rapid movement
like this and so you can hit them before they can turn around to
face you. Easy peasy.
Long ranged combat, on the other hand, is a bit more tricky. You
can try hitting your opponents with a magic spell or arrow for as
much damage as you can, but they'll pretty much wise up and start
coming after you so backpedalling fast is the order of the day.
Fire off all your spells, run around till your spell energy
recharges, and then fire again. Unfortunately, running away isn't
always an option, at least against human opponents, since they'll
follow you through doors and into the outside world.
You'll end up fighting against a variety of foes ranging from
rats all the way up to extra-dimensional creatures. Some fire
projectiles and should be dealt with up close. The higher level
you are, the more powerful the creatures you face become. Which
is mildly disappointing since you're unlikely to get the shock of
finding yourself completely out of your depth. Be wary if you end
up fighting anyone who uses their bare hands. While they may not
do as much physical damage as someone with a sword, every hit
will drain your fatigue bar - if it gets completely drained,
you'll fall to the floor, giving them the chance to lay into you
repeatedly.

Getting Around/Lay of the land:

You can wander around the whole of the game's lands on foot,
though it'll take you a long time. Even on a horse - which can be
purchased or acquired at various stables - it'll take you quite a
few hours to cross the map. Instead, the game employs a fast
travel system. Any location you've been to already can be visited
immediately, as long as you're outdoors and not being attacked by
an enemy. The catch is that you have to have been to the location
and seen it with your own eyes. Just having it marked on your map
isn't enough. So if you want to get to a particular dungeon, you
can fast travel to a nearby location you've been to already and
then walk or ride to the dungeon, at which point you can fast
travel to it later if need be.
The one exception to the fast travel rule is the game's cities.
There are about five cities which can be visited at any time.
There are also a number of smaller villages scattered around the
land, but they aren't on the map so you'll have to discover them
for yourself. Feel free to explore any of the dungeons you come
across - don't worry about accidentally killing anyone important
to a quest since the games designers have

Quests and Factions

While the characters in Oblivion are a little more interesting
than those in Morrowind, a great proportion of the quests in
Morrowind are pretty dull, entailing finding a particular
character, going down to a dungeon to get an item for them,
bringing it back to them and so forth, including the main
storyline quests. Not that you need to follow the main storyline,
of course, you can get quests by talking to various people, or
you can join up with the Mages Guild, the Fighters Guild, the
Thieves Guild or the Assasins Guild (known as the Dark
Brotherhood). The first two organisations have offices in each
town so you can just wander in and ask about joining. The latter
two, on the other hand, are more secretive and you'll be only
invited to join if you spend time in prison for stealing an item
or murder someone, respectively.
The Thieves Guild quests involve, unsurprisingly enough,
stealing items from various locations via the gift of stealth -
see below for more details, which is certainly more entertaining
than wandering around dungeons. However, the Dark Brotherhood
quests are even better than that - you get to assassinate a
number of people, and there's even one superb task in which
you're locked in a house with six other people who must all be
dispatched, without anyone discovering that you're the murderer.
Classic.
None of the standard quests are likely to present you with any
real difficulty. The only ones you might get a bit lost on are
the Oblivion gate quests where you have to shut down a gate to
another dimension. If you do, just try backtracking, remembering
that the item you'll likely need to make your way back and forth
between several towers, moving ever upwards as you go till you're
at your goal. And if you can't find a quest item in a dungeon,
make sure you're in the right dungeon - just because someone says
a dungeon is north-west of a particular location, it doesn't mean
that the first dungeon you come across is the right one. Always
check the name of the dungeon against the name recorded in your
quest log.

Sneaking and Stealing

The stealth system in Oblivion isn't quite as complex as that
found in Thief, but it works reasonably well. Put yourself in
sneak mode - on the 360 you click down the left thumb stick - and
you'll see an eye appear. Try to stay in the shadows and if the
eye is dimmer than usual you probably won't be seen. You can also
backstab enemies if you're sneaking, causing them more damage
than if you faced them head on. Sneak mode is also used when
you're looking to steal an item from a store, house or person.
You'll know straight away if you've got away with stealing an
item from a person or an open shop since they'll scream blue
murder if they notice you. However, it's less obvious in shops
and houses, at least if they're closed.
If a shop or house is closed, use a lockpick to break in - you
have to push the tumblers up till they stay still for just a
second, then hit the 'A' button or the PC equivalent, then repeat
for the other tumblers. The higher your lockpick skill, the
longer the tumblers will stay up and the easier it'll be. Once
you're inside a building you can steal to your heart's content.
It's best to stay in sneak mode to maximize your chances of
getting caught. The one catch, apart from getting nicked, that
is, is that you can't steal the goods the shopkeeper offers to
sell you. For some reason, the goods to be found on a
shopkeeper's shelves don't correspond with those in his sales
inventory, so some goods you'll just have to buy.


Stealing/Crime and Punishment.

If you steal, you may well get caught. Not least because even if
you've been quiet as a mouse, there's still the chance that a
guard will burst into a house you're robbing, even if you weren't
seen entering. I'm not sure why this happens, but it's a cause
for concern because if you're caught then you can either fight,
go to jail, or pay a fine. Going to jail means you'll lose some
points off your statistics. Fighting means every guard in that
town will now try to kill you. And paying a fine means parting
with some of your hard earned cash, though if you're with the
Thieves Guild, you can pay half of the fine to them and they'll
clear the bounty on your head.


The Children of the Night/Diseases

You may at some point get infected with a disease of some kind,
or have a spell cast on you which will lower your stats. These
can be dealt with by praying at a temple. Of course, there's one
infection you may not want to get rid of, which is vampirism.
This disease, called 'poryphiric haemophilia' by the game will
give your stats a boost when you first get it, and can be caught
by fighting a vampire, or by speaking to the vampire in the Dark
Brotherhood's sanctuary, and will result in you being turned
after three days. If you're a vampire you don't need to feed to
survive. In fact, the longer you go without feeding, the more
powerful you become and the more cool vampire powers you get. The
catch is, as you move further towards becoming an ubervamp, you
gain a vulnerability to sunlight and will also be shunned by most
characters. Your vamp strength maxes out on the fourth day that
passes without you feeding. If you feed - which you can do by
standing near a sleeping character and picking 'feed' - you lose
most of your vampire bonuses, but you are now no longer shunned
by the populace of the world.

Handy Hints - That's pretty much all for now, but here are a few
last handy hints to help you on your way.

If you want to defeat the champion of the Imperial Arena with
ease, do the quest he offers you and he'll let you kill him with
no resistance.

You can steal from shops without getting caught by going upstairs
during opening hours, and waiting till the shopkeeper comes to
see what you're up to. Then charge downstairs before he can
follow and grab some items off the counter. You can do this as
many times as you want.

Remember, to level up, you need to sleep in a bed, just waiting
around won't do.

If you're a vampire and want to feed on someone without having to
break into a house, find one of the sleeping beggars at night and
then feed on them. They don't die, so you can repeat the pattern
whenever you need another meal.