Anyone seen any screenshots for this? It looks so damn sexy. Plus Sean Bean and Patrick Stewart do some of the voices.

I saw earlier today a series of videos where the designers played through and did some commentry on sections of the game. The physics looks excellent, and the graphics were jaw dropping. Part of the video was a walk through the computer generated forest, not placed by the artists and designed but actually randomised to be different every time you start again.

One of the bits I liked was when it explained about how your class is determined by what you do, your stats are increased by what you use for example. If you hide in the shadows and shoot then you're obviously going to be more sneaky and develop rogue like skills, all rather than pick and click that I am used to.

I'm not much of a gamer, but when this comes out in Chrimbo I'm getting it.

If you like the sound of Oblivion you should probably pick up Morrowind too. It's the prequel to Oblivion. It's a few years old so the graphics arn't so good but it uses the same system, it's in the same world, and it has the same wide open landscape. You can go around and do anything you want in it at any time, it's not linear like Final Fantasy.

Yeah, I'm excited about it too. Realistic terrain? Forests? Not to mention the AI that will be used, all the NPC's have their own personality.

Should be worth picking up. If my PC will run it.

I'm planning on adding some new stuff to my PC, most notably a graphics card that can handle it.

In the video (each character has their own personality bit reminded me) they had a clip of an NPC and showed her off. She could drink potions, fire arrows to practice, she fed her dog then sat down to read a book and the dog came up and bugged her. She shooed it away then tried to sleep and the dog woke her up so she cast a spell at it and incinerated her own pet. I nearly fell in love.

Morrowind with decent graphics? Spiffy!

Its not exactly a prequel; they just happen to be set in the same world. But still, I agree that it rocks and everyone should own it.

Well prequel in that the story of the world continues on from it. You have a different character, but the events that happenned in Morrowind will probably be mentioned in Oblivion. It's good to play to have a general knowledge of the world at least, even if it's just a snap-shot from Vvardenfel.

Still it's a game where you get to beat up... 4? Yeah, I think 4 gods. That's not to be sneezed at.

I have Morrowind and will probably finally be able to install it over Thanksgiving break. Everyone I've mentioned it to has said that they heard it was good or liked it when they pkayed it but that they wished for better graphics. I've been busy and my computer has been misbehaving, but I've been meaning to play for a while. If I like Morrowind I'll pick up Oblivion, I suppose. Beating up gods is always good for my self-esteem.

Yeah the faces and the NPC models are a bit poor... but you can download new ones. Have a look for player-made replacements through google, it will make the game MUCH more enjoyable.

I've heard that player-made modules and designs are fun, so I'm planning on downloading some just as soon as I get it installed and figure out what I want to mess with. I usually play as a fighter type. Mages tend to fall over if you poke them too hard. Ditto for a lot of the other classes. They make great backup characters, but it's fun to hack your enemies into tiny bits with a tremendous sword, and you need a fighter to really work with that.

Oh, I don't know, mages can be pants to start off with, but if you look after them fanatically they soon beef up to become wandering engines of mass destruction.

I tend to like to play as a fighter, simply because being surprized is less dangerous. Yes, in a stand up fight at a higher level the mage will win, but if a mage is surprized, it can be much more dangerous. A fighter might be hurt, a mage might be killed. Unless, of course, the mage can summon up some tanks, then they can be nearly unstoppable.

I find that if mages are surprised, they tend to initiate Kill Everything Mode, in which they fire off their most powerful spells at anything moving.

Mages can be fun once they're strong and know dangerous spells, but they're such a pain in the arse to keep alive for that long. Mages also run out of spells very quickly when they're starting out. Fighters never run out of arm strength to swing thier sword out and try to decapitate things. (Unless there's spells or funky undead monsters involved. No nitpicking.) Besides, when mages fire all their powerful spells at one time they tend not to have any left for later. It's always fun to beat up tired mages who have cast all their spells.

Well the great thing about the Elder Scrolls is that you can be a mage AND a fighter. Want to chop up monsties with a huge axe? Why not! Got bored of that? Teleport behind them and fry them with lightning! In the Elder Scrolls games your character can be equally skilled in EVERYTHING if you put enough time into it.

But yeah, I'm usually a warrior. Makes things much more straight-forward so you can concentrate on the storyline.