Elder Scrolls: Oblivion?

[madnak]

Is there a multiplayer component on the 360? I was under the impression the game was 100% single-player.

[New001]

I'm fairly certain the Live component is for upgrades only, not gaming.

[RiverFenix]

Yeah I just looked on their website and there is no multiplayer gaming aspect. Nevermind

[Prodigy54321]

anyone with the PC verson know why it would crash everytime I click return in the VIDEO options screen??? WTF!!

anyone else having this problem?

[RiverFenix]

Just picked this up yesterday and have logged about 12 hours so far. Its incredible so far and this type of game isnt usually my style.

Some general questions since ive never played this series before.
Currently I am a level 7 breton who is just going to save Martin now - Ive done 1-2 sidequests so far and have gone into every fort/ruin I have found so far.
-Since i am mainly a spellcaster I have some general questions about that. Should I be trying to get into the Mages guild asap? I have my apprenticeship and I have the recommendation from Adrianne(sp?). Also do I have to buy all my spells? It seems like these are something that I should be able to find in books or have people teach me for free.
-Did people go back into the imperial city? it seems like people are doing very different sidequests than I am.
-What is the best way to get gold? I am 1-2 levels shy of becoming a better alchemist and im assuming I can start selling my potions then because right now they are useless to me. If im ever in a dungeon and I find good equipment I cant use ill carry it with me and try to sell it to shopkeepers, is this a good idea?
-What are these gems i am picking up? What is the soul gem magic ability and should I spend the gold on getting it?
-Does becoming better at speechcraft get me anything other than lower prices? Perhaps juicier rumors too...?
-How often should I be stealing...? I stole one torch and that has been it so far. Can people give some additional info about stealing from past games?

[goofyballer]

[ QUOTE ]
-Since i am mainly a spellcaster I have some general questions about that. Should I be trying to get into the Mages guild asap? I have my apprenticeship and I have the recommendation from Adrianne(sp?). Also do I have to buy all my spells? It seems like these are something that I should be able to find in books or have people teach me for free.
-Did people go back into the imperial city? it seems like people are doing very different sidequests than I am.
-What is the best way to get gold? I am 1-2 levels shy of becoming a better alchemist and im assuming I can start selling my potions then because right now they are useless to me. If im ever in a dungeon and I find good equipment I cant use ill carry it with me and try to sell it to shopkeepers, is this a good idea?
-What are these gems i am picking up? What is the soul gem magic ability and should I spend the gold on getting it?
-Does becoming better at speechcraft get me anything other than lower prices? Perhaps juicier rumors too...?
-How often should I be stealing...? I stole one torch and that has been it so far. Can people give some additional info about stealing from past games?

[/ QUOTE ]

- YES. Keep doing recommendations and get high enough in the Mage's guild (you have to get to the Arcane University in the Imperial City after getting all recommendations) to get your mage's staff - before I got some pimp swords, that was my ultimate weapon of destruction.
- Side quests: They're all over the place, not just in Imperial City. Generally you get them by walking around towns and asking people about rumors; they often open up new conversation topics that lead to quests.
- Gold: Find crap in ruins to sell to shopkeepers. The higher level you are, the better crap you find, hence the more gold you can sell it for. Money is tight for awhile at the lower levels...once I got to around level 20 it was no longer an issue, I have around 60k plus a house with thousands more in equipment lying around.
- Soul gems = AWESOME OMG LEARN NOW. How they work: Cast Soul Trap on someone you're about to kill, when they're almost dead. If you kill them while the Soul Trap is still active, and you have an empty soul gem in your inventory, their "soul energy" or whatever gets put in that soul gem. You then use soul gems to enchant items in the Mage's Guild later on or to recharge enchanted weapons you have that run out of charge (like the mage's staff you need to get). The size of the soul gem is the maximum sized soul it can hold; rat = petty soul gem, Spider Daedra = greater soul gem, Xivilai (sp?) = grand soul gem. If you find Azura's Star, your life will be 20x easier; it's a Grand Soul Gem that, unlike regular soul gems, will not disappear when you use it to recharge something. Later in the main quest, at a certain temple, Martin will have a desk of books in front of him, and one of those books will have some information that will help lead you to Azura's Star.
- Speechcraft: The speechcraft 'game' is so ridiculously easy that you really don't need to worry too much about developing it. You can tell if someone's withholding information from you because they don't like you enough when a topic stays highlighted after you select it.
- I'm not sure what you're asking about stealing...don't get caught? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
Just picked this up yesterday and have logged about 12 hours so far. Its incredible so far and this type of game isnt usually my style.

Some general questions since ive never played this series before.
Currently I am a level 7 breton who is just going to save Martin now - Ive done 1-2 sidequests so far and have gone into every fort/ruin I have found so far.
-Since i am mainly a spellcaster I have some general questions about that. Should I be trying to get into the Mages guild asap? I have my apprenticeship and I have the recommendation from Adrianne(sp?). Also do I have to buy all my spells? It seems like these are something that I should be able to find in books or have people teach me for free.

[/ QUOTE ]

You should make this a priority. You can make your own spells fairly cheaply when you have all the recommendation, you get some decent rewards (including a couple spells) from mage guild quests, and when you finish the mage guild storyline you get a ton of stuff including a magical chest that will generate alchemical ingredients for you.

[ QUOTE ]
-Did people go back into the imperial city? it seems like people are doing very different sidequests than I am.

[/ QUOTE ]

There's some good stuff in the Imperial City. It's a decent hub. The house there is also very cheap. There are about 5 quests in the game that start in dungeons or the wilderness (other than daedric artifact quests). Almost all quests do start in cities, so if you're looking for them you should talk to people instead of raiding dungeons.

[ QUOTE ]
-What is the best way to get gold? I am 1-2 levels shy of becoming a better alchemist and im assuming I can start selling my potions then because right now they are useless to me. If im ever in a dungeon and I find good equipment I cant use ill carry it with me and try to sell it to shopkeepers, is this a good idea?

[/ QUOTE ]

The best way depends on your level and skills. For me, I make up to 10,000 gold for each bandit I kill. That's the benefit of high levels, they all wear enchanted daedric armor and stuff. At level 7 potions have a good return on investment, and alchemy is pretty easy to level up. You can go out and find all kinds of ingredients in the wild. Bandits are okay too, they will almost always respawn and you can sell their weapons/armor. Some quests have hefty gold rewards (but not that hefty). If you're good at stealing it can be okay. And Oblivion gates might be a wise idea, I think "the punished" provide good treasures for low-level players.

[ QUOTE ]
-What are these gems i am picking up? What is the soul gem magic ability and should I spend the gold on getting it?

[/ QUOTE ]

Soul gems allow you to create and recharge magic items, plain and simple. Magic items can make the game much easier at low levels. To put a soul in a gem, cast a soul trap spell(from the mysticism school) on a monster and then kill the monster while the effect lasts. North of Cheydinhal is a shrine to Azura, where you can get the Azura's Star which is a re-usable soul gem (excellent artifact). Also, you can soul trap people if you like but you'll need a black soul gem in order to do so. There's not much reason to soul trap people.

[ QUOTE ]
-Does becoming better at speechcraft get me anything other than lower prices? Perhaps juicier rumors too...?

[/ QUOTE ]

Speechcraft only improves disposition. Disposition has two effects - it helps you haggle and it causes some NPCs to reveal information they otherwise wouldn't. This information is usually related to a particular quest. You'll know it when you see it because the topic won't turn gray when you choose it - that means you need a higher disposition to get more information from the topic. All in all it's not a very useful skill. It seems that everyone who has special conversation topics can be bribed up in disposition, or you can use a spell such as "fortify personality 100 points for 5 seconds on self" to raise your disposition by 50 points automatically.

[ QUOTE ]
-How often should I be stealing...? I stole one torch and that has been it so far. Can people give some additional info about stealing from past games?

[/ QUOTE ]

Stealing is, unfortunately, not very profitable and hard to pull off. Most valuable items are stored in pockets outside the game world, while items that appear valuable are usually just "replicas" with a value of 0. The odds and ends that can typically be stolen are worth 3-5 gold each. Even if you find something worth selling, very few people will buy stolen goods. I'm not sure anyone outside the thieve's guild will, in fact. Once you join the guild you will have access to fences, starting with Ongar in Bruma. Mostly it's not worth it, though.

If you do plan to steal things, you might want to get the skeleton key for working on your security skill. You can get it from Nocturnal, northeast of Leyawiin. It will prevent your lockpicks from breaking.