Oblivion Elder Scrolls IV

[Isiolia]

It's sort of a different style but at least in my opinion they share a lot of similarities where I think oblivion is better. There's an actually map and world to explore with 20x the content as NWN and there is a lot more freedom. In NWN2 you are extremely limited in what you can and can't do, something I think is awesome about oblivion.

They're not that similar at all.

I suppose if you were coming from JRPGs the "make your own character/morality" might be considered as such, but NWN is designed for a campaign type adventure. A single story. The included campaign is an example of what can be done. You want more stuff to do? Make it yourself, or download one of the many fan-made campaigns. Part of what NWN/NWN2 are is the ability to make your own campaigns and run them for multiple players.

So no, you're not going to find the world-roaming, sandbox type approach that Oblivion has. The official campaigns is a more linear game that you can make choices in, much like the games based off of NWN...Jade Empire, KoTOR, and by extension, Mass Effect. It's in the same style as prior DnD games as well. If you've played Baldur's Gate games, Icewind Dale games, etc...similar in freedom, style, etc.
But the main thing with NWN even compared to those is the ability to make and/or run your own games. To use the game as a way to play DnD with friends. That, to me, is pretty far from what Oblivion tries to do.

I'm not trying to say that NWN's approach is necessarily -better-, but that the two games are only similar insofar as that they're both RPGs.

I haven't noticed any performance issues on the PS3, not sure if it's different than the PC. It lags every now and then but it's just a spike that goes away as fast as it arrived.

Performance isn't so much the thing for me. The game runs fine on my system. It's more that 90% of the time, quitting the game will hard-lock my machine. Of course, opening a door in the game might do the same thing. Or hitting quicksave. Or it might just lock up when walking around. Who knows.
Will save games actually load? Hard to say. I make sure to save in multiple slots because I had to restart the game at least once already due to a corrupted save that would lock up when I tried to load it.

Most PC games are not nearly that craptacular. I mean, I've had trouble with some before. I stopped playing KoTOR 2 because somehow I got stuck with debug menus instead of the conversation options that'd progress the game...but Oblivion takes the cake for lack of stability for me.

[orinthia]

Yeah, vanilla ob vampirism blows. I'm sure there's some mods that let vampirism work better... Try wearing a fully covering helm, might be able to work that way but you'd have to wait until night every time to do something if it even works... (feed so it's less apparent maybe?) I'd go here and do a search or make a topic for ps3 issues/solutions.

The random crashes could be something to do with antivirus doing scans on everything as they're accessed. I know some of them are that intrusive and should just be snoozed or disabled during play. Other then that... can't really say. It just is pretty unstable as far as most pc games are, right up there with morrowind ; ;...

[Kaelan]

I haven't noticed any performance issues on the PS3, not sure if it's different than the PC. It lags every now and then but it's just a spike that goes away as fast as it arrived.

Performance isn't so much the thing for me. The game runs fine on my system. It's more that 90% of the time, quitting the game will hard-lock my machine. Of course, opening a door in the game might do the same thing. Or hitting quicksave. Or it might just lock up when walking around. Who knows.
Will save games actually load? Hard to say. I make sure to save in multiple slots because I had to restart the game at least once already due to a corrupted save that would lock up when I tried to load it.

Most PC games are not nearly that craptacular. I mean, I've had trouble with some before. I stopped playing KoTOR 2 because somehow I got stuck with debug menus instead of the conversation options that'd progress the game...but Oblivion takes the cake for lack of stability for me.

You wouldn't be using a bunch of mods or maybe just have something installed wrong would you? I've had Oblivion crash on me a few times before, but it happens very very rarely and usually only when I'm in the menu screen changing equipment (which may or not be to the 5 metric tons of equipment mods I'm using, but I got too much stuff in there and too little patience to try to figure out whether that's it or not <_< ); I've never had it crash doing anything else you mentioned, especially nothing major like getting corrupted save files.

[Seigfried Of Pandy]

if the bloodgrass doesnt work you could always buy that DLC the vile lair i think it is which comes with a way to cure vampirism whenever you want

[Isiolia]

You wouldn't be using a bunch of mods or maybe just have something installed wrong would you? I've had Oblivion crash on me a few times before, but it happens very very rarely and usually only when I'm in the menu screen changing equipment (which may or not be to the 5 metric tons of equipment mods I'm using, but I got too much stuff in there and too little patience to try to figure out whether that's it or not <_< ); I've never had it crash doing anything else you mentioned, especially nothing major like getting corrupted save files.

Nope. I can't recall if I'm actually even running any mods. Certainly not a lot of them. I'm not at my house to check right now, but offhand the only things I have installed are Oblivion + Knights of the Nine disc content.

[Norelco]

Sorry for the necro...but I bought this game recently. I thought at 29.99 it would be worth my time.

The first time I played it I got bored within an hour and haven't touched it, but I picked it up again and I'm quite impressed with the amount of content in this game.

[Null]

Ouch, that price seems a bit steep for how long its been out. I recently rebought it about two months ago, I got the game of the year edition that comes with all the expansions for $5.

It does have a lot of content. Sadly I have made five different characters and overall put in nearly 600 hours of gameplay and yet...I have never beat the game. Whenever you get to free roam I normally just go and max my character up and by the time I do so I get bored and stop playing. I know the plot of all the side quest but not the main quest.

[Norelco]

By recently I meant 8 months ago. Hehe.

[Maxxthepenguin]

There's a lot of content, but the game nevertheless feels empty once you explore a significant portion of it. It repeats itself a lot.

Oh and here's a tip: Don't play your class. You get punished for doing so and the game becomes nearly impossible if you level fast.

[Eaglestrike]

So I got a renewed interest in this after reading some of the posts in this thread. I just installed it again and when I get in my character is slowly "sliding" around and I have very little control over where he moves. It's essentially unplayable. I tried to see if any keys are stuck but I can't find anything and the rest of my applications work fine. Anyone have any idea what this might be?

[Kaylia]

There's a lot of content, but the game nevertheless feels empty once you explore a significant portion of it. It repeats itself a lot.

Oh and here's a tip: Don't play your class. You get punished for doing so and the game becomes nearly impossible if you level fast.

Until you realize you can drop down difficulty level any time, without any negative impact.

[Maxxthepenguin]

Until you realize you can drop down difficulty level any time, without any negative impact.

The psychological impact of lowering the difficulty is too much for me.

[BadKarma]

So I got a renewed interest in this after reading some of the posts in this thread. I just installed it again and when I get in my character is slowly "sliding" around and I have very little control over where he moves. It's essentially unplayable. I tried to see if any keys are stuck but I can't find anything and the rest of my applications work fine. Anyone have any idea what this might be?

but srsly idk bro k.

[Kaylia]

The psychological impact of lowering the difficulty is too much for me.

I can relate. The first time I tried, I thought my penis would shrink, but luckily, it did not. It eventually became an habit to lower the difficulty every time it was getting dangerous, because I just wanted to get over with this game as fast as I could.