game girl advance: Living in Oblivion

Living in Oblivion

Like so many others of you now, I have a secret life. By day I toil in a cubicle, surrounded by the banal trappings of modern life, little electronic emitters that tie me to meaningless responsibilities - answering phones, emails, generating digital reams of content for ephemeral consumption. And all I can think about, every day, is that at 8 PM I will throw off this disguise as an ordinary mortal and embark in a world beset with peril as Thistle Rose, woodland elf and Ranger.

Thistle is an attractive creature, with brown eyes and dark hair, skin tanned nut-brown from spending her days in the woods and fields among forest creatures. She's made a lifelong study of regional plants, driven by her native curiority for ecology, which has allowed her to try her hand at alchemy. She prefers to make potions that help rather than hurt, although she's not above dipping her arrows in a little poison against the evil that stalks innocent people.

Recent events have forced her to leave her natural home and deal with the townsfolk and all their confusing customs. Thistle's not very good at talking to people, and not very good at reading them -- she's a bit awkward and sometimes tactless. But times are changing, and she realizes she needs to learn to live with the urban encroachment. She's also been (accidentally?) sent on a strange quest by the late emperor that requires her to become better at negotiation and information gathering.

Although she's not naturally gifted in the magical arts, she joined the Mage's Guild in order to advance her study of the Illusion school, which she has learned will help charm surly citizens into telling her what she needs to know. Illusion spells also help conceal her as she hunts by starlight.

Thistle has a moral sense of right and wrong...it's just not exactly aligned with the Imperium's laws. She does not hesitate to steal if she thinks it will have a low impact, or if the usefulness of the item outweighs the evil of the act. So for example she did steal the mage's Guild key before she joined the guild and got her own copy, but that was only so she could look around the library. She did steal some mutton from a wealthy home where it was simply left on the dining room table, uneaten, and would have gone to waste -- but she then placed that mutton in a beggar's sack while he was sleeping. In her own way, she tries to do good.

As much as I like Thistle, her adventure in Oblivion is a lonely enterprise, as it was in Morrowind. There are no parties, not one constant companion to lighten the hours of travel, not even a wolf companion or horse that will follow behind you and nuzzle your hand. It's a mostly silent game of stalking a solitary path. Which is perhaps why I feel driven to share every day with someone else who is playing the game: "Last night, I did this...went there...saw this..." In that, at least, I'm not alone, as the message boards are noisy with gamers wishing to share their experiences, too. This is a game that is like an MMO without the other people; peaceful, sure, but oddly empty and meaningless. At least my real life, as banal as it may be sometimes, has actual people living in it, with all the attendant excitement and frustrations that come along with that.

It's just that sometimes, it is tempting to run away from it all and wander alone under foreign stars.

Posted by jane at April 05, 2006 12:02 PM

That's interesting. I've been hit with a case of the Oblivion bug. I have rolled a custom Wood Elf Ranger. I named the character Creek. The name of Creek goes way back to a character I started for a book while in college. Since then the name has been used as a Druid in WOW. What I have done is in Oblivion gone back to the youth of Creek. I am playing a Ranger. You know, lives off the land. Hunts and has a use of alchemy and knowledge of local plants and animals. I want to show the slow progression of the transforming of a Ranger to a Druid.

I've kept my spells to a minimum. I feel the Ranger is a derivative of a fighter. So no bolts of lighting or fire balls for me. Instead two basic heal spells. Some mysticism spells, referring to detect major and minor life. To top of the magical selection I use illusion to charm animals and I plan on using some spells to slow opponents. However, I've been thrown out of the Mage's guild twice so not sure how that's gonna work out. Oh, can't forget the spell to see in the dark.

Anyway it's all about the bow, blade, quickness, power, and poisons. As Creek stands now he is a mix of strength, agility, speed, and endurance. An expert in blade and marksmanship while being able to use both types of armor without penalty.

One of the neat little character choices was the choice of the birth sign called the shadow. Power: Moonshadow, invisibility once per day.

I play the role of the mystery man. Usually using leather armor and a hood to hide my face. From the side you can barely see my gruff chin.

I've even crafted some nice weapons:

Muzzle Blade
Runners Bow

Who needs people when all they do is fill you with grief?

"been through a desert on a horse with no name. Felt good to be out of the rain. In the dessert there ain't nobody to give you no pain."

That's from a song, Neil Young or someone.

Anyway it is odd how both our characters share similar traits. Probably would make a good team.

Posted by: undercoverrabbit on April 5, 2006 01:06 PM

One more thing. (real world) While I was a young boy a dog had been hit by a car and crawled into the shrubs near my home. It barked and howled in pain as it's back was broken. My grandfather called the police but they did not show up. The dog continued to cry. My grandfather could not let the animal suffer and got his gun and ended it's misery. The police or animal police never did show up. I learned a real life lesson that day.

Now going to Oblivion. I was walking through the world and spooked a group of deer. One of the deer ran away from the other two and fell in a river. It couldn't get out of the water. It just kicked it's legs and made deer sounds. This was no buck. (obviously it was a bug or a case where an NPC got stuck) I just couldn't take it so I shot it with my bow.

The whole incident reminded me of the memory of the hurt dog.

Posted by: undercoverrabbit on April 5, 2006 01:17 PM

it is consuming us all.

BUT, whatever happened to all the original creatures and structures of morrowind? where are the seafood-like houses, and giant pillbugs and flying jellyfish? what is this boring, mundane default fantasy setting of kings and elves. its BORING.

dont get me wrong, i love the game, i love the virtual world, i love the sandbox and most of all i love the freedom. but cmon! ive seen all this shit a MILLION times before. boring little medieval towns in boring little forests.

morrowind had so much more personality. i think its a shame that they went to all this trouble to create a living breathing world, but didnt have more fun with it. gimme steampunk! gimme real fantasy!

Posted by: fish on April 6, 2006 07:34 AM

I bought this game off of eBay out of curiosity. I suppose I will now share my experiences.

The first thing I noticed about the game was that you really have to have a top-notch computer to run it properly. My 3-year old custom job works okay, but I can't max any settings and I had to turn off most of the neat little extras. As of right now, it looks just slightly better than Morrowind graphically (and of course has much better character models).

Now for my characters. My first character is Josef, he's a custom class mage/assasin hybrid which I have called a "Culler". He is a Breton and prefers light armor (fur/leather currently) and is generally a very honest soul, but doesn't really get himself involved in anything. He has really only seen the countryside and crawled a few dungeons. The most exciting time he's really seen was encountering a town where all the rats, wolvs and people had been turned invisible. Gave him quite the scare!

Hakim is my second and more developed character. He is a redguard with a mighty Afro atop his head. His only armor is worn in the form of long fur-lined leather gloves that extend to the elbow, the rest of his body is protected only by some soft shoes, loose linen pants and an elaborate red shirt. He does not see the use of britle metal weapons when his body can hit harder and faster without the weight. He's a Blackbelt class and deals soley in hand-to-hand and a few magical healing spells. He's also skilled at sneaking up behind someone and cold-clocking them.

One day I plan to see what this gam looks like on max-settings. It won't be long, I just need to crack into my life savings and withdraw a modest fraction for a best-of-the-best machine. I promised myself I wouldn't tap into that for at least another year though.

Posted by: Tallest on April 9, 2006 02:26 PM