I loved every second of it! I didn't like the cheesy humour though :P I remember summoning some lobster warrior in a cemetery...

But yeah, I looooove Divine Divinity. Beyond was cool to. Didn't try Divinity 2 yet.

Actually, 'doing your thing' is the definition of roleplaying. I am not kidding, the definition (from wikipedia) would go more along the lines of:
'Role-playing refers to the changing of one's behaviour to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role.' but that is doing your thing in more words. Role-playing is not how the world reacts, that's just how well are your choices implemented into the world. And don't pull 'Oh we all have our own definitions of roleplaiyng', that's bullshit - that word is actually defined quite well.

Your argument is that reactions of the world are not implemented all that well, and I agree wholeheartedly with this statement. It's just what TES games do. You don't like it, that's fine, but as I said it's incredibly easy to piss on those games for doing so - it's much harder to look at it from eyes of someone who enjoys them. So... Just stop from a minute and try to see the problem from a perspective of a person who enjoys those games.

I'll try to elaborate on a different quote of yours:

In Mass Effect, you can only be a warrior fighting evil in space. In Witcher games, you can only be a monster slayer. In Fallout games, you will inevitably end up being a wasteland warrior, either by your own merits, or as a leader of a group. In those games, you have variations on how do you choose to fulfill that role, but you always inevitably end up fulfilling that role - if you don't, all of those games will keep reminding you that you're playing them wrong.

TES games take up a completely different approach. Yeah, world never really reacts to your decisions. Yeah, individual choices of what you can be are all but shallow. But you can be anything you want, absolutely anything. You can be thief who only ever kills who he needs to - it can be done, you will level up properly, and you can keep your kill count very low. You can't do that efficiently in, say, Fallout, as kills are what gives you most experience. As for your character, you can be a pure thief who only kills when necessary, and accepts his quests accordingly. You can do that. You can be a summoner, who never gets in a direct battle and doesn't like to align himself with anyone. These games can even be played as completely peaceful, non-combat characters - I've done so once, it was definitely an interesting experience, and most importantly, I have never felt like I'm playing the game 'wrong'.

So yes, TES games give you a lot of options, and all of them are very shallow - but all of them are also viable.

Now, when Bethseda made TES games, they very well realized there's just no way in hell they're ever going to fulfill roleplaying needs of every single player, that's why those games can be modified so heavily. This way, you can tailor TES games to be almost anything you want them to be. Heavily modified Oblivion was one of my best gaming experiences, precisely because it was a game I wanted it to be. Bethseda gave me a high-quality base game, and I have made it perfect.

And that's precisely what TES games are all about. Choice. Yes, game world won't react much to the choices you make. That's fine, I can have fun roleplaying whatever I want even without that. If you can't, well... That's sad. But TES games are the only games which ever allowed me to do that this much, and it's not a design flaw, it's a design choice by Bethseda. Weren't you talking about artistic integrity at some point?

I know what you're saying, but it's not really that true for Fallout 2. You don't need to save your village. You may entirely piss on them and still play the game.

What is superior than it is in Oblivion? IF you piss on your home village, they all die. They die, that's your price for being a dick.

In Oblivion, if you decide to piss on a main quest, that's fine. Nothing happens. The world stays frozen, awaiting for you to take action. Even though they tell you the world is about to die any minute, it won't.

What I would like to see in Oblivion, it's not forcing you to take action. But to show you the consequence. For example, you piss on main quest - the more portals are opening, the demons are attacking the villages, you would see people being slaughtered by demons on your way. You could still piss on the main quest, but you would see the consequence.

Fallout 2 >>>>> Oblivion

by the way, you can sneak and talk your way out from most things in Fallout 2 too. You don't get as much experience, but if you do it right, you don't really need to.

Remember one of the very first quests in the game, to free Vic? You may fight and kill them all of course. But if your character isn't much of a fighter but has good looks - that's fine, you may fuck your way out of this mess.

Yeah. It freaks me out when the other Tom Cruise shows up at the cabin for the newly discovered girl because I couldn't help thinking what happened to the other girl she was already with. It's not as if the other one got shot.

Wait, are we talking about the same Oblivion?

IMHO, Divinity 2 is more of the same, but on a much newer graphics/physics engine, but it gets flaky once you take dragon form. Still a great game, but I prefer the other 2 better... but I also like Oblivion, so take that with a grain of salt :p

Yes, and while pissing on them, you are still going to end up as a wasteland warrior. You really don't know what I'm saying.

Yes, you can. And as you just said, the game will actively punish you for doing so. The important difference is that Fallout gives you a set ammount of goals that it expects you to fulfill, and when you're not fulfilling them, there's really no point in playing. To fulfill those goals, you can choose how to overcome obstacles, but you will still be fulfilling goals the game set you.

Not so in TES games. In TES games, you set your own set of goals. My goal in the last game of TES that I was playing was to buy a house, and I was able to do so without completing a single quest and fighting a single battle. When I got that house, I've actually had quite a high level of my character, a lot of points in sneak, illusion and alchemy. You can do similar things in Fallout, but it's blindingly obvious that the game was not designed to accomodate that.

I know someone that spent dozens of hours playing this game doing nothing but pickpocketing, breaking into houses and stealing everything in every town. They had a blast. I asked... don't you want to do some quests... you know there is a theive's guild, right? ... and they said, "can't, busy!". The game isn't perfect. It isn't for everyone... but it most certainly gives you the option to play the way you like ;)

I think we need to agree to disagree then :P

What seems to be universally true for TES games, though, everyone can find something for himself in them.

For me, it's exploring caves more than anything else. Even though I really dislike how shallow the game world can be, I really, really enjoy the crawling. Especially with my Agent class, where I sneak, snipe skeletons with my uber-bow and loot the treasure.

What I also really, really like, it's you can steal everything in this game. In most RPG games you can't steal some things, especially from shopkeepers, because then you would get too good stuff too early in game.

But in Oblivion my thief/agent can steal everything. To the point I don't really remember I bought anything recently. :D I use my money only for training.

And I like that a lot as well, even though I dislike a large portion of the game.

by the way, I spent a lot of time in Fallout 2 being a junkie once. I wanted to see how it's like :D It was "super fun", I had to sell my clothes and weapons to buy new dope, I had very bad detox few times, I had to steal from people to be able to buy new fix for myself.

Good times.

No you didn't.

gimme all yo money or I bite you with my AIDS infected teeth!

That sucks. That reminds me of KOTOR 2. The whole entire* game is like that.

*such as it is.

You managed to hit the one cave out of the 300+ locations ingame, that doesn't work and decided to throw a tantrum. Congrats? :p

Please, compare it to what was available in Morrowind.... 3 options (admire, intimidate, taunt + the gold option bribing / leveling through trainers) that you do over and over again to level speechcraft. Yes, it is a stupid minigame, no doubt about that. But way better that Morrowind. Yes, it didn't worked out. But I prefer a dev that actually tries something different, then not at all.

Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild are opposing factions, but NOT competing in Oblivion. Neither are the other major guilds. Main reason why your comparing with NV fails: they don't battle each other. And you don't murder someone important to the Thieves or any other guild during your jobs for the Brotherhood.
About Obsidian and writing.... I had this discussion before, so I won't start it again. But make a female char in NV and join the legion - see for yourself how much it still holds up.

But you can do that. Just because the system allows you to do all and everything, doesn't mean you have to. If you fail to restrict yourself to the role you've chosen, don't blame the system.

First: if my memory serves me correctly, you CAN'T craft weapons / armors in Oblivion. At all. However you can level up with non-combat skills to a level, where higher lvl items like glass are available, yes.
Second: You can play a merchant, leveling alchemy / enchanting / mercantile. Probably even to a point where high lvl equipment is available, yes. Doing so however means, your combat skills suck so hard, you probably miss barn doors and your high-lvl equipment prolongs your death a few seconds, because you're not skilled in them.

Again, a system allowing everything doesn't mean you have to do everything. You can play as a superhero, master of every guild / skill there is. Doing so however is YOUR choice.
Please read this: How to build interesting characters in Skyrim (can be applied to Oblivion too).

In Oblivion I can play:
- a hunter, which restricts himself to leather armor only, as everything else hinders him too much. He eats 3 times a day and hunts his meals himself. He's also easily distractible and can't leave a once discovered (icon on map) location unexplored.
- a melee who sees any ranged combat as dishonorable and magic (including restoration / heals) as evil, relying on potions.
- a non-destruction mage, relying on alteration, conjuration, illusion, mysticism, restoration.... all but no destruction spells.
- an alchemist or merchant, trying first and foremost to improve his craft above everything else.

Combine that with the options(!) of guilds, with or without Oblivion Gates appearing all over (yes, you can steer that) and you'll get exactly 1 game that offers more roleplaying possibilities: Skyrim.

.... and I haven't even started with considering mods....

In my first 2 hours of gameplay. If the system doesn't punish you for wrongdoing, it's not your fault, but the system's. I broke the rules, because my character is a scum. It's good to be a scum when nobody gives a fuck.

This is exactly what some of you don't understand. If my character breaks the rules, it doesn't mean I'm a bad roleplayer. It only means my character is not trustworthy. But the guild doesn't seem to give a slightest of fucks.

When you do have an impact on the game world in other games its still just whatever impact the developer wanted. Its all preordained. I really want there to be a game with a truly dynamic world that isn't scripted. That would be a true role playing game. Not just some game where you play the role(s) that the developers let you play.

A man can dream...

This video might interest you. It's about the dumbing down of the elder scrolls series. Starts a little slow but definitely worth watching. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=JweTAhyR4o0#t=411s