Hour 6: Jaunt to the Jerrals

After the Rickety Mine slaughter I have ascended to level 2. About time! I allocate points to Intelligence, Willpower, and Speed (I really want to be a very fast mage). I then spend some more time talking to various folk in Cheydinhal. The Dark Elf inn seems to be filled with foul Orcs, and they all have an absolutely appalling attitude problem. None of them will even speak to me without being rude and I insulting. I have made a mental note to murder all of them, especially the one who calls me a "little fly". I will murder him most of all.
After speaking to some more folks, I see the striking-looking castle Mage wandering about, and she tells me of a coven of Azura-worshippers in the Jerall mountains. Perhaps it's time to leave Cheydinhal now in search of new adventures. The shrine isn't actually that far away in the grand scheme of things, but I decide a horse might be beneficial. I stop by the stables, but the horses cost 5000 gold! I can't afford that! I'll just have to steal one. I wait until nightfall, then hop on one and ride  away. When I get to the shrine, however, it turns out I need glow dust in order to speak with Azura. Since I don't have that and have no idea where to find it, Azura will have to wait. To make matters worse, the blasted horse wanders off while I'm gabbing to the worshippers.

I scout the nearby area but it seems devoid of enemies. Eventually I stumble upon Torben and his campsite, confusingly called Aerin's Camp. He tells me about Ogres. That's more like it! Except I don't like the part about 'spells bouncing off them'.

Torben and I conversing. He isn't cruel to me like some others have been.

I wonder if the Ogres are in the nearby Kingscrest Cavern? I head inside. Sadly, it's just filled with more scrawny Imps, whom I terrorise with ease. My Cold Touch spell kills them with two hits. I find my way into the eerie-looking Kingscrest underground swamp/forest thing, which looks cool:

... but there are no great surprises there. I find two sets of Fortify Fatigue Pants, though, each of which is worth a pretty penny.

Outside the door to Kingscrest Cavern on a fine day. The great tower of the Imperial City is just about visible in the distance.

Exploring the cavern took quite a while, bringing me up to the seventh hour!

Hour 5: Cave-Questing

I collect a bounty of 75 gold from Garrus, although he's somewhat displeased that I chose to aid vigilante justice rather than following the laws of the land. That there are three different options for completing this small side-quest speaks volumes for the appeal and depth of Oblvion's missions, compared to Skyrim, in which you get no choice almost 100% of the time.

I head into and sell some items to Borba gra-Uzgash. She seems friendly enough until I turn to leave, then spits "stop talking!" after me. Well, okay then...?! With the bounty, and the gold from selling my wares, I have accumulated 372 gold. Woodley's still level 1, though, and I haven't done much fighting yet, so I figure it's time to go on an adventure. Coincidentally, Borba mentions Quickwater Cave, which lies to the north, as well as a couple of other places. Seems like as good as place to start as any! I head off, but not before being racially abused by a foul Orc, who calls me 'goldenrod'. Up yours, greenballs!

The cave is a walkover, mostly thanks to my newly-discovered repertoire of spells (I'm used to only knowing a couple when you start off, as is the case in Skyim). Cold Touch does tons of damage compared to the fireball spell, although it's nice to have a ranged attack as well. I can also summon a skeleton:

That could come in pretty handy. A cowardly bandit attacks me as I leave the cave, but I shoot him down with ease and take his mace. I then make the mistake of summoning a skeleton and idly attacking it. The beast turns on me in a rage and I'm forced to use my sheild to defend myself! It takes off half my health but fortunately disappears before doing any more damage. Actually that could be useful - I can probably train my skills by fighting against my own skeletons!

Next up, rickety mine, another place the shopkeeper told me about. It's only a minute's walk away. It's populated with bandits, but with my tactic of summoning the skeleton to occupy their attention while I rain frost and fire down upon their heads, they all fall to my savage onslaught, and I take this rather fetching hat from the bandit ringleader:

Hour 4: Gruesome Vigilantism

In completing the Recommendation, I forget to dump my items outside the well. This means that I have to leave them in well, floating around next to a nasty old corpse, like so:

I take the ring, and run back to Deetsan in the buff. Our conversation is an example of why Oblivion seems much more engrossing than Skyrim - once she has given me all the information, and each topic is 'greyed out', I can get new speech from her by re-selecting 'Vidkan'. She just re-iterated her sorrow at what's happened, but it's these extra little portions of content, which are entirely optional, which add that extra layer of detail and round the characters out in a way in which Skyrim never manages.

I run back the well to collect my gear. After I've left I realise I left my damned sword down there still! Hell if I'm going back in. I'll just have to rely on my trusty fireball spell until I can nick one off a brigand.

I spoke to Llevana Nedaren and learnt about the corrupt fines being levied on the citizens of Cheydinhal. Might as well do this little side-quest, it sounds interesting. I manage to persuade and bribe Garrus to give me information, although I still don't fully understand the persuasion mechanics. I think I'll just invest in a good Charm spell in future. If you ever talk to him, ask him about Aldos and listen to how he says "Aldos is living on the street". Quite a funny accent he's got there, it's almost like the actor accidentally slipped into the 'beggar' voice for a second!

In completing the quest, I chose to listen to Llevana rather than Garrus, and the result was pretty awesome. Llevana has me lure the corrupt captain Ulrich to her house, then she paralyses him and feeds him to some giant rats. It looks a bit clumsy in-game because of the limited graphics (Ulrich's body being pushed around the room as the rats bite him, for example) but it's still pretty morbid. I ransack his corpse and am now decked out in a set of chainmail armour. Here I am posing with Ulrich's sweet silver axe:

I wonder whether 2-handed + spells would be a worthwhile set-up, but decide I'll probably sell the axe in favour of sword and board, for a more defensive approach.

Hour 3: The Road to Cheydinhal

Now that I'm back in Cyrodiil I have the feeling once more of being lost in a vast continent. Skyrim feels small to me now because I've been everywhere countless times, but Cyrodiil is still fairly foreign to me. I'm right outside the Imperial City but it feels wrong to go there right away - I'd prefer to head somewhere smaller first and save that for later. Cheydinhal's pretty close - I set my marker and head off across the hills (seems more fun than fast travelling there - perhaps I'll have an adventure on the way!)

Within moments I kill my first wolf. The wolves here are quite disappointing, looking and sounding more like dogs. They even look friendly as they bound up to you.

I break into Roland Jenseric's cabin but he's not there and it's just full of rags and mutton, so I set off again. Further along the road is Barren Cave, so I sneak inside to have a gander. A little way inside I see two wizardy-looking types talking to each other, but one of them turns invisible and shoots a lightning bolt in my direction. In blind panic I run back out and continue to Cheydinhal.

I arrive at 10:30pm to my favourite city full of Tudor-esque houses and green leafy trees. As it's quite late and there's not much doing, I check in to the Inn, which turns out to be a Dark Elf drinking place. I love that the innkeeper gives me directions to my room. It's one of the irksome little things about Skyrim that they never did this - in a couple of places I think they show you to your room, but in the rest you just have to stumble into every room until you find a bed which will let you sleep in it. Little touches like being given directions create much more immersion in the world, in my opinion.

When I awake in the morning and leave my room, a guy called Guilbert Jemane comes up and just stands there in front of me. What the hell do you want? He has a baby face but the voice of a much older man. Check him out:

You'd better watch yourself, Guilbert Jemane.

I head into The March Rider, the blacksmiths shop, to offload some of my gear, managing to turn 36 gold into a tidy sum of 171 gold. I sell the bow I picked up in the dungeons, as it's so much clumsier and less effective than my fireball spell, or at least seems to be.

After wandering around and talking to people for a bit, I decide it's time to start questing, and head into the Mages Guild. I talk to the staggeringly rude Falcar and get started on his Recommendation quest. That brings me up to 3 hours. It's incredible how absorbing exploring this world and its characters can be!

Hours 1 & 2: Escape from the sewers

I spent a good twenty minutes designing my character - an Altmer named Woodley Rhyme. I'd forgotten just how many facial aspects can be tweaked, and the permutations are fascinating, even if many of them do amount to 'Photoshop stretch'. At last, Woodley emerges!

So, the Emperor and his lackeys come up to MY cell and demand that I stand by the window! What if I don't? We'll see who holds the real power here! I soon got bored of their repeated insistences and obliged them. Guess it was worth it, since they show me a secret passage out of the cell. We get ambushed by some Mythic Dawn chumps, though, and Captain Renault bites the dust. Funny how I can ascertain her name merely by inspecting her cold corpse.

Two toasted rats later I decide to don the Mythic Dawn gear:

 Has anyone ever not done this, I wonder? Exploring the caverns (on my own - where the hell did the Emperor go?!), I soon come across some patches of mushrooms, which I think for some reason may indicate the nearby presence of goblins. I open a door and am proved correct. Do goblins grow them or something? They look like natural outcrops.

I soon meet up with the Emperor and his guards again. One of them keeps shouting "The Emperor's in danger!" in a way which reminds me of the infamous "things are worse than ev-urr!" line from The Dark Knight.





Baurus puts his foot in it by saying "From what I've seen of you, I'd say you're an experienced Bard. Am I right?" Uh, have I been singing this whole time? I guess I wouldn't know, since you never hear your own character speak. I've been toasting and hacking at cultists, and apparently holding a torch at one point. Ah I see, a Bard has Blade and Block as major skills (and a really curly beard, which I don't have). Well, no, I'm not a Bard. You're way off, Baurus. Idiot.

I chose a custom class by creating my own 'Battle Mage' - basically, substituting Blunt and Alchemy for Restoration and Illusion. I ain't picking' no nasty old mushroom to make some potion, hell no!

What's up with those little raised bridges over the sewer? Is someone going to be sailing a little boat underneath?!

First taste of freedom! The lush landscape and bright colours are a welcome change from the icy slopes of Skyrim. I head over to the nearby Ayleid ruins and discover a couple of bandits there, whom I quickly dispatch with a shocking display of advanced combat tactics - roasting them with a few fireballs and then whacking them round the head with my mighty blade to finish them off. Two mud crabs suffer the same ignominious fate.

And that's two hours! It's taken longer than I anticipated as I spent a good long while creating my character, dithering over my class, and pausing the game to write these lines. I'm loving Oblivion's intuitive magic/combat controls. I miss being able to dual-wield spells like in Skyrim, but the ability to have a sword and sheild equipped and cast spells at the same time without un-equipping them more than makes up for that, as does the spell hot key system which is reduced to a tedious list you have to scroll through in Skyrim.

Introduction to the Oblivion Blog

Having grown tired of Skyrim for a while, and nostalgic for Oblivion, I have decided to start Oblivion again and document my experience. I previously played for only about 50 hours, and got to level 30, with a melee warrior character. I played Oblivion for the first time about a year ago and despite its inferiority to Skyrim in many respects I found the storyline, quests, and characters far more engaging than Skyrim's. So it's time to head back to Cyrodiil!

That title screen takes me back... a whole year. Why didn't I discover Oblivion sooner?!

This time I want to try a more magic-based approach, as Skyrim's magic system is awful whereas Oblivion's seems more promising, and my warrior couldn't fully take advantage of it. The time also feels right to explore more of the guilds' quests and side-quests, as I didn't really do much more than the main quest last time.

This won't be one of those awful 'in-character' blogs, though, as I hope to mix description with a general commentary on the game.
One last thing - I'm not an expert Oblivion gamer (or even a good one) and won't be levelling up 'properly' or worrying about doing eveything perfectly and completing every little quest. I'll just be enjoying the experience!