Oblivion's shadows have been castrated...

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it is a huge difference, it will be missed. It would have def been nice to have soft shadows :(
 
I am personally willing to admit that i am a graphics WHORE. I totally believe that amazing graphics can make the game SOO much more submersive than crappy, fake looking graphics. I was so excited for this game because of the amazing lighting, and the realism of the characters, and was like "Wow, im going to get so into this game, it's going to seem like real life!" but now i see those before and after pics, DAMN. That takes it from top of the line, next-gen type of graphics, down to a smoother looking morrowind level. I'm not officially counting this game out yet, but im sure as hell not pre-ordering it like i was planning. Im gonna wait til i can see some actual released gameplay. Who knows? hopefully this is just a horrible practical joke someone is playing on us hardcore gamers. *shakes finger* You dirty little buggers, turning off the amazing lighting affects just to watch us squirm.....*sigh*...lets hope.

ValeX
 
this is bs. I said a while back on the oblvion boards that this would happen.
 
Yeah it really sucks.
There were so many irate people it looks like they took the official forum down.
It's been crashing a lot lately probably due to traffic, but in the past it would just give an SQL error, much like this place. But now their forum just times out. Even the homepage of the game is down. Probably sick of people complaining, but I don't know what they were expecting - flowers and candy ? Maybe if we're lucky they'll finally give an official release date to get peoples' minds off it. And for whoever asked earlier in the thread, it's not a rumour. :(

I'll still play it and it will be a good game hopefully, but they really talked the graphics up too much. It will look pretty, the outdoor scenes are still impressive, but the original E3 video with the chains casting shadows from the torch light was amazing. It's what convinced me I had to upgrade for this game.
 
Wow.

When I first saw this thread, I was like "Ok, whatever, some guy is complaining about a stupid little change made to Oblivion :rolleyes: " and then I saw the before and after pics posted. WTF?! The game no longer looks next-gen, it just looks like a slightly graphically updated Morrowind.

Regardless of the performance hit, they should leave the feature in the PC version of the game for those who spend thousands a year trying to keep their system up to snuff. The developers also shouldn't forget that (assuming the game lives up to the hype) gamers will most likely be playing this game several years into the future, and I'm sure as time goes on, more and more gamers will have PCs that are capable of running Oblivion at maximum detail. Is it so hard to leave the feature in? It would make the game future proof (graphically speaking) and would give many a reason to go back to it when they build a new PC.

As for the Xbox 360 version, who knows what will happen to that. They only have to optimize the game for the console, so assuming the 360 can handle all the work, I don't see why the feature wouldn't be included. When am I going to see what my Xbox 360 is truly capable of? :(
 
From the official forums:

This is frome one of the devs.


QUOTE(kathode)
Shadows are something that have to be tested throughout the entire world to make sure the system handles every area possible. The system we're using now differs 100% from the one we were using. If we wanted to maintain two completely distinct shadow systems, we'd effectively double our workload as far as testing and bug-fixing goes. That would be what you would call "not smart."
 
right... that doesn't make sense at all... it's called bait and switch

bethesda = sony. bs again.
 
So that sounds like a confirmation there is no chance of an ini tweak for the masochists who don't care about low fps, or the rich people with Crossfire X1900s.

It sounds like they just didn't think they could get it debugged and optimized enough to pass MS certifiication before their investors had their heads on a platter. Personally I could have waited, even if took them another 3 months of debugging, for the original implementation. The outdoor scenes will look just as good, but the dungeons and interior buildings don't look anywhere near as good as the original videos and screenshots. :(

I don't see what the big deal is. It's not like they never shipped a game before that couldn't run smoothly on the best computers out at the time cough MW cough.
 
this is crappy... just bought a 7800 gt for this game, but looks like that was a waste of money because i'll get the same Fps on of my ti500 geforce 3
 
Stereophile said:
So that sounds like a confirmation there is no chance of an ini tweak for the masochists who don't care about low fps, or the rich people with Crossfire X1900s.

It sounds like they just didn't think they could get it debugged and optimized enough to pass MS certifiication before their investors had their heads on a platter. Personally I could have waited, even if took them another 3 months of debugging, for the original implementation. The outdoor scenes will look just as good, but the dungeons and interior buildings don't look anywhere near as good as the original videos and screenshots. :(

I don't see what the big deal is. It's not like they never shipped a game before that couldn't run smoothly on the best computers out at the time cough MW cough.
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Beth = their own publisher.....well they did enter a deal with take2, but beth is it's own publisher generally.

Plus they already pushed it back too...
 
ZOMGWTFBBQ said:
I'll just say what everyones thinkin, its all the xbox360s fault.
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It does not make any sense for them to cut such a major graphical feature this late in the development. They had dev kits for a very long time and would no doubt have conducted a lot of testing to determine what would work.

This screams bait & switch
 
ZOMGWTFBBQ said:
I'll just say what everyones thinkin, its all the xbox360s fault.
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Considering the 360 is more powerfull than most if not all the PC's out at the moment I truly doubt that.

The fault lies squrely in the dev team being to damn lazy and gready to give us what they promised. I would be more than happy to wait until next christmas for the game if it meant the best looking Eldar Scrolls game they could make.
 
grifter_66 said:
Considering the 360 is more powerfull than most if not all the PC's out at the moment I truly doubt that.
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Most? yes, all? no. Top of the line PCs right now can outdo the 360's abilities.
 
Stiler said:
Beth = their own publisher.....well they did enter a deal with take2, but beth is it's own publisher generally.

Plus they already pushed it back too...
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Well maybe they felt they needed to get this out and couldn't afford to delay it again
without seriously pissing everyone off. I mean up until Oct this game was supposed to ship during 2005 for sure. And then the first week of November we hear "early 2006" I'm pretty sure they are aiming for a March release date. Maybe they estimated to get the "good" shadows and lighting system optmized it would take until Summer and their marketing people told them they'll sell less copies ?

That seems to be confirmed by that kathode quote. He didn't even say it was too hardware intensive, just that the debugging would take twice as long if they had two systems for the shadows. Which leads me to believe they needed two separate systems cause the high end shadow system would only work for X360 and top tier PC videocards. So they axed it so the FX-5600 bitches can say they get shadows too. If that is this case, they should have stuck with the nice one and tell people with old SM 2 cards, though luck. You'll have to live with not having every feature available. It was weird how they kept going out of their way to assure everyone on the official boards that even low end PCs could run it well.

One dev even made a post about 2 weeks ago saying how his 3-4 year old system could run the game with "everything" on and at 1280x1024 res. That was a clue right there, cause no way a 9700pro and XP2700 could do the graphics they originally had sold the game with to the press. At this point I'm even wondering how nice the HDR will look, since I've yet to see a single screenshot that had any.

It's royally screwed up to change it at the last minute after the game was already delayed once. It makes me think they are cutting stuff out just to get it shipped. I better hear some damn good explanations from them after their Executive Producer bragged at E3 about how good the shadows look and their fricking demo even goes out of its way to show off how the shackles and the skeleton cast shadows as well as all the stones on the walls making soft shadows from the torch. All of which are now cut out.
That was the #1 thing along with the forests that got the game so much publicity. :mad:
 
grifter_66 said:
Considering the 360 is more powerfull than most if not all the PC's out at the moment I truly doubt that.
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You have to remember that the reason they had to remove the detail in question was due to the inability of 'a system' to render it throughout the entire game. They didnt make mention of what detail level this was at which makes us believe that there was a single level of detail (I.E Console [having static graphics]) that the game was tested at. This is however, simply my take on matter.

With PCs, a user could simply change the detail settings or disable a feature to allow the game to run at all times. But consoles are static in their presentation of games, hence features must be removed from the game during production, not disabled by the user, to allow the game to run at desired levels. This leads us towards the Xbox360 as being the machine which couldnt run the previous 'higher' levels of detail.

Besides, if people believe that developers wouldnt release a game if it couldnt be run at maximum detail on current PC hardware obviously didnt play Quake 3 or Unreal when they came out :p
 
ZOMGWTFBBQ said:
With PCs, a user could simply change the detail settings or disable a feature to allow the game to run at all times. But consoles are static in their presentation of games, hence features must be removed from the game during production, not disabled by the user, to allow the game to run at desired levels. This leads us towards the Xbox360 as being the machine which couldnt run the previous 'higher' levels of detail.
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Please consider exhibit A(supposedly from a dev on their forums, same quote that was posted above)
Shadows are something that have to be tested throughout the entire world to make sure the system handles every area possible. The system we're using now differs 100% from the one we were using. If we wanted to maintain two completely distinct shadow systems, we'd effectively double our workload as far as testing and bug-fixing goes. That would be what you would call "not smart."
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This would go to show that it is the presence of the PC to blame, as they do not want to cut off the vast majority of the PC consumer base from its product.

Also something you have utterly failed to note is the fact that the X360 is running the graphical equivalent(if not somewhat better) X1800, which would be able to push out those graphics no problem(and I image the 'free AA' could also be utilized). Your claims really are just bullheaded and have no real base to them.

Yes, we(you and I at least) hate consoles for a lot of reasons, but you cant bash on a brand new console for its lack in power, that is just trying to bite off more than you can chew. Dont bullshit the crowd if you have a problem with it, get a real argument going.
 
DermicSavage said:
This would go to show that it is the presence of the PC to blame, as they do not want to cut off the vast majority of the PC consumer base from its product.
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Umm... I said it was purely my speculation on the matter, not fact.

Edit (chunk cut out): Cheers spIdeZ for picking up interpretation error

The devs continued reference to a 'new system' would implicate the console, it being new hardware where as PCs have been around since programming began.

Why would they create a level of detail from scratch on PCs only to remove it later on because of a 'new system' (in your words a PC)? Why would they have to cripple a games graphical engine to run on PCs when it was designed from the beginning to do so? Also, why would they lower the level of detail on the PC when current high-end PCs are roughly 3 or 4 times faster than the x1800 performance of the Xbox360 you mentioned?

You claim i have no basis for accusation yet you sit there insulting me because of your own opinion based on your own interpretation of the facts?

You still didnt address my point that PCs have a modular and highly configurable level of graphics where as consoles have a static, preset level of which games have to be made to conform to and what this added to my argument.

Why wouldnt they simply add the option to lower the level of detail in a game to make it run better if it was the PC which was holding things back? If you argue its due to the fact the shader system may be required to run the game, many games have used multiple levels of shaders (farcry for example) where anyone down to an mx440 could play the game. They're still using DirectX as their graphics engine which means that their utilising current generation shader technology which is backwards compatible.

Finally, i dont hate consoles, im simply placing my opinion on a matter into open forum discussion. If the console was faster and i believed that the PC was holding things back, i'd voice my opinion that way.
 
I do believe that the x360 is part of the reason for this change. Microsoft is probably ramming their wangs down the throats of the game makers. This was supposed to be a launch game for x360, and basically the only supposed really good game for it. Right now their is no must have software for the system, and this could have been it. Maybe it is the limitations of the x360 hardware... or possibly the devs don't know enough about the hardware to maximize it (and I still see this as a hardware limitation, because if nobody can maximize it, what good is it...). They have been saying that the reasons for delays include maximizations and additional content to fill up the disk for the 360, but maybe they realized that the game suffered terribly from low frame rates (or similar problems) on the 360 and had to go back and rework the whole system. I don't know, but it looks like more than the shadows were axed when you watch the videos and screens. It seems that a lot of detail is lost. And the stuff about the computer video cards, with the new 7900 series on its way soon and the dx10 cards out this summer, playing those games on a computer with the e3 graphics shouldn't be an issue. I'm just glad I didn't preorder.
 
no seriously im never buying this game if that difference is even %25 ill feel so pissed off every time i see those fucking ass ugly areas that NEED shadows to look good

-also glad perorder money was spent on PD0
 
As much as I love beth for making morrowind, they need to hire more people to be able to handle the workload on something like this option. In my humble opinion they are very good at certain things (design, and overall feeling) but are very lacking in other areas ie programming. I may very well be seriously wrong but I have had this feeling since morrowind in 2002. :confused:
 
ScreamingBroccoli said:
I do believe that the x360 is part of the reason for this change. Microsoft is probably ramming their wangs down the throats of the game makers. This was supposed to be a launch game for x360, and basically the only supposed really good game for it. Right now their is no must have software for the system, and this could have been it. Maybe it is the limitations of the x360 hardware... or possibly the devs don't know enough about the hardware to maximize it (and I still see this as a hardware limitation, because if nobody can maximize it, what good is it...). They have been saying that the reasons for delays include maximizations and additional content to fill up the disk for the 360, but maybe they realized that the game suffered terribly from low frame rates (or similar problems) on the 360 and had to go back and rework the whole system. I don't know, but it looks like more than the shadows were axed when you watch the videos and screens. It seems that a lot of detail is lost. And the stuff about the computer video cards, with the new 7900 series on its way soon and the dx10 cards out this summer, playing those games on a computer with the e3 graphics shouldn't be an issue. I'm just glad I didn't preorder.
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This is such bullshit, and it's the reason that this anti-console idealism is being perpetuated. I guarantee that you wouldn't have even brought this up if the technologically-inferior Revolution had been part of the co-development process instead of the X360.

Tell me something. What is more likely; Bethesda is scaling down a game because the most powerful console in the market (That is easily comparable to high-end PCs) is too weak...or because most of the market has computers that aren't even close to meeting the minimum requirements for this game?

Stop shirking responsibility off onto the Xbox360 because it's convenient. Anyone with logic knows why this happened, and it isn't because the 360 couldn't handle it.

If this was something that couldn't have been done because of the 360, they would've just taken the feature out of the Xbox 360 version.
 
I didn't say that 360 couldn't handle it, did I? They already had the shadow system made, so it makes you think that if the 360 could handle it they'd leave it in place wouldn't it? Maybe they took it down because of the pc market. But that is highly unlikely because every game I know has options about what kind of lighting/shadows/resolution/etc that can be changed on a whim to allow you to play a game to your rig's best ability. Usually, when games are made on PC and console at the same time the console game is the main one they worry about gfx wise and that's what sticks on the PC version. Maybe they truely are too lazy to work out the bugs in the lighting system and everyone will suffer from it. But then again it is possible that the developers couldn't get it to run properly on the 360 hardware with those shadows. Nobody knows so you really can't say that it wasn't a limitation of the hardware, and I can't say that it was the console's fault. It's just my guess and it's just as good as yours so don't flame me.

All we know is that we know is that the game looks a lot worse than what we were promised, and there is only a weak explination why; that's the point of this thread.
 
Honestly I dont think it has anything to do with the devs being "lazy" , they most likely dont have time and need the game to run well on every persons system.
 
the X360 can do WGF1.0 technology where as NOT even one PC video card can do that as of right now... hmmmm.
 
Tetrahedron said:
the X360 can do WGF1.0 technology where as NOT even one PC video card can do that as of right now... hmmmm.
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....Correction: the X360 can kind of do WGF1.0, the same as it can kind of do DirectX 10

Translation: it sucks at it.
 
hignaki said:
....Correction: the X360 can kind of do WGF1.0, the same as it can kind of do DirectX 10

Translation: it sucks at it.
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actually WGF2.0 = DX10, so the 360 sorta does a form of DX9.5
 
Tetrahedron said:
actually WGF2.0 = DX10, so the 360 sorta does a form of DX9.5
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Yeah but that's not relevant. They said in the B3D tech inteview there were around 25 different shading techniques used in the game. I'm sure the PC and X360 are using the same "master" plan, before it gets compiled or whatever for the specific platform. That's why they were saying all along high end PC and X360 would look exactly the same, other than resolution difference and the display. They're both running from the same "design"

We'll probably never know what really happened. There are many different possible scenarios. But you would think if low end PCs were the only thing holding up the show, they wouldn't screw over the X360 since it will probably make them the most money, and just say sorry we were wrong - If your system is more than 2 years old buy an X360.

I think maybe like someone said, they just ran out of time, they had the intial work done for the high end lighting/shadows like we saw in the E3 demo, but when it came to crunch time they couldn't or didn't want to spend the resources and time to get it working smoothly on both high end PC and X360, so they took the easy way out. I doubt it was a matter of either PC or X360 hardware not being powerful enough. It's just a matter of them spending the time to get it optimized well enough. Remember, 1st generation console titles never use near what the hardware is capable of doing. It would have actually been harder as that earlier dev quote eluded, if they left the advanced capability in with one platform and removed it from the other since they'd have to make sure two different global lighting/shadow systems were bug free and optimized. I'd rather they just took their time and did it right. :( Even if that meant another delay.

I already suspect the RAI and supposedly non-fedex quest system has been vastly overhyped as well. Other than the graphics, MW was a huge stepback from DF in terms of immersion and gameplay. Now if Oblivion doesn't have the super awesome next gen lighting and shadows, what will it have ?
Oh that's right.... the persuasion minigame. :p
 
I don't really care if the 360 is to blame or pcs. It is a simple bait and switch generated by ad execs. We'll drum up the hype, you people make whatever comes out and if they are two different things, then NBD! This goes on all the time with virtually everything that is made.
 
Worldhammer said:
I don't really care if the 360 is to blame or pcs. It is a simple bait and switch generated by ad execs. We'll drum up the hype, you people make whatever comes out and if they are two different things, then NBD! This goes on all the time with virtually everything that is made.
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I'm sure when they decided to cut it they thought, don't worry they'll still buy it. :mad: :mad:
And it's not even the ad execs that hyped it up. It was the fricking executive producer of the game who did the narration on the E3 video. OOoohh Aaaahhh look at the shadows. This is just amazing... blah blah blah..
 
Stereophile said:
I'm sure when they decided to cut it they thought, don't worry they'll still buy it. :mad: :mad:
..
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Exactly! The same philosophy of nearly all movie franchise games.
 
honestly the atmoshpere of the game was %70 of the awsome shadowed areas.....beth HONESTLY couldnt cut a damn thing to make to look more like ass unless they tear away at parralax mapping....i could care less if they did because im not buying this fucking game....i dont care if the gameplay is like being in heaven for all eternity with 900000 of the sexiest women youve ever seen and a unlimited supply of viagra
 
The difference in those screens looks more like they turned off HDR, not the shadows. What guarantee do we have that the "after" screenshots are definitely going to be what the final product looks like, again?

If this truly makes you so upset that you won't buy the game, do the world a favor and sell that video card, and that RAM, and all the other "high-end" components of your system. Owning them is as ridiculous as those people who drop 10 grand on high-end stereo equipment so they can listen to test patterns all day going, "Wow! This $800 woofer sure reproduces frequencies below 100Hz well!"
 
Ballz2TheWallz said:
honestly the atmoshpere of the game was %70 of the awsome shadowed areas.....beth HONESTLY couldnt cut a damn thing to make to look more like ass unless they tear away at parralax mapping....i could care less if they did because im not buying this fucking game....i dont care if the gameplay is like being in heaven for all eternity with 900000 of the sexiest women youve ever seen and a unlimited supply of viagra
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but would you play if someone paid you.. lets say 50 million dollars?
 
finalgt said:
The difference in those screens looks more like they turned off HDR, not the shadows. What guarantee do we have that the "after" screenshots are definitely going to be what the final product looks like, again?

If this truly makes you so upset that you won't buy the game, do the world a favor and sell that video card, and that RAM, and all the other "high-end" components of your system. Owning them is as ridiculous as those people who drop 10 grand on high-end stereo equipment so they can listen to test patterns all day going, "Wow! This $800 woofer sure reproduces frequencies below 100Hz well!"
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If you see those screenshots in motion from the source videos the differences are obviously a lot more than "HDR". Even the "before" shot doesn't have HDR in it. Does anything look like a high dynamic range to you in that pic ? Do you know what HDR is ?

Originally every surface and object in the game was supposed to cast soft shadows from light sources. That's why the stones on the wall looked so good is because each one had a shadow reflected from the torch onto the other stones and the lighting just looked realistic. One torch is only going to brightly illuminate an area 10 feet around it. The after shot you can see clear down the hallway past the portcullis ! It's going to really screw up the stealth aspects. It looks like areas of the game just have an assigned brightness now. Lightmap or whatever... It doesn't look good at all.

And the "after" shot is from the december build of the game. It was sent to a german pc mag to include on the cd. And this "redeux" of the shadow/lighting was already confirmed on the boards by numerous devs. The final game might not look quite as bad as that screenshot, but when you see the video in motion compared to E3 it is a drastic reduction in quality.

Also, I don't know where you get your strange assumptions from, but people with 10,000 stereos might use an HFNRR album to tweak their system but the whole concept of High Fidelity sound is to get realistic sounding "the performers are in your living room" kind of experience in your home. Those test recordings are the equivalent to a 3dmark program.
 
ZOMGWTFBBQ said:
Umm... I said it was purely my speculation on the matter, not fact.

Your saying that because of the devs statement (which refers to a 'system' and not 'systems' i might add) its PCs that are to blame when really, theres no evidence one way or the other. If anything, the devs continued reference to a 'new system' would implicate the console, it being new hardware where as PCs have been around since programming began.

Why would they create a level of detail from scratch on PCs only to remove it later on because of a 'new system' (in your words a PC)? Why would they have to cripple a games graphical engine to run on PCs when it was designed from the beginning to do so? Also, why would they lower the level of detail on the PC when current high-end PCs are roughly 3 or 4 times faster than the x1800 performance of the Xbox360 you mentioned?

You claim i have no basis for accusation yet you sit there insulting me because of your own opinion based on your own interpretation of the facts?

You still didnt address my point that PCs have a modular and highly configurable level of graphics where as consoles have a static, preset level of which games have to be made to conform to and what this added to my argument.

Why wouldnt they simply add the option to lower the level of detail in a game to make it run better if it was the PC which was holding things back? If you argue its due to the fact the shader system may be required to run the game, many games have used multiple levels of shaders (farcry for example) where anyone down to an mx440 could play the game. They're still using DirectX as their graphics engine which means that their utilising current generation shader technology which is backwards compatible.

Finally, i dont hate consoles, im simply placing my opinion on a matter into open forum discussion. If the console was faster and i believed that the PC was holding things back, i'd voice my opinion that way.
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"System" is referring to the method of shadowing used, not the actual hardware running it. I'm guessing they took it out because soft shadowing wouldn't be practical outdoors and they would have had to have loading screens whenever you go indoors, ala Far Cry. Coupled with the fact that a lot of PC users couldn't run dynamic shadows anyway and that the game has already been delayed, they probably just gave up. Sucks...but what are you gonna do.
 
they have a whole stealth system. so there will still be shadows and dark places, just not on movable objects.
 
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