Oblivion's Incredible Hidden Mechanic
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- Опубліковано 19 чер 2024
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So I originally jotted this down as a video idea that I thought would take me like a day at most to film and edit and now it's a full week later. Never thought a little fascination from my childhood would come swinging around this hard. It's just as fun as I remember.
00:00 Introduction
10:30 Testing
15:10 The Mod
25:00 Ending
Goblin Wars Mod:
www.nexusmods.com/oblivion/mo...
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#oblivion #goblinwars #elderscrolls - Ігри
Step 1: Steal all totems
Step 2: find Oblivion portal
Step 3 place totems IN oblivion
Step 4 wait
Step 5 watch the Goblins invade hell to get a Head-on-stick back
Step 6 Close the portal... they are Dagon's problem now
fucking legend
green humanoids invading hell...isnt that basically what the argonians did?
@@marltonmanks9891 no, that's what the Orks did
We just committed a Warhammer reference.
@@callumbreton8930 lol, in elder scrolls lore during the oblivion crisis argonians of blackmarsh pushed the daedra back and even invaded oblivion to the point that the daedra had to close the gates on their side to stop them from wrecking everything
I love that in Oblivion, certain caves are referenced as being "far away from civilization" when in gameplay there is an arterial road like 20m away from its entrance
Kinda makes me wish there was zones or cells separated by thick forests and large hills you have to cross in order to reach some of the goblin caves, y'know make it feel more out of the way from towns and cities.
@@navilluscire2567 It's an "open world" game from 2006. It is what it is. A lot of fun but limited by the tech of its time. Makes me wonder how modern tech can create open worlds where cities are days if not weeks of travel apart and if people would actually like and play that.
@@navilluscire2567 es6
@@johnlee7164 open worlds were never realy limited in size when it comes to technology, the biggest issue is how to fill that world with meaningful content in reasonable amout of time
@@arekkrol9758 yeah - Daggerfall, from 1996, has a huge world, but it's mostly empty because it's WAY TOO big
The way it was mostly randomly generated is the reason there is as much as there is
I remember when an enemy chased me through a door for the first time. Realizing that the game was capable of that fascinated and terrified me at the same time. Talking about it in 2022, I feel like someone from the 1800s whose like, “dude look at this lightbulb, why are you not absolutely amazed by this lightbulb?”
I feel the same way when you can do mundane stuff like turn on sinks, shoot out lights or flush toilets in a game. Oddly enough, most environments are just window dressing these days, it was the early 2000's when these things peaked.
I had a similar experience when WoW first came out.
@@garretteverett2613 Try the early '90s, I still remember playing Ultima VII for the first time and having my little mind blown by the fact that you can bake bread by sticking dough on a table, combining it with water, using a rolling pin on it and then putting the dough in the oven.
And yet, even in 2022, many games fail to provide the same experience.
@@Peatingtune in my opinion, modern games are just entirely sold through hype or supposed "leaks" nowadays
This finally answers the ancient philosophical question of "if a goblin war triggers in a forest, does it actually happen?"
It's the ultimate Schrödinger's goblin war paradox
@@maerosss Schrodinger memes actually describe a lot of Oblivion mechanics because of how much happens in places where the player is not.
As a 12 year old armed with the Oblivion strategy guide I too went on a long mission to create a goblin war unsuccessfully, this video brought back some great memories and it was so well put together!
One thing gaming is missing nowadays is the physical strategy guide. The things were finalised before the game had even gone gold, so (especially with TES games) there are often amusing mistakes or descriptions of content/mechanics that aren't in the end product as described. OG mudcrab connoisseurs know that the Great Gobbo Conspiracy is very real and very broken, much like Oblivion itself. Blessings of Azura upon ye and have a nice day.
God damn if ESO can't do it I wouldn't even believe it was possible
Loved the Freeform Quests section. So much interesting stuff in Oblivion that isn't just in-game-quest-recorded. They aren't Easter Eggs but might as well be in the current age of Gaming.
@@WK-47eaaaah it’s such a bummer. And now games aren’t 100% complete until years after initial release, too. Take animal crossing for example. New horizon’s guide sucked because they released like 1/4 of the game (game’s still starved of content too)
I really doubt you even knew about this lol
AI fighting AI always fascinates me, in anything. I'm always glad to watch automated forces tear each other apart, from Command and Conquer to Worms:Armageddon, it's just so much more intriguing than humans fighting humans.
Average conjuration (best magic school) enjoyer
Same! Smash Bros Melee and Final Fantasy Tactics have commuimity that do AI Battles all the time. Another channel too is DragonBall Z League, as they've been hosting AI sports tornament for budokai tenkaichi 2 for years. They build teams of five players with team themes like, Earth Defenders, Adnorids, Ginyu Force, and team Derp. They have a message board where coaches and team managers can come up with builds, abilities and ai for each fighter, as well as points system for the coaches to spend on abilities, star players or even drafting. Certainly a fun channel if you like ai tournaments and DBZ.
Old enough to remember being intrigued by this both back when Doom 'accidentally' had this and Half-Life 1 announced they were doing this, though both were rare to see. Just don't get enough of the 'living ecology' enough in games despite it adding so much.
Funny enough, Oblivion sparked that interest for me. I’d get as many followers as I could. Modryn Oreyn, the Jemane brothers, a Knight of the Nine, Battlehorn Man at Arms. I think I could get all of those, maybe had to choose between two. Then use conjuration to bring in a Dremora or something. My favorite was the fight against the Mythic Dawn in one of their bases, it had cramped tunnels and a LOT of enemies. I’d run around, fighting, but mostly watching my allies hunting them down. Sometimes they’d win, sometimes they’d all die or go unconscious, and I’d slaughter the remnants with the Embrace of Sithis (a custom touch spell which drained and damaged health in a radius around me, expensive, but it caused all the remaining Mythic Dawn to simply keel over). I reloaded that save… a lot.
this is why i always end up playing summoner / engineer/ tower defence /necromancer.
in any given game
If even the modders don't understand why this sometimes doesn't work that means you've found something truly esoteric and beyond comprehension
To be more specific, modders are not sure why it wasn't fully implemented ;-)
Most likely - goblin wars were developed and then scrapped during the development (maybe because Bethesda saw it as something less relevant than other game mechanics).
"i dont know why this works and i especially dont know why it doesnt work sometimes" is the main thing i hear in bethesda modding. its like the code just decides to be nice to you and god forbid you change something inconsequential because the game will just up and fucking die
@@poisonmantis4191 True! xD
@@poisonmantis4191The creation/gamebryo engine is held together by the power of elderich worship and ritual
@@NostalgicOccultist You know, behind all the duct tape and dreams...
Man, reading about how Terry Pratchett was extremely interested in Oblivion's goblins and studied them extensively I wonder if he was ever witness to a goblin war.
GNU Terry Pratchett
Wait what?
@@howdoyoudo5949 He was a huge gamer and was a big fan of Oblivion in particular, he used mods and console commands to look at their behaviors and the design of their caves as inspiration for the goblins in Discworld, especially in his book Snuff
@@CATGIRL_RABIES Terry was one of the realest ones.
Damn. Never knew tbis at all.
Based Terry. RiP Legend
This reminds me of a mod for Skyrim called Immersive Patrols, which adds a bunch of new Legion and Stormcloak units and just make them wander everywhere. I remember walking up to the bridge towards that one bandit cave right next to Whiterun, only to see a Stormcloak Champion and a bunch of archers assaulting the bridge against a larger force of Imperial Legionnaires and a couple battlemages, which went on for about five minutes, ending with every battlemage decapitated, a dozen Stormcloak corpses charred and frozen in ice due to a magic effect mod I installed, and just two Legionnaires standing surrounded by the brutalized carcasses of their comrades and the Stormcloak Champion, whose head fell into the river and got swept away. Safe to say, I never uninstall those mods, framerate be damned.
i always keep those mods that add random peoiple to places, it's crazy to think how empty town feel when there aren't like 5 generic NPCs strolling around.
Immersive Patrols is so awesome.
I also enjoy Skyrim Battle Aftermath, Civil War Border Camps, Diverse Guards Armor, and Open Civil War.
Love those mods.
I remember using that on a weird magic-fist playthrough and I came upon a Stormcloak patrol of like 20 dudes at the abandoned lighthouse between Dawnstar and Winterhold. Killed all of them, went inside to warm up and such from Frostfall, then came back out to an IMPERIAL patrol of similar size, and killed all of them as well.
TBH this vid hit the neurons in my brain to remember that Skyrim Immersive Creatures attempts to at least reference this, as it adds falmer reskin goblins and even includes inter-tribe battles in the random encounter table.
@@kenyenjones Amen to that. I absolutely refuse to play without those mods after I discovered 'em.
I was slightly upset when I realized there wasn’t any goblins in Skyrim, I always loved stumbling across a cave of them (sure the falmer are cool, but they ain’t as cool as goblins)
Who cares Skyrim for the nords
@@humate9980 ah but any true nord loves a good fight, and a goblin cave is a great choice for any young aspiring warrior.
@@GatsBerserker yea Bethesda has become just another money grabber 🙄
I think the falmer are way cooler than generic goblins, but to each their own
Dragonborn Has Reiklings, the closest you'll get without mods.
It warms my heart to imagine that Sir Terry Pratchett, with his love of this game in his final years and his obsession with watching goblins and other creatures in their "natural" states, likely was well aware of this feature.
There's an article by Eurogamer about how he ended up talking with modders and they made him an goblin peace amulet so he could observe them with being attacked. It's a really sweet story and worth the read if you google "terry pratchet oblivion"
GNU Sir Terry Pratchett.
Mind How You Go.
Not the same thing by a long shot, but that one quest where you are locked in a house with other people looking for a nonexistent treasure while you murder them, with some obvious nods to Clue, astounded me when I first played through it. It was like a reverse clue game where you were encouraged to strategically murder every guest in the house, even having to take into account how each character would think and who their relationships to the others. Still, it's oblivion, so still super janky, but amazingly imaginative none the less.
The first time I experienced this quest it actually blew me away with how creative it was. Oblivion is really the ds2 of the elder scrolls franchise it had a lot of promise and mechanics/concepts that treally pushed the limit and gave you so much fun stuff but ultimately both fell victim to their designers.
@@franciosdauteuil4626 I don't know if id call either a bad game though. DS2 is a bit rough compared to the game before and after it, but it's still a solid souls game in many ways. For Oblivion, most of it's faults come from it being a bit of a product of it's time and being a bit too ambitious for the technology at the time. It's so strange to me how Skyrim doesn't try as much as its predecessor, and kinda allows itself to become just so damn repetitive. I don't think we will ever have a game like this again, which is just such a shame.
@@reddawnstudios2016 For me Oblivion will always be that special game that made my childhood. There are so many different interesting things to see, so much creativity in even side quests and characters, the shivering isles dlc adding a whole new magical world to explore. Its a game where you can really just lose yourself in the atmosphere and feel the love thats been poured into it, something I just dont really get from games anymore these days. Even replayed it in like 2018 kinda worried about how it aged but man, it was still amazing. I remember starting the game up again for the first time in over a decade and hearing "wings of kynareth" somewhere on the plains with view of the imperial city, and I was my younger self again, struck by goosebumps and childlike wonder.
@@RinKokonoeI’m cryinngg. The flute / piccolo solo in wings of kynareth makes my heart swell
@@drewc9488 That soundtrack just instantly fires of something in my brain as soon as it plays, like it activates so many good memories from back then, and puts my mind back in those lush green forests.
These goblin wars, even if they don't work, really demonstrate one of my favorite tools of running a world for players. Random event tables are part of older tabletop RPG design that is much maligned in modern context; we had decades of designers not teaching people how to use them well, leading to people using them poorly and making them obtrusive. At the same time, there is a lot of ink spilled about how to make RPG worlds "feel alive", storytelling tricks and worldbuilding methods and all sorts of other artistic advice. Random event systems like these are a decades-old solution, and are a quick (at runtime, anyway; takes time to make the events) way to make a world where things happen outside the players' decisions...if you roll events against _each other_ , not against the players (like most games often lead you to do). Then, you have players come across the aftermath. This is exactly what happens at 24:34. Random event 136 (goblins on the warpath) is rolled against random event 14 (Newspaper courier), and the player is immediately engaged by figuring what ensued through examining the evidence left behind.
What makes up the Goblin Wars is an extremely valuable piece of game design, a technical solution to what is commonly framed as an artistic problem to be solved with lore bibles, intricate notes, and piles of in-game books. But it's become something of a lost relic because it involves tools people have negative associations with and perceive as "bad and lazy", which is a right shame.
I have to agree 100% - and its an extremely useful system.
Funnily, while I usually don't use rolls, I do this sort of thing in my own game. This very month, my players came across a fairly major aftermath of some things that happened while they were on a different continent.
Another tool DMs can use (in addition to the above stuff - not in isolation) is to revisit some random things your players have done - some big, some small. Introduce your players to the consequences of those. Showing your player how they were a bit piece in someone else's story, and how things have evolved between other factions - while knowing they had a very small role in that - helps emphasize that other characters and factions have agency, goals, and actions that exist outside the players.
@@Sturmensky Huh. That's a really good point. I tend to run a lot of stuff in the background, irrespective of what my players are up to, but randomization like that could be a really good way to think up elements that are really just "random" for the players to encounter. Might have a look at that.
This kind of thing is exactly what has kept players drawn to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for nearly two decades - the world moves on without the player present, and strolling through the aftermath of events makes for dynamic playthroughs.
@@kyotra Funny you mention that, because S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is one of my all-time faves.
Wow, what a simple way to explain how random roll tables SHOULD work. Thank you!
I remember when I was a kid I tried to get as many followers as I could at once. The only problem was I accidentally fast travelled to where the unicorn is, before I then fast travelled to Chorrol.
My followers did not appear so I waited then only Martin turned up, I went back to the unicorn site and found the remains of a massive running battle between my followers and the minotaurs in the direction of Chorrol (a line of bodies of both sides)
It was fascinating to see.
Its not the same, but I did have similar odd experience at the unicorn site. For context, I have Martigen's Monster Mod installed. So I was walking around Cyrodiil for no reason other than exploring when I randomly came across the unicorn site. After I entered the site I heard fighting so I went to investigate. I ended up finding the unicorn, dead, with a group of mountain lions fighting the Minotaurs. I was so confused lol.
I loved the radiant AI in this game. I remember a younger me having his mind blown seeing the guards end their shift and retire to the gaurd house. Watching shop keepers close their store for the night, go home, only to come back in the morning and do it over again.
Yup I remember following NPCs for a whole day just to see what they were up to.
Almost twenty years have passed, and this game can still bring in this amount of attention so quickly. Amazing.
13:45 this was an intentional feature by the devs btw. Goblin Jim's tribe is so devoted to him that they'll fight for him even after he's been killed
Got a source for that? He behaves as a shaman in all other ways, it'd be interesting if that was true. But it would make the feature harder to understand still.
@@RimmyDownunder the source is I made it up
@@godssilliestclown8862 ah, I see, you're a true historian. it simply came to you in a dream. 🙏
@@godssilliestclown8862 legend
@@godssilliestclown8862 based
Honestly tbh it highlights why these "emergent" systems need to have some mechanism for the player to observe it & the consequences of it. As a player in Oblivion, you're only going to experience these situations in extremely convuluted circumstances and only if you dont do the normal gameplay loop of killing everything and anything within sight.
But i suppose adding a mechanism for a player to observe its progress only introduces a new problem of trying to make it feel immersive and not some tacky game mechanic.
Some sort of scrying pool in a wizard tower? Maybe an in-game incentive to incite racial conflict by getting favor with a daedric lord or something?
I'm hoping that over time we'll get good enough at games so that most of the immersive stuff happening in games can be emergent like that.
Back in the day developers went around placing random animals all over the place, nowadays, we get detailed animal simulations that lets you run into a wolf because it's currently crossing the road to get something to drink from the river, not because someone put it on the road to wait for you.
I don't doubt that over time we might get more and more like this.
@@drakeye2366
> in-game incentive to incite racial conflict
i laughed
@@deusexmachinareznov4975 It's quite in-line with how things go in The Elder Scrolls, though
Some rumors of goblin attacks or movements, maybe some ambient dialogue... The entire series could benefit from the inclusion of town crier as a widespread feature in any decent town, maybe a traveling propaganda man in the more regulated areas.
Instead we get raving prophets in the town square and repetitious guards in your face
As a person that tried to make these wars happen, but never could as a child, i'm so glad this video was made
Patterz in the wild, when are you going to do an Oblivion Let's play 😭
Omg, you have 🤣. Old as hell, but there
I knew about the Goblin Wars quest when I was a kid, but had no idea how deep it went. Amazing what Bethesda could do if they tried.
I think you meant "couldn't do even if they tried". It's not implemented. Stalker:SoC has drivable cars and faction wars by this logic.
@@marekjurko4548 When you say it's not implemented, what exactly do you mean?
@@1gunsalute101 Have you listened to the video? Unless you count mods, that mechanic is absent from the final game. Absent, dropped, not realized.
@@marekjurko4548 I mean as far I gathered, it was still implemented, just flawed and not entirely implemented. Hence my question. Also, the video is hard to follow and understand in some segments imho.
@@marekjurko4548I'd like to remind you that these years have been released a year apart and have completely different focus points.
Thinking of this whole dilemma as in-lore is actually really fun. Few members of man/mer society have ever witnessed these wars or tried researching them, some don't even believe that goblins wage wars. But those who do have some knowledge of it all have different names for the totem staff because they had to define it themselves.
Wars, grouping up for, language, worship, others these all do require *Some degree of organized thought; one more issue to consider in the TES theme of "Do goblins actually have any degree of intelligence".
@@mikecobalt7005 well... the answer is yes... I mean... they wear clothes and use weapons... they may be DUMb by Mer standards, but they can learn to read and write.
@@marhawkman303 The Stonechewer tribe use two words Muluku (feces) and Muluk which is probably another interpretation for Malacath(Several variations of his name) and considering Malacaths lore beginning it fits. They *Can, learn but rarely (if ever) would on their own. I have a mod that expands on those a bit.
Rimmy has finally gone goblin mode
A trend we've got to keep encouraging.
Real juniper moment
I wonder if there was an intention for selling the goblin staffs to cause the goblins to try to attack the shopkeepers who had them, causing perpetual wars heading towards the towns the shopkeppers are in.
I don't think so. I believe it has to do with enchanted items like magical staves being more valuable. It's one of the factors determining item value. Heavy enchantments, regardless of quality, are an easy way to inflate value in some math formula to automatically generate prices.
This brought back amazing memories of when my kid was a baby...and I collected all the totems, took them to my castle, closed the gates, waited...for days...and started a war.
It does work without mods. The thing is...NPCs CAN interact with each other during those times. The Goblins kept getting killed by other things on their way to my castle, but, when the stars had aligned just right, all six tribes made it. It was pure bliss.
This game is 16 years old and I'm still discovering new, cool stuff about it. What a janky masterpiece
"It just works."
Fuck me I played it when it was new. Doesn't seem that long ago. Christ, sixteen years. That's tragic.
@@niallreid7664 fr 🤣
Except this didn't actually exist in game, it was only ever a mod, and those images of the guidebook were faked.
@@niallreid7664 We’ll be collecting retirement before you know it, Niall.
Rimmy poking a goblin with the totem staff: "C'mon, do a boogaloo."
Goblin: That is incredible racist dude, my ancestor's remains are not your entertainment!
One of my favourite games of all time, Mount and Blade Warband, did a really great job of making the world evolve naturally. Events similar to this happened between the factions and characters all the time, it was pretty much the whole point of the game, and it is absolutely beautiful to see. Especially when something completely whacky happened
This video is absurd.
A descent into madness and riding this man's GENUINE excitement and elation.
What a journey. Solid 5/7.
This reminds me of a few moments in fallout 4, having the brotherhood of steel flying over in a vertibird and fighting random raiders. At one point a vertibird was shot down in a heavily radio active fog zone and there was something cool about fighting to keep the last solder alive as gunners shot at us from with in the fog.
Imagine the settlement system but with stuff like this implemented. Bands of the raiders who attack your settlements having bases, you might get a heads up "The Scrappers have launched a force towards this settlement" and you could get a vague idea of their location on their way to your settlement, if you went to their current location you could intersept the force your self, or ready your settlement and see the enemy marching down the ruined roads.
Instead of you know.... getting a heads up and finding them spawning inside your carefully hand crafted walled off settlement.
Add in faction warfare where the raiders and say, mutant war bands can sometimes clash on their way to you.... or even have full on wars you could influence your self if you don't straight up locate and destroy their bases.
Love such systems.... hardly ever find them in open world games like skyrim or Fallouts.
Oh yeah, honestly, infighting like that was rare but fun to come across. I'd forgotten about that for some reason, but it's what kept me playing that game more than I would have otherwise.
Honestly the only game where I've seen stuff like this done really well is Kenshi. All the various factions have different relations with one another and with the player. Some are in conflict and you will happen across patrols of each side fighting each other in areas where two factions share borders. Hell, there are whole areas of the map which are heavily contested warzones patroled by hundreds of soldiers from each side. It is fantastic at this sort of ambient worldbuilding
It'd be like a cross between Starsector and Skyrim/Fallout, which is something that needs to happen. Starsector is very good at having an active, simulated economy and conflict, and having that in a bethesda style RPG would definitely be awesome ! Kenshi also does this, but unfortunately that game just has no quest and is more or less a pure sandbox. Still has one of the most satisfying combat systems I have EVER seen.
You are basically describing settlement assaults in Kenshi. You would get a pop up when a group is going to your settlement and can even check the location on the map if you wanted to intercept them, sometimes they would get jumped by cannibals, bandits or opposing faction guards and die before they even get in sight of you. You could set up defenses so you don't need to lift a finger to fight them off. I was so disappointed in Fallout 4 when I spent 3 hours making Sanctuary into a fortress only for bandits to spawn inside and realize that a concrete tower that no one can escape from is peak defense.
@@tomisabum Agreed, wished it would be expanded upon.
Beyond the quest with the Goblin war featured and Goblin Jims cave, only once. On unpatched xbox 360 version(I owned the original rated T version), I dumped inventory to make space. Probably slept and got ambushed. I can't prove it at all, but I remembered getting attacked by gobos at an Aeylid ruin. Super cool memory! Glad you made this vid! Brings back memories!
I once put all the goblin totem staffs in a house in skingrad and i found dead goblins in the streets later on, i know it at least used to work, but it could've broken at some point.
My favourite memory of Oblivion is getting chased by Umbra. I ran back to the slums in the Imperial City and jumped on the roof of one of the shacks. The Imperial soldiers came and started fighting her, while I fired arrows from the roof. It was like a battle royale.
I have no idea why this popped up for me, but damn did I love Oblivion and Morrowind so much. I had never known about this mechanic so this is such a trip from the past. The way it turned out to be essentially apocryphal was just the cherry on top!
This is the kind of thing that actually makes a living world, the goblins are at war, and you aren't at the center of it because the world goes on.
I'm not expecting anything from the next Skyr- Elder Scrolls game, but I hope they try some cool things like in the older games.
I think all of the TES games do good things and bad things, I mean Morrowind is pretty much the best RPG ever made in video game form and yet it's missing a lot of cool things from Daggerfall. It's just part of the game process
@@raditzhoneyham Yeah, what I'm saying is it feels like they were experimenting in oblivion, but in Skyrim they use the same systems without as much.
I never played Daggerfall, but I always thought some of the stuff was really interesting, like gold having weight, which doesn't seem as bad when you realize maybe there some interesting things that could come from not being able to hold your 5 lifetimes of fortune with you everywhere.
Similar to WoW (from what my bro has said) that it got polished so much the fun scuff got wiped off.
Not that it's all bad, just really love the innovation from back then.
@@editdotexe Caught this comment within 30 seconds of posting!
@@WretchedRedoran Dang, I only caught this in five minutes of posting. And I got a notfication.
Todd Howard's development style is getting rid of unnecessary things. That's why Skyrim has fewer stats than Oblivion. He's shaving off excess until he's left with a toothpick of a franchise.
The fact that you mentioned 28 days and a bit being your favorite mod makes me smile a bit because I know the uploader of that mod IRL. He's a good friend and now ex-roommate.
Haha, small world! I loved that whole series of mods.
@@RimmyDownunder I told my ex-roommate about this and he told me yesterday that he remembered the whole "everything is dark" thing. Said something along the lines of they changed the lighting so there would only be natural lighting and then also implemented custom weather that prevented natural lighting and they just interacted wrong together lol.
He also lamented being unable to access his old Nexus account and basically forswears The Nexus because of it.
It also made him happy that someone enjoyed a mod he worked on, and still does to this day.
Fascinating! I probably played over 600 hours of Oblivion and never knew about this. This is what I loved about these games; the sense of a "living" simulated world, in which stuff happened even if I wasn't there.
I'll never forget the jumpscare I got from leaving an area I thought cleared, blissfully thinking that the goblins couldn't go past doors, to then suddenly feeling the violent thrust of a goblin attacking my back.
I know for a fact i've gotten this to work in vanilla xbox 360 oblivion, the only additions were the DLC and patches given to the 360 copy of oblivion. It takes a while and sometimes i would even miss the attacks, they can happen without you being there and battlehorn castle can be invaded and the totems stolen. Which can be very interesting to be coming back from a quest to find your dudes head/hurt and piles of goblin bodies lying around.
I also got this to work on vanilla 360. It didn't happen often. But I witnessed 4 or 5 overworld goblin fights between tribes. I had the oblivion guide and I read the "goblin fun" That's how I found out about it. Not all the features etc worked, but most of them did
I too recall doing this as a kid. Only reason I knew it was there though was because I read about it in the guide book for the game. Guessing it got disabled later on due to issues with the system or its just so buggy it doesn't work most the time.
@@thatsneakyneenja2595 it's just really buggy. And since the fights can happen when you're not around. Its easy to miss. Unless you catch the aftermath if the keep is attacked and you get there shortly afterwards. Then you'll see some bodies etc
I also distinctly remember getting this to work multiple times on the 360 after reading it in the physical guide book. The most notable one I started was in Frostcrag Spire, although I don't remember ever being able to start one with more than two factions.
I spent thousands of hours playing the Xbox 360 Oblivion with DLC and patches and spent dozens of hours trying to get this to work and never could.
Another relic of a bygone gaming era is the mystery surrounding the goblin wars. These kinds of weird mechanics were fun to discuss with friends and online because they were so mythological and rare. Now, if I was curious about a game mechanic or system then I could look it up and find 100 steam and reddit posts detailing every minor thing about it and at least 1 IGN guide about it
At the same time that's how you wind up with people insisting mechanics exist when they don't, such as the foxes in Skyrim being programmed to take you to things.
I remember this with Oasis in fallout 3, I was in 6th grade and one of my friends told me about a place with trees and plants in the capitol wasteland, and it blew my mind and I booted up my 360 as soon as I got home trying to find it
21:18 I love random encounters… “Wa-wh-WHO ARE YOU?!” I still love them.
The part where you stumble on the dead courier, her demi god nightmare of a Steed, and the gathering of green skin corpses... as epic as the watcher of the hills moment. Great video
You gaslit me into thinking that I didn't know there were hill giants in vanilla oblivion when I have like a 1000 hours in my childhood to this game. Well played.
Literally me too, I had to look it up lmao
@@fuckoff5893 This video and whatever enemy/mechanic you guys are talking about are all most likely about the M a n d e l a e ff e e c t (do NOT google that)(just kidding it's almost alright to google that)
Hill giant?
@memenazi7078 He fights one at 1:38. Its a modded monster.
@@memenazi7078literally doesn't exist in the game in any form. Was made by a fan.
I remember when oblivion was first advertised they talked about how npc's would have AI that would react to all kinds of things that would really make the game come to life, but I guess they gave up on a lot of it because of how difficult it would be to program. I was however kinda upset with how much Skyrim toned down the villager AI, people no longer walked around and had lunch here and worked there and slept in their house etc as much as they seamed to do in oblivion.
Man I can't think of a shopkeeper doing literally anything other than go sleep in either games lol, though I do think oblivion was a bit better just cause it felt like they'd mix up they're pathing here and there
Actually it worked but it worked to well and they had to dumb down the ai
Oblivion had great NPC dialogue but they cut it in Skyrim because they didnt want to record too many voice lines and to make NPCs more unique
@@tj-co9go dude I am not even joking the ai were so smart that bears if they couldn't find food they would go to the nearest settlement and start killing people by them self and horde of undead from the nearest dungeons will do that to
And the a skoma dealer will end up getting stab to death by a gang of homeless skoma addicts who ran out of skoma and didn't have any money so they just killed him and stole his skoma so when you would retain to him for a quest he be dead 9 times out of 10 with the gang of homeless addicts nearby
There even a fact fiend video on this on UA-cam
@@kennyburkamp4054 i am not joking either. the fact that the dialogue and behavior can lead to hilarious events is only a plus in my opinion since it make each playthrough more memorable and engaging. there is something beautiful and awesome in chaos and randomness. I love how wild animals, goblins and ogres will randomly attack settlements
I had put in over 1000 hours into oblivion easily without ever knowing this mechanic existed in the game. If it wasn't for the Skyblivion team I never would have known about it before this video. Really awesome video, makes me hyped for Skyblivion again. Also that team is putting their own twist on the goblin tribes in the Skyblivion mod that looks cool, I recommend their "SKYBLIVION Live Gameplay Demo and Q&A[Liking The Stream Is Appreciated]" stream from 8 months ago for more info and a good watch!
Thought this topic would disappear from my head hours after first watching. Yet here I am 4 days later, still thinking about it.
hey mate, clocking in at 16 years of thinking for me, 4 days is getting off light :P
This is a certified cyrodillic classic
I'm almost positive that oblivion and the creation engine is so janky in the code that every individual game is unique. Because I've kicked off a goblin war before. I remember it fondly because I hopped through the special oblivion gate that lets you cross the map to get to one of the caves to steal one of the staff.
"I'm almost positive that oblivion and the creation engine is so janky in the code that every individual game is unique"
Oh yes, you can clearly seee that this is a Bethesda game
@@andreabuccella7644 LOL, I'd love to see this become a popular theory/creepypasta.
Ok so I no almost nothing about video game coding, and less about Bethesda games, but I’m gonna take a guess. Maybe, because oblivion runs on that radient system, that small things can fundamentally change how the game will play out. For example, maybe straying too far into a certain area will trigger events that can change how it plays out, resulting in each copy being “different.” Again Im not qualified to make this guess but I’d figure I’d throw it out there anyway
@@christianreinard8285 Yeah on their hardware they probably didn’t encounter as many of these issues cos a lot of the bugs in this game feel like borderline oversights 😅
dont look at the sky traveller
When I first played Oblivion as a kid (also after trying Morrowind and liking it but just sort of screwing around and not really getting it), my mind was blown by the fact that sheathing your sword actually puts it into a scabbard on your body.
Completely underrated but I just noticed at 6:45, when he said "If you smash the light button" the like button actually shines, that's a new feature.
I had convinced myself that goblin totems were part of a dream I had as a child. It feels nice to know it was a real experience.
This is why I love Oblivion. It has many amazing things like that, sometimes quirky, sometimes genuinely immersive. I remember a countess's daughter that always travels to a different city, some npc's that travel, people taking things that they need.
There's a complex skooma trafficking ring that spans the entire province, you can find every part of that ring, concluding with two seemingly random Kamona tong members in a camp near Bruma.
I remember my first time seeing Oblivion.
My first ever sleepover and my friend Alex loaded it up and I was hooked I begged my mum for a console and game.
She said no unless I saved up the money and brought them myself. I did any chore I could for any money I could get.
Months passed, and I finally got the money for an Xbox 360 and Oblivion. After months of hard work dreaming of playing Oblivion for myself I got the console only for it not to work and be filled with sawdust for some reason, I cried that night and it was a life lesson.
Oblivion was my first gaming love it holds a special place in my heart.
Oblivion feels more alive than almost any game npcs will visit their relatives on the other side of the map
Your whole thing about game worlds telling stories without player input - that is exactly what charms me about any RPG that stays in my rotation of "games to revisit all the time." Having NPCs appear as though they live lives completely independent of whatever shenanigans the player is up to, that's what makes a game world feel real. As you say, the vast majority of games fail utterly in this regard, and the result is that the game world feels more akin to a movie set - hollow facades, with nothing behind them.
Space Rangers 2 is still, for me, the best living world out there. The game can literally win itself without you getting involved whatsoever. Or lose itself in a same way
And somehow
It’s still more natural, dynamic and interesting than the “civil war” we got to uh…”experience”
Edit: yes he mentioned it but I was typing the comment halfway and decided to commit
Civil war is broken, that's why. The *real* civil war was exactly this, a dynamic system weaving throughout the game. It's been documented by modders, whole thing has been hacked out and replaced last-minute, which is why it's crap.
@@Aerolfoz Why on Earth would they do that?
@@beepbop6542 They probably couldn’t get it working in time
@@beepbop6542 Just a sad reality of game development, especially at that scale. I don't think there's a game on Earth where a game was done ahead of time and they decided to *add* content. Ambition, creativity, and excitement always start high but deadlines, setbacks, and budgets mean that eventually you've got to reign it in.
Silence oblivion stan, at least the Civil War is straightforward
3:27 lol, a genuinely convincing and stirring performance
I love how they intended to have a living breathing world. And they sorta got that. But their vision originally with all these things happening even when youre not around or actively participating in it but can slip into your adventure at different points is awesome
Theory: the Goblin Wars were found to cause some unforseen issue early in the game's lifespan and were silently patched to prevent them from happening.
Maybe they ended up butchering too many npcs early on in some fringe cases and the player kind of loses agency because a huge ass tribe could kick ass early on
@@HelloHelloe I can definitely see that being one of the factors.
@@HelloHelloe
That just sounds amazing, would add alot of funny stories!
@@HelloHelloe I mean, Dawnguard at release had that exact same issue, so I could see it. Randomly spawning vampires walking into towns, killing merchants and quest NPCs.
Think of the scripting and slowdown it caused on consoles.hundreds of goblksn fighting somewhere for the staffs probably made the console slowdown so they cut it fully from code.smart
Cryrodil belongs to the Gobbos!
And as always modders create some of the best things in Bathesda games. Gobbos are the best when you can have fun with them and not just kill them and move on.
Edit: My goodness Rimmy going insane about this is absolutely hilarious! I love insane Rimmy so much! We need more of Insane Rimmy!
You imply in your introduction that Oblivion's AI felt amazing at the time, despite being unremarkable by today's standards.
I would claim that Oblivion AI is superior to most modern games. The fact that it is so unpredictable, often doesn't do what it's supposed to, or even acts nonsensical, is what makes it *so realistic*
I clicked on the video expecting to learn about a hidden mechanic of the game.
28 days later was truly a game changer for me. I remember loving it more than the original game. You could have your own quest line about defending the cities as they were falling one by one to the endless hordes of zombies, especially if you installed mods for open cities, adventurers on the road and building barricades. I remember groups of guards, civilians and adventurers shooting their bows at several hundred approaching zombies. It was so satisfying to defeat a horde, but most of the time you just ended up running away to the next city
I remember reading about this in a REALLY OLD gaming magazine I owned, I don't even remember what magazine it was but it listed all sorts of weird things you could do in Oblivion including the goblin war, permanent invisibility using chameleon enchantments and some of the cheat codes you could use..
Nice pfp
This was amazing to witness. Thanks for putting in all the work to showcase this really interesting mechanic. Makes me want to pick up Oblivion again.
Here I was thinking the reason goblins were fighting each other near a river was because of a bug, not because it was actually something that the devs intended.
STALKER’s A-Life system works in a similar way to this, where individuals or squads of the different factions dynamically occupy certain locations and/or move from place to place. Sometimes you’ll come across a location occupied by one faction only to come by later to find that they’ve been killed and the location occupied by their enemies, or find that they had just abandoned the location entirely. Cool ass features like the A-Life system is what fascinates me about game development. How exactly was that created and how much of a bitch was it to get working?
this is such a cool concept, it's a shame that Skyrim despite all the special editions never got quite this alive. the civil war never really seemed to do much and was too well Civil and War to have emergent raiding
The magic of this game still isn't lost on me. I remember being 16 and this game came out and my buddy had it on the Xbox 360. I remember being blown away by how realistic the graphics were, and how great the combat and game mechanics were.
Oblivion is Short King Summer. Wood elves getting all the trim.
We need more goblin wars in RPGs damnit.
I've gotten so used to UA-cam videos being written, prepared and presented in such an orderly manner... that I loved this video. This was just a guy changing his idea mid-way three times and ending up playing a mod without knowing how to end the video. I love it XD
True. Feels more like a real person, like just one more player among us. It's refreshingly amateurish while still being well produced - not just gibberish and random clips.
Having to prove the existence of the goblin wars sounds like something a crazy wood elf would start talking about in random dialog
Oblivion was way more ambitious than it initially seems. NPC-behavior for example, while certainly a source of great amusement, was really impressive for its time imo.
I'd even argue it's still impressive. Hasn't really been recreated since. Skyrim totally scrapped radiant ai.
Always been interested in stuff like this, Mount and Blade's AI wars or STALKER's A-life system. I've always been particularly impressed with A-life and how it behaved in a 3d environment, it was way ahead of it's time in the original games and I'm excited to see what they're doing with the idea in STALKER 2.
how are the devs doing btw with the whole war thing.
@@raptor4916 Last I saw they were doing well, some came back from the war and got back to working on the game (after a break of course)
Glad someone brought up A-Life. It's pretty similar to Oblivion's Radiant AI of a system that's still impressive but was heavily nerfed from the original demo pitch. GSC had some really ambitious and wild ideas for the original A-Life concept, up to NPC stalkers actually being able to complete the game's main quest before the player could.
the best part about A-Life was that the AI was supposed to give every NPC there own little personality and routines, sadly this and the more immersive faction wars was cut, with the only game using the faction war feature being Clear Sky (where its also insanely broken, with AI not taking locations they are attacking 7 times out of 10)
Man seems like stalker 2 is never going to release
The Goblin Trouble quest actually inspired a whole arc of my DnD campaign. A Hobgoblin deserter started subjugating goblin tribes and amassing an army. The players were sent to defeat him.
Dude, Oblivion quests make for the best D&D one-shots. I made one based on Goblin Trouble and one based on Caught in the Hunt, and used them both for years to introduce players to the game.
@@MatNightmare Yeah. The storytelling in that game is superb.
@@MatNightmare I literally JUST ran a one shot based off of “A Brotherhood Betrayed” last night.
@@Jimbo55151 Yo that one is sick too. Funny that you replied to this today, I'm gonna run a session tomorrow for my campaign using the Pale Lady from Oblivion as a villain lol
Basically she's a vampire that tortures/feeds on prisoners and the players will have to infiltrate the prison she's in to jailbreak an ally.
I swear to god, when I run out of Oblivion quests to rip off my GMing career will be over.
@@MatNightmare it was my first experience with elder scrolls and I’ll always remember it.
Oh dude that’ll be awesome! Please tell me you have a twist like the virtuous bloods have in there
I so wish this was at least a mod for Skyrim. You're absolutely right that someone could so much more with developing this mechanic. Even little improvements like not spawning next to the totem. Or having the war party spawn if you cross its virtual path through the open world. Lots of possibilities. Thanks for video about it.
This was so random yet so interesting and hilarious
Always wanted to see games do this since Farcry 2. Moving battle lines, strategic locations, and you're just Some Schmuck in the middle of it all
You mean like Foxhole, but with AI instead of players?
@@michaelmoore2679 you could say that
@@michaelmoore2679 More like...there's a game called Freeman at the moment that comes Close, but strays too far down a different path atm.
You mean Stalker Anomaly?
Ahhh, so mount and blade?
never played Oblivion, but I used to love doing stuff like this in games as a kid. Leading parties of enemies into each other and watching them battle it out. these unscripted events made the game feel more like a living world as you said. this was a great deep dive, I wish more games had mechanics like this
Mount and Blade is basically an entire game of this.
bro play kenshi with some mods and reactive world that is this game
While nearly two weeks old, I feel like that morrowind bit of taking someone's house was a reference to an ancient greentext about some guy who had made a character to be one of the characters in the game and perfectly mimicked their AI schedule to a tee after killing him.
this was fascinsting, it was both informative for something I didn't know existed, and a witness of an individual persons descent into madness
I like the idea that you can't see the war without being invisible. While you're adventuring, there is a war going on beneath you.
Might be just me but a few times I've stumbled upon goblins hacking each other to pieces inside of caves.
Hearing this man act as an announcer for goblin wars at 6 am was honestly the best way to start my day
10:30 _"Hi, I'm Guard McClure, you may remember me from other fantasy RPGs such as Wacky Wizard Wars and Dial M for Mummies"_
Wow I never thought I'd ever see a new piece of information about this game again, bravo to you sir.
This reminds me a lot of the Fallout settlement defense mods prior to settlements being added in 4. I was super into those when they were in their infancy. Having a Goblin Wars mechanic running in the background of a modern title would be fantastic. Emergent gameplay is fascinating.
I remember playing games as a kid purely for emergent mechanics like this without even realising it. They just exude childlike fun. Thank you for rediscovering this one
"WHOOO ARE YOUUU!!!???"
sent me into the shadow realm
I’m only 4 minutes into the video, intro just ended, and I’m just thinking how have I never known of this goblin war? Nobody I know from the millions of hours treading thru this game has ever mentioned this till now, damn you elder scrolls games for always flashing something new.
Now that I’ve finished the video, I now know that I didn’t miss anything since this isn’t vanilla. You ass hat.
I actually experienced this on my most recent Oblivion playthrough. I thought the location just had fighting goblins included, but I guess I guess I stumbled upon a goblin war in progress. In the final room of the dungeon, there was just a massive pile of dead goblins from both sides on top of the totem staff. If I knew about this mechanic, I wouldn't have sold it after finding a slightly better staff
The creepy thing isn’t the raider, it’s the figure behind her by the tree that vanishes. @21:18
I didn't notice them the first time viewing, but after I saw your post it's true, there is a weird I believe male figure in black behind or infront of the tree.
He didn't even notice the obscured! What was happening there? I need to know!
This might be one of the most time-saving videos ever made. You wasted countless hours playtesting a confusing and poorly implemented mechanic, but at least the rest of us know for sure that it was poorly implemented and don't have to do the work of finding out for ourselves now.
"Protrct and serve. It's what we do."
APPARENTLY NOT WELL.
"WHERE HAS THE LIGHT GONE!"
Is unironically a hard line. And your execution is beautiful.
Also, your style is great. Non-cringe role play AND technicalities and details.
We need a true sandbox MMO with content like this that actually works.
Rimmy sounded like he was just haveing loads of fun sparking large scale goblin race wars.
This is one of the best deep dives into a gaming topic I have ever seen. Nicely done!
"Protect the farmers from the goblins." was the first quest I tried, and I couldn't figure out why the goblins were SO STRONG.
I later learned how the leveling system worked. :(
You deserve a tip of the hat for making an oblivion video these many years later!
rep the rimmy tribe in your own extra-realistic goblin wars. you are the goblins. enjoy: bit.ly/RimmyBeanie bit.ly/RimmyTshirt
Well the goblinos hadn't got the adeptus astartes thou, *I ain't overlooking that...*
(No but actually, the mod seems amazing, hope where it gets to!)
Video was a masterpiece
Racism is good when it's against the elves
You should totally show off other stuff like how you can turn the house against it's self in the who done it quest, or the poison apple in some one's pocket that they will EVENTUALLY eat. The story of the ring that weighs you down that was part of a murder. The giant creatures there was some really great things in the game that people have forgotten about it.
Pity that Skyrim, a game about a bloody civil war, doesn't have this mechanic. Even for Riekling tribe taking on its neighbors.
However it always seems to be underappreciated and devs don't use such mechanics second time. For example faction war in Clear Sky. Or how NPCs were almost finishing the game in Shadow of Chernobyl(no, they weren't dumbed down, that's a myth. The structure of final levels just became too hard for NPCs to navigate even by trial and error compared to earlier builds).
I remember one time when I played Oblivion on the XBOX 360 as a kid, I fast travelled to the imperial city marketplace and there were a bunch of goblins fighting with guards and other NPCs. I was confused as to how they got into the centre of the imperial city. Well, I use to drop my stuff there early in the game when I hadn't unlocked a safe-chest, so am now guessing I dropped a staff there and the goblins went to get it back.
I'm so proud of you! Great job! I had no idea this was a thing!