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We were all impressed when Dr. Gee wrote:
Yes. It's very very fun. Time consuming though. I sunk about 12 hours in after class last night without even realising it. At about 5:30am I asked myself, "Why do I have a splitting headache and feel all tired? Oh."

For lockpicking you have to move the tip of the pick under the tumbler you want to raise, move the mouse up, then click when the tumbler is at the top to lock it in place. Harder locks have more tumblers and they fall a lot faster so it's harder to lock them. A higher security skill probably helps with this. If you're also a security newb and break a pick in a tumbler, the ones you have already locked will drop. Really frustrating.

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AUTOPICK is your friend if you have decent skill. Or you could just be like me and get the spells for picking locks.

Anyways, Main skills:
Altercation
conjuration
destruction
Illustion
mysticism
restoration
marksman

Also, Soulgems 101:

Even If you dont have any magic abilities whatsoever, pick up the soul trap spell and carry some soulgems around. Why? soulgems = rechage magic items.

Rundown of ghost catching:
1. Find badguy,(rat, crab, goblin, scamp, whatevers handy)
2. Beat to inch of life, I know its hard to not just jab your sword through its head and all.
3. Cast Soul Trap(it's a touch spell) on the badguy
4. Finish off.
5. rejoice as the soul is shoved into the lowest quality gem you have that it fits in.

Soul trap is a base 20 second debuff, so for the most part you can cast it whenever an oppertunity knocks in the fight and still get a shiney soul. Benifit of this is even if you don't use magic gear, they sure as hell make the stones worth more.

Note: I haven't seen a list of what creatures at what lvl fit in what stone. But note that humans have powerful souls and only fit in higher gems. Bigger gems weigh more ect ect so carry gems according to your level and what your fighting(like NOT running into an oblivion plane with 5 petty gems and nothing better) is a good idea.

EDIT: Ectoplasm can be found at most alchemy shops or if your a decent thief you can get it from underneath any church in the burial area. Also, theres ghosts in elven ruins.

Ectoplasm is SEXXY for alchemy if you hav journymen or above.

Also Ghosts are immune to physical, in case your wondering why your getting shitkicked and cant sneak attack!

Y.O.T.C fucked around with this message on 03-22-2006 at 09:21 PM.

Alberd fucked around with this message on 03-22-2006 at 09:40 PM.

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Sean had this to say about Reading Rainbow:
(Morrowind - Suck) + Awesome Combat Engine + Slick-ass Visuals = Oblivion.

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Does "suck" include characters that walk around like they have crap in their pants and portions that slow down to 10 FPS for no real reason?

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Mr. Leopold? That sounds too much like Mr. Shit.
Having waited for this since first the word "Oblivion" was brought up in talks of a sequel to Daggerfall back in 1997, from 8 AM 'til 3:40 on the 21st, I was staring out my window and eagerly awaiting UPS. I can say with a straight face that I had huge expectations of the game and it has surpassed them entirely. Being able to hit something and feel actual kinetic force for the first time in the series is immensely satisfying. My x800 platinum weeps with its inability to do HDR, but it's still stunningly gorgeous.

That said, Evercrest, I turn to you for aid in figuring out if it's even possible to take screenshots without installing Fraps. All the sources I've seen have said to just alter the screenshot lines in Oblivion.ini, but having done that, printscreen still doesn't do shit. From reading up on SA and the official forums, it seems like there's an equal amount of people on both working and non-working sides; if anyone here has gotten it working and can advise me, I will build a tiny castle of pillows in your honor.

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Unlock Print Screen (PRTSCN) button
There is a setting in the INI file:
bAllowScreenShot=0

change to:
bAllowScreenShot=1

Also, two related items for the screenshots:
iScreenShotIndex=0
SScreenShotBaseName=Oblivion

There are two INIs, one in the game folder called "Oblivion_default.ini", this is the one it uses to generate the REAL one....
My Documents\My Games\Oblivion\Oblivion.ini

Edit the first one if you want to default to having screenshots on by default for all users. The settings it uses at runtime are the ones from My Documents folder.

After you mod the INI file, you can press PRTSCN button and Oblivion will write a BMP file to your game folder.
Contributed By: Wolfiesden

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Fazum'Zen Fastfist didn't get much USO. He was dug in too deep or moving too fast. His idea of great R&R was cold rice and a little rat meat. He had only two ways home: death, or victory.
Does "suck" include characters that walk around like they have crap in their pants and portions that slow down to 10 FPS for no real reason?

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Animations are still a little stiff - that's just how Bethesda rolls.

And I can't say on the latter. My machine kicks Oblivion's ass. The "suck" is mainly how overall boring most of the quests were, and how hard it was to get around. Plus the combat system.

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Sean had this to say about Robocop:
The "suck" is mainly how overall boring most of the quests were, and how hard it was to get around. Plus the combat system.

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Don't forget the dungeons that have been massively expanded upon and now have traps.

Dungeon delving is extremely awesome in Oblivion.

Where the fuck can I buy lockpicks?!

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Gadani's fortune cookie read:
Another noob question!

Where the fuck can I buy lockpicks?!

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Fence, if you are in the thieves guild.

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Arrenn Lightblade said this about your mom:
Fence, if you are in the thieves guild.

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Oh, doh. I completely forgot about that guy. I accidentally killed a few guards on a visit to the Fence to advance in rank in the thieves guild, got the hell out of Dodge and never looked back.

Thanks.

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Sean stumbled drunkenly to the keyboard and typed:
gamefaqs goes here

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Yeah, I read that and applied it as soon as I got the game (hell, you've had to mod the .ini file for screenshots ever sine Daggerfall), but it still doesn't work. The one in the root directory, the one in My Games, Index=0, index=1, creating the screenshots folder myself, no dice any way around it. Won't even let me do a copy/paste printscreen. I even disabled joysticks in the .ini after reading about conflicts between input devices (regardless of the fact that I wasn't using one), nothin'.

sorry, but I still have that minimum system reqs issue lingering in the back of my mind, and I should get my copy of the game soon...

AMD Athlon XP 2200+
655 System RAM
128mb GeForce FX 5200

Here's my trick to mastering lockpicking at any skill level.

When you raise a tumbler, the tumbler will do one of two things :

#1 - The tumbler will jump up instantly and make a single high-pitched squeak. If it does this, DO NOT CLICK, as it will break your pick. The high-pitched squeak is your indication that this attempt won't be successful.

#2 - The tumbler will SLIDE up, and make two squeaks - one lower pitched, followed by a higher pitched squeak. The lower tone is your signal that this attempt will succeed. So long as you click when the tumbler has reached the top, the tumbler will click into place and stay there.

Listening to the squeaks the tumblers make has, for me at least, made lockpicking easy as hell. I still goof up occasionally, but I was picking open the cases (hard and very hard) in the fighter's guild in Challon or whatever, with a measly 10 security skill.

Khyron fucked around with this message on 03-23-2006 at 01:48 AM.

I did, however, pick up a lovely Fine Steel Longsword and Silver Shortsword there once I joined

EDIT - I take that back, partially. The BOOK in the display case in the fighter's guild in Challon, that's worth picking open & reading as it's a Heavy Armor skill book.

Khyron fucked around with this message on 03-23-2006 at 02:08 AM.

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When the babel fish was in place, it was apparent Khyron said:
I still goof up occasionally, but I was picking open the cases (hard and very hard) in the fighter's guild in Challon or whatever, with a measly 10 security skill.

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Your character's skill level actually means jack shit when picking locks.

Your skill in Security =
1) Higher success rate if you try to open the lock automatically.
2) Less tumblers fall if you fuck up when trying to pick the lock manually.

There's very little difference between someone with 5 skill picking locks, and someone with 100 skill picking locks.
However, there IS a difference in how many tumblers fall when you break a pick. If your Security is ranked Novice, all tumblers will fall. If your Security is ranked Apprentice, one less tumbler will fall if any can fall. If you screw up on tumber #2 for example, tumbler #1 won't fall. However, for someone with Novice skill, it will.

Novice (0-24) = All tumblers that are in the unlocked position fall when you break a pick.
Apprentice (25-49) = All tumblers, minus one, that are in the unlocked position fall when you break a pick.
Journeyman (50-74) - Minus two.
Expert (75-99) = Minus three.
Master (100) = No unlocked tumblers fall when you break a pick.

So while it makes picking locks a bit easier, there isn't a super significant difference.

However...
There is a super-lock pick, the Skeleton Key, that you can find later on. (Quest is a Daedric quest, must be level 10 to do it. You can find out about the shrine to get the quest from an NPC in the Leyawiin Mages Guild.) It is an unbreakable lock pick that also massively boosts your security skill.

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Leopold was listening to Cher while typing:
Well, figured it out, and I'm annoyed. Apparently, the game's screenshot function only works if AA is off, which bothers me, because I want to crank as much quality out of my videocard as I can, but I'm also one of those gay roleplaying people that loves making stupid little journals and recordings of shit.

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Play with HDR instead!

It makes dialogue scenes look a little funky, because most buildings seem to be over-lit. I can't wait until we get some real-time lighting on par with the shit they did for Shrek 2.

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Sean had this to say about Pirotess:
Play with HDR instead!

It makes dialogue scenes look a little funky, because most buildings seem to be over-lit. I can't wait until we get some real-time lighting on par with the shit they did for Shrek 2.

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Would if I could, but I cannot. Radeon x800, the option isn't even available, it's greyed out.

I've found a merchant who's loaded, Loves me (full 100-point disposition), and is only a NOVICE merchant, but only accepts a few different types of items. I want to start selling him the armor and shit I keep getting =/

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Ryuujin spewed forth this undeniable truth:
How do you drop items?

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Shift+Left Click.

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Check out the big brain on Naimah!
Stuff scaling to your level is indeed my biggest peve with this game. I'm the Grand Champion of the Arena and zombies still take freaking forever to kill. Seriously, I'm supposed to be 'the greatest hero of Cyrodiil' yet a stupid putz zombie is able to soak hits like nothing they are nothing? Give me a break.

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I.. have not experienced this. But currently I'm just running around with the Dark Brotherhood.

If you need money, join them. You can make a killing in the murder business, and some really bitchin' equipment rewards.

This is in Kvatch

Nem, tell us how to screencap. I want to show off the glass armor I 'won' by deliberately failing a mission.

Alberd fucked around with this message on 03-23-2006 at 05:16 PM.

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And I was all like 'Oh yeah?' and nem-x was all like:
The monster scaling needs work. I'm finding it almost impossible to pass some areas, and the only way to win is to hope the game randomly spawns some easier shit when you reload an earlier save.

This is in Kvatch

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Ya, that's the problem i was running into. Fighting level 16 monsters with the same gear i had at level 8 is just killing me. If the helper NPCs for that scaled up as much as the mobs it wouldn't be such a problem, but they don't :/

Getting demolished by a single brown bear was kind of depressing too.

I've also noticed that if a monster starts going after you they'll never stop. Running through the wilderness on my horse i'll get off at the next town and then get swarmed by 5-6 things that had aggro'd a while back.

Don't be mad.