Living In Oblivion

February 14th, 2008 · 21 Comments · Blather, Gaming

Oh, yeah. One more thing.

I started a couple projects last year, quickly abandoning them as I often do. One of them involved Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

I loved, and still love, Oblivion. I just love it to death. One of the best games ever. There is so much freedom in that game, and so few restraints. You can go just about anywhere and do just about anything and the concurrent leveling of the game doesn’t hold you back — if you’re level one, the dungeon you go into will have level one challenges. If you’re level 50, it’ll have level 50 challenges. This allows you to play the game in any way you’d like, in any order you’d like, and there’s so much game to play and so, so many ways to play it.

My brillant idea for this project was to see if I could play it without playing it. I wanted to see if, instead of being an adventurer in Oblivion, I could just be, like, a guy. An NPC. A nobody. I would just live in Oblivion, try to make a living, keep myself clothed and fed, and eke our a modest, humble existence. I played that way for a few days, blogged about it but never told anyone because, well… look, I enjoyed it and I found it interesting, but I was basically walking around trying to avoid adventure. That doesn’t make for particularly gripping writing.

Anyway, I did five days of this and blogged about it here without ever telling anyone. I’d suggest reading it in chronological order if I were to suggest reading it, which I kind of wouldn’t. And honestly, only if you were really into with Oblivion do I think you’ll get anything out this.

Day One — Day One Cont’d – Day Two — Day Three — Day Four — Day Five

There’s a few more entries describing the character I created and the mods I used, and the rules I was playing by, but they’re not really integral to the enjoyment of reading about how I walked around picking flowers. Enjoy, if you can.

Tags: cats·dogs·pet food

21 responses so far ↓

1 Joerdgs // Feb 14, 2008 at 11:59 pm

Oblivion was meant for adventure, not to play The Sims :-)

Though Oblivion did have a lot of mods to change the original goals, the core of the game remains the same! Kill it and loot it :P
2 CSFan // Feb 15, 2008 at 12:29 am

Dude, that was fucking hilarious. PLEASE continue it. That’s the best read I’ve had in a while.
3 Blaze // Feb 15, 2008 at 2:14 am

As somebody who’s always wanted to play Oblivion, I find this completely fascinating. Consider continuing it one day!
4 Pie // Feb 15, 2008 at 2:56 am

Thanks for sharing this with us, I’m going to go read it all 5 times.
5 Kenny // Feb 15, 2008 at 3:13 pm

MORE! MORE!
6 Jackkyboy // Feb 15, 2008 at 4:09 pm

Well written and entertaining, as always. It’s too bad that you had to end it. Perhaps you could make posts about it from time to time on this blog, much like how you occasionally did “To the Death” on your Concerned extras page.
7 Cheapshot // Feb 15, 2008 at 11:07 pm

I remember when the Highwayman Khajiit used to ask ME if I valued my money or my life…

… Good times. At least I know what happened to him in the end.
8 some pirate // Feb 16, 2008 at 12:49 am

I think this is more interesting than the actual Oblivion storyline.
9 Sam // Feb 16, 2008 at 5:48 am

Wasn’t too bad…I haven’t played Oblivion much!
10 Kovie // Feb 17, 2008 at 2:55 am

Is it wrong that I didn’t like Oblivion? Awesome blog, though.
11 Some Guy // Feb 17, 2008 at 6:50 am

wow, im a huge fan of oblivion and i found that very interesting… even just blooging about a regular adventure in oblivion would be cool
12 Dude! // Feb 17, 2008 at 8:52 am

Ahah, that was funny as shit. I love Oblivion.
13 Pirate! // Feb 17, 2008 at 10:20 am

That reminds me of some of my misadventures as a Khajit thief. You should really continue it, it was great.
14 drunkymonkey // Feb 20, 2008 at 5:35 am

That just kept me laughing and laughing. Really good idea, and very well executed!

I liked the sunset screenshot too, hehe.
15 Ostarara // Feb 20, 2008 at 12:09 pm

You are really a great writer, do consider to pick this old project up one day!
16 Drake // Feb 23, 2008 at 8:45 am

That made me laugh unexpectically hard. Reminded me of me and my friends plan to make a master merchant. Don’t actually fight stuff, just see if you could reach master of mercantile and pretty much nothing else.

Also, I didn’t know you could make a nord that ugly.
17 Eternity // Feb 24, 2008 at 10:50 am

Really brilliant idea. I had a great time reading that.
18 Vince // Feb 24, 2008 at 3:48 pm

That was freakin’ awesome man! Please continue it someday!
19 Tzace // Feb 28, 2008 at 8:22 am

Nondrick must avoid the bow he covets so much…I recently restarted Oblivion in Mask of the Betrayer as an Argonian sneak archer and discovered that the sneak attack is totally broken. I reached level 13 before I ever actually had to engage in a fight, and that was just to escape from prison (the first guard I killed had a bow so, presto, I was back in business). Nondrick will become an accidental badass if he ahieves archery.
20 Oneperson // Mar 9, 2008 at 4:02 pm

I demand that you continue this story. It is made of LOL and win.
21 Itrade // Oct 4, 2008 at 7:14 am

So this is where it all started, eh? Can I do the opposite of “First!” if nobody’s looking? I guess I can.

Last!

Or perhaps

Post on historic post!

Anyway, I love LiO. My own experiences with Oblivion have been pretty much the exact opposite. I finished every single non-mastery quest in vanilla Oblivion and attained the highest level achievable.

Nondrick is still just awesome, though.

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