The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered Images Leak From Developer Website

Guess they get bored of rereleasing Skyrim?

Also dear god they turned it all fcking brown. Obliivion is my favourite Elder Scrolls mainly becuase it wasn't.

I've not got past Morrowind. But I have a copy of Oblivion to be able to run the modded version of Morrowind that uses the Oblivion engine and fixes bugs (though not installed that yet). I only started playing it at all because a fan wanted "all those original things" in a board game I was helping him design. I later gave him a list of novels. "They are all old tropes, read these!"

I won't open any more doors in hillsides. Anyone one done Daggerfall? They had it free on website with Dosbox instructions, so I've been meaning to try it. It might even be more fun, despite the poorer graphics. I saw others in the family playing Oblivion when it came out and they had to upgrade their GFX cards. That was years ago. I just checked, Oblivion was 2006! Some of them have kids now old enough to play Oblivion. Some of the grandchildren claim to have "outgrown" Minecraft.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Anyone one done Daggerfall?

I died a zillion times in the opening dungeon before deciding it wasn't for me.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

I died a zillion times in the opening dungeon before deciding it wasn't for me.

I had a similar experience with the CD-i game Link: Faces of Evil. I got far into the game, then arrived at a point where I could go no further. I was at the bottom of a pit with an enemy that my weapon could not affect and I couldn't leave the pit and couldn't go back to a previous save point. All I could do was leap around avoiding the enemy.

[ownedbycats]

I just saw a post pointing out that they're probably going to push a remaster to the original Oblivion (for publicity!) and break every mod. (Similar to them also breaking Fallout 4 mods to update it for the damned Amazon series, or EA screwing up their anniversary "rerelease" of the Sims 2.)

I am glad I have the offline GOG.com installer.

[Martinoptic]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I've not got past Morrowind. But I have a copy of Oblivion to be able to run the modded version of Morrowind that uses the Oblivion engine and fixes bugs (though not installed that yet). I only started playing it at all because a fan wanted "all those original things" in a board game I was helping him design. I later gave him a list of novels. "They are all old tropes, read these!"

I won't open any more doors in hillsides. Anyone one done Daggerfall? They had it free on website with Dosbox instructions, so I've been meaning to try it. It might even be more fun, despite the poorer graphics. I saw others in the family playing Oblivion when it came out and they had to upgrade their GFX cards. That was years ago. I just checked, Oblivion was 2006! Some of them have kids now old enough to play Oblivion. Some of the grandchildren claim to have "outgrown" Minecraft.

Arena and Daggerfall are both free at gog.com
The later games are available to buy too.

I've not tried any of these yet so I may be ranting in future.....

[Graham44]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I've not got past Morrowind. But I have a copy of Oblivion to be able to run the modded version of Morrowind that uses the Oblivion engine and fixes bugs (though not installed that yet). I only started playing it at all because a fan wanted "all those original things" in a board game I was helping him design. I later gave him a list of novels. "They are all old tropes, read these!"

I won't open any more doors in hillsides. Anyone one done Daggerfall? They had it free on website with Dosbox instructions, so I've been meaning to try it. It might even be more fun, despite the poorer graphics. I saw others in the family playing Oblivion when it came out and they had to upgrade their GFX cards. That was years ago. I just checked, Oblivion was 2006! Some of them have kids now old enough to play Oblivion. Some of the grandchildren claim to have "outgrown" Minecraft.

I don't know whether I'm misreading here but have you not played Oblivion?

If you haven't oh boy are you missing out! I only have a PS3 for gaming (which I do rarely) and I own exactly two games Oblivion and Skyrim. For me Skyrim was - meh - Oblivion was literally mind blowing - and I didn't discover it until it was years old. After completing the main quest my character who I decided was a warrior monk became disillusioned and sickened by all the blood shed gone before, so he set out on a new path, that of a wandering healer. He spends his time collecting plants etc to make potions. I collected all of the knights of the nine items, but I stored them all in one of my houses apart from the boots as these stop wild animals from attacking you, which means I don't have to kill them and this ties in nicely to my characters personality.

Man I miss playing Oblivion, I will have to fire it up again

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Graham44

I don't know whether I'm misreading here but have you not played Oblivion?

No, just seen others in the family playing it long ago. I have a legit copy obtained purely to try the Morrowind upgrade, but that was several years ago and not tried that. So I could play Oblivion. Daily stuff is all Linux but I have a Win 7 workstation archived somewhere and an over 8 year old laptop (win10) somewhere that also has a GPU.

Back then it was a struggle for them to get everything working (18 years ago approx?).

I'm more into reading books than gaming the last 25 years. Hardly watch movies and stopped watching TV. I've even given up BBC R4.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Martinoptic

Arena and Daggerfall are both free at gog.com
The later games are available to buy too.

I've not tried any of these yet so I may be ranting in future.....

I downloaded Arena (free) on my Linux Steam account and strangely it setup DosBox for Windows under WINE!
I edited the arena.conf as arena-l.conf for Linux Dosbox (mainly ddraw -> opengl and change mount paths from \ to / based, turn off mouse autolock). Unsurprisingly it ran much better.
<rant>
How come Steam supports Linux and can't setup the Linux version of DosBox?
</rant>

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by Quoth

How come Steam supports Linux and can't setup the Linux version of DosBox?
</rant>

Because it's not Valve doing that. It's Bethesda. Arena is a DOS game, and the version Bethesda provided to Valve is wrapped in DOSBox for Windows which runs inside a Proton pressure vessel. For games where Linux native is an option, such as HBS Battletech, Steam will prefer the Linux version.

Heroic works essentially the same way.

As an aside, my Steam Deck convinced me to abandon Windows entirely. Switched to Tumbleweed over a year ago. No regrets except that I have yet to figure out Project Wingman modding under WINE/Proton.

[ownedbycats]

For what it matters, Windows 3.x working within DOSBox is a workaround for some 16-bit Windows games working on 64-bit. (winevdm also works, but has some problems.)

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by ratinox

Because it's not Valve doing that. It's Bethesda. Arena is a DOS game, and the version Bethesda provided to Valve is wrapped in DOSBox for Windows which runs inside a Proton pressure vessel. .

It may be Bethesda, but nothing is "wrapped". The conf files are regular dosbox conf files and the script in the .bat file works on WINE.
Trivial to edit a copy of the supplied arena(windowed).conf so that it works with Linux DosBox instead of the dosbox.exe in the main arena directory.

A joker here claimed the best fun of old games is editing obscure config files. Another suggested installing WSL in Win10 and Linux DosBox.

Possibly dosbox doesn't work well on ChromeOS and dosbox in Crostini might be better.

I read a suggestion that Google is removing the Playstore from ChromeOS (it's not on ChromeOS Flex). I'm wondering if it's worth having ChromeOS on the ChromeBook at all as many of the Android apps I want aren't available. You can backup the ChromeOS/ChromeBook FW and install native Linux only instead of the stupidity of Debian 12 customised to Crostini (Wayland), in a container, which is on a VM and any ext4 filesystem devices then can only be "shared" to Crostini via 9p filesystem mounts. Madness. Yet some USB devices do work direct (USB TV stick, USB Serial, USB MTP), but USB-BT and USB Audio, USB Video and USB MS don't.

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by Quoth

It may be Bethesda, but nothing is "wrapped". The conf files are regular dosbox conf files and the script in the .bat file works on WINE.

Of course it does.

Bethesda, however, don't care.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by ratinox

Of course it does.

Bethesda, however, don't care.

Well, it's free and anyone that is using Linux and DosBox will know how to edit the configuration.

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I downloaded Arena (free) on my Linux Steam account and strangely it setup DosBox for Windows under WINE!
I edited the arena.conf as arena-l.conf for Linux Dosbox (mainly ddraw -> opengl and change mount paths from \ to / based, turn off mouse autolock). Unsurprisingly it ran much better.
<rant>
How come Steam supports Linux and can't setup the Linux version of DosBox?
</rant>

Why would you expect a game that is only listed as Windows compatible to setup the Linux version of DosBox?

The fact that it works at all without doing anything on Linux is a miracle.

[ownedbycats]

Interiors look good. Oblivion Gates look really good. But the rest of it looks like they're having a drought throughout the land.

Make Cyrodiil Green Again