User:Jxavier

This user has been on UESPWiki for 15 years, 3 months, and 18 days.

This user is knowledgeable about Oblivion.

This user plays on the Xbox.

Greetings!

I am a new wiki member and right now I am busy added and making changes to the wiki as I see issues come up while I a play the game. I will write more about myself later.

Cheers!

John (a.k.a Xavier)

My History with Oblivion

I first bought Oblivion for the Xbox 360 soon after it came out. Before then, my role playing game experience had been limited to simpler games such as Fable.

When I tried to play Oblivion the game overwhelmed me. There were so many variables and so much I did not know. Also, I had preconceived ideas about how the game worked from my experience with Fable.

For example, I thought the way to make money was to buy low and sell high to merchants. So I bought items from merchants and then tried to wait for the price to go up higher then I paid for it. Of course, that did not work.

I also did not know anything about using the "wait" function. In Fable, a character waits by either sleeping for half a day, or stands around waiting for the right time. So in some of the quests, my character would stand around for several real time minutes waiting for an NPC to appear.

After a few tries at playing the game, I just put it on the shelf and moved on. Several times over the years, I considered trading it in at the game store.

Then Fallout 3 came out. I first I was wary when I read that it used the Oblivion engine. But, I decided to buy a used copy and try it out.

I love Fallout 3! I played it for many hours, creating new characters to try different game play approaches.

But the one downside to Fallout 3 is the relatively low level limit. If you are playing a short game, the level limit may seem high. But if you like to play long games that can last real time weeks or even months, you will quickly hit the limit. After that, combat and many of the other actions that earn points seem pointless.

So I decided to give Oblivion another try. I may love Fallout 3, but I really love Oblivion! I now see Fallout 3 as Oblivion lite. I suspect that is what Bethesda Softworks intended. I wonder if they will ever start cross promoting the games. I can see where Fallout 3 can bring a whole new set of players to Oblivion.

In fact, one of my projects to do is to write an article for Fallout 3 players who are new to Oblivion (after I clear it with admins. I can see there may be some controversy about a non-Elder Scrolls game article, even if it just comparing a game with the same engine as Oblivion).

Oblivion is a thinking players game. If you like to go into a situation with guns blazing (or swords slashing) and use your twitch reflexes to push a five button combination for a special attack while at the same time using a flick of your thumb to move your joy stick to put the cross hairs on a single pixel, then Oblivion is not for you. But if you like to plan strategies and learn tactics, then you are going to love Oblivion.

Sometimes I do like to go in with guns blazing. But my favorite characters in role playing games are snipers. A sniper's most dangerous weapon is patience. Plan ahead to bring the right range weapon to the situation and then slowly move in for the perfect shot that will bring the enemy down before they know you are there.

Recently, I discovered the great value custom poisons. If I can not bring a enemy down instantly, at least I can make sure they are not going to live long enough to hurt me. So far my favorite moment in the game is when I hit a female melee NPC with a poison arrow. She drew sword and started charging at me shouting "That's the trouble with you elves, all flash and no ...". She did not complete her sentence because she died from the poison. I shout back at the screen, "You were saying bitch?"

Another thing I like about Oblivion is the alternatives players are given to the mini-games. I know many players like mini-games, but I hate mini-games with a fiery passion. Speechcraft is one skill my characters are never going to get past the novice stage. As for Security, I plan to buy lots of lock picks and use the auto-try function until I get the skeleton key. I know that locks can also be open with spells, and I use these spells from time to time.

Unoffical Bug and Bug Cross Reference Writer

Since I have started playing this game extensively I have been frustrated by bugs. Since I am an Xbox player, I can not use the unofficial bug patches.

The problem is not so much the bugs themselves, the problem is I run into them unexpectedly. After I run into the bug, I do find the bug report on the wiki, but they are on pages I have not read before.

I do try read the quest pages before I start a quest and the dudgeon pages before I enter an dudgeon, but I do not always read every related page.

Another problem I had was a bug report that was not clearly written almost cause me to roll back three hours of game play. Luckly I decided to play though, and that is when I determine the bug report was misleading.

So I decided to become the unoffical UESPWiki bug and bug cross reference writer. As I find bugs, I will add short cross reference links on other pages where the bug may have an effect. Also, I will clean up vague or misleading bug reports.

Of course, as a contributor I will use my best judgement. A bug could have an effect on almost every area of the game. So I have to limit the cross references to pages where the bug either has a direct effect or significate side effect.

If you find a bug that you would like cross reference or cleaned up, please and a note to my talk page. I will get to them as soon as possible.