Citizen86

Unity used to be for Mac only, but it's available now, for free, for Windows: http://unity3d.com/unity/download/ And I have heard of Trine, I played the demo for a good 5 minutes, but never bought it. I was tempted when it on sale a week or two ago, but didn't get it. It got pretty good reviews though, so maybe in the future I'll pick it up. I just downloaded Unity today, so I don't have much experience with it yet. It seems really versatile though, you are able to create stand alone Mac and Windows apps, or you can create pretty decent games to stream within a web browser. FusionFall and the Star Wars Lego game are a few examples of full 3D games that are streamed within a web browser. I'm pretty impressed TBH. The free version lacks a few things from the Pro version. The two biggest ones I see are post-processing effects and dynamic shadows. I figure though that for a first game those probably aren't all that necessary. YMMV though. I still have to learn how to use it, but from what I've seen, I'll make due if it really is that much easier to use than the UDK.

Exactly, that's why I said if he was feeling ambitious. I've opened it up and fooled around with it a bit, and it certainly is no cakewalk. Even just importing textures and getting them to work right require about 6 different maps and connections... it's crazy. Oblivion is so much easier and nice to work with... I never would have thought so, lol.

The Unity engine is also free now for an "indie" license, and relatively powerful. If you are feeling ambitious, the Unreal 3 engine is available basically for free as well. That could make a side scroller with AWESOME graphics

I get coffee at work. I also downloaded a $2 old school RPG from Impulsedriven.com, called Aveyond. Not sure why... can't pass up $2 on a potentially good game I guess. After modding a game like Oblivion, can you imagine how easy it would be for some of us to create a classic 2d RPG game like the old Final Fantasy's or Chrono Trigger? If you had a good story we could have it whipped up within a few months most likely.

Sounds like it could be a cool casual game. I always end up buying those side-scroller games for cheap from Steam or other online distributors, but never actually get to play them really... You said it could be divided into zones for performance... if you were to make this game, what engine would you use? It's just that side-scroller games are almost never too graphically or CPU demanding. Sounds like a cool idea though.

For all in need of a taco fix... I present to you... the picture I've had on my Steam profile for the last 3 years: http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197962482803 Enjoy!

For texture packs, I really like QTP3, even the Redimized version, but I find that it just is too stressful for my system when I start to load on all the other mods as well. As a nice balance, CorePC's Vibrant textures is wonderful, yet all textures are around the same size as stock, yet he has done an amazing job of them looking much higher quality. I highly recommend it!

I've found that, no matter how many times I've decided to try and play the whole game, I always get sidetracked (usually by other games), but when I do put a good amount of time into Oblivion again, I end up going through side-quests, either stock or downloaded. The first time I played Oblivion, when I was the most into it, I got maybe 3 hours into the main quest, but finished most of the guilds, Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, etc... Not sure what it is with the main quest, but I still haven't gotten through it. Even now, I started playing the Lost Spires and Shivering Isles long before I decided to give the main quest a try. I really think that's the great thing about Oblivion... even if you NEVER get to the main quest, there is so much to do that it doesn't really matter! Save the world... meh, I'd rather go dungeon crawling.

Oh boy, cookies!

Hey guys, it's me, same name over at the Bethsoft forums. I've been working on the big TC named Mesogea for a while now. Stumbled upon this forum, looked like an active forum. Always looking for help and some company when modding, as our personal forum is real slow, and the Bethsoft forums can be abnormally slow despite having thousands of people logged on at the same time. Hope to get some help and have some fun.