Oblivion Orrery available

By Tom Bramwell Published 18 April, 2006

For X360. Bit cheaper this time.

Oblivion fans playing the Xbox 360 version have the option to buy another bit of downloadable content this week - and for slightly less than the horse armour update released a fortnight ago.

The Orrery download features a new quest to do with repairing an Imperial Orrery. Players help the Mages Guild by recovering parts stolen by bandits, and there's also the promise of new powers for characters based on the phases of the moons.

This time Bethesda's asking for 150 Microsoft points - 50 less than it wanted for the horse armour, which many complained was overpriced. The Orrery update will soon be made available to PC owners too for $1.89.

That's not the end of Oblivion updates either, with the Elder Scrolls team currently working on a third download - Wizard's Tower - which is listed as "Coming Soon" on the Oblivion Downloads website.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (38) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • smelly #1 6 years ago

    Hmmm.. Doesnt sound like the most enthrawling quest ever.

    Hope the cheeky beggars dont charge for the patch too.

  • SeesThroughAll #2 6 years ago

    LOL, this quest has the potencial to be vaguely engaging for at least half an hour, and it costs even less than the stupid horse armor...

    Bethesda Softworks, Quality Over Quantity, please, then I would even pay 10 euro for one GOOD downloadable quest. Even taking into consideration that the ones for Morrowind used to be free of charge...

  • Tiger_Walts #3 6 years ago

    "the promise of new powers for characters based on the phases of the moons."

    Bah, that is so stolen from KoL.

  • nickthegun #4 6 years ago

    Orrery? Ya Rery

  • Bitkari #5 6 years ago

    I'd rather have a proper addon pack a la Tribunal & Bloodmoon.

  • smelly #6 6 years ago

    Id rather they spent less time on stuff like this and more time in FIXING THE BLOODY BUGS!

    I'm fed up of saving evrey 5 mins in case of a crash.

  • Svecke #7 6 years ago

    @smelly

    Wait, are you playing on the xbox or the pc? Because I've been playing 70+ hours on my pc (at times 10 - 12 hours in a row, but mostly 4-5 hours in each sitting), and so far it has only crashed to desktop 4 times. Apart from a flying tree that I saw somewhere, I've yet to encounter any other bug... Maybe I got the single, magical bug-free version. ;)

  • PearOfAnguish #8 6 years ago

    I'd pay for a patch that allowed me to make notes on the map. I'm not one for moaning about games being dumbed-down for consoles, but c'mon, the PC interface is horrible. They didn't put an ounce of thought into that. And am I wrong in thinking there's no minimap?

  • Thamuhacha #9 6 years ago

    I've played for over 80 hours on the 360 and had only 4 or 5 buggy moments

    3 were hangs while loading (reset console and load up the autosave from seconds before)

    And the others were a quest that buggers up if you do things out of order.

    Not too bad really

  • Thamuhacha #10 6 years ago

    >And am I wrong in thinking there's no minimap?

    No, unless you count the compass

  • Carlo #11 6 years ago

    The 'O RLY' download?

  • Spud_leg_wizz #12 6 years ago

    Dammit, I'm still trying to cure the curse of vampirism but it's difficult when you can't quick travel anywhere in sunlight. BAH!

  • smelly #13 6 years ago

    Wait, are you playing on the xbox or the pc?

    PC. Playing for 8 hours total "real" time so far. And it's crashed to desktop 6 times, with one un-recoverable crash (requiring a reboot) - alhtough to be fair i think that one time was because i forgot to turn off my virus checker before playing and it mightve been trying to auto-update itself.

    Dont get me wrong. I *expect* bugs in a game of this size (especially on pc), as they cant POSSIBLY account for every thing someone tries to do, on every type of pc. However, I'd still rather they spent their time working on patches than this kind of content.

    Edited by 1 at 18/04/06 @ 12:15

  • Furbs #14 6 years ago

    Sounds to me like you're blaming the game for your systems failings. Maybe try a reinstall/reformat?

  • gizmo #15 6 years ago

    Is there any way to tell which dungeons you have pilfered? Theres an awful lot, more than my memory will serve me for, and making notes is the other side of that line.

  • Lagto_Soa #16 6 years ago

    Is Wizard's Tower the male equivalent of Wizard's Sleeve?

  • Beano #17 6 years ago

    Played the Xbox 360 version 45-50 hours so far and haven't had one crash yet!

    But the game is quite glitchy and had major framerate issues in open areas (yes I have cleared my HDD cache many times)... I wish they would work on those problems.

  • kangarootoo #18 6 years ago

    @Spud_leg_wizz

    I just went through the whole un-vampiring thing, after feeding every few days became a real chore. There are a few FAQs out there if you need pointers, or if you know what you are up to you can make life easier with a little preparation.

    You can travel during the day, so long as you are fed-up with blood (so to speak). I just fed, then went where I needed to go and completed the next stage of the quest. Then I would feed again (whether it was necessary or not) before moving onto the next stage. This way I was able to move around without any real problems. My character is rather good at lockpicking, so entering houses as I wish is no real problem. I can see that if breaking into houses to find sleeping NPCs is not so easy, being a vampire will be a real pain.

    I think they got the balance wrong on this one, certainly if you character is already reasonably strong (so the boons of vampirism aren't so apparent compared to your inate abilities).

    Anyway, on topic. I am glad to see them heading in roughly the right direction when it comes to extra content (extra gameplay instead of extra trinkets). But its still hard to tell whether this has value or not. Has anyone played the add-on? How long did you get from the extra mission?

    I agree with Bitkari that bundling lots of extra missions together and charging appropriately would be the better path (for players at least), rather than drip feeding missions one at a time (which overall will cost players an unreasonable amount).

  • smelly #19 6 years ago

    @Spud_leg_wizz

    Save regularly, if you become a vampire, reload.. Simple!

  • smelly #20 6 years ago

    The problem is with drip feeding one mini quest at a time is that i'd imagine even when you complete the game there are 100s of mini quests like this you havent got around to doing (and are never really likely to).

    For a quest to be worth while downloading (For me) it should be a major quest somehow tied into the main plot, not some simple mini quest (i've got enough of them already, and i doubt i'll play half of them!)

  • Fozzie_bear #21 6 years ago

    The 'O RLY' download?

    WoW beat 'em to it carlo! Saw this little fellow flying about in tenaris over the weekend :)
    Edited by 1 at 18/04/06 @ 13:38

  • MyPointIs #22 6 years ago

    Me too, I've played the 360 verion 40+ hours and haven't had a single crash, bug or broken quest yet. I guess I'm lucky too.

  • Tonka #23 6 years ago

    Apart from a flying tree that I saw somewhere

    I've seen that to. It's west north west of Chorrol. Well worth a visit. Get there before it's over crowded with tourists.

  • Spud_leg_wizz #24 6 years ago

    @ Kangarootoo

    Nice advice. It's the only quest that I've been forced to do - it's something I never got myself into knowingly. Eveything else has been my decision and for the first 24 hours no problems with sunlight. Anyway, on subject, downloadable content very welcome for small price.

  • Bertie Verified Senior Staff Writer, Eurogamer.net #25 6 years ago

    HMPH, I would have preferred not having to return my Xbox 360 disk 'cause it's now unreadable (along with lots of other people's) - over having rubbishy downloadable content!

  • Thamuhacha #26 6 years ago

    >Xbox 360 disk

    Do you mean your Oblivion disk? What happened to it?

  • Bertie Verified Senior Staff Writer, Eurogamer.net #27 6 years ago

    Yeah sorry, my Obliv disk. I got it on PC too, so it works in my mind perfectly, just erm, doesn't seem so clear here :)

    There's a massive 'ring-scratch' around the disc. I only noticed this 'cause the console couldn't read from it and said 'disk is unreadable, try wiping it'. It kept saying that and after a while of trying to get it to work, it wouldn't load anything - a new game or a saved game. It did work for a period, I don't know if it was my machine scratching the disk or if I just hadn't got to the scratched bit yet.

    I didn't even think there were any scratches on the disk until I showed a friend who pointed out the huge scratch-ring that I'd just overlooked, probably because it was quite so obvious. I'd had the game about a week and a half, it'd been out of the console once. Play seemed fine taking it back, but it seems I'm not the only one to have had this problem.

    Apparently this thread on the Elder Scrolls site has lots of other disgruntled people. I haven' really had time to tuck into it, but I will at some point :)

  • Xerx3s #28 6 years ago

    "Dont get me wrong. I *expect* bugs in a game of this size (especially on pc), as they cant POSSIBLY account for every thing someone tries to do, on every type of pc. However, I'd still rather they spent their time working on patches than this kind of content. "

    Ive got 80+ hours on the clock and thusfar me 360 version only crashed once. Found one or two (rather amusing) bugs though (like the countess or guards saying something like "If the guards dont do something about this damned oblivion gate, i will be leaving this town soon!";)

  • smelly #29 6 years ago

    To be honest. Soemthing this big an complicated I EXPECT a patch (unlike a beat-em-up or racing game).

    However, my point was, wasnt that I was cheesed it needed a patch, more rather i just wish they'd get on with the patch as opposed to mission disks.

  • Thamuhacha #30 6 years ago

    >Found one or two (rather amusing) bugs though

    I have had a few funny ones. Guards screaming "Your time is over, thief" and then wandering back off on their rounds ... etc

    But I usually stab them in the back at that ppint anyway

  • Genji #31 6 years ago

    "My copy crashes to desktop regularly. This game is broken."

    "Why, there can't possibly be any problem with the game! It works just fine on my PC!"

    I'm with smelly on this. Other games work perfectly on my PC, but not Oblivion. It was the same with Morrowind.

    I expect there to be bugs and crashes (although not on the X360 version), but I also expect that the developers prioritise fixing the problems with the game over releasing some new duds for my horse.

    The patch had better come soon.

  • finian #32 6 years ago

    Ive only suffered one bug but it sure is a big one, my two save games with 25 hours worth of game time will not load and they crash my 360. I dont think Ill be playing this game anymore.

  • kangarootoo #33 6 years ago

    I think its funny when people feel the need to try and be superior in petty and unimportant ways.

    Signed, an impartial XB360 gamer.

  • papalazarou #34 6 years ago

    @ kangarotoo
    Amen to that. Xiphos, what has your lameass post got to do with the thread??

  • yagisencho #35 6 years ago

    I'm 67 hours in and have done relatively little with the main quest. I don't think I'll be needing this quest pack anytime soon.

    (Psst...Bethesda...just release an expansion in a few month, k?)

  • Helios #36 6 years ago

    I need to get on with the main quest soon too. I've only just delivered the deadric artifact... despite having notched up 30 hours of gameplay time. I've done the mages guild, part of the fighters guild, joined the dark brotherood, closed a few of oblivion gates. Oblivion gates are great for levelling up combat abilities by the way.

    Anyone know how many different oblivion layouts there are? I've only come across the same one twice so far, and i've closed about 10 gates. The most annoying one for me so far was the one with the large tower in the middle and the 6 smaller towers surrounding it. 5 of them had switches in them and the other one lead to the large tower, but you had to hit all 5 switches before you could get in there. Took ages.

  • Beano #37 6 years ago

    Anybody know when the Oblivion packs (for Xbox 360) will be available for users outside the US and UK ?... I live in Denmark and the packs are not available on Live Marketplace yet ;(
    Edited by 1 at 19/04/06 @ 07:45

  • miiiguel #38 6 years ago

    I'll do the 1000 GS 1st, and then think about this. I must be very fortunate, as I never had a single problem with this game (nor any other ptoblem with X360, by the way).
    I think I'll never play on my PC again, it seems odd for me now to play on an office desk, looking to a PC monitor.
    X360 really upgraded my ludic time, this is what's next-gen all about (IMHO).
    Edited by 1 at 20/04/06 @ 14:40