I recently loaded up Oblivion for the first time since before Skyrim came out. Basically, just to check in on my two most recent Oblivion characters. I have a paladin-type and a pure assassin-type. I noticed that, for whatever reason, first person seems somewhat smoother and a bit easier to play with in Oblivion. In Skyrim I tend to play in 3rd person mode. I expected Oblivion to somehow look worse than it does. It's certainly less gritty and less detailed (in some ways) than Skyrim, but it actually still looks fantastic, and I love the palette and the music. And there is definitely something to the vibe in Oblivion. I guess I could say that I like both games, for reasons that are similar and reasons that are different.

After I finish my current Skyrim character's main journey I'll probably go back to my paladin in Oblivion and enjoy that journey for a while.

Thanks. Yeah, I didn't mean to be insulting. When I see claims of really high hours, I tend to do some quick math. I have probably a thousand hours playing Oblivion (or a bit more) and I play quite a lot. 7000 is a lot of hours.

11000 hours of playing just two games, over a ten year period, is a lot of computer time. There are 3650 days in 10 years. 11000 divided by 3650 equals 3.013698630136986, on my calculator.

Personally with that many hours I would be more concerned with vitamin D deficiency...!

The most I can ever remember playing a game is Fallout: New Vegas with just over 400 hours. I might have played Age of Empires 2 for longer though, I didn't have Steam back then.

Note: You must have a big calculator.

I'll definitely pop Oblivion back in again in the future. While I feel Skyrim is better in most ways, I still think Oblivion is just as fun.

Yeah, expensive, too. It's a Mac Pro workstation.

Macs have a built-in scientific calculator app, one click away on the desktop. Dangerous stuff in the wrong hands!

Looking back on Skyrim, the writing was worse. You start in Helgen where it is about tension between the Empire and the stormclowns. This kicks of an almost optional portion of the story, and has little or nothing to do with the main badguy. I was hooked on the game as a dungeon crawler. Story was lackluster and the rest of it was a bit better in some areas, but overall not a stellar improvement. That enchantment menu was terrible and many important characters missed expression. And Skyrim loses respect for being a game that stormfront loves.

To answer the original question, I'm playing Modblivion instead of Skyrim

Yes. As much as I like Skyrim, oblivion will always have a special place.

I actually played Oblivion last night, for about an hour; first time I've really played it since Skyrim.

Wow! I had missed the colors, the music, the overall feel of the game, and my characters -- a lot more than I realized. It was nice to see my character's stats again, nice to cast a spell without unequipping my weapon, nice to see my character in the menu screen, nice to be able to actually read detailed desciptions of current and completed quests in the journal, nice to see npc's talking to each other, nice to see my factions, nice to be recognized accordingly... nice to be back in general. I still have so many things to do in Oblivion. I used to have terrible restartitis, and I only really conquered that last summer. Then I foolishly fell into the efficient leveling trap (I have a level 7 character with 25 hours and my favorite character is only level 10 with about 35 hours). However, the plus side of that foolishness is that my two Oblivion characters are off to strong starts statistically, so now I really can just play them without further worry about the #'s behind the scenes. One thing I learned from my months with Skyrim is the real value in not using Fast Travel ever (it makes the world larger and more real to me), not using wait ever (makes the passage of time feel more continuous and narrative in passage), and not being a loot-hoard-vendor-bot.

It really is a beautiful game, and not just graphically. There's something epic and moving about Cyrodiil that, for all its high points, Skyrim doesn't evoke from me.

I'm back.

This. I love both. Right now I love Skyrim but I have too much nostalgia attached to Oblivion to forget about it.

I agree 100% about Oblivion being deeper. I prefer oblivion's setting, and its factions are far superior and longer. I know lots of people dis oblivion's main quest but i really enoyed it and it made me feel like an epic hero. I honestly didnt really like skyrim's main quest, it felt too short and i never found myself caring what happened in it.

While waiting for the next Skyrim patch I decided to go back to my last Oblivion character and finish the main quest with him. The battles felt great and the graphics look just fine. I felt right at home fixing my gear, haggling with merchants and casting spells on the fly (without the need to unequip something first). Oblivion still feels great to play.

Back playing Oblivion and all modded up. It's awesome!

I just wish some of the mods had been in the original release such as Spell Delete and many of the graphic mods.
That said, even with its many flaws I still prefer vanilla as much as possible. I don′t like when I can recognize a mod from the vanilla content because then that′s what I focus on.

Well, the mods change the game drastically, I use all graphical mods and it looks a lot better. Dark UId, immersive interiors, unique districts, natural weather, beautful people, enhanced water, Qarl's texture pack and OBGE.