OK, a few points, so please remove your nostalgia goggles at this time:

First off, whatever people might say, there's no negative trend between high-quality graphics and good storytelling. There are Dooms and Wolfensteins in every generation, just as there are Bioshocks and Dragon Ages. People need to stop saying that developers are only focusing on making games pretty, because that's [censored]. There has never been a point where Bethesda wasn't trying to push the envelope in terms of technology, or does nobody remember the hype about Morrowind being the largest, most detailed 3D game of that time?

Second, Oblivion's story is definitely inferior to Morrowind's, but it's still great. Bethesda is very good at what they do, and what they do is craft fantastic worlds for the player to enjoy. Oblivion's cast of characters felt infinitely more alive than Morrowind's (IE individual personalities, unique appeances, etc.): I can remember walking through Seyda Neen and hearing two guards and Vodunius Nuccius, all at the same time, screech "THINK IT'LL RAIN???" at me. Cyrodiil is a beautiful place, and the Ayleid ruins were, to me, far more beautiful and haunting than any of the Dwemer ruins. The crucial difference between Oblivion and Morrowind (and note that this isn't a bad thing) is that Oblivion is very vanilla fantasy. Elven ruins, rolling meadows, invading demons-- it lacks the weirdness that Morrowind relished in, and that Bethesda discovered again with Shivering Isles.

Third, anyone who thinks that the Dark Brotherhood quests are less interesting than the Morag Tong is a liar and fraud. That's all I have to say about that.

I love Morrowind, and I would choose it a thousand times over Oblivion, but I get tired of people hating on Oblivion because it's the 'in' thing to do. They're both wonderful games, people. Enjoy them.

EDIT: Also, I'm very tired right now, so hopefully this all makes some sort of sense.

I think a lot of the problem that most veteran RPG'ers and TES fans have is that the bar was set so damn high with Morrowind. Morrowind was an amazing game, almost no flaws at all. A truly inspiring and open ended experience that had more replay value than ANY other game out there, to date.
That's hard to follow, and that shows with OB.

Not sure what you mean by no flaws at all -

You're obviously not referring to the multitude of CTD's or for the Xbox dirty disc errors.

Or the way even top of the line graphics cards struggle to address the low fps issues in different cells

Or the 100's of dialogue errrors which were addressed in the unofficial patch mod

Or the multitude of engine fixes addressed by the Morrwind Code patch

Or the way the NPC's all say the same generic things which led to the LGNPC mods

Or the way some of the armour was unbalanced which led to the balanced weapon and armour mods

Maybe you didn't have in mind the way the economy is - um well flawed

Or how you level up to be greater than any living Daedra

So perhaps it's some other flawless aspect of Morrowind you have in mind?



In my mind Morrowind is beautifully flawed - that's why it's so moddable - there's so much to fix or improve on and that's what gives it increased replayability

In regards to the OP topic of Bethesda going down a bad path I just wonder if they will include another construction set to go with their next game - it seems the business model of selling DLC may decide that free content from modders is competition - now that would be a bad path

Second, Oblivion's story is definitely inferior to Morrowind's, but it's still great. Bethesda is very good at what they do, and what they do is craft fantastic worlds for the player to enjoy. Oblivion's cast of characters felt infinitely more alive than Morrowind's (IE individual personalities, unique appeances, etc.): I can remember walking through Seyda Neen and hearing two guards and Vodunius Nuccius, all at the same time, screech "THINK IT'LL RAIN???" at me. Cyrodiil is a beautiful place, and the Ayleid ruins were, to me, far more beautiful and haunting than any of the Dwemer ruins. The crucial difference between Oblivion and Morrowind (and note that this isn't a bad thing) is that Oblivion is very vanilla fantasy. Elven ruins, rolling meadows, invading demons-- it lacks the weirdness that Morrowind relished in, and that Bethesda discovered again with Shivering Isles.

Third, anyone who thinks that the Dark Brotherhood quests are less interesting than the Morag Tong is a liar and fraud. That's all I have to say about that.

I love Morrowind, and I would choose it a thousand times over Oblivion, but I get tired of people hating on Oblivion because it's the 'in' thing to do. They're both wonderful games, people. Enjoy them.

Casual Gaming.

C-64 will never die
- Only the players

I think Bethesda is probably following the core example of the gaming industry in general...graphics first actual game second. Oblivion was a great game...if you never played Morrowind. After playing Morrowind for years and waiting with baited breath for Oblivion to come out I was immensely disappointed when it actually did. Even with the expansions (shivering isles was good...) I felt like Oblivion was empty in comparison. The quests were short, boring, and bland. There were so few factions to join...couldn't even join the legions! The best guild experience was the Dark Brotherhood, which I hated. I'm sorry but the Dark Brotherhood seemed like a hand-out to whiney emo kids and I preferred the Morag Tong in Morrowind.

Fallout 3 was really fun, but I ran out of things to do. It seemed like there were things that should have been quests but didn't connect to anything in the game. Things that NPCs should have at least commented on if not gotten involved in, but didn't. Fallout felt bigger and better than Oblivion, but still nowhere near as good as Morrowind. Even the expansions of Fallout felt rushed and short, like a teen-ager's first foray into advlt relationships.

Don't get me wrong...I loved Fallout 3 and to a lesser degree Oblivion. I still play them. But I enjoy Morrowind more, even now. If only it played more smoothly I'd play only Morrowind. Graphics have always been far less important than the enjoyability of the game. I still pull out old dungeon crawlers and play those...Baldur's Gate II or Oblivion? Oblivion is much newer, graphically superior and should be better...but old Baldur's Gate and other games like it are more fulfilling and simply more fun to play. If Bethesda continues its trend...the games won't be worth playing much longer. I'll have to spend ALL of my time on DosBox...which isn't such a bad thing when I think about it.

I agree that Oblivion is a good game, but the older games sometimes seem more satisfying. I love Oblivion, but I think Daggerfall is absolutely amazing. I think the trend of simplifying Elder Scrolls games started with Morrowind, as Daggerfall is much more complex than Morrowind, and it is much more challenging than Morrowind, just as Oblivion is less complex than Morrowind and is less challenging than Morrowind.

Better graphics are not responsible for the simplifying of games, but I don't know what is.

I suggest that the entire development time plays Daggerfall again(if they haven't already, which they should have). Daggerfall is the most complex(complexity is a good thing, in my opinion) of all TES games, in my opinion. Here is a list of the pros and cons of Daggerfall. I want the pros in TES V and the cons not in TES V.

Pros

• Currency weighs something.
  
• Banks are in the game and one can deposit their gold in the bank. Loans also come from banks in Daggerfall and the player is given a certain amount of time to pay the loan back. If they don't pay the loan back on time, they lose reputation.
  
• The reputation system of Daggerfall is complex and brilliant. By gaining a higher reputation with one group or joining one group, your reputation with another group may go down. Each group has allies and enemies. Bethesda created a great web in Daggerfall known as Daggerfall's reputation system, and it(or something similar) must be present in TES V.
  
• Daggerfall had a large variety of factions, and you may not join anything close to all of them with one character. One must choose which knightly order or templar order to join, and there are many of those orders. Each faction gives the player benefits and the player receives more benefits as they rise through the faction's ranks. One's rank is based on one's skill.
  
• Daggerfall has a better criminal justice system than later Elder Scrolls games. The player goes to court for criminal acts and they are sentenced there. The sentence can vary depending on if the player pleads guilty or not guilty. If the player pleads guilty, then they are instantly found guilty, but they suffer a lesser sentence than if they pleaded not guilty and were found guilty. If one pleads not guilty, then they can debate or lie to try and get their way out of trouble. Their success at this is determined by their character's skill with such things. If the player succeeds at lying or debating, then they face no punishment. If they are found guilty when pleading not guilty, they face a harsher punishment then if they had pleaded guilty.
  
• Daggerfall allowed a person to buy a ship and a cart as well as a horse. All three are forms of transportation.
  
• Daggerfall and Morrowind both allowed more customization of one's appearance with more slots available for clothing and armor.
  
• When speaking to someone, there are a large variety of topics(that usually relate to the specific area of the conversation) that may selected, but not everyone knows about those topics. Some people may know about where a certain place is while others may not. When asking about information in a conversation, each NPC gives only one piece of information. Daggerfall's conversation system is more varied than Oblivion's, but it makes Daggerfall's NPCs seem less all-knowing than Morrowind's NPCs.
  
• There are more skills in Daggerfall than there are in Morrowind and Oblivion.
  
• Skills are more important in Daggerfall than they are in Oblivion, and possibly Morrowind.
  
• Banks are regional.
  
• Quests in Daggerfall have time limits.
  
• In Daggerfall, money seemed to be more useful. There are always things to buy in Daggerfall.
  
• Banks issued the equivalent of a check in the modern world, which weighs much less than a large amount of money. However, not everbody accepts those equivalents of checks.
  
• Daggerfall is much larger than Oblivion and Morrowind. While it results in less unique areas and quests, there is much more to do in Daggerfall than in Morrowind and Oblivion.
  
• The complexity of Daggerfall's fast-travel system is nice.
  
• Overall, Daggerfall is a challenging game because it forces the player to think about their choices and the possible consequences for their choices before they act. Having to use a regional bank and only having a certain amount of time to complete a quest also makes Daggerfall challenging.
  
• Overall, Daggerfall is a masterpiece and a true role-playing game. For some reason, Daggerfall's complexity has been lost.

Cons

• Since most of the game is randomly generated, locations and quests aren't as interesting as they are in Oblivion and Morrowind(more interesting than Oblivion).
  
• Daggerfall has some level-scaling. I want level-scaling gone completely.
  
• Daggerfall may be a bit too large. I like Daggerfall's size, but I hate it at the same time. Daggerfall is huge, but it feels empty and exploring isn't nearly as possible in Daggerfall as it is in Oblivion. Areas are spread too far apart and I always need to use fast-travel to get around. I also can't discover areas. It's too difficult to find areas in Daggerfall by exploring.
  
• The player can't interact with items in Daggerfall as much as they can in Morrowind and Oblivion.

Cons about Daggerfall that weren't cons when it was released, but they are seen as cons now

• Daggerfall's graphics are seen as crap and drive too many people away from the game. It is an excellent game, but sadly, it is hidden from the world by its age and graphics.
  
• Daggerfall's animations are considered terrible by today's standards.
  
• Daggerfall's sounds are also considered terrible by today's standards.

Now this would be a metter of taste. I really do not find the Oblivion NPCs more alive and individual than the ones in Morrowind. Taking into concideration what possibilities the devs had with the FaceGen in Oblivion, I find most of the NPCs to be just generated and therefore they really look quite similar to me. On the other hand, Morrowind had far less possibilities to customise the appeareance to NPCs, yet I think the devs used them much better. And with personalities it is even clearer to me. In Morrowind, not only factions, but also their members had personalities, believes and grudges. In Oblivion, some NPCs have a unique one-liner that is supposed to define them. That is just not enough. The fact that the one-liner is voiced does not make for the lost content.

And when exactly did your opinion become the universal truth? I liked Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood quests, because they were one of the few in the game taht did not require you to run somewhere, kill whatever moves and come back, I must say that the atmosphere of Morag Tong is far superior. The guild feels realistic and meaningful, while the Dark Brotherhood seems very pathetic to me.

Yet, not all of those who criticise Oblivion hate it. I have been criticising this game here for several years (and because it is an "in" thing, but because I think that there were far to many mistakes), but I have never ever said that I hate the game. If I did, I would not bother playing it or commenting on it.

I don't understand. In Morrowind, NPCs only have unique dialogue, of any kind, if they're related to a quest, which most of them are not. The bulk of Morrowind's NPCs exist to fill space and make towns look less dead. Furthermore, since you mention factions, how are Modryn Oreyn or Earana devoid of personality, beliefs, or grudges?

Also, it seems funny to me that you think that Oblivion's faces (which I would be extremely surprised to learn were auto generated) are more similar than NPCs that use THE EXACT SAME HEAD MODEL AS EACH OTHER.

I was referring to the quality of the quests themselves. You know, since Morrowind's were essentially "run somewhere, kill (NPC) and come back."

I also never said anything about hating the game itself, but rather exaggerating its faults and ignoring the things it does well. It's the same phenomenon that leads commenters to screech "THEY ALL LOOK LIKE GIRLS LOL BELTS AND ZIPPERS" whenever an article about a JRPG comes up on Kotaku, Joystiq, etc.

I have also heard that idea about Morrowind stepping aside, but I love the complexity of Daggerfall and Morrowind seems to lose some of my favorite parts about Daggerfall. I also noticed some similarities between Daggerfall and Oblivion, and that may explain why some Oblivion fans have said that they also enjoy Daggerfall, but not Morrowind. Despite Morrowind's improvement from Daggerfall, I can't help but feel like Morrowind seems different in a negative way. Like I said before, I group Arena and Daggerfall together and I group Morrowind and Oblivion together. The biggest change between two Elder Scrolls games seems to have happened between Daggerfall and Morrowind. Morrowind and Oblivion(especially Morrowind) seem less like generic fantasy RPGs than Arena and Daggerfall, but they still seem more simplified to me, both of them. I love both of them, but after I started playing Daggerfall, I just couldn't believe how much had changed between Daggerfall and Morrowind. Daggerfall seemed more (creatively) challenging than Morrowind and Oblivion. I made a list earlier about what I love and hate about Daggerfall, especially when compared to Morrowind and Oblivion:

View Postseti18, on 13 March 2010 - 05:44 PM, said:
I suggest that the entire development time plays Daggerfall again(if they haven't already, which they should have). Daggerfall is the most complex(complexity is a good thing, in my opinion) of all TES games, in my opinion. Here is a list of the pros and cons of Daggerfall. I want the pros in TES V and the cons not in TES V.

Pros

* Currency weighs something.
* Banks are in the game and one can deposit their gold in the bank. Loans also come from banks in Daggerfall and the player is given a certain amount of time to pay the loan back. If they don't pay the loan back on time, they lose reputation.
* The reputation system of Daggerfall is complex and brilliant. By gaining a higher reputation with one group or joining one group, your reputation with another group may go down. Each group has allies and enemies. Bethesda created a great web in Daggerfall known as Daggerfall's reputation system, and it(or something similar) must be present in TES V.
* Daggerfall had a large variety of factions, and you may not join anything close to all of them with one character. One must choose which knightly order or templar order to join, and there are many of those orders. Each faction gives the player benefits and the player receives more benefits as they rise through the faction's ranks. One's rank is based on one's skill.
* Daggerfall has a better criminal justice system than later Elder Scrolls games. The player goes to court for criminal acts and they are sentenced there. The sentence can vary depending on if the player pleads guilty or not guilty. If the player pleads guilty, then they are instantly found guilty, but they suffer a lesser sentence than if they pleaded not guilty and were found guilty. If one pleads not guilty, then they can debate or lie to try and get their way out of trouble. Their success at this is determined by their character's skill with such things. If the player succeeds at lying or debating, then they face no punishment. If they are found guilty when pleading not guilty, they face a harsher punishment then if they had pleaded guilty.
* Daggerfall allowed a person to buy a ship and a cart as well as a horse. All three are forms of transportation.
* Daggerfall and Morrowind both allowed more customization of one's appearance with more slots available for clothing and armor.
* When speaking to someone, there are a large variety of topics(that usually relate to the specific area of the conversation) that may selected, but not everyone knows about those topics. Some people may know about where a certain place is while others may not. When asking about information in a conversation, each NPC gives only one piece of information. Daggerfall's conversation system is more varied than Oblivion's, but it makes Daggerfall's NPCs seem less all-knowing than Morrowind's NPCs.
* There are more skills in Daggerfall than there are in Morrowind and Oblivion.
* Skills are more important in Daggerfall than they are in Oblivion, and possibly Morrowind.
* Banks are regional.
* Quests in Daggerfall have time limits.
* In Daggerfall, money seemed to be more useful. There are always things to buy in Daggerfall.
* Banks issued the equivalent of a check in the modern world, which weighs much less than a large amount of money. However, not everbody accepts those equivalents of checks.
* Daggerfall is much larger than Oblivion and Morrowind. While it results in less unique areas and quests, there is much more to do in Daggerfall than in Morrowind and Oblivion.
* The complexity of Daggerfall's fast-travel system is nice.
* Overall, Daggerfall is a challenging game because it forces the player to think about their choices and the possible consequences for their choices before they act. Having to use a regional bank and only having a certain amount of time to complete a quest also makes Daggerfall challenging.
* Overall, Daggerfall is a masterpiece and a true role-playing game. For some reason, Daggerfall's complexity has been lost.



Cons

* Since most of the game is randomly generated, locations and quests aren't as interesting as they are in Oblivion and Morrowind(more interesting than Oblivion).
* Daggerfall has some level-scaling. I want level-scaling gone completely.
* Daggerfall may be a bit too large. I like Daggerfall's size, but I hate it at the same time. Daggerfall is huge, but it feels empty and exploring isn't nearly as possible in Daggerfall as it is in Oblivion. Areas are spread too far apart and I always need to use fast-travel to get around. I also can't discover areas. It's too difficult to find areas in Daggerfall by exploring.
* The player can't interact with items in Daggerfall as much as they can in Morrowind and Oblivion.



Cons about Daggerfall that weren't cons when it was released, but they are seen as cons now

* Daggerfall's graphics are seen as crap and drive too many people away from the game. It is an excellent game, but sadly, it is hidden from the world by its age and graphics.
* Daggerfall's animations are considered terrible by today's standards.
* Daggerfall's sounds are also considered terrible by today's standards.


I did mention Morrowind and Oblivion(again, especially Morrowind) being more interesting than Daggerfall. That is why I thought I would not enjoy Daggerfall. I read it is huge, but immensively repetitive and boring. However, once I started playing Daggerfall, I wasn't bothered by its randomly-generated everything as much as I thought I would be. In fact, I'm impressed that in 1996, Bethesda managed to create a massive and excellent game without actually creating the game. Everything is randomly-generated, and that is quite impressive. Now, I don't know if I like smaller, less detailed worlds or larger less, detailed worlds. I still support hand-placed and interesting environments, but that comes with the price of complexity. It does seem as if Morrowind stepped aside from Daggerfall instead of directly stepping down, but I just can't decide which way I would prefer future Elder Scrolls games to be. Can't they combine the two? Can we have Daggerfall's complexity and some of its size with the hand-placed locations and quests of Morrowind and Oblivion? Could some randomly-generated areas be mixed with hand-crafted ones? If Bethesda could randomly-generate an amazing game like Daggerfall in 1996, what could they do now?

Well hopefully when they release Elder Scrolls V which i think will come in 2011 or 2012,bit Bethesda are working on other crap games instead of Elder Scrolls but hopefully they'll put a lot of new stuff in it as it has taken them years so far and probally a few more

*snip*

In a small number of ways, Oblivion improved on Morrowind. There was the graphics, there was the combat system, and the way that magic was used in combat. That's about it.

I, for one, still believe that Morrowind is one of the best games I've ever played (and I'm talking about the Xbox version here). For one thing, compared to most other games, it's absolutely massive. You could spend the better part of an hour exploring one region of the island, and not find everything there.

Second of all, you could really roleplay in that game. If you wanted to kill some random guy, you could. There was no "NPC is unconscious" crap. You killed a mission critical character? Tough [censored]. You live with it, because that's the choice you made.

I could write a [censored] essay on the number of things I think Morrowind absolutely trounces Oblivion in, including the enchantment mechanics, and the presence of spells like levitate. Needless to say, I think that Morrowind was a fantastic game, much better than Oblivion or Fallout 3, and I really hope that Bethesda looks at what its fans are saying and makes TES V more like its older games, instead of catering to the masses.

Actually, the island of Vvardenfell is relatively small. The default movement speed is just set so low that it feels more huge than it is. The low visibility adds to this illusion, since you're wandering for a long time without seeing your destination, making it seem like there's a long distance between the two points.

I don't understand where you're coming from in terms of Oblivion "catering to the masses." They've continued their trend of streamlining the gameplay and trimming down less necessary or less popular options, such as crossbows or levitation (don't know about anyone else, but I never used it except when I absolutely had to, mainly in the Telvanni towers), but I don't think that's a bad thing. It was taken too far, I would argue, in their reducing of weapon and armor classes (only one Blade option, combining axes and blunt weapons into one Blunt skill, no medium armor), but on the whole I would be sad if Skyrim or whatever their next game is was a step backward.

One can not claim that the streamlining Oblivion did was okay simply because it didn't remove anything that anyone likes.

Agreed. Removing skills or merging several skills into one skill just wasn't a good thing. You couldn't have the kind of characters in Oblivion that you could in Morrowind. And removing spells and weapons was bad too. There's no excuse for removing the weapons, lots of people loved the throwing stars, they shouldn't have been removed. Levitation had to be removed, but taking spells like teleportation away was a bad move. Sure, you could fast travel, but teleportation would have given an alternative to fast travel, a system that has as many haters as it does fans.

I don't want a "streamlined" game, I want more customization. If there are a few skills that aren't very popular, don't remove them, because there are still people who do use them. Don't remove weapons and spells, even if weapons are useless compared to others, as they allow further customization of your character.