Oblivion's decrease in lore was the tradeoff of having all of the dialogue voice-acted; there couldn't be as much dialogue as in Morrowind.

Yes, but cigarettes are bad for you. Oblivion isn't...Actually, disregard that. Cigarettes stunt physical growth, Oblivion stunts mental growth.

Not where I'm from.
Thats illegal...

I think I have been searching for that statement for almost 2 years, and I completely agree with you. Oblivion made me feel like I should have been retarded.

I beg to differ. At least on the Oblivion part.

I wouldn't say it literally stunts mental growth, but what I think is meant is that Oblivion was to childish to put alot of thought into. It didn't allow the player to seek out thier own methods of gaining success.IMHO.

Define "success" in this case.

The quests were basically force fed, and the journal was way to helpful. I felt that as I advanced in guilds and factions that it wasn't really authentic, I wasn't doing it by myself. It seemed to me that the success I had in the game was not well earned. In morrowind it seemed like you had to rely alot more on your own abilities to get around and complete quests, while in Oblivion you recieved to much help and direction to be too self-rewarding. IMHO.

I agree with the "too much help" thing in leading you to quest points and whatnot, but for me it was a bit refreshing from some of the weak-assed directions some of the people in Morrowind gave you. I'd spend way too much time trying to find "evil witches" from some dumb guy who got sixed up by some chick and still didn't have the good sense to give me proper directions.

It was convenient; just TOO convenient.

The protagonist in Oblivion lived in Cyrodiil before imprisonment; he/she would already know the land pretty well. The Nerevarine, on the other hand, was completely new to Morrowind. And findings stuff in Morrowind was often a frustrating nightmare.

I agree that the system was too convenient in some situation, but in most cases it didn't make much of a difference, given the map and fast travel.

True; that's a pretty good point too, especially to justify a feature in a way that the devs themselves probably didn't think of, lol.

Speaking of fast travel, while I would have enjoyed the idea of seeing what system of travel Cyrodiilics used to get around, I feel fast travel is extremely optional and the world itself is really too interesting to simply fast travel everywhere and not walk. There are ever horses, just use them if you're gonna fast travel. But eh, that's just my opinion.