Good for you, but that doesn't necessarily make you the resident expert on what is good or bad about an Elder Scrolls game.

Personally, I loved OB and I look forward to seeing Skyrim build off of that and more.

Not at all. I understand it completely. It just felt a little too "dumbed down" (and i hate to use that term).

Oblivion is my favorite game, but honestly I have to say that Morrowind is better. Morrowind was extremely annoying, but had the content to back it up. I liked the Oblivion marker and compass features, yeah it made it too easy, but it's better than not knowing where you are supposed to go, then not being able to find the correct journal entry for a mission you've forgotten about. If you've just gotten home from a long day's work, you don't want to play Morrowind and attempt to find a place from something like "go south til you see the rock shaped like censored, then go west til you see the sun censoreding the moon." Of course I paraphrase, but still. After a long day's work, you want to follow the little green triangle, or the yellow brick road. A good solution is make it optional. Or make it like Red Dead Redemption's thing, just over a bigger area. If they decide to make it like Morrowind, they sure as hell better have the content to back it up.

The water is clearer, and there is underwater life unlike in Oblivion. Also seems like a direct change to the criticisms received from Oblivion.

The Cyrodiil jungle thing is my one gripe with an otherwise great post, sir. I'm glad they changed it, and I hope they never feel shackled to lore written a decade ago by less experienced developers (themselves a decade ago). Geographically it made no sense at all to have Cyrodiil as a jungle, so they changed it to make it more realistic and to make Oblivion a better game.

As long as the decision to change lore makes sense I am all for it. It is, after all, complete fiction, and there's no reason to get mad when they change it with good gameplay reason. If my PC's in my DnD game made me stick to the lore of the world I made ten years ago (I always use the same world, have been for a decade), I'd not be very happy with it. I've grown, I've learned, and sometimes I feel I need to make changes to better fit things into my DnD game. this is how I feel about TES. So, Todd, if you're reading, here's one person that loves the lore, but doesn't mind if you change it for the betterment of the series.

I think Morrowind's system with an upgraded journal that made it easier to sort through quests (one thing Oblivion did way better) would be best.

If I said I hated Fable, most of you would probably agree with me. It was linear, restrictive, childish, and and despite "families," houses, and trade, had all the depth of a litterbox.

Now, if I said that Oblivion was more like Fable than Morrowind*, you'd be hard pressed to prove me wrong. Oblivion simplified and streamlined many of the things that made Morrowind so captivating. Obviously, it was still leagues above stuff like Fable, but at the same time, was a step in that direction.

Skyrim, I think, will be somewhere in between Morrowind and Oblivion, in terms of maturity and complexity. If that's the kind of thing you're into, that makes it a better game. Of course, some people will prefer Oblivion to Skyrim, although for my own reasons I doubt it will be nearly as large as the divide between Morrowind and Oblivion fans.

*Not meaning Fable...Oblivion.................Morrowind, but rather, Fable.........Oblivion...Morrowind. Morrowind and Oblivion are much more alike to each other than Fable is to either, but Oblivion was on the Fable side of things.

I totally agree with the OP, Skyrim has a lot of small things that people have been asking for for AGES (well before Morrowind) that they just didn't have time to do.

...

Still hate Oblivion, though.

Perfect. Morrowind too complex, Oblivion too simple.

Maybe to you, but I completely disagree. I found Oblivion to have absolutely no relation to Fable in terms of depth and complexity.

I would rather use the phrase "more accessible" rather than "dumbed down." I do think they overdid it with the quantity of quest arrows in their quests, but I liked the idea to begin with. If an NPC tells me of a cave to go to to search for their friend and they tell me where to go to get to the cave, then I dislike having to search for half an hour or more just to find where the cave is, then spend another half an hour inside the actual cave itself. In that situation, a compass arrow helping to guide me where the cave is becomes very useful and helps me feel like a more intelligent person and not frustrated because I'm lost.

However, once inside the cave, I don't want a map marker right ontop of the NPC's friend, because that ruins the entire point of finding him/her, and that's the only thing problem I have with the compass arrows.


That sums it up nicely.

The funny thing is Cyrodiil was originally a deciduous forest. The first time we got to visit Cyrodiil was in the first Elder Scrolls game, Arena. I've played Arena and Cyrodiil (The Imperial Province) is definitely a deciduous forest. The lore relating to Cyrodiil's terrain was originally "broken" when the Pocket Guide to the Empire for Redguard changed Cyrodiil into a jungle.

I agree to some extent. Changing the lore is not an unforgivable sin (even though I'd like it to happen as infrequently as possible). The problem with Cyrodiil being a jungle had more to do with taking what would have been an interesting and exotic climate and turning it into a generic fantasy playland. It would be the equivalent of Skryim without any snow whatsoever. But that's a very drastic example. A better example would be suddenly retconning Alduin and turning him into a very old cranky dragon, instead of the god Aedra being of Auriel/Akatosh/Alduin that the lore says he is. Drastic changes in the lore that make the game less interesting I do not agree with. But as always, and to the entire thread this applies, to each his own.

Confessions of an English Opium-Eater?

Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner?

Morrowind wasn't too complex, it just wasn't intuitive.


The only reason anyone mentions the jungle -> forest thing is because it represents all the problems that people had with Cyrodiil as presented in Oblivion. There was no politics, religion became simple and practically Catholic, the different cultures almost all disappeared except for a few hints here and there.

It wouldn't have mattered if the landscape had been turned into the middle of nowhere Kansas. What IS important is what is INSIDE that setting. What makes it UP. Oblivion definitely lacked on the fluff aspect. It took a very functional approach to the world, and I think that hurt the setting's presentation heavily.

I agree with the OP's statements and I also felt that Oblivion was above average for an RPG, but not awesometacularsuperpendous.

EDIT: Off Topic: I remember when WoW came out I spent a stupid volume of time doing every quest in the game and feeling frustrated with the extremely vague directions. Then I spent a lot of time giving people hints on where to go and what they need to do for completing said quests. The advice giving was very theraputic and after a while I actually felt quite nice being the 'elder' in town. Nowadays everyone chases the arrows and there is absolutely no reason to read the quest journal... in the later expansions I completed tons of quests and had no idea what the story was or why they needed to be done. Oblivion was like that at times.

I think that's my feeling too: it could be pretty bloody-minded at times. Oblivion did remove some stuff, but then again it added other bits; some of the things it changed I didn't care for (e.g. the usual gripes of scaling, merchants and so on) but these could at least be rectified with user-made mods. Both were good games, and I'd like to think that Skyrim will take the best of both and leave out the less good bits, of which both had plenty.

One of the first things I noticed about Fable (the first one, after that I briefly checked on but never played the sequels) was the lack of weapons and armor, compared to my favorite game of the time, Morrowind. That was also one of the first things I noticed about Oblivion.

Like I said, Oblivion is still much more closely related to Morrowind. But it leans towards the Fable side of things. I don't consider that an improvement. If I did, I would have enjoyed Fable.

Both have catastrophic flaws when you look at them. It's became mutually understood now i think that Morrowind is over glorified on these forums, it's excellent yes, but lines like "high point of the series" and "MW did this much better bla bla" just make me cringe now.

I hope Skyrim trumps them both into obscurity.

I didn't find Oblivion bland at all, personally. The forests were wonderful (at the time the game was made) and the view far distance made the game amazing to walk around in. I loved Morrowind too, though. I liked them both. I think people just get too extreme in their opinion when they like something. Each also had flaws, but I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours in both.

I think it's really unfair to claim that they didn't put their heart into Oblivion or to claim it's for "casual" gamers.

Most likely, they had technical issues with some of what they wanted in the game(i.e. Radiant AI) and consequently had to nix some quests ideas. e.g. There was originally supposed to be a whole quest line for the Imperial Council. Point being that they had much more in mind for Oblivion, but because of difficulties encountered, they didn't have time to fix and rebuild everything without losing their shirts in the process and disappointing many dedicated fans like you and me. There would also be many who would cry foul if the game was substantially delayed.

As for the "casual" gamer accusation, I think it would be more accurate to say they were adjusting to the changing market as well as trying to appeal to a wider audience. There is nothing wrong with that. I read a couple articles on the Escapist website about "casual" vs "hardcoe" gamers. The author made some very good points about how exactly do you define what "hardcoe" and "casual" are. These terms are thrown about by elitists to insult people who contribute time and money to help make this industry viable and more acceptable as a mainstream medium. From what I've been reading over the years about gaming, it seems to me that Oblivion is MUCH more in line with the "hardcoe" gamers. This kind of accusation is really more of an insulting complaint because one person's view of what a game should be like differs from what the developers think it should be. It's their game, and I rest assured that they are trying to create a great game that many people will love and play and keep the company profitable so they can make more great games.

Skyrim will not be a perfect game because you can't please everyone all the time. Some things they've been talking about may not make the cut because of technical and/or time issues. That's the nature of the beast. I hope it's all what they claim it to be and more, but the truth is, we can't count on that. I remember Radiant AI seemed like it was going to do much more than it ended up doing largely because they had difficulty controlling it.

Peace, +Petrose

After a glance I have to disagree with these points. Logging farming and mining is rather a waste of time. It's an RPG why focus on developing an economy and job that slaves would work at when your just adventuring through. I mean if you bought the game you pick up a sword start questing then decide you want to hang up your sword and work in mines with chained beastfolk slaves, not a very enchanting story arc there. You're already set up as a unique person (dragon born) with a destiny to persue that other stuff is a very boring time sink.

Oblivion most all the quests were politics and intrigue. The main quest was both, fighters guild was practically all politics falling apart losing membership and a unfit leader, a little intrigue thrown in from the blackwood company. I could just go on and on about how much politics and intrigue Oblivion had.

Intrigue?
Absolutely none that I saw.

It was all clear cut black and white, good guy versus evil guy.
Often you did not even have any choice but be a goody two shoes.

I loved Morrowind, I loved Oblivion, and I know I will love Skyrim.

I have no idea how anyone who is a fan of TES could hate Oblivion. Maybe it wasn't your favourite in the series, maybe some things were disappointing.... but hate?

My main concern for Skyrim only occurs to me when I hear people say they hated Oblivion, but are excited to see their fears put to rest with Skyrim. Where do you think that leaves us people who liked what they played Korusus?

I totally agree, though I'd call it depth rather than fluff. I liked Oblivion, but honestly I would have been more impressed if it came from a different studio, because BGS has a strong history, and has earned high expectations.

One of my biggest issues is that Cyrodiil was portrayed as a generic Western European fantasy. They could have cherry-picked from real history to spice it up if they wanted to go that route, but instead they streamlined the culture and setting into a bland mush. The whole setting, chivalry, religion, society, etc. was like a B-movie production where the writers didn't bother to do real research and just merged a bunch of half-remembered ideas they'd heard about Medieval Europe. Combine that setting with simplified black hat/white hat story and quests, level-scaling, the compass, and many of the other design decisions and it's a recipe for disappointment to returning fans. It's also natural to want to lump it together into a grand dumbing down scheme--like an Asian or Indian restaurant that Americanizes their food because they're afraid of scaring away timid customers (and thus losing the interest of the foodies who'd be their biggest fans).

I don't actually think that's what they were trying to do, but I do think that's how a lot of fans felt. There is an over-developed sense of entitlement on the forums, and I think Oblivion was a better game than some give it credit for, but BGS titles have high expectations, and they've earned a lot of trust from players, so it's not that surprising for people to feel and express disappointment when BGS switches direction.