:blush: My bad, with the Divayth Fyr thing, that's just me spouting http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind_talk:Divayth_Fyr#Battlespire_myth as gospel

EDIT: And I think it was plenty dire, haha. Around the time that the big stompy golem would have smashed his way out of Red Mountain, the two crises would have been fairly identical.

A tie between DF and MW. DFs is the more involved but MW has more atmosphere. Both surpass Oblivions by miles.

It's a theory with no real foundation. If DF wanted to join The Battlemages, he wouldn't need initial training, as he was already a highly accomplished Psijjic, not some greenie. By the time of Battlespire, he was already around 4000 years old, he'd been promoted to a really high rank from the get go!

Go to the page I linked, the Psijjic thing is pretty much unverified as well.

Eh, because http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Menien_Goneld found out how to do it, right?

Somewhat, but not completely true. A big stompy robot was activated before (and surprisingly, destroy by either the Blades or the Imperial Force or a Suicidal Jump by the Underking or by the King of Worm's Bad Breath). If ever the Stompy Robot bust out of Dagoth Ur, it might likely that it becomes the last boss in Morrowind (or become everyone else problem and then we see the Houses and the Temples does something about the situation).


I see it more that the thousands year old, House Telvanni member, creator of his female clones, the wizard Divayth Fyr spoken with Azura and Mehrunes Dagon on finding a true cure for corprus. Azura, being an ass and all, answer in riddles. Mehrunes Dagon, out of out of pride, did not speak because Dagon knew nothing about it the disease.

As for closing the gate, ironically, House Telvanni was the one that end up closing the gate at Morrowind (with very great difficulty). Back in Argonia, the Argonians became badasses and took the fighting in the Oblivion Realm itself. This scare the crap out of the Daedra toa point the Daedra close the gate themselves to get rid of the Argonians. So no, the CoC wasn't the only one that closes the gate.

Oblivion's main plot was so full of plot holes I don't know how anyone could list it as the 'best' out of anything.

Why did 3 Blades attempt to escape with the Emperor through a dungeon to Cloud Ruler Temple instead of marching with a full legion?
What were they planning on doing once they got out of the dungeons? Having the Emperor swim across the river and then walking up the only road to Bruma protected by only 3 dudes where he could easily be attacked?
How did the Mythic Dawn know that they would attempt to escape through the dungeons in the first place?
Why did Baurus choose to allow some unknown prisoner to take hold of the most important artifact in all of Tamriel when they might as soon dump it in the lake as soon as they got outside, instead of taking the necklace himself and going to Weynon Priory himself? Did he have to stop the rats from eating the Emperor's body?
How did the Mythic Dawn know that the Amulet would be taken to Weynon Priory given that apparently almost no-one knew Jory was the leader of the Blades?
Given that the Mythic Dawn knew the priosner took the Amulet to Jory at the Weynon Priory, why did the Mythic Dawn allow the unknown prisoner to waltz over to Weynon Priory without attacking him?
How did the Mythic Dawn know that Martin was the son of the Emperor given that only 3 people (father, mother, Jory) knew of his true origins?

And that's just in the first 2 quests.

Nevermind the fact that there is supposed to be an invasion that will occur, and that if as Baurus says that we don't get the Amulet to Jory NOW then the world will be destroyed, yet the whole gameplay concept is based around doing whatever you want. So instead of worrying about that invasion, which consists of a couple of gates that open across the countryside with a couple of monsters waiting outside for you to come along and put them out of their misery, you are instead told to run off and collect ingredients, steal stuff, and commit murders. The Fighters Guild is so busy worrying about the Blackwood Company, and the Blackwood Company is so busy going on drug filled rampages that neither of them seem to want to worry about, you know that kinda imminent daedric invasion. The end result is a main quest that continually emphasises how fast paced it is meant to be but ends up being deflated by the strengths of the game genre that it is meant to be a part of. Ken Rolston (or one of the producers or VPs of Marketing) said that they deliberately sacrificed choice and consequence to create a linear story that had a stronger story line. What they ended up doing was making an even weaker storyline than Morrowind.

And the game won awards for its writing.

You are still judging it based on the players point of view...
Which is not what im talking about, im talking about the idea, the plot, what happened in the world. Not in 1 persons point of view.

Daggerfall for me. In my opinion DF has the most 'down to earth' story. It could be real if it wasn't for deadra, undead and magic and all.

Edit: Arena is good too. Maybe i should have voted Arena..... Lets call it a tie for me with a personal preference for DF cause i played it.

If that's true. how many of the Blades did guard Martin on his way to the Imperial City? How many got recalled back from the other provinces like Caius Cosades? For that matter, where the hell are high-ranking members like Caius Cosades or Lady Brisienna? Neither of the games are perfect, but Oblivion's main quest plot is so full of holes you could fly Umbriel through it without anybody noticing.

Morrowind, but I never got very far with it due to the age at which I played it.

The Daggerfall questline sounds pretty sweet though.

because marching with a full legion doesn't help against assassins, not getting noticed, helps against assassins. Notice that his three sons were already murdered despite their obvious constant protection. When we meet the emperor it sounds like something has already accord, most likely an attempt at the emperors life, which means that the mythic dawn had already infiltrated the bastion.



They were planning on making a stealthy get away, while the mythic dawn was occupied with searching inside the bastion.



Because the mythic dawn were well prepared? Had done research? This is not a plot hole. Baraus even explains it, it was supposed to be secret, to turned out to be compromised.



Baurus explains this right at the scene. *sigh*



Again not a plot hole, you even say it yourself, "apparently almost no-one knew jory was the leader of the Blades?", apparently, as in, that how it was supposed to be, it turned out to be different.



How do you know that they knew that at the time? Could it perhaps be that, they did not know that the amulet was entrusted to you, nor how you looked like, but knew where the amulet was when you gave it to jauffre. because they knew about Weynon Priory?



Because the [censored] information was compromised, because at some point somewhere someone messed up, or because the mythic dawn have magical means to get information. Do you think that if people keep something hidden, that it then becomes IMPOSSIBLE to find out about it? This is not a plot hole, and I find it hard to imagine you sat and went "but...but...it was suppose to be a secret", who cares how they found out, what matters is that they found out, deal with it.

Yeah, that would really be a great point if it wasn't for the fact that all the games in the series have this problem.



I disagree.

Daggerfall, unlike Arena, Morrowind and Oblivion your not really the all saving champion but you just help the bigger forces and factions in the game, without being meaning less of course. Daggerfall as far as I remember is also the only TES game with multiple endings, all the other TES games (some more than others) basically force you to be the good guy while doing the main quest, Daggerfall has much more 'gray' options. You can help the Orcs get their independence, the Empire to (re)gain control over the Iliac Bay, The King of Worms to make him a god or the (other) local powers to crush their enemies. This is a lot better than just being the hero killing the evil enemy kind of main quest.
Sure, in Morrowind you have the question whether or not the Tribunal are indeed the 'good' guys or maybe Dagoth Ur might not be so bad after all, but since you can;'t choose his side anyway it is still a linear main quest without much 'gray' choices.

I like the plot of Daggerfall the most. It starts small, but then unfolds into something epic with nice twists and betrayals.

It's also a plot that is very suitable for a TES game in the way it encourages the player to explore and do other things. Oblivion's plot don't do this at all, why on earth would the player go to some guild and do side-quests or relax when a whole invasion is going on?

If Arena was deeper, and Oblivion had more to do with politics and the empire, they would be one of the best, but, otherwise, I'd have to vote Morrowind's. While it wasn't the best plot, and was pretty cliché, I enjoyed the blurred morality, so much.

Where are the expansions? oo: I loved Tribunal's plot.

Im not sure if you guys know this but in Morrowind you can just skip the begging you have to do to the main houses, see look:

- http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Yagrum_Bagarn_and_Wraithguard

- http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:The_Path_of_the_Incarnate#Bypassing_the_Fourth_and_Fifth_Trials

@Shades

If you're talking about the Hortator quests, I don't see it like that.



Daggerfall's main quest seems to be in that same spirit, but I haven't beaten Daggerfall yet.

As for Oblivion: I like the idea of a sense of urgency... but it was lost on me because nothing was timed. If there was a real threat of Cyrodil being overrun, the plot would have been more enjoyable.
But, overall, it had it's moments and I didn't hate it.

Morrowind for me. Its epic scale blew me away, and you could sympathise with Dagoth Ur to a certain extent.

While I haven't completed it yet, I feel as though Daggerfall is the best for plot. It's more about politics and intrigue, which really appeals to me. Morrowind's plot itself was kind of boring (as has been said, it's just your typical "Hero of destiny defeats great evil!") but it had all sorts of interesting offshoots like the Dissident Priests and the Ashlanders. Oblivion is Morrowind minus the interesting bits, leaving it as just a cliche, fantasy-by-numbers "Only you can drive out the evil and save mankind" type of deal.

And though it's outside the scope of the thread, my biggest issue with Oblivion's plot was it's urgency, which didn't quite fit in with a TES game. There wasn't really any point where it seemed to make sense to just leave the plot behind and go do something else. Especially if you were playing a Knight or Crusader or something like that, it just felt weird going to kill some Goblins for the Fighter's Guild when there were Oblivion gates open all over the country. By the time you were done the MQ, you usually had powerful enough equipment and high enough stats that the first three quarters of guild quests were boring. Morrowind and Daggerfall both had quests that became urgent over time, but initially were very casual. Morrowind encouraged you to go build up a rep with factions before following through on the MQ; Daggerfall forced you to do it.

Oblivion's way of coming out of the gate with guns blazing and never letting up would be great for most linear RPGs, but it's just frustrating for Elder Scrolls.

Never got to play Arena or Daggerfall but Daggerfalls story sounds cool. As for which of the 2 I have played that I do like most I liked Oblivion's more. Honestly I didnt care about most of Morrowind's main questline.

Dude you need to ease up on these comparison threads. When I saw the title I thought you would be talking about subplots or questlines not entire game plots, because I think TES is at its best with the subplots and small quests. Personally the TES games all have their individiual strengths and weakness. Morrowind meshed the lore and storyline in a clear and obvious way, making it the more interesting plot when you looked at the whole but it was lacking in the details, and also had a very static presentation.

Oblivion had a better presentation but it didn't stack the lore into the plot in an obvious way, so that only the people well versed in Lore appreciated or noticed any nuances. Daggerfall was more down to Earth, and had more intrigue but perhaps in the end it was too mundane in a way, especially when you compare it to the two games that came after it.

So all in all the games have their weaknesses and strenghts. Oblivion for me was the most epic of the stories because of its implications and urgency but it also had issues with immersion because of the same urgency (making it uncomfortable to branch off unless you assume it takes a long time to decipher the Commentaries for example) which kind of hurts it. Overall I'd say Oblivion was the best plot because it was presented with a lot of immediacy, like an actual crisis.

I may clean it up and reopen it, but don't hold your breath.

Edit: Some posts deleted, so back to discussing TES plots and not making plots to attack other members for their opinions.

That's just the peanut-gallery interpretation.

Click my spoiler up above.

Though I haven't been able to play Daggerfall a whole lot the plot does intrigue me

And it seems really mysterious so I'm gonna go with that as my favorite plot

Everything else just seems too fleshed out and gives too much away

Voted for Morrowind, the side plots, all the different philosophy and angles of the characters and guilds, gave a real sense of feeling of being smack dab in the middle of the politics of the world while you are doing the main quest.