I was very excited, having followed the series since Daggerfall. The reactions in the forums were 90% positive to Oblivion news. Back in those days a sequel wasn't a given and companies could fold at anytime. So whenever Bethesda announced another Elder Scrolls fans were overjoyed. None more so than Morrowind which was completely unexpected.

When i first played Oblivion it was amazing and pretty much blew me away. The new combat was great and the graphics were mind blowing. If you knew what the series was capable of then the possibilities in the game were obvious. Any fans who say they weren't pumped when first playing Oblivion are lying. The lack of voice actors wasn't a big shock because we came from text and the new combat system rocked. After a while i noted the changes that i didn't like and in the end the level scaling killed the game but it was still awesome and a serious achievement for sure. Gaming was better off afterwards. People have feared the dumbing down of games, and we all notice it, but what you have to remember is gaming was a lot smaller back in the day and a larger portion of the general public has to be brought into the fray to keep it sustainable. Now this has happened games will slowly get more complex because even they/dumb people will demand it.

Big ups Bethesda. Here comes another corker

I was on these forums constantly for the 6 months before oblivion's release (you know, when oblivion was supposed to come out in november and like 5 days before release they announce that its not coming out til march) and i watched all the bethesda release videos, saw all the leaked screenshots and the like, and i can say from what they were saying about the game to what the game actually was - i was definitally dissapointed. They dumbed the AI down soo much that they were barely better then morrowind AI.(besides the fact that they could go from cell to cell now and they ate food once a day from a set container that kept respawning food) What was really dissapointing wasnt that the AI was stupid, but that one of bethesda's main things they were talking about in oblivion was how smart and revolutionary the AI was, and how they would steal for food if they couldnt afford it and you could put down poison apples and they'd eat them and die, and when it came out, they could only do broken versions of this. I mean the first time i killed someone with a poison apple, it took me like 5 hours to figure out how to do it. I would pick pocket the apples onto them, then take all the food from them and from everywhere around them and sit there and wait til they ate. They wouldnt eat, at all, in like 5 days of waiting they wouldnt eat [censored] all because i took all the food from the set container where they grab their food from. Only later did i realize that i had to put the poison apple in that specific container, then all of a sudden they got up and grabbed the food, sat down, ate the apple and died (which was cool, but very very broken). And the only time ive ever seen any NPC steal anything (in about 1000+ hours of play) was that one argonian dude in bravil who ran into my bravil house to hide and the guards came in and killed him. But that only happened to me about 3 or 4 times from the 50+ characters ive made in that game and it only seemed to happen when i owned the house in bravil. There was definitally alot of stuff in the entire game of oblivion that felt incomplete like they wanted to do more but didnt have the time because fans were already pissed from the 4 month delay in releasing the game, they had to release it or be eaten alive by fans. I think the problem with games like oblivion that were released incomplete to hit deadline was that they announced the game too early in production. I mean any game developer should wait til they have like a month left of game production before they even announce that the game is even being made.

Anyway, I'd like to believe Bethesda has learned from their mistakes from last time, and that they were almost done skyrim before they announced it (though thats probably a pipedream). But i am also keeping in mind at how dissapointed i was with oblivion (I could have easily been expecting too much for the game, but it doesnt help when they release videos saying this is how awesome the game is and when it comes out, none of the features are even in the game) and im not gonna be putting my expectations too high for skyrim (so if it really is MINDBLOWING, it will seem so much better.) Though i can tell Bethesda has come along way from oblivion, and when fallout 3 came out, i wasnt expecting much (just oblivion with guns essentially) and i can definitally say my mind was BLOWN when i first played fallout 3.

The way i see it with bethesda is like this:
Morrowind was an epic game, but could use some improvements,
Oblivion was a step in the wrong direction (as compared to morrowind) due to the dumbing down of the game, scaling, npc dialogue, how every city was accessable to you from the get go, etc.
Fallout 3 was a big step back in the right direction (like not having a single map marker on your map when you leave the vault, harder overall gameplay, better NPC dialogue, More choices, Perks - for further customization of classes, Better 3rd person, etc.)

I am nowhere near disappointed, I am very very optimistic! Oblivion had its flaws, but I still had a blast playing it. Mods have helped the games longevity, was it better than Morrowind? In my opinion, no. The LOTR influence in particular Peter Jackson's LOTR are astounding and cannot be missed, the towers in Oblivion looked like Isengaurd and Morder, the Imperial City looked much like a Wizards Tower, hell I think part of the reason why Oblivion may have let some down is our own imaginations. Playing Morrowind, when I went into the Imperial townships and saw the castle keeps I thought that Cyrodill would just be a place where giant fortresses, sure we got big castles but they were kind of bleh. The fact of the matter is, it couldn't compare with what I had cooked up in my mind of what the Imperial Province would look like.

All that being said, I loved Oblivion not as much as Morrowind but Oblivion still got several years of game play out of me and I am eagerly awaiting Skyrim.

i was pretty excited for oblivion, i mean, i even went to gamestop early and waited hours for the game to arrive, then i took my copy and hugged it to my chest until i got home. :sweat:

i remember seeing the outside world for the first time after breaking out of the sewers, and i almost forgot to breathe... i wasnt too knowledgable about cyrodiil at that point, so i got to enjoy it for what it was, and i also love LotR, so i enjoyed the style.

i had most of my fun with the physics, since morrowind was so stiff and lifeless in that aspect, i played with everything, everytime i killed an enemy, i'd toy with them for awhile before moving on.

eventually, i did get pretty disappointed with so many things being unfinished, and most of the races sharing voices,

i got a bit happier when all the DLC came out, cause the game felt a bit more complete... unfortunately thats when my 360 died and i had just enough time to finish all the quests, but not enough to start roleplaying with all my new stuff.

anyway... i got extremely excited over skyrim, and the first trailer alone took my breath away, about as much as walking into the world of oblivion did!

the second trailer shook me to my core and completed the excitement... everything im hearing about skyrim so far, im happy with, but i hope it all stays true, i'd love it if bethesda could live up to their promises this time around.

oh yeah, the whole thing about radiant AI in oblivion... honestly, i didnt even realize that promise was broken until i read about it... i was too into the game to care, i guess...

but this time around, i WILL care, so i hope bethesda doesnt let us down!

i thought oblivion would be the best thing ever, I was kind of disappointed for many of the same reasons as others have said.. now I'm trying not to get too excited (and the memories of MW have faded somewhat) so hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised.

edit: shivering isles really 'redeemed' OB in my eyes, as well so I'm not super jaded.

Yeah, that was the biggest problem with Oblivion imo. It was a great game and I spent hundreds of hours on it as well as Morrowind. I was expecting Oblivion to be Morrowind 2.0, but it was really a completely different game. Oblivion definitely took some steps in the right direction with combat, voice acting, guild storylines, etc; but it also took a few steps back on things like exploration and the uniqueness of the world. Morrowind really let you run loose and do whatever, and you could spend the whole game without ever looking at the main quest. Oblivion seemed like it sort of forced you right into the main quest from the beginning, and stopping to go join the fighters guild or what-not just seemed silly with the entire world swarming with Daedra and only you being able to stop it. I just hope Skyrim pushes exploration a bit more and the main quest a bit less. I loved in Morrowind when you first reach Caius Cosades, he gives you a few septims and tells you to go make a name for yourself and get some experience. There were plenty of places like that in Morrowind's main quest where nothing was particularly urgent going on so you didn't feel out of place taking some time away from it to go do some random exploration. Oblivion's main quest pretty much just keeps pushing you forward, and doesn't give you much room to stop and go wander around the world (unless you don't particularly care that Daedra are invading and the world may be ending).

I guess Morrowind just had better pacing and more reason and opportunity to go exploring on your own, rather than seemingly trying to force the main quest on you, and I hope Skyrim takes a note from Morrowind on that one. That being said, from what I've seen about Skyrim so far, it seems like they're taking steps in the right direction for the most part, and they aren't over-hyping it like they did so much with Oblivion. I just hope that Skyrim's world has more variety than Oblivion, and that the game encourages exploration more.

Oblivion sounded great during development but when it finally came out "THIS is Oblivion?" I was hugely disappointed by the game, all the cut stuff, the graphics that got hugely massacred because of consoles, etc. Ultra-High Rez graphics for PC please Because of that experience I've basically stopped paying attention to Skyrim development once I found out all the cuts they were doing.

What? Oblivions graphics were amazing for its time, and you demand better graphics coming from a poor-graphical game (by today's standards) of Morrowind? Troll somewhere else

This is the best reading I've ever done on any forum ever.

Compare the world map the size of the island that the imperial city is located on and then compare that to morrowind, yeah they boned on the size. Also the capital and heart of the entire empire should be HUMUNGUS beyond all belief.

The more user friendly a game the more depth it looses; i haven't really seen otherwise.

Look at EvE the most complex game probably on the market, also one of the deepest games on the market.
Hearts of Iron, learning that game put me into RAGE MODE but afterwards i fell in love.

Whoever posted this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZrB9NrUciM

well this guy was dead on.

People want it easy, they want it now, and they dont want to have to think about it. Thats the problem with the games industry is they are going to cater to the majority.

What i loved about morrowind was all the different cultures on one island, the imperials at ebonheart pelagiad and caldera. the three houses and the temple. Hell i played that game for 2 years after its release one the PC mods an all and THEN I STUMBLED UNTO VAMPIRES and was like wwwwwwwwwtttttttttttffffffffffffffffffff. I miss how real the cities felt stores scattered all over the place Unlike in oblivion were it was built by THIS GUY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTJQTc-TqpU&feature=player_embedded

Everything in oblivion felt fake the cities didnt really have life to them from my perspective. Compare vivec to the imperial capital, around every corner some odd shop with some weird specialty or just a shop just scattered around randomly, in the Imperial Capital eventhing was either HERE or RIGHT THERE, just didnt felt ....real..........

i fell for the oblivion hype. i had roughly 50 mods for morrowind at one time. 20 for fallout 3 and about 20 for new vegas. i had over 160 mods to make oblivion playable to the point i spent more time modding and updating my mods than actually playing it. and that was after removing alot of minor mods and combining many of them. oblivion was ruined for me the first time i played it because of the level scaling. fortunately sabers mod came out fairly quickly and saved the game. im hoping that outside of texture packs that i use for all of my games that i only have to run a small number of mods for skyrim.

I only joined the forums a few months ago, but I was a looooong time lurker around Oblivions release.

I was pretty hyped for Oblivion. I remember stepping off of the boat from Morrowind, and creating my first Dunmer. I thought the character creation was pretty awesome. Then I signed my forms, stepped out of the census and excise office, and just stood there.

Really? No ever impending doom on the land? Nothing to tell me where to go? Really?

I'm just...free to do anything? Here's a piece of paper, go meet this guy in a town. Or don't. Just sell that piece of paper for a nickel to some yellow guy in the tradehouse, and forget that it ever existed. That's what I loved about Morrowind. I didn't even touch the main quest for my first 5 characters. I just explored. And this was on xbox.

So when Oblivion came around, I was ecstatic. I got it on release day, and played it till my eyes fell out. At first, it blew me away. The rolling hills, the awesome combat. But then...

Well you know, what happens to everyone else.

This awesome game got a little boring. Maybe a little too fast. Morrowind was still awesome, right until Oblivion came out. And now Oblivion is losing its luster? Barely 4 months after release?

It was an awesome game. And the most important part of Oblivion was that Beth learned from it. They learned what they did right, and what they did wrong. Fallout 3 was a major step in the right direction. That game had 3x more re-playability than Oblivion did. And that's why I'm not worried about Skyrim, because Beth knows what they're doing.

I thought Oblivion was going to be much better than Morrowind, but a lot of release day differences to the game they were showing us made me change my mind.

They over simplified everything, something I'm a little worried about with Skyrim but am staying optimistic about.

But in E3 if you watch the video, a lot of it varies to the game we've all played.

I liked Oblivion a lot, just not as much as I thought I would in the long run. I enjoyed the first two playthroughs, but I'm still enjoying my 50-ish-th playthroughs in Morrowind.

I'll try and remember this is a new game and not compare it to Morrowind this time around, but I'm definitely liking it so far. Hopefully the engine can actually run everything they say it can this time.

I was the same, I thought cool Morrowind with cool graphics etc. Sadly it wasn't. I also fell for the Radiant AI which was not very exciting in game. It just felt restricted in comparison to MW and I must admit I don't play it much now. I am not massively excited by Skyrim, but hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised and it will ROCK

I'm more cautious after Oblivion. Still very hopeful (after several of OB's key shortcomings were fixed in FO3), but not quite as crazy hyped as I was back then. And no, the change from jungles to forests never bothered me at all in OB. Gameplay aspects such as level scaling have always ranked far higher on my care-o-meter than any particular details of the lore.

Obviously you never watched the E3 Footage of Oblivion. Please know your facts before making accusations of trolling.

The only thing different from the E3 videos was the full shadows man. What you talking about?

I was severely disapointed. I dont know what I was expecting...but i certainly expected OB to be better than Morrowind, or atleast as good in every aspect. Instead it seemed as if everything they had not talked about pre-release had gotten worse, and even the things they'd hyped up didn't work at all as I'd hoped.

For skyrim I am way more critical, so as to not be disapointed again.

I was leaning on the 75% favorable mark regarding my probable liking of the game. My attitude here on the boards was about the same as it is now...Icome mostly to :poke: holes in arguments or give a different perspective. At least that's what I'm claiming
Marketing made it seem better than it was. I played the game for about a week, then shelved it for more than a year when I discovered a nice overhaul mod.

With the emphasis on redoing combat (again), the highly touted quest generator, and the new dialogue system, I'm pretty skeptical this time 'round.

My first reaction to it no being a jungle...a bit underwhelming, or at least not what I experienced with the nice state of confusion that Morrowind gave me. Yes, I attacked the first Silt Strider I saw :toughninja:

Eh, not quite. The videos on E3 looked much better than I ever saw it on my 360. My brother got a great gaming computer and he ran Oblivion at full settings and it looked about on the same level, but a lot of E3 was over-hyped. Nothing close to the level of Fables failure, but the radiant AI was almost a 180 turn in the wrong direction.

E3's description of Radiant AI, man.

They technically didn't have to scale the graphics back because of the console itself, just their unfamiliarity with it.

The basic point still stands. The PC should have had an option of "graphics so high res you can see where some guy took a piss on the walls", if not included with the game itself then as a downloadable option.

Morrowind was the best game and i know that skyrim wont live up to it. Their going mainstream with this rpg stuff so their stripping it off its complexity and thats what i loved about morrowind you could pretty much do anything. Not really getting my hopes up for skyrim and wont even pre order it until i read reviews and make sure its actually not a let down like oblivion was.