[Kara Payne]

Well, same for us veterans, but it was Morrowind, and not Oblivion. Morrowind was just revolutionary. It more than one regard.

I feel the same way about Oblivion. Most people seem to like their first Elder Scrolls game most.

[stevie trent]

I think this is a pretty good summary :goodjob:

No, when it sets up one side as the champion who can do no wrong and everyone else as an idiot, and instead of addressing arguments it contents itself with name calling, then it is good only as a shining example of the bad.
It is.

[rolanda h]

We will see a new class of jaded of Oblivion fans who will complain about the lack of fast travel, quest compasses, and leveled world.

[Carolyne Bolt]

No, when it sets up one side as the champion who can do no wrong and everyone else as an idiot, and instead of addressing arguments it contents itself with name calling, then it is good only as a shining example of the bad.

Everything in the timeline is unbiased, based upon what I've read of how the forums acted during Oblivion's release and what I observed during Fallout 3's release.

The commentary and anolysis doesn't start until after the timeline. I think that people are reasonably able to tell what in the post is fact and what is anolysis. It's when others dismiss the anolysis based on nothing other than the fact that the author has clearly made their bias known that it is a shining example of the bad. Perhaps instead of dismissing the commentary you might try and respond to it - if you can.

[Juan Cerda]

It really depends on what kind of information is release.

This here, right here.

I wasn't here for the Daggerfall/Morrowind transition, but I was around in 2004 when Oblivion was announced.

Same for me.

There was uniform excitement and several webpages by prominent members to track every little bit of detail. Screenshots were heavily scrutinized for any piece of information. When the E3 videos were released it was as if someone had given us the Holy Grail. Then, when they started releasing concrete information, specifically about what would be taken out... then things got ugly. Huge multi-part threads about crossbows and thrown weapons, the nine divines, the genericness of the setting. It got absolutely brutal. Many were banned and many were silenced.

This I can't forget. There were alot of HEATED discussions about everything when a little bit of info was released. People even making stories and listing the build they would choose for their characters, art/drawings, links, "Will Fargoth appear in OB?lol" etc.

Then came the bad news, things like no crossbows/throwing weapons, no spears, the AI being dumbed down, invisible borders, no levitation blah blah blah. Now, I can't say that all those were bad news to me, but admittedly, I supported some threads that went against these things. I can't recall much of the activity of the moderators though.

Lets not forget that most of the new stuff the developing team created for OB were RESULTS of the complaints of players about Morrowind. They complained about how hard it is to travel around, they implemented the fast travel system. They complained about how vague and sometimes inaccurate the directions given to players by the NPCs, Beth added the compass feature. Morrowind is too easy at high levels! Level scaling. Too much text! Full voice acting.

THEN, we see people complaining about these new features and how they are dumbing the game to please the mainstream community and casuals. Now that might be true but arrghh, I don't know if it was Morrowind lovers or critics(who didn't really enjoy it) who complained about the new features but either way, I say what I said before: Hypocrisy.

You can't expect the game to have all the goodness of the previous one and more. :shrug:

The main reason people were angry is because the situation was a lot like Fable. Lots of promises were made ("Just look at that Radiant AI!" "Wow those NPC's really make good conversation with each other." "Look at those shadows!"). Oblivion was supposed to be bigger, better, and more of everything. And then the cuts started rolling out. Sorry guys, we just can't do dynamic shadows. Sorry guys, we just can't get Radiant AI to stop killing each other with rakes. Sorry guys, we decided to cut this and that skills, but its okay because what's left is going to blow you away!

This is true but, there was QQ before the game was even released.

[Alexandra Ryan]

THEN, we see people complaining about these new features and how they are dumbing the game to please the mainstream community and casuals. Now that might be true but arrghh, I don't know if it was Morrowind lovers or critics(who didn't really enjoy it) who complained about the new features but either way, I say what I said before: Hypocrisy.

Yes, but the difference is that those new features, while fixing the old problems, broke them in the opposite direction. Great, now my character is always fighting enemies that take a good beating, no matter what level (even if he's a level 50 battlemage with insane enchantments and spells). There isn't a single thing that made me feel powerful. The compass was all knowing, it didn't make it easier finding your way, it made it impossible not to. No matter what. Even if the NPC sometimes told you only the general location of the target, or didn't even know where they were but the compass still pointed it out, or there was something you were supposed to FIND but the compass was already pointing right at it.

A nice middle ground must be found, and I think Fallout 3 achieved that rather well in terms of level scaling, the compass, radiant AI, and fast travel.

Although what's funny about fast travel isn't fast travel itself. It's the world you're fast traveling through. There was nothing interesting in the wild for Oblivion because all of the dungeons (of the same type) always had the same loot. You couldn't find artifacts or anything like that in a dungeon. Finding quests in the middle of no where didn't happen at all besides at the Daedric shrines. That is what made fast travel seem like crap. It was needed to get past the dreadfully boring landscape, but at the same time it seems they decided to add it only after they decided to make the landscape dreadfully boring. I never had that problem in Fallout 3. Exploring was encouraged, so fast travel was only used to get back to town and back to the last location I explored, but then I kept going, because in Fallout 3 you start with no markers at all, as compared to Oblivion's awfully convenient 9. Basically, I felt that I didn't need (nor could I) used fast travel to skip over anything, because many of the missions had you going to places you hadn't been to and that wouldn't give you a marker until you got there. Lots of adventures were had going to places I'd never been to but discovering missions there as well (like the Republic of Dave). Compared to Oblivion were many of the quests were inter-city (in which you already had the marker) or the marker was handed to you for free.

[noa zarfati]

I totally agree with you Orzorn, I was just saying that Bethesda developers were simply listening to the community and trying to please them. Granted they f'ed up some things. But people were complaining before some things you pointed out were known(like the boring landscape for example). They tend to do this and completely forget about the good aspects of the game.

[e.Double]

It pretty much starts off with everyone extremely happy and then everyone gets pissed off when they realize Morrowind is better

There were plenty of complaints when Oblivion was announced. First, the original preview said the game world would be smaller and this upset a lot of people. It turned out to be incorrect and the devs straightened this out with the next preview but for a while people were really worked up about it. Many were also unhappy to see that it was taking place in Cyrodiil and appeared to have a far more 'traditional western fantasy' setting.

As for Morrowind's announcement, that's a bit different. Some people were unhappy but Morrowind didn't get a bit unveil like Oblivion or Fallout 3 and since information leaked out over an extended period it took longer before there was much to complain about. Some people were unhappy to see such a bizarre landscape after TES II's more traditional western fantasy setting but they were a very small minority (at least until the game was released).

I doubt people are going to actually organize a protest, but certainly some people will check out the first preview(s), not like what they see, and then complain about it. As long as they're civil I don't see a problem with that, and if they're constructive about their criticisms then such complaints can even be positive.

I also imagine any problems will be less disruptive than what we saw with Oblivion's unveiling and Fallout 3's unveiling. Now, if ZOS is working on an Elder Scrolls MMO and it's announced before a new Elder Scrolls game from Bethesda that could cause a lot of disruption on the forums, but I doubt a TES V announcement will be that problematic.

[Jeffrey Lawson]

Now, if ZOS is working on an Elder Scrolls MMO and it's announced before a new Elder Scrolls game from Bethesda that could cause a lot of disruption on the forums, but I doubt a TES V announcement will be that problematic.

Aye, this indeed.

[Theodore Walling]

I usually find it stupid that people compare morrowind to oblivion. I think oblivion opened the seires up to alot more people than morrowind then which why we shouldn't be comparing the two. There just two totally different games.

[Katie Pollard]

Discussions got pretty heated when Oblivion came out, many people seeming to take extreme positions of fandom or hatred towards it. I just kept to more civilised parts of the forum until a semblance of rationality appeared.

[City Swagga]

I usually find it stupid that people compare morrowind to oblivion. I think oblivion opened the seires up to alot more people than morrowind then which why we shouldn't be comparing the two. There just two totally different games.

No, I suppose Morrowind being one of the top 10 best selling games on the xbox, at 4+ million copies, isn't getting out to a lot of people.

[Ross Zombie]

We will see a new class of jaded of Oblivion fans who will complain about the lack of fast travel, quest compasses, and leveled world.

I hope you're right.
Honestly, I think the reason so many people on these forums are so critical of new games is that everyone here is such a big fan of the series and they hate to see it degenerate into anything less than the epic scope it had in the beginning. There does seem to be a trend lately of reducing the content in favour of frosting items like physics and graphics. Fewer skills, weapon classes and more generic conversations make room for voiced conversations, enhanced combat and shinier armour. Blu-ray disks have opened the floor for larger games and more content and IMO, FO3 improved on a lot of the facets that I didn't like about Oblivion, which I take to be a good sign. Things like old characters that look... well, old. There still aren't any fat people in Beth games, but we do have beards.
When TES5 does come out one thing you won't find on these forums is me. I'll boycott the forums so I can learn everything about the game on my own. After a first run through of the game, I'll be back, find out about some of the things I missed and play it through with a different character. I made the mistake with Morrowind of reading about it before hand so there were points where I was realizing "well I can't be too far into the game because I haven't met this house, or fought this creature.
All in all though, I've always been impressed with the general level of maturity of the people on this board. Try the steam board sometime if you don't know what I mean. Our mods are pretty good about de-trolling and silencing flame wars. I'm sure they'll have their work cut out for them when we all get to Skyrim, or wherever.

[tannis]

One of the biggest mods for Oblivion was the open cities mod, and so we could see even smaller cities in TESV as Bethesda makes them all part of the main gameworld and smallness is kind of required to keep them within a reasonable framerate... because, hey, people want their open cities, right?

Well, there is Umbra software, which can make it possible for large open cities.

[Jonathan Braz]

Everything in the timeline is unbiased, based upon what I've read of how the forums acted during Oblivion's release and what I observed during Fallout 3's release.

The commentary and anolysis doesn't start until after the timeline. I think that people are reasonably able to tell what in the post is fact and what is anolysis. It's when others dismiss the anolysis based on nothing other than the fact that the author has clearly made their bias known that it is a shining example of the bad. Perhaps instead of dismissing the commentary you might try and respond to it - if you can.

You're right. I apologize. It's not that I dismissed your anolysis because of your bias; it's that my brain started on the wrong track, got distracted by your bias, didn't take your target audience into account, and then read your commentary out of context. I hate it when that happens.

Although your commentary doesn't describe all of the goings-on in the forums (the side criticizing Bethesda's choices doesn't lack for flamers either), it does capture what I feel may have been the predominant experience of many in Fallout 3's time. In particular, it represents the experience of those daring to offer criticism of the new game. Although many of criticisms had no redeeming qualities except for their degree of passion, many others did. Watching wave after wave of thoughtful, educational critiques and exchanges go up in flames and die was the worst.

[phillip crookes]

Well, same for us veterans, but it was Morrowind, and not Oblivion. Morrowind was just revolutionary. It more than one regard.

Not all of us veterans. I dare say not even most of us.

[Micah Judaeah]

Not all of us veterans. I dare say not even most of us.

to be completely honest, TES:IV was the absolute first i've seen an Elder Scrolls game, and i only heard talk of morrowind a few weeks before hand in my gov't class... I was debating Blazing Angels or Oblivion when they released, my friends told me to grab Oblivion, i did... dodged a bullet on that one

[Sarah MacLeod]

I hear that. Well, aside from the "confidence" part. From reading the numerous posts around here I don't think there will be any significant percentage of people that will lament changes from Oblivion (unless they go back to Morrowind style magic casting of course!). I can see a continuation of the Morrowind/Oblivion conflict, only with TESV instead of Oblivion, as if TESIV never existed, as it looks like everyone still fondly remembers and mods the hell out of Morrowind.

I did read somewhere in an interview with Todd about addressing the complaints with Morrowind and how they "went back to their roots" so to speak with Oblivion. You can actually see this in the game. The only thing is, IMO, they brought back the wrong elements from Arena and Daggerfall and not the stuff people actually liked. For example, fast travel was basically required because of the huge worlds, but is was implemented totally differently. I assume people wanted the huge world that required fast travel, not fast travel as a feature just because it was so awesome or something. In another example, the Argonians and Khajiit were given a more Daggerfall like appearance, not only because of programming laziness but also because there was a complaint that the beast races couldn't wear boots and helmets, and in the process were stripped of all their uniqueness. Instead of making shinguards and specialty helmets for Argonians and Khajiits we got re-skinned humans. One idea that circulated around the forum back way before the release of Oblivion was how it was kind of boring that you always were some huge hero saving the world, and wouldn't it be cool if instead you were part of a process with other NPCs that allowed the world to be saved, or even if there wasn't some major crisis at all? The big boss fight at the end was so tired! In fact, it might even be cool if you assisted the "true" hero of the storyline (because the most fun in the ES series is going out and doing your own thing and living another life)! And so in Oblivion, we got you basically going on the "save the world" quest while being denied the final boss fight in favor of some NPC who didn't do anything else the entire game except steal your fame.

Unfortunately I can see this happening again for Oblivion. The developers could end up wrongly reading the communities wishes. Follow me for a second... So everyone basically liked the Dark Brotherhood questline, right? "Well, they probably liked assassinations just because killing people is so awesome." Hence, we get three different assassin guilds and none are as good as Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood story line, and the developers say "Well, we listened to the community, I don't know what's wrong." People say the huge forested world, while pretty, wasn't really that interesting. So instead of getting landscapes with varied terrain we get a huge uniform tundra, or jungle, or something. People complained about not having the nine divines or a religious faction, so instead of getting something like in Daggerfall or Morrowind, we get a Fighter's Guild with churches. One of the biggest mods for Oblivion was the open cities mod, and so we could see even smaller cities in TESV as Bethesda makes them all part of the main gameworld and smallness is kind of required to keep them within a reasonable framerate... because, hey, people want their open cities, right? People say they were disappointed in the main storyline, so Bethesda takes that as meaning they just wanted to fight the final boss, and so we get basically Oblivion Part II where you fight the giant demon at the end and the heir looks on.

Anyways, I guess I do have some confidence, just by the virtue of me being on this forum and looking forward to an announcement. I just hope they're able to discern what people actually want. Barring that, they should just really ignore all opinions. Were they heavily into public opinions before Morrowind? Maybe Bethesda should just do their own thing if they can't read correctly into an often disjointed public.

I agree with a lot of this. I think my biggest worry is that Bethesda will look at Fallout 3 for too much inspiration for what works. This is what I think they've learned [or have the opportunity to have learned] about what people want for a TES game.


1] A main quest shouldn't instill dread or loathing. People should feel the need to make a mod to avoid it all together. It shouldn't become unplayable at higher levels.
2] Take note of the instances of excellence in Oblivion and remember what they look and feels like.
3a] Mehrunes Razor was better than the entire MQ.
3b] Shivering Iles and Morrowind shared one thing in common that Cyrodill lacked. They both established a logic to how the world is and maintained this logic where the Cyrodill did not. Part of this was because Morrowind established aspects of the world that were removed in Oblivion and that in itself messes up the logic. This wasn't a problem in SI because it was a different world, a fresh start it was and what was there was still a complete package. You could think that TES:V, being a new era allows a new logic to be established and so it doesn't need to require Nine Divines or Tribunals or even keep any specific Guild. What TES requires, in it's most general in broad form, is to include you in the world and give you the same opportunities any NPC could have. The difference between what the player can do in the world and what NPCs can do needs to be as minimal as possible.
3c] Morrowindd's MQ was EPIC.
4] 2 & 3 redux:

I think if I could narrow it down to a word, the word would be "Intricate". That is the word the good parts of Oblivion deserve, the word Morrowind's MQ/most Guild Quests deserve, it even describes the parts of Fallout 3 that really shine.

The more you can apply the word intricate to level design, lore adherence and quest structure, the better TES will be.

5] LET THE LITTLE GREEN ARROW TELLING YOU WHERE TO GO TOGGLE ON AND OFF. [This is such a simple thing to do that I will cry if I am stuck with being led by the hand]

Actually if I could, I'd make that a poster and put it on every wall of every workspace of those working on TES:V

I think if I could narrow it down to a word, the word would be "Intricate". That is the word the good parts of Oblivion deserve, the word Morrowind's MQ/most Guild Quests deserve, it even describes the parts of Fallout 3 that really shine.

The more you can apply the word intricate to level design, lore adherence and quest structure, the better TES will be.

ALSO, LET THE LITTLE GREEN ARROW TELLING YOU WHERE TO GO TOGGLE ON AND OFF. [This is such a simple thing to do that I will cry if I am stuck with being led by the hand]