http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1175791-satisfaction-survey-of-mw-and-ob/

Based on results from this survey I have come up with a final 'rating' of each game so they can be easily compared:

Morrowind: 4.2/5 (84/100)

Oblivion 3.3/5 (66/100)

People were 18% more satisfied with Morrowind than Oblivion. This is scary, because Oblivion was developed years after Morrowind came out, and it got WORSE?! And not just by 1 or 2 percent, by neerly 20%!

So, will Skyrim continue this trend? Or will they pull up their sleeves and get to buisiness?

PLEASE NOTE: I am by no means saying Morrowind was any better than Oblivion, and am by no means saying this is everybodies oppinion. This is the results of an open poll on the general TES discussion page on this site, so all results are un-bias, and an AVERAGE, meant to represent the comunities oppinion as a whole, not each individual.

Statistics...if you have more than 2000 votes from different people then we can talk about this again.

No, they did nothing wrong. They tried new things with Oblivion that didn't work out as well, but its ok.
Learning is always bound to making mistakes.

I loved Morrowind AND Oblivion for the games they are. I don't want a Morrowind 2 or Oblivion 2.
And that is what Bethesda is good in. The same game series, but every game feels like its completely different.
Bioware could learn from that.

I liked oblivion far better than morrowind. Dont get me wrong i put in 180 hours into morrowind and the expansions. But i put in HUNDREDS of hours into MULTIPLE profiles on oblivion. Every person will prefer something different and will have different opinions on what skyrim should have. The fact is , is that bethesda has yet to disappoint the large scale fans , each game gets better and more fluid. Most people consider morrowind a fail by default due to the fast travel system ( and before you chew me out , it matters what ALL gamers feel and not the hardcoe rpg fans feel ). Every bethesda game rocks and so will skyrim. :celebration:

Morrowind had that strange alien feel to it compared to Oblivion and people loved that. I think that was the main reason people disliked Oblivion it lacked character and story.

A lot of people critiqued Oblivion for its bland environments and how there wasn't much reason to explore.

But there is flaws in both of them and I don't think that poll represents the vast majority of people who played both games.

I loved Morrowind and Oblivion equally and I highly doubt Skyrim will disappoint me.

You really have to look beyond the TES series for a more accurate prediction on Skyrim. Fallout 3 already showed that they have payed attention to the issues people had with Oblivion.

No disrespect mate, but that poll is anything but 'unbiased'. The number of people voting is quite low, and simply reflects the long held prejudices of the people on this forum towards Morrowind vs Oblivion - a topic done to death, I might add...

In terms of the question posed in the opening post, I think there are quite a few signs that the developers have understood some of the things that were wrong about Oblivion - the levelling issues are an obvious example. If you read between the lines of the various interviews posted, there are many hints that they realised that Skyrim needs to take the best elements of Oblivion and Morrowind, whilst also propelling the Elder Scrolls into a whole new era. I'm confident that they are going to do just that. That doesn't mean Skyrim will be perfect. No game ever is. That's why we have mods :twirl:

I really don't know what happened when they were developing Oblivion. It was good(and much better than Morrowind in many ways), but Morrowind I felt was a much more well crafted gaming experience. I am optimistic about Skyrim. I'm pretty confident it will improve upon Oblivion in numerous ways. As long as it is bug free and they don't neglect the small details it should be great.

Well,I think Skyrim is not going to be worse than Oblivion,but probably not as good as Morrowind either.
Bethesda did learn from some of their mistakes and correcting them.Level scaling for example.
But there are also things they still haven't corrected.Like removing skills and limiting customization,going too much for combat and graphics etc.
Also I highly doubt the landscape will be able to reach Morrowind quality in terms of design.Morrowind WAS another world really.I'm actually thinking that Bethesda doesn't have the designers they had with Morrowind anymore.
So,the game has taken a path of "aim for the average,guarantee the success." At least this was the case in Oblivion and it looks like so for Skyrim too IMO.But I cannot say that for sure without playing the game of course.

Now,I know everybody isn't fan of Manga,but I want to say something here: In one manga,it is said that for a series to be considered popular and successfull,2 people out of 20 should vote for it.So,instead of trying to make something mainstream that everybody will only read,it is better to make something that 2 out of 20 will DEFINATELY vote for.
This,is the case for many of the games being produced these days IMO.They want to please everybody,so there isn't anything that really stands out.The only measurement is graphics.Look at Crysis 2 I mean,take out the graphics and you'll have the same shooter from 10 years ago.

I say: Screw the graphics.Give me something NEW.

I'm not saying for sure, but in my opinion, there has always been this thing, where morrowind is like a hipster, everyone likes it because its not mainstream anymore, and they prefere it over oblivion, even though oblivion was better in many ways (although, worse in fewer others).
They both got GOTY, and they both equally deserved it.

Isn't that exactly what Skyrim looks like? Completely new? Completely new design, completely new leveling system, completely new skill system.
It won't be like Morrowind. And thats good. It won't be like Oblivion. And thats good either. It will be Skyrim.

So it doesn't matter to me that the skills aren't the same as in Morrowind, the landscape design isn't the same as in Morrowind. Its a new game, not Morrowind 2.

Well the sample size is low, you have 4 people choosing options which they were specifically told not to choose, the survey s in the General TES forum which is okay, but not all people go there, and the forums has a well known bias towards Morrowind, that is the game that really kind of brought the series into mainstream, and where a lot of the forum dwellers were introduced to series. And finally the forum is a very small representation of the people who played the game.

I wouldn't very too much.

Well, it appears my little rant about learning from mistakes was shot down pretty fast... But with good reason, and I apreciate that, and have to agree now that I look at it. The poll wasn't a great reflection, due to the number of votes, the types of questions, etc.

And thinking about it now, you can't really compare two TES games. Each game is like a new game (something that VERY few game producers actually do with series, good job Bethesda), and each game represents a unique play style in itself. I mean, you can say an apple tastes better than an orange, but that's just your oppinion, can they really be compared?

That's from...Bakuman right?

Anyway, I still find Oblivion better than Morrowind and Fallout 3. Fallout 3 was technically better, but it just wasn't my cup of tea. Like, the gameplay was more solid and the world along with the story really felt open. I just like magic and sword over guns and grenades, totally personal opinion on that. I've always liked medival more as well, so that may be why I like Oblivion over Morrowind. Its all just personal opinion.

Skyrim will probably continue down the same path. There will be issues, things that are odd and could have been handled better, but overall I feel the game will be better. There will be those who like Oblivion more, and others who cling to Morrowind or even Daggerfall. Its all just personal opinion. That's also why I don't think comparing games can be done without being bias. Its all opinion.

Indeed.

It's not Morrowind 2,but its Elder Scrolls 5.Not just Skyrim.
It should inherit the story depth.It should inherit the approach of design.Meaning not exactly medieval Europe or Vikings,but new architecture,weapons and armor only -inspired- by them.Or no concentrated cities,and the rest of the land is forest.

I think once they took this path with Oblivion there is no going back. Maybe the hand holding will be less obvious but it will always be there because going back to the roots (Morrowind with a more difficult learning curve) would alienate a lot of new customers who liked Oblivion and could never get into Morrowind because the "graphics is atrocious and you have to read things".

It's funny because I prefer the graphics of my modded Morrowind over my vanilla Oblivion. I also preferred the text over listening to the same 3 awful voice actors over and over.

Morrowind is not where the roots of TES are. Saying that is borderline laughable. I dislike Morrowind because the gameplay drives me up a wall. From dice rolls to miss to how easy it is to abuse the system even when you don't mean to. I had to physically step out of character way to many times to remind myself not to abuse the system, which is detrimental to any rpg when you have to leave character for anything. Not to mention many npc's dont even visit their own homes, instead choosing to stand in the same place indevinately. The combat also reminded me of games like runescape, just point and click and watch your avatar go except with Morrowind you have minor control with trying to dodge and deciding when to attack or block.

Just because its your favorite Elder Scroll or the first one you played doesn't mean that's where the roots are for TES. It very well may be where your roots are in regards to TES, but for the roots of TES you have to go back to the first one or two games where the lore started to be created. Its my opinion Oblivion is better, but the roots of TES are not in either Morrowind or Oblivion. I'd be so brave to say that the roots lay back in Daggerfall, and both Morrowind and Oblivion are just rings in the tree.

Oblivion added the quest marker because Morrowinds directions were scary at the worst of times and slightly frustrating at the best. Since npc's didn't wander around town in Morrowind, finding them without a marker is easy because you'll know exactly where they are most of the time. Oblivion also had a few quests where there still weren't markers, even more so with Fallout 3. Now we're told npc's will walk with us for a ways to show us where to go or talk of , along with there being no hud. That means that if there is a marker, it will only be on your map. If you don't want to use the marker, now you won't have to in Skyrim. Out of site, out of mind.

skyrim will easily be the game of the year

actually it will take 5 to 8 years for anyone to make anything as epic

Quite. I'm hoping that the years worth of often unpleasant "Morrowind is better than Oblivion" discourse may finally be put to bed when Skyrim comes out... and that it doesn't start afresh when it becomes apparent that Skyrim won't be Morrowind 2 either.

Oblivion made more money than Morrowind.

Sounds like a commercial
I am myself one of those more pleased with Morrowind but when it comes to artistic products such as games there can't be an accurate aggregate evalutaion, each individual has another set of criteria and everything is too subjective to draw conclusions based on a few hundred votes. It's somewhat natural that people who have something to criticize dwell more on the forums than people who are 100% content with where the series is going... I am very pleased with WoW and never posted in their forums, I have nothing to say, I prefer to play.

Unfortunately the survey results are based on an extremely small sample group of a small number of customers. You can't really draw conclusions. Us forumites actually make up a small proportion of actualcustomers.

Indeed.

There are many other factors as well. Most of the Morrowind is better crowd, myself included, were introduced to the series with Morrowind. Also, like myself, many of these gamers hadn't experienced anything quite like it. Maybe I'm smug, but I like to think I can see beyond nostalgia, I still frequent Morrowind (albiet, with graphical mods) and still hold fast that it's overall the better game, based on what it does right.

So, what is that?

Morrowind does, most importantly, the world right. Given it's static nature, that it manages to feel so alive, is a miracle of writing, music, art direction and presentation.

Characterization is another aspect that's done way better in Morrowind. Sure, a lot of the skills are kind of questionable, but the game presents so many options to solve a single task. Oblivion, given it's open nature, was actually very linear in feeling. More so than skillsets or spreadsheets, you could actually play a character practically.


Oblivion instead focused on, particularly the combat feel, and, what I still consider as prototyping out the Radiant AI system. There wasn't much left for details after that. Considering what they did with the exact same toolkit in Shivering Isles, I think Oblivion could have done with a 6month delay, even after it's original pushback from November launch with the 360.

The poll may be under subscribed and the sample set biased, but I pretty much agree with the conclusion.

My take on the poll topics:

Quests:
Even a simple fetch Q in Mw was often entwined with some underlying political situation between factions or faction members or groups of otherwise individual NPCs forming a whole subset of minor stories to keep the player entertained.

Mw had a surplus of quests which allowed for the development of depth, character and empathy whilst also allowing the PC to pick and chose such that they may more closely follow their 'role'. Take the Mages Guild for example: Balmora felt a little rural though less so than Caldera, Ald-Ruhn felt like a seat of learning, Sadrith Mora somewhat aloof as if the pervading prejudice of the area were infectious and Vivec more bureaucratic. Balmora and Ald-Ruhn felt like home, full of friendly faces though I developed a dislike for Ranis Athrys as their quest chain revealed their uncompromising nature. I can say much the same about the Fighters Guild and... These are feeling I found totally absent in Ob.

Many Mw Qs were interwoven with other Qs and the world itself, most Ob quests stood alone as something to keep the player occupied.

The World:
What can I say? Mw felt complete, complex, detailed, from interactive lighting through inter-faction politics all the way down to a shipwreck near Khull containing a note referencing an NPC in Balmora. The NPCs had their own transport - though we never see them travel, the NPCs responded to the blight storms and their disposition towards the PC was varied and often obvious. The Mw world felt functional, I could easily imagine 'life' continuing even when I was not playing the game. Ob felt more like a theme park or movie set, designed for my pleasure I could easily imagine when I wasn't in the game, that all the NPCs stopped acting and went home to their real lives - what is the name of that movie where the main character unknowingly lives in a soap opera?

Combat:
This one is easy. Take the combat out of Mw, it was after all a mini-game, and you still have a 40+ (100+) hour game world to enjoy. Take the combat out of Ob and you have, nothing I can readily think of. That's a little harsh, you could explore two caves, 2 ruins, two forts but really there is little in the game that is not in some way connected with combat. The question is, are we to play a RPG or a combat simulator?


So, OT. Have Beth learned from any of the, in my opinion, mistakes? Well, Fo3 did a bit better with the world and maybe slightly better with the quests. Remove combat from Fo3 and their are still some interesting areas to explore and several stories to be told. I do think Fo3 was a step in the right direction, but I would have welcomed a much larger step. Of course the changes they made to level scaling where welcome, but if I am to fight for the sake of a world then the devs had better create a world worth fight for and the world of Fo3 was just barely adequate and this mostly due to novelty.