To point out one of the most blatant lore conflicts: Dragonfires. There was already lore that explained how Oblivion was separated from Mundus that wasn't compatible with the Dragonfires lore. For another thing, although it was from a side quest, the Akaviri men. There was already lore stating there are no Akaviri men, since they got owned by the Tsaesci. While on the topic of lore breakage outside of the main quest, Mannimacro. Yeah, this is still off the topic of lore conflicts in the main story, but... Oblivion's Mannimarco caused infinite facepalms to the infinite power. Miltiades's Mannimarco Revisited mod was awesome (despite the fact that I had to spend several hours debugging a crash bug that happens after defeating Mannimarco during his vanishing sequence... if you're reading this, by the way, it happens when your script disables Manni if I remember correctly), but Bethesda better revisit him themselves in TESV and do him proper justice this time to repair his awesomeness in the canon.

One can hope, one thing I'd like is more varieties in clothing. That was depressing

wut akaviri men? None of the blades were from Akavir they just had Akaviri weaponry. Well okay oblivion was seperated from mundus... so they use the oblivion gates to invade it? I don'ts ee the problem with the gates being used. The gates were portals so y not. and yes the men were owned. look up akavir on uesp btw. Akavir has had clashes with tamriel before and had an influence on man and mer's military tactics and the blades weapons. The blades i repeat again were not from akavir. If your talking about something else i have no idea wut ur talking about. Akaviri men??? wut quest was this?

Never played the quest where you visit Pale Pass? I don't remember the exact name of the quest, but you get it in Bruma. When some condition is met (can't remember what it was, maybe it was level and/or fame), when waiting in Bruma, an NPC will come up to you telling you that the Countess wants you to help her with something, etc. etc. and then talking to her gives you the quest. Also, don't tell me to go to UESP for lore. UESP editors prove time and time again that they don't know the first thing about TES lore. It is a good place to learn about gameplay, but not that. You should go see The Imperial Library. Additionally, I wasn't talking about the Oblivion Gates that broke the lore, I said the Dragonfires did. There were already two things that kept Oblivion out of Mundus: the compact arranged by Sotha Sil (who happened to die during TES3) that forbids Daedric Princes from being summoned onto Mundus, and the Towers that, among other things, created a barrier (of which a couple inadvertently got broken by the hero in the main quests of the previous TES games). Then all that lore gets ignored for no apparent reason and we get the Dragonfires garbage tacked on.

Humm, those 6 years were punctuated by the release of Redguard and Battlespire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_III:_Morrowind#Development so it wasn't really a full 6 years was it? One can claim only 4 years to develop Oblivion but if the development team doubled in size and the marketing budget increased by a factor of 10 then Ob sales twice that of Mw would be needed just to reach financial parity.

In any case, further speculation is pointless without access to your source of information.

I think that is the way I should start approaching debates like these as well. As entertainment.

oh yeah i remember that one now. yeah the ghost i thot u were talking about live men. Well the inhabitant of tamriel did have skirmishes with them. I mean for all we know those bodies belonged to mo tang and i remember assumming they were dead ka po tun or something. Anyway yes the men were all eaten but they existed at some point in the history so there were men. Those men if they were men at all could have died in that war before they were all eaten. There is no evidence saying they were human at all. The humans did fight againts akaviri inhabitants before so who's to say if those were humans or not. Well if some of the towers were broken as u said wuldnt this cause some sort of weakening? thus allowing mehrunes dagon to get into mundus? especially since the dragonfires were weakened with the death of the emperor too. I dont think this really violates the lore but its adding onto the lore. It has to continue somehow.

The GI article I think will be Bethesda's 1st true test about Skyrim.

Morrowinds combat is horrible I hope they never put that back in.

I prefer Oblivion if I had to pick between both Morrowind and Oblivion but I think that Bethesda has their own ideas as to what they want in Skyrim. Morrowind was really bad in certain areas sure they had a great main quest and some other features but limited Fast Travel is bad and I hope they have learned from that mistake and not implement it again. Fallout 3's fast travel system which is basically the same system as Oblivion without all the cities unlocked at the beginnning is probably the system that they will use. I'm gonna say this and I might take some heat for this but I really doubt that Bethesda will get rid of fast travel I'm just saying it now because a lot people might be turned off by the idea of not being able to jump from one city to the next or not having the patience of walking 15 minutes just to get to a dungeon or cave that they have already visited beforehand. I know a majority of people on the forum want to get rid of it but if you mainstreamed and asked everybody who has gotten Oblivion that is not on this site they will probably tell you that they wouldn't want you to get rid of Fast Travel completely and go with a Morrowind system of pay as you go travel. Lastly I'm not against implementing some stuff from morrowind I think the rare items in Morrowind were really a good thing like Daedric Armor but there's a reason why Oblivion was good. Good Combat that rewards you for being patient and the ability to do what you want.

Various quotes and FO3 shows they learned alot of things when it comes to Oblivion.

-Needs better sense of culture
-Needs better level scaling
-Needs realistic fast travel, having all the cities available from the start = dumb

The skeletons and ghosts at Pale Pass were supposed to represent the Akaviri - the Tsaesci (literally vampire snake-"men"/creatures) to be specific. Instead they were all skeletons and ghosts of men. A dev tried to retcon this ex post facto by explaining in a forum post (which is by now pruned, unfortunately; it's possible that it may be archived at The Imperial Library) that the men were Tamrielic men enslaved by the invading Tsaesci, but this doesn't fully fill in the plot hole - there should have been decayed remains of Tsaesci in the Pale Pass ruins, if nothing else. And the Dragonfires did conflict with existing lore. The Towers worked due to their Stones (the Heart of Lorkhan in the case of Red Mountain/Red Tower, the Amulet of Kings/Chim-el Adabal in the case of White-Gold Tower), and this created the barrier. What should have happened was, removing the Heart of Lorkhan from Red Mountain would weaken the barrier, as would the Zero Stone getting removed from Adamantine Tower (this happened in the backstory involving the Marukhati Selectives, mind you, not something that happened in-game), and messing around with Numidium (which was also a tower) during TES2 probably didn't help either. The last thing needed to push things over the edge was stealing White-Gold's Stone from the Emperor. Instead they ignored the role of the Towers and their Stones and replaced it with the contrived plot device that was the Dragonfires to explain the barrier and its failure. Using the already established plot device that was the Towers would have been far more interesting, wouldn't have broken existing lore, and would tie in the plots of the previous games in with the plot of Oblivion. In order to fix this plot hole, we have to assume that the Dragonfires didn't actually do anything, contrary to belief, and were merely ceremonial, and reflected whether White-Gold Tower was functioning or not. Having to do that is plain weak and is the result of poor writing.

oh well. its not too lore wrecking if we kinda messed up the towers in previous games anyway. It wont destroy the elder scrolls. the universe is practically the same.

idk in fallout there was more emphasis on being new to the wastelands and ont knowing where anything is. in oblivion u were in prison yes but u were not new to cyrodil considering u were in the imperial prison. but in fallout u were completely new to the landscape. plus in oblivion u culd only go to major cities. smaller communities and caves and camps etc had to be discovered.

The lore inconsistencies/plot holes I mentioned are only the tip of the iceberg. Daggerfall and Morrowind technically violated lore to an extent, too, but not to the same degree as Oblivion, and the execution made up for it. In Daggerfall's case, it was because the lore of Arena wasn't fleshed-out at all (it was generally considered "proto-lore"), it was your standard D&D fantasy setting - Daggerfall tweaked a lot of things, replacing a lot of dull elements with interesting ones while adding on more. Morrowind added loads of deep lore on metaphysics, among other things, that was written by somebody who locked himself in a room for a week with nothing but a carton of cigarettes and a thermos full of coffee and burbon, so you know it's gotta be good. Well, okay, that particular awesome scenario only applied to the process of writing the 36 Lessons of Vivec, but still.

I've only really properly begun taking an interest in lore since Oblivion's release, so I'd be interested to know specifically what lore was retconned for Oblivion. Does it actively contradict past sources or is it just a 'this is stupid' kind of retcon?

well the lore is a bit more established now thats true. i just dont see how it really destroyed the lore like some people said. its really not that bad. we just have to go kay.... damaging some of the towers had a consquence. then move on. cuz it still made a great game. and the lore is still healthy. skyrim will probably damage the lore a bit too. I mean its hard to just make a game with tis much lore and not accidentally step on the toes of some little corner of lore somehwere.

Arena -> Very good, Not much money -> PC only
Daggerfall -> Very good, Not much money -> PC only
Morrowind -> great, Lot of money -> Ported to console
Oblivion -> weak, dumbed down, lot of money -> Console oriented
Fallout 3 -> boring, Lot of money -> Console oriented
F NV -> ???, Lot of money -> Console oriented
Skyrim -> ???, Lot of money -> Console oriented ?

Money = Console oriented no need good product.

I'm not sure what the difference between those two types of scenarios is? There's a lot of lore Oblivion broke. Cyrodiil no longer being a tropical environment (it gets better; there was a book from Morrowind that described Cyrodiil as such that was ported straight to Oblivion without any editing, so you have now-blatantly contradictory information in-game), Mannimarco being an Altmer and not the uber lich seen in Daggerfall, the Dragonfires, the Akaviri at Pale Pass, the Mages Guild's sudden opposition to necromancy (not a lore inconsistency per se, but a dumb, contrived retcon/plot device), the Ayleids being virtually extinct (they were supposed to have been "driven underground" as it were, as stated in the book On Wild Elves, which is another book ported straight from TES3 to TES4), the Tribunal Temple having authority over printed works in Cyrodiil (this is more of a really hilarious oversight from that book porting I mentioned; this is seen in The Real Barenziah Part IV), and so on.


FONV was surprisingly good for a latter-day RPG, but that's not a Bethesda-developed product.

that wasn't dumb at all. the mages guild sudden opposition was nto so sudden. thats been going on with morrowind and went in ful in oblivion. yeah the whole cyrodil environment i understand was a bigg change. but making a jungle wuld be friggin hard.

Yes there was the tropical bit I forgot about that... but we don't know whether that was actually Mannimarco or whether it was just a relatively powerful necromancer taking on the Mannimarco mantle.

How did the Dragonfires or the Akaviri at Pale Pass contradict existing lore? Please be more specific.

The "Mage's Guild's sudden opposition to necromancy" was Hannibal Traven's own personal agenda, and it actually split the Mage's Guild right down the middle. I hardly think it was contrived.

We don't know anything about the Ayleids!

Fix'd

This is like having to assume the Dragonfires didn't actually have a real function: something retcon-ish that is the result of bad writing.

Already explained in my previous posts addressed to another user.

Split the Mages Guild council, maybe. The rest of the guild didn't seem to mind for some reason. It was a contrived plot device and served to make the TES world more black-and-white (various other changes in TES4 also contributed to this), a stark contrast to the world full of shades of gray seen in Daggerfall, and in Morrowind (but not quite as well as in Daggerfall).

You mean you don't know anything about the Ayleids, since you still have some reading to do. Start with that book I mentioned.

Fix'd.

Edit: Ok, not fixed, Bethesda forum software fails.

:dry: We don't know anything about modern Ayleids.

Since it certainly states that the Ayleids are still around, just out of plain view, which is what I said to begin with.

And was written in the 2nd Era...

Listen to me, the voice of reason. I am usually an outspoken Morrowind Fan, but I also liked Oblivion. Let's taker a look...

Morrowind fans, we do nitpick Oblivion harshly, there's no denying it, but we usually bring up it's good strengths too. However, that's usually ignored, because the Oblivion fans see if their game is 'bashed' (AKA any flaws brought up) then it's saying, "Oblivion was complete and utter junk and if anyone likes it they need to play COD, because they're not bright enough for Morrowind!!!"

In reality, it's simply critiquing the good, the bad, and the in-between. Oblivion fans, you can't say you're innocent of the 'Bash Wars' either. I've seen many a' fan say Morrowind was dumb or stupid because it was too hard for them. Now then, I'm going to highlight the good, the bad, and the neutral. We can be mature and respectful of each other, or we can just get this thread closed.

This is just of the games, not their expansions or downloadable content.

Morrowind Pros

Skills - There is no denying that Morrowind had more skills with more meaning.
Enviroment - There is no denying that Vvardenfell was more original than the "Copy+Paste Forest" of Cyrodiil.
Culture - The Dunmer have a much deeper culture and more lasting impression than the Imperial Peoples (probably, because they were added in Morrowind).
Factions - It makes sense for factions not to like each other (i.e. the Fighters' Guild and their rivals, the Thieves' Guild)
Realistic Sidequests - The painting quest of Oblivion was far too 'epic' and unrealistic. Stuff like 'Take care of the bandit near Hla Oad' is much more realistic and adds to immersion, for me at least.
Main Quest - The Main Quest albeit cliche, had a better 'coating'. Oblivion's was very generic (we must kill the demons from Hell), while Morrowind's made you ponder, is Lord Voryn Dagoth (Dagoth Ur) really a bad guy? He wants the Dunmeri People to be in their rightful place again and is enraged because of what Vehk and the Tribunal did to him.
Vampirism - There was a more of a reason to become a vampire than just stat bonuses.
Replayability - Years later, many fans still pick up their game and plop it in. In Oblivion, I was done with everything at level 2 (all quests, side, faction, main). In Morrowind doing that would be suicide.
Strong Holds - You own a village.

Morrowind Cons

Combat - I personally think it's a pro, because it's skill based. However, immersiveness is for Oblivion's combat.
Graphics - Graphically, it is worse.
Difficult to learn - The game was not made for first-time roleplaying gamers.
Conjuration - In public, the summoner was likely to be killed.
Stealth - Need I say more?


Oblivion Pros

Graphics - Graphically, it's beautiful.
Stealth - You can be a fairly effective thief, as to a 'I need to kill everyone in this house so I can steal their skooma cache'.
Easy to learn - First time roleplaying gamers will learn the bare bones of RPGs from this game.
Conjuration - Albeit flawed, there were far more creatures.
Magic Regeneration - I thought it was silly my sword recharged itself, but I was dry.
Combat - See above.
Voice Acting - It made it more immersive for some, others would've preferred text for more options (I prefer text).
Radiant Artifical Intelligence - It had many faults, but it did help immersion for npcs not to be awake 24/7.

Oblivion Cons

Main Quest - Basic archetype, with little meat added to the skeleton.
Factions - Too epic and very, very cliche. (It portrayed Mannimarco, the Blackwood Company, and the Imperial Watch as villains, and none of them are).
Side Quests - See above.
Enviroment - Sorry, but I don't like seeing the hundred-thousandth's randomly placed tree.
Level Scaling - Do I need to add anything?
Fast Travel - A bit of a pro and a con here. It made it much easier, but it also made me lose immersion when I magically teleported across Cyrodiil.
Replayability - Why replay when I can have one level one character who is Master of the Fighters' Guild, Arch Mage of the Mages' Guild, Gray Fox of the Thieves' Guild, Listener of the Dark Brotherhood, and Arena Grand Champion all in one?
Culture - There really was no culture, while Radiant AI made it feel real in some shape, it felt like everyone was just 'existing'.
Skills - The skills were simplified and combined, which leaves less room for character development.

Did I miss anything? I think it was a pretty fair look at both sides.