I absolutely hated oblivion gates. Bland environment and didn't care for the style of the strongholds within. As someone else stated, I never even looked at a forum for Oblivion. Skyrim is just so more immersive. Everything feels so real. Some much time being spent on this game. Can't wait to see what's next.

I have more fun playing Oblivion than Skyrim, but I will admit that I am unbelievably biased towards Oblivion. It was my first TES game and my first open-world game, I played it for thousands of hours without getting bored with it. My love for Oblivion isn't pure nostalgia though, even when I was just starting the game I actually enjoyed closing Oblivion gates and I loved the magical fantasy feel the game had to it. That said, Skyrim has made major improvements over Oblivion in the combat system and in dungeon design. Skyrim falls really short in the quest department though, the main quest felt really lacking and the guild quests weren't executed well, which is a shame because they had greater potential than Oblivion's guilds. Skyrim does have werewolves though, and not every Bosmer is portrayed as being unbearably annoying, which is something that frustrates me to no end when I play Oblivion. All in all it is a pretty close call for me, but I have to go with the game that doesn't shove pro-human sentiments down my throat at every turn.

Oh, and I miss greaves. I don't care if removing them allowed Bethesda to put more npc's on the screen at once, seperated greaves allowed for more customization and gave us another enchantment slot.

For me it completely depends on which game (and which character) I feel the most like playing, and that varies.

Edit: I have 4 open-world RPGs on my computer (Skyrim, Oblivion, Morrowind, Fallout New Vegas); they're all fun to play and the good thing is, if I'm getting tired of one I can play another.

Two things that keep me from enjoying Oblivion are disgustingly bad character faces and the canonized ending of the protagonist. The latter alone kills any interest in the game for me.

For that reason alone I always played argonian. Imo it was the only character model that wasn't laughably cartoonish.

Yep, this right here. Playing a mage isn't as fun in Skyrim as it was in Oblivion. Skyrim has mostly war magic and has very little options for experimentation.

I'll also add that I liked the MQ better in Oblivion and the protagonist was a lot easier to work with since the "Chosen One" thing wasn't so in-your-face (it was implied, but not outright stated multiple flipping times like in Skyrim). It was more satisfying becoming a hero when you didn't have any special advantages over everyone else.
Your actions actually had (some slight) consequences too. I remember playing with a high Personality and Speechcraft character and still being hated by everyone because of my infamy.

I liked both games, but I like Oblivion more than Skyrim.

Skyrim is more enjoyable for me, but Oblivion is still my favorite Elder Scrolls if only for the nostalgia. If you're a fan of Elder Scrolls quests, however, you must play Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood questline. It is one of the best questlines in the series in my opinion.

Well, I'm glad I'm not you.

As for me, I find Oblivion more enjoyable than Skyrim.

I enjoyed Oblivion more. I especially liked the atmosphere and quests much more.

Overall unmodded Skyrim is a better game than unmodded Oblivion. However in my opinion modded Oblivion is still better than modded Skyrim. With mods you can close shut the many flaws of Oblivion.

I think Oblivion definitely has more interesting quests than Skyrim. Every quest has some catch to it, like wait in a shop until midnight and find out who is breaking in there, or find out who is luring beasts into some rat-loving Dunmer's basemant. In Skyrim it's always the same. Go to A, kill B and return C to D. No catch, no plot.

Oblivion is my pick. Modded that is. Vanilla vs vanilla would be a tougher call. The breaking point for me comparing both games unmodded is the magic system. To me Skyrim's magic is lackluster. While they added some neat stuff, they took away the thing I loved the most which is spell making. That gives me hours of entertainment. Since I mainly play archers and mages that was a big downfall to me. The guild quests in Oblivion are better as a whole IMO. The main quest is just okay in both games really. Oblivion gates vs Dragons. Both over-rated and way, way too many of them.

There are things Skyrim added and did much better. Had they kept spell making and an open lock spell so I wasn't leveling my mage by being out of character and done something real good with the Bard College (total missed opportunity there) I think I wouldn't feel the way I do. To me it had so much potential to blow Oblivion out of the water. It just fell short and cut out the wrong things. At least for me.

Right. It seems to me they spent too long on the world and then had no time but for the most basic quest design The writing is poor even on Bethesda's standards.

Or maybe they tried to condition people to mass produced quests for TESO

In truth, I enjoyed Oblivion more, but that's not really down to the game, more the time period in which I played it. Although, for all it's faults, Oblivion got one thing right; you really didn't have to bother at all with the MQ, in Skyrim you have to if you want the game world to make sense.

But I enjoyed Morrowind more than both, so there you go.

I've played both Oblivion and Skyrim for quite long and I believe I like Skyrim more.

I can partially agree with this.

The only thing I loved about Oblivion were quests. It has some of my favourite quests in all TES games: Whodunit?, An Unexpected Voyage, A Brush with Death, a few Daedric quests, half of the Thieves Guild questline, I could go on. But everything else was just meh. Level scaling was awful. I had immense fun while I played, but when I finished the questlines I was interested in I had nothing left to do because I couldn't get immersed into the world. I still don't know why, it just wasn't my kind of setting I guess. I can enjoy it now though, after modding everything I didn't like.

Skyrim was different. I wanted to see everything, go everywhere, it felt exactly how I wanted. I absolutely loved it until I started noticing its flaws - unlike Oblivion, Skyrim has design problems that aren't easily fixed with mods. If I could have Skyrim with Oblivion's writing, I'd be happy (well, I'd throw in a few Morrowind features too, but since we're talking TES IV vs. TES V...)

If I had to pick one, I'd still choose Skyrim.

I seriously hope that Beth will take back the quest quality of Morrowind and Oblivion for TES6 but knowing Bethesda that's a big thing to hope for.

i think skyrim lots a lot of aspect that oblivion had. yes skyrim seems more immersive, but i think that oblivion had better story and quests, and magic was... better in skyrim but they got rid of the spell making mechanic. im not sure, but oblivion was very close, if not better than skyrim.

things that skyrim should've had that oblivion had...

first-person horseback riding

underwater combat

spell making

more invovlement in the worlds consequences

classes

degrading weapons

more vampire or werewolf bonuses

stats (strength, luck, personality)

maybe im just being nostalgic

Oblivion was my first TES and I think also first RPG. I loved it and played it to death.

However I still find skyrim to be the better and more fun game.

The dreaded oblivion gates almost made me shut off the game a lot of times and while the world was large and beautiful it also felt very empty for some reason.

So yea I find skyrim more fun

It IS better.

There's a lot of criticism of Oblivion for multiple reasons and yes, much of it is warranted. But the thing is....

For example, over on the Fallout forums, sometimes the "dinosaurs" will criticize Fallout 3 and call it a bad Fallout. Yes, maybe it is. But a bad game? No. For the most part, everyone can agree it's still a good, fun game to play, it just doesn't quite fit into the Fallout series (or does so rather awkwardly), offers many perks and strongpoints that are atypical for Fallout while neglecting previous strengths of the Fallout series, and while it doesn't exactly break canon or retcon, it does make some parts of canon incredibly sloppy and farfetched.

Oblivion is sorta the same, imo. It retcons, it was a disappointment compared to Morrowind....But it's still a good game. Oblivion has, imo, the best faction questlines of the series, as well as plenty to do, more dungeon (yes I'm willing to have this debate) and enemy diversity, more magic variety and better writing overall. It doesn't quite have the intense lore writing of Morrowind, but the little stories that go alongside the faction questlines or random quests are pretty good. By comparison, Skyrim's writing is abysmal, the faction quests are outrageously short, and the dungeons/enemies encountered can get really repetitive. To be perfectly honest, although I can respect Morrowind and see why it would perhaps deserve more praise and recognition, I think Oblivion is my PERSONAL favorite TES based on the faction questlines alone. Morrowind's factions were low on story, (more for quests with story being secondary), Skyrim's were just out-right derp, but Oblivion's were all very well done. For me, that matters a lot because faction quests offer a ton in regards to roleplaying different characters.

Oblivion hands down.

I felt I lived in Oblivion while playing it. While playing Skyrim I was just playing a game, a very beautifully made game, but just a game.

For me Oblivion was story driven, the quests I cared about. Skyrim was, yeah lets get on to the next thing.

Graphics and technology need to be put aside. The Elder Scrolls Online will trump Skyrim, Oblivion and Morrowind for most.

Oblivion is the only game I bought another copy of when the first got a crack in the cd. Plus my cat was always there when I played Oblivion watching the screen wanting to get the butterflies, she never even noticed Skyrim.

Even cats prefer Oblivion!

fully agree

yea if only you could ride the dragon

Both/and

They're both great games and don't let anyone tell you differently.

You've got to be kidding.

I honestly hate oblivion, its like a cheesey disney movie or something. It wouldn't be in my top 50 games while skyrim is head and shoulders easily my number 1 game of all time. I was introduced to this style of game by fallout 3, which I loved, heard oblivion was similar, tried it and hated how wussy and childish it was in comparison. Then I was mildly disappointed with fallout new vegas, then I reluctantly tried skyrim when it came out and my god... Yes! Thank you, that is what I was expecting from oblivion and then some. To me its all about how cool you can make your character and how gritty and grimey the world is. Oblivion only allows you to make cheesey shrek characters in a similarly cheesey cartoony world. In skyrim I'm a gritty sinister dirty medieval bastard slaughtering people brutally in a grimey somewhat real world. Skyrim is so far beyond oblivion for me they aren't even in the same stratusphere.