Skyrim was mt first Elder Scroll game, but I also grabbed Oblivion and Morrowwind on Steam sales. Haven't tried Morrowwind yet, but I've been mucking around in Oblivion enough to give a general impression. Gonna talk vanilla only, not including mods or console commands.

Oblivion's design feels much MUCH more like a "pen-and-paper RPG" design. Your character has stats and skills, and through the tutorial level you choose Primary stats and seven character-defining skills (called Major Skills). So right from the start your character is placed into a defined playstyle. This is a fun thing for me as I like the idea of creating a character and working with it, but if you like the way Skyrim lets you adapt or change your character build as you play you may not like this. An Oblivion character feels more rigid than a Skyrim character. I am on my third attempt re-rolling a character to get the skillsets working right for me.

Unless I am doing something wrong, you also level slower in Oblivion. My first character was level 6 after a week of play before I rerolled her (Casual play, mind you), while Skyrim I made a new character and got her to level 14 in a couple sessions. Oblivion levels you off your seven Major Skills ONLY, unlike Skyrim where everything you do helps you level.

Oblivion's combat system is also really frustrating for me because the game has no passive health regen and very weak base magicka regen. You start with a basic heal spell that gets really weak really fast and you can burn through your potion supplies quickly diving into repeated fights. I spend a lot of time in my dungeon crawls waiting for my magicka to recharge so I can get my health high enough to continue on in the dungeon. Basically, sustaining yourself on dungeon crawls is a problem for me. And I can't tab-out to do other stuff while waiting on my magicka, because pressing tab opens the character menu and pauses the game, INCLUDING the magicka regen. Skyrim, in comparison, is much more forgiving about sustaining yourself through a dungeon crawl.

Skyrim also lets you dual-wield, and Oblivion doesn't. Sore point for me. XD

However, so far in Oblivion, I do like the "traditional epic fantasy" vibe of the game world. And I am not very far in the main story quest line but I already like it better than Skyrim's. Also, Oblivion lets you fast travel between major cities without having to find them first. You still need to hunt down the smaller caves and areas, but it's easier to travel around from the start.

I would say I like Skyrim more RIGHT NOW, but Oblivion is growing on me. If I can just solve the damn dungeon sustain problem.

They're great for different reasons. Skyrim doesn't have some features people loved in Oblivion and vice versa; we can decide which features are more important to us and as a result, which game we like more (or that we like both equally). The original question wasn't "Which game is better?" but rather "Which game is more fun?" Fun is highly subjective.

Half Life is an objectively great game, but I couldn't even play it because the FOV was killing my eyes and besides, I don't like shooters. I had exactly zero fun. Does it mean the game is bad? Of course not, it just wasn't my type of game. It's the same with TES.

The other thing that Oblivion & Morrowind have going for them is diversity. Skyrim does the tundra and ice thing really well, but, the changes in environment somehow don't seem so dramatic. I know there are the hot springs of Eastmarch, the Tundra of Whiterun, Swamp of Hjaalmarch etc... but for me it doesn't register so much as the dramatic variations in previous incarnations. The variety just manages to blend in, somehow.

But, as I said, Skyrim's natural environment is pretty impressive in its way, and it's a more confined country than Cyrodiil and a less (um...) Volcanic one than Vvardenfell, so I guess I'm just comparing apples with pears.

I would definitely go with Oblivion.

Although Oblivion always seems to be pushed aside because of the character models (which are in no way great, but pretty hilarious at times), it really is an amazing game once you get past that.

What Oblivion destroys Skyrim in is the quest department. If you're looking for fun, interesting quests, look no further than Oblivion. The faction quests are some of the best.

I also found that Oblivion offered more customization and RP opportunity for the player.

I prefer Skyrim to Oblivion, I just wish the Guild Questlines were more fleshed out in Skyrim. I have not played Oblivion much since Skyrim came out. I have been using Fallout NV for My breaks from the Game.

I learned this Morning I could not launch Wrye Bash for Oblivion and just got the Utility to work before typing this.

Imagine the proper, Oblivion Dark Brotherhood quests + kill cams!

I've got a nice long list of reasons why I think Skyrim is better:

1. Combat is much more fun than before
2.Finishers, which falls in with combat
3. Removal of attributes and replacement with perk system (although both would be better)
4. Magic is actually fun to use
5. Magic is now usable as a standalone weapon
6. CHARACTER FACES, OMG CHARACTER FACES
7. Thu'um
8. Craft system. We may have lost spell crafting, but weapon and armor crafting to me is worth it. Especially since magic is more fun now
9. Being in Skyrim, land of the Nords!
10. More blood and decapitations. I always hated how Oblivion wasn't bloody enough (I was young). Didn't care as much when I played Morrowind, but I'm glad it's there.
11. The environment is much more well crafted. I believe all of it is hand crafted right? I know the dungeons are this time around.
12. Dungeons are much more interesting to explore. More little stories, and the cave and dungeons actually look different now.
13. The magic and weapon's duel wielding system.
14. Music
15. That feel of...epic.
16. Also, characters and the world still move when you are talking
17. Animations
18. Easier to roleplay in due to the less cartoonish look
19. Doesn't have Oblivion's silliness
20. The bounty system
21. Bounty hunters
22. Random events! One of my favorite things about Skyrim. Much more fun to not fast travel now.
23. I already said character faces, but the fact that we get scars, war paint and beards I think needs its own mention. Especially beards since we lost those in Oblivion besides that pitiful shadow neck beard crud we got.
24. Armor looks waaay cooler. Everything in general does.
25. THE WATER! Moving currents!
26. Marriage
27. Adoption
28. Making my own house
29. New werewolf is epic
30. Vampires are cooler than before
31. We can sprint
32. Bows and arrows actually kill things! Without magic! And it doesn't take an era!
33. Obstructive mountains

The OP asked which game we find more fun. Of course Skyrim is better on lots of details, but that doesn't necessarily equal more fun overall.

To me it does. If it's not more fun, then its not better. Thats at least how I look at it. All of those things I listed are reasons why it is more fun for me.

Fair enough, I just wanted to clarify.

How is Cyrodiil more diverse? You got the Gold Coast, vaguely different forest, Blackwood and the Jerall Mountains. Skyrim has pine forest, tundra, plains, volcanic springs, swamps, autumn forest..

Agreed. Generic medieval fantasy is how I'd describe Cyrodiil.

Not to say it wasn't good and at the time that is what I wanted.

Skyrim is more fun to me than oblivion. I'm not sure what it is, maybe just the sort of happy-go-lucky attitude despite the impending crisis. The world doesn't feel real to me. I've tried starting a new obliv character a few times in the past year and I just can't do it anymore. I get bored instantly.

I started playing Skyrim in January '12. Still playing and going strong. Last Christmas I picked up Oblivion. On two seperate occasions I tried playing it and getting into it, I just cant'. And I put about 15 hours or so into it. I'm sure alot of people that started with Skyrim will say Skyrim and people who started with Oblivion will say Oblivion.

Indeed. I can still play Oblivion and enjoy it, but I am constantly reminded that the world is very much a game. All the NPC's are ridiculous. It works for some, it's a bit tiresome after while. Probably why it's so easy for me to be an assassin in that game..

I blame desaturation. Skyrim feels bland for some people because it's much less colorful than Cyrodiil.

Me too. Skyrim is quite a colorful place with just a mod that removes the grey tint and desturation. And that's the only one i've needed for lighting/weather.

Both games are fantastic, but in many ways i enjoy Oblivion the most.. I don't know what it is but, it just hooks me more than Skyrim does.

Yeah that's probably it. Even then, I don't mind the greyness. Give's it a rigid atmosphere which Skyrim is supposed to have, and the greyness of Falkreath only emphasizes the beauty of a sunny day in the Rift. In Oblivion everything is a like a massive painting, which is charming for a while but I care nothing for it after I'm done completing my favourite quests.

I wouldn't call Blackreach de-saturated. That has to be the most colorful area in Skyrim.

Aw, dude. You misspelled Floki!

Sure, but with ENB enhancing contrast it looks quite a bit more impressive: http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/596997000677718325/14151A07290E0A0DE864FC7BB6F048773F794971/

Too bad i can't actually play with one

Both. Overall like Skyrim better, but both are great.

How does the ending kill any interest in the game???

I don't inherently disagree with the point you're trying to make, but... no... finding out who was luring "beasts" into the rat-loving Dunmer's basemant was not interesting.

Oblivion was my first TES, but if you asked me which I thought was more fun anyting during the first year after release of Skyrim, I would have said Skyrim hands down. But after about a year from release, I started playing Oblivion again and now I enjoy Oblivion much more than Skyrim.

Why? Mostly its the magic. Skyrim introduced some neat spells, like necromancy, wards and runes, but they did not fully deliver on the new spells. There is the ash pile issue with necromancy and dead thrall does not work on draugr. IMHO, necromancy would be much better if you could reanimate the same corpse over and over again at the expioration of the spell. Only make it an ash pile if the corpse was killed in battle, not if it survived until the spell expired. Would have made the ash pile clean up problem less of an issue and would have made necromancy more fun. Wards require too much restoration cost reduction and they do not block enough physical damage. Runes need to be scaled so they remain potent at high levels. But still, kudos to Skyrim for adding some new and interesting spell effects.

However, Oblivion magic has so many more spell effects than Skyrim and spellmaking that allows for some real creativity in your spell crafting, as well as your weapon enchanting (where you can combine multiple effects that interact with each other). Counting on the UESP, Oblivion has well over 100 spell effects, and many of those have multiple aspects to them (like fortify, drain and absorb attribute or skill can be applied to one of eight attributes and one of 21 skills), which if counted individually would increase the number of individual spell effects to well over 200. Contrast Skyrim, where there are less than 40 spell effects and no spell making. Makes playing a mage in Skyrim a much more limited experience.

Plus there are both magical and nonmagical ways to affect disposition of every NPC in the game, sometimes with interesting results.

So after playing Skyrim for about a year, I feel like I have done just about all there is to do with magic in Skyrim, but in Oblivion, there are always more things to do with magic. That's why I not find Oblivion to be more fun than Skyrim.