I think you're close. I've always said that Skyrim brought back a lot of the detail and worldbuilding that made Morrowind great - but what it lacked was just a bizarre world that always treated you as the outsider. That may have really helped to make the player and the player character in Morrowind see things from the same perspective, which is probably a huge part of what draws people in.

To be honest, I don't think Bethesda could recapture that if they tried.

You guys know that I go on rants about Skyrim all the time, but one thing it did well was try and recapture the "weirdness" of Tamriel, at least slightly. I do agree that it didn't recapture the absolutely stunning and intriguing culture that Morrowind had.

A lot of people think that Morrowind is a unique case, and that it's the only province that was supposed to be "weird", but if you read the old lore of the game from the redguard-morrowind period, Skyrim, Cyrodiil, and Summerset were just as strange if not stranger.

One of the keys to Morrowind's "alien familiarity" was how it took fundamental aspects of a culture and society, altered them enough to put a fresh twist on them, yet kept them familiar enough to be easily recognizable and relatable. The depth of the culture, politics, religion, and world in general provided a consistency and "reality" that is sadly lacking in most other game worlds, where the details often clash with the gameplay. The sheer amount of prior thought that clearly went into the making of Vvardenfell leads me to believe that at least one of the developers was essentially "living there" in his head long before the project ever saw daylight. Like Tolkien's world, it comes to life because most of the aspects have been thought about in exquisite detail for years. It's only "real" to the player or reader because it was "real" to the writer.


Oblivion borrowed from the same base of lore, but it's apparent that the culture was never worked out to the same degree; it's a sideshow in the developer's mind, not the main event, and the changes in the world to put it into the game further distanced it from that original vision.

They don't need to. Recapturing the "weirdness" of what Morrowind went for completely misses what made Morrowind great to begin with. Skyrim almost recaptured that aspect of Morrowind, if only it emphasized those aspects a bit more. Unlike Oblivion, I can imagine those two installments being apart of the same franchise, with it being some screwy side-show if we ignore Shivering Isles.

You can make a game that looks just as strange as Morrowind did, but still end up with another proverbial Oblivion if you leave the meat of the setting out of the game.

What I usually say about Skyrim is that it's world is just as complex and deep as Morrowind's, it's just that viking fantasy is less interesting than whatever kind of weird fantasy Morrowind is. And even if they did make another bizarre Elder Scrolls game (is there a Keep Tamriel Weird! blog? ), like Black Marsh or Valenwood, I still don't believe they could recapture the magic of Morrowind. I think another part of that is that Morrowind was probably the first game world to have that level of detail - you could read the books, pick the flowers, go anywhere at any time, kill anyone, and the NPCs had all the same stats and abilities we had (and we could manipulate them all!). I can't think of any precedent for that level of detail, especially not for any console RPGs. But now, that level of detail is par for the course in a Bethesda game. And most of us, I'm speaking of the fans, already have an image in our heads of what each province could (or "should") be - I wasn't around to experience Morrowind when it came out, and I can't speak for the Arena/Daggerfall players who followed its development and bought it on day one... but I can't imagine they could have been prepared for what Morrowind turned out to be.

I think they civilized Skyrim far too much to be truly interesting. Skyrim, especially in the morrowind era, was always portrayed as a land of barbaric, mead-loving, tribal adventurers who wandered the snowy wastes and gathered in giant longhouses called meadhalls to share tales of their conquests. There were "civilized" nords, sure, but they were more imperialized and elite, and I always imagined them living in giant fortress-citiesmade of timber (http://meettheslavs.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/The_Kievan_Rus_Park3.jpg). I preferred the Whiterun and Riften look as opposed to Solitude, for example. Markarth is an exception because, lore-wise, the nords of the reach are by far the most imperialized and "civilized" of them all, while the easterners were always seen as tribal barbarians.

Even if Skyrim did decide to "civilize" the nords, it would be fine if they still maintained something unique and interesting other than being generic faux-austrians.

My opinions:

Giant mushrooms and airborne jellyfish didn't make for better atmosphere or make Morrowind more immersive. The attention to culture is what made Morrowind more immersive. It was in the design of the architecture. You could tell which faction controlled which town before you even entered the town, by looking at the style of architecture. That is what was sorely missing in Oblivion. By contrast, Oblivion's towns were all surrounded by the same identical walls. From a distance you couldn't tell the towns apart. They all looked the same.

There was a sense of mystery in the landscape itself. Part of this was due to the fog, which prevented us from seeing everything at once. We didn't know what was up around that bend ahead of us. It isn't a trendy thing to say these days, but I thought the fog made the landscape more beautiful. The screenshots I've seen of Vvardenfell with extended view distance look absolutely hideous.

I thought the dungeons, the towns, felt as though they belonged there. They felt natural, part of the landscape. In Oblivion and Skyrim I too often got the uneasy feeling that a dev laid out a grid and decreed that one dungeon was to be placed in every grid, whether it made any sense or not. In Oblivion I rarely encounter a dungeon and wonder who built it, or try to imagine people actually using it.

By contrast, in Morrowind there were times when I'd be traveling up a Foyada and spot part of a Dwemer ruin above me and I would be filled with wonder. Often I would have to double back and try to find the entrance. I could gaze at the huge catapults and picture ancient Dwemer firing at Cliff Racers. The dungeons in Morrowind engaged my imagination.

In short, I think it was the attention to cultural diversity that made Vvardenfell feel more imemersive to me.

See, I like it both ways.

I've never been a fan of generic medieval european fantasy. I think fantasy is in such a unique place in that it can go literally anywhere, and I love seeing the creative worlds people come up with. I also see it as the great challenge of fantasy to create a fantastical world that still manages to be relatable.

On the whole I agree with you, however.

I think there's another issue that goes overlooked when it comes to the massive shift in atmosphere and immersion between Morrowind and Oblivion, and which slid back the other way a bit with Skyrim... Interactions.


By and large, Morrowind had minimalistic interaction. NPCs almost never conversed, gestured or engaged in any way. Which was fine, because the lack of that interaction meant it couldn't be done poorly. Basically, you can't fail on something you don't try to do.


But then we had Oblivion, and it's ridiculous Radiant AI. In an attempt to have NPCs interact and engage more, in an attempt to make a more vibrant and living world, they acheived the total opposite. The mechanical conversations, stilted interactions and silly pathing issues created an environment where every time you turned around, you had very clear anomalies thich basically popped into the foreground, preventing you from indulging in any background nuances. The fact that there isn't much in that background doesn't help the situation any, because there's no reward to getting past the unnatural interactions of NPCs.


Skyrim does better, resorting more to set scripts than the random interactions, but suffers from repitition. Jon and Olphina playfully chatting once is charming, immersive and adds greatly to the atmosphere and sense of life in the world. Hearing the same exact conversation for the 50th time breaks that sense of immersion. Ulfric and his attack dog are another clear indication of this, stuck in some awkward time loop and having the same conversation every time you step into the building. If you look past that repetition, though, there's still enough in the background to at least pique ones interest, even if it's culturally underdeveloped.


So, by trying to make it a loving world, populated by people who interact without the PC's involvement, Bethesda may have actually made things less immersive than ignoring it entirely, and even with a deep cultural backdrop that surface layer is going to create perceptive issues.

Oblivion's radiant AI was amazing. I'm still finding new things the npcs do whenever I play that game.

We will have to very much disagree there. It was like wandering in a world populated by malfunctioning robots. Frankly, half the time I was expecting a bad X-Files referance. It was funny from time to time, but it was neither lifelike, nor immersive. It stood in stark reminder that 'This is GAME'.


Which isn't entirely bad, when there's something of substance behind that giant, flashing neon sign. But Oblivion lacked that, failing to even make Ayleid ruins particular interesting. It based everything on the Interactions, and then delivered a stilted, mechanical and jarring product that, when combined with those hideous faces, was so deeply lodged into the uncanny valley that I'm surprised no one had nightmares.

Yeah. I frankly couldn't stand the awkward clunkiness of Oblivion's AI's. The conversations were stilted and obviously generated at random, which was the absolute worst thing about it. Say what you will about some conversations repeating, but at least they have a natural flow then [Greet], [Subject], [Response] Oblivion tried to run with.

Novel idea, but we're not anywhere close of pulling anything off of that nature that doesn't seem artificial.

Sure it had its problems, but I loved seeing npcs have affairs with others in secret, go to a friend's house and hang out, go on vacation and travel to the other side of the province, seeing guards trade shifts and the like. It made the world feel more alive, and I'd love to see it done again in a more refined way.

That was clearlly the intent, but it never felt that way. The interactions were unnatural, random.and lacked any sense of flow of consistency. It was a nice attempt, to be sure, but it only proved that the task was impossible given the technology available. It wasn't alive, it was a crude attempt at mimicking life without the core soul of the experience. Sort of like Skynet thinking Arnold Swartzenager was a good infiltration unit.


And the vacationers made the world so much smaller, allowing people to take jaunts across the province to visit friends or family every Sunday, a journey which should have taken days, if not weeks. Suddenly, the suspension of disbelief was gone, and the game openly expressed its scale, causing a massive disconnect between the lore, and the game.


Then again, I think the massive cities of Assassins Creed am d Wild Hunt, populated by their blank-drones, are terribly unimmersive as well.

That's a bit of a bleak perspective, don't you think? I mean, what can they do about that?

Presently? Nothing. Radiant AI just doesn't work yet. There are numerous issues to resolve first. A workable dialogue synthesis system (which is on the horizon, but we'll see how long until video games pick up on it). A more expressive and responsive animation system that can react more naturally. Better pathfinding (which is improving, but still not there...). More personality and relationship points to work off of (Sims shows this is doable, but attaching reactions to them is still a problem).


Scripting is the only workable solution right now. And it's not even a close comparison. Just listen to Ulfric and what's-his-corpse talking in the Palace of Kings, and compare that to any Radiant conversation in Oblivion. It's not just the quality of voice acting, it's the flow of the conversation and its ability to synergies naturally with animations, interpersonal relationships and even the environment around it.

But do you claim to be the best Cloud District in Whiterun?

Agree, while it was not the best it was better than the wind up dolls that we got in Skyrim, yeah Skyrim did have a good first impression and it was well done! At first(and then you hear the same dialog for the 10th time passing by). If they would have just added a simple "hello!" "How are you?" after the first introduction it would have made the NPCs feel less artificial and robotic.

Every NPC in Oblivion had their own schedule that changed depending on the time of day and the day of the week they even take their armor off when they go to sleep! It's a little thing, but it bothered me so much in Skyrim. Guards changed shifts too.

I really wish they would have kept it and worked on it some more. Give more variety to it with more response to the happenings.

BUT! With scripting they can get what they want done, the Radiant AI tends to be too much of a wild card when you want something more cinematic. I guess It is better than the hollow NPCs in Assassins Creed or Witcher.

I've actually come around to the Witcher 3's cities, even if they are still kind of problematic. Fallout 3 and 4 has plenty of filler citizens, but...I don't take note of them. I can't say that they make things more or less immersive for me, though at this point the smaller cities of Skyrim do start striking me as jarring. So, I could actually do with larger cities, though then we start asking the questions of whether or not its worth it to have sizable cities versus being able to go into each individual home.

My take on it though? If you can actually make cities an adventure all their own, I don't think that last bit is going to be a problem.

I heavily disagree with that. While it's true that you can't fault them for a poor implementation of something the game lacks, you can fault the game for lacking it and not trying to make up the difference in other ways.


Further, if you want to talk about "mechanical conversations" and "stilted interactions", then that's where Skyrim takes the crown. The way NPCs interacted in Skyrim was far more mechanical and stilted, employing more scripted conversations so NPCs would say the same things to themselves over and over again either on a set timer and/or via noticeable triggers (I can't count how many times I've heard Ulfric and Galmar have the exact same conversation when I walk into the palace). And it was heavily stilted by the fact that you couldn't actually enter dialog with everyone to talk about things, so to convey the necessary information, you had people dumping their life story on you just for walking by.


Oblivion's Radiant AI was flawed in many ways -- it was incomplete, janky, and NPCs weren't given that much to talk about. But it ultimately succeeded in what it was trying to do, that being to create dynamic NPC interactions. NPCs would dynamically talk to each other about various things and would verbally respond differently depending on their disposition to each other (relating to faction associations), you could pick up new things to talk about dynamically from NPCs who happen to mention something to each other while you're in ear-shot (rather than the walk-by info dumps giving you map markers or scripted interactions giving you quests like in Skyrim), they moved around and did different things at different points of the day, week, or month (much more so than Skyrim), and so on. This created a level of atmosphere and immersion that I just don't get with Morrowind or Skyrim (of course, Skyrim could have surpassed it if they had managed to utilize the potential that Radiant Story offered, rather than mostly just creating dynamic quests that were worse than Daggerfall's, but I digress).


Incidentally, the lack of interaction in Daggerfall was at least offset by a rudimentary form of Radiant AI. Wandering NPCs would stop spawning at night, and shops would close and lock up (different shops would close and open at different times, too). Combined with a change in musical tone and color palettes specifically made to invoke feelings of unease about the nights, and daytime also having unique sets of music and color palettes tuned to various weather types, that managed to create a sense of dynamic change. Given also the increased number of NPC responses to various questions (and the way you asked it), it managed to outshine Morrowind for atmosphere and immersion too.


Ultimately I'd say that the attempt to scale down and hand-craft the world is what made Morrowind the least immersive and atmospheric of the main TES games, with the later titles trying to restore what Morrowind lost by using more dynamic systems.

I'm not sure you know what those terms mean... Skyrim's conversations, while repetitive, were far more natural in their execution than Oblivions by merit of the fact that they were written and executed as set pieces, not cobbled together from independent pieces that no relation to eachother or conversational flow.

Using Mechanical and Stilted as descriptors refers to the hard, formulaic assembly of clearly independent points in an attempt to simulate conversation flow, and then delivering the composition in rigid and unnatural way. There's no sense of emotional undertone, no personal investment and no cohesion to the discourse. And this isn't solely a problem with voice acting (though Oblivion's was rather poor) but a product of the way Radiant AI pieced together these interactions. Because they had to be versatile conversation points, it was impossible to impart any sense of interest or response, because there was never any certainty of how those components would be assembled. In those scripted interactions that DID exist in Oblivion, the quality of the discourse was far superior to anything the Radian AI managed to spit out, simply because it was written dialogue and not some Frankenstein of sound bytes.

Repetition does not make an interaction mechanical or stilted. HOW that interaction is executed does. There's just no way to say that Oblivion's Radiantly generated conversations were natural in any way. It was like watching two robots try to 'act natural' in a comedy movie.

And i want to be very clear on this part... I'm talking about the NPC's interactions with each other here. The scheduling was fine, and while the path-finding was often problematic, that's something that has been consistently improved upon in every game (even if it needs work). But the way that Radiant AI handled inter-NPC conversations was just silly. There was nothing immersive, realistic or natural about it. And there really isn't any way to MAKE it those things currently.

*** Edit***

Though, i should say, Immersion means different things to different people. For me, it's not even a factor of realism, but rather in losing myself in the game. I found the Quest for Glory games to be extremely immersive, because i found i quickly lost track of how long i had been playing them. I got caught up in the game, and there was nothing glaringly out of place that served as the proverbial fish to snap me out of it. Oblivion is the only TES game that has ever had that effect on me, and frankly... it was at every turn. From the weird dungeon design, to the horrendous faces, to the weirdly bright colours not meshing with the darker undertones and characters... But the Radiant AI's conversations were by far the worst element of that.

You're confusing mechanical with procedural. Mechanical:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mechanical

That's exactly how Skyrim's NPC interactions work. They're set to trigger on cue without any effort to be different or interesting after the first "showing". It's automatic, uninfluenced by mental factors.

Oblivion's NPC interactions were procedural. They used various algorithms with some randomness to produce dynamic results. They created different results the different times they occurred, potentially relating new information over time, in an attempt to remain interesting. The actual results of the interactions was also influenced by the character's "emotions" to each other (their faction relations, which could theoretically change over time).

I'd rather watch two robots try to act natural than watch two robots parroting what they were told to say for the 50th time.

That second definition supports me more than it does you. That's the main problem with Oblivion's mechanical delivery. The conversations have no natural flow which is the product of a thinking, reacting body, and totally lack any sort of emotional connectivity. That's what makes them mechanical. They are an assembly of random articles presented in facsimile of a conversation, without any of the inherent qualities OF a conversation. It's a formulaic assembly of Article A-Response-Article B-Response-End Conversation. And even there, the repetition is present, because most Articles only have a single response, causing the system to drop into the same pitfalls as Skyrim's scripting.

And that's fine. But that doesn't make that interaction any less jarring. The main difference is, Oblivion's interactions are jarring the first time. Skyrim's only become so through repetition.

As I explained, it actually does. You will get different results depending on how much NPCs like each other. NPCs that belong to factions that don't like each other will create shorter and more rude responses because of that relationship, while NPCs that have a friendlier disposition to each other will create longer and more polite discussions.


In comparison, it's Skyrim's interactions that lack this. It doesn't matter how much two NPCs like or dislike each other or anything, the conversation will play out exactly the same. Sure, it can appear to have emotional connectivity or appear to be spoken by a thinking, reacting body, but so can a parrot. The NPCs don't respond based on any thinking or emotional capacity, but that it's simply the next line in the script.

Of course, there's a set of rules for how conversations are structured. But you realize that conversations have a structure, yeah? Granted it's far more flexible in real life, but we're comparing it to a video game released in 2006. All said, it's not a bad attempt at AI given what and when it was for.

In Oblivion you get used to it and accept it as part of how the game is. It's janky, but dynamic, creating character and atmosphere. In Skyrim, it sounds natural the first time, until you see/hear it play out again, exposing it for the static scripted interaction it is; that it's all fake made just for you, instead of as part of the world.

Yes, this is it exactly. Neither of the two games being discussed have conversation that is believable, but Oblivion's attempt is more acceptable (to me at least) in the long term. One can ignore the actual content of an overheard Oblivion conversation, since it has no personal importance to us, but if we hear the same exact Skyrim dialog, over and over, it becomes impossible to ignore that it's something scripted to play out for our benefit.

The worst of it, to me, is the NPC greetings to the PC. In Oblivion, as in Morrowind, NPCs could make a generic comment of greeting as you passed. In Skyrim, they introduce themselves, over and over, with exactly the same lines. It's annoying to walk past a character on the street in Whiterun, and I find myself steering widely around certain people just to avoid triggering the same annoying phrase I've heard 50 times before.