Since both Oblivion and Skyrim are kind of more epic and heroic themed games, I kind of wish for a more laid back, relaxing atmosphere like the one from Morrowind. Aside from the dungeons and battles (and cliffracer encounters), the game itself feels very calm, which stands out quite different from Oblivion and Skyrim. The music is also very laid back, like the Morrowind theme, if you know what I mean. It's a good change of pace.

Do you also wish for a calmer style for TES?

It would be nice to start a TES game again where all hell has not (yet) broken loose. In Oblivion it was Oblivion gates and the death of the emperor, in Skyrim it's dragons, in Morrowind not so much.

Sure there was the increasing threat of Dagoth Ur and the blight, and you can find hints to those problems all over the place, but it's not until you go through the main quest that things actually start getting worse.

Yeah, it does make it feel wrong to do all those side-quests when world-eating dragons are loose or there's Oblivion gates all over the place. Considering that most of the point of these games is having all those side-quests around (if memory serves, Daggerfall was specifically designed with "People really had fun with those random quests in Arena", and Morrowind seems to have had the same sort of thing in mind), it seems like an odd design decision.

This is one of the reasons why I have only ever done Oblivion's main quest once. And, with an alternate start mod, I am only vaguely aware that something must have happened in the Imperial City and that it seems to have involved the Emperor in some way, news which most of my characters pay little attention to. Played this way, Oblivion actually feels like a more relaxing game than Morrowind, to me. There are no volcanic wastes to travel, no ashstorms, just miles of flowers and trees swaying in the breeze amid gently rolling green hills and grasslands.

I don't think that this is an either/or problem. In Morrowind, you could stay in an area like the West Gash which is placid, or an area like Red Mountain that is chaotic. And as mentioned previously, it gets more intense as you progress through the main questline.

But overall, I preferred the feeling of Morrowind to Oblivion. Not because of calmness per se, but because it felt more dark.

If you delay the MQ long enough in MW, and keep increasing your reputation and level, the Tribunal Temple authorities will eventually get concerned enough about the Dagoth Ur problem to track you down and ask for your assistance. Other than that, it's an old evil that everyone's aware of in the backs of their minds, and knows that it will become important someday soon, but it really doesn't interfere much with daily life except for the annoying ash storms and the steadily increasing problem with Corprus beasts escaping the encircled Red Mountain containment area. The first actions of the MQ include suggestions about doing other things to improve your skills, and getting established in the world; there is no hurry, although you can certainly jump right into at least the first couple of missions with a half-way decent combat character.

With Oblivion, the MQ is "in your face" from the first few minutes, and putting it aside is akin to "letting the world go to hell", quite literally. Doing other things in the mean time is contrary to common sense.

OB would have been a lot better if the events of the MQ didn't trigger unless you followed some opening advice, or until you reached a certain level or faction rank, and accepted a call for help.

In the right track, more so with Daggerfall. Probably the most "laid back" of the series because all ya do is exorcise a ghost (and no one seems to be bother with that in the city of Daggerfall) and finding a letter but overall, the urgency level isn't that great and the large amount of randomize quests and large dungeons encouraged players to do anything they want at their own time.

This exactly. Cyrodiil is very calm and relaxing and easy-going. Morrowind is harsh and uninviting.

As long as you never go too far in the main quest, Cyrodiil remains that way too. What's wrong with delivering the Amulet of Kings to Jauffre and then just leaving?

Skyrim, Dragons or no, looks to have the sort of calm, melancholic atmosphere Morrowind had as long as you stick to the lowlands and valleys near the south. Of course, I could be wrong since it's not out, but it seems like the farther north (or higher up) you go, the more dangerous things get as a general guideline. Again, so far and based off the promo materials.

Agreed.

I will agree that Oblivion and Skyrim seem to be set in a time when all hell has already broken loose, and it definitely takes away from the relaxing nature it could otherwise have. You feel like you have no business doing guild quests when multitudes are dying and cities are being swallowed. My aimless travel along the Colovian Highlands was constantly interrupted by turbid skies and daedra pouring out of Oblivion gates. Mehrunes Dagon is depicted to be very much evil and very present in the world. Dagoth Ur's alignment was ambiguous at best by the time you were done. At least in Morrowind, if you avoided Ghostfence, you had little to worry about unless you went looking for trouble.

Morrowind definitely had the air that these problems had built up for centuries little by little from some obscure battle at Red Mountain. You believed for a while that the Tribunal protected the land, and that's wonderful considering that most other citizens of Morrowind felt that way, too. By the end you knew the world was wrought with corruption, whereas Oblivion's premise seems to be that although everyone was screwed up they came together for some holy crusade against the "evil" daedra.

I would love a purely sandbox TES RPG, though unlikely, since the epic story line has served them so well. I would love to dedicate my in-game time doing mundane things (am I weird?) and worried more about status and income and maintaining a family and reputation rather than being some big hero. But having that as an option is nice, too. They would probably just wind up spreading themselves too thin and creating some kind of abandoned TC monster. Although there is a sense of free form and doing mundane activities, all of these plot lines seem to converge at saving the world. All of the little extras are just a way to get what we need to be the big hero. (ie: You can't pay for training you might need to satisfy guild requirements to get the next quest unless you make gold by selling pelts, potions, etc. etc.)