I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about that, too.

Do you have any evidence for that?

You've just hyped me up... I consider it to be a very important feature, and now you're telling me it's implemented.

I hope I won't be disappointed.

Skyrim; look at it guysssss.

Morrowind - gritty, harsh, hostile, unknown

Oblivion - pleasant english countryside

Skyrim - beards and getting drunk

Sometimes "objectively wrong" really is the case.

To me, Morrowind had a dark, desparate underlying theme, and its slightly alien setting (aside from the swamps of the Bitter Coast or the dry but fertile Grazelands) made it a little harder to relate to at first. The natives greeted you with either contempt, outright hostility, or bored indifference, until either your Personality improved or you made extensive use of Speechcraft to make "friends" of the residents (when you weren't killing them). It was a violent and dangerous frontier land, with a lot of rough people, but the culture was rich and interesting. The longer I played it, the more "at home" I slowly began to feel with it. After all these years, though, I still can't view Ald'Ruhn or the other towns in or near the Ashlands as "homelike", but I enjoy the rest of the island's environments.

Oblivion's "happy forests" and having almost everyone greet you cheerfully as a friend made the game feel almost silly, but then the overdone corpses and blood around and inside the Oblivion Gates was the total opposite. After about the second gate, the "completely over the edge" nature of it made it seem almost comical in a warped sort of way, but it no longer felt "scary". The game got more and more boring and "meaningless" as I played it. Sure, I could live there, aside from the rampant Goblin infestation problem, but there's no point in doing so because it's too similar to "here". I did appreciate the few darker "touches" like the Dunmer apothecary's legal question.

I'm hoping that Skyrim steers a middle course, where things are familiar enough not to alienate some of the players, while introducing enough differences and unique aspects that it's not just a "stereotypical fantasy" in a Norse setting. A darker feel, but not overdone, would put the right touch of "bite" into spicing up the mix.

I have merged three similar topics, you can continue discussing the differences/similarities between the games in this thread.

I think Skyrim will have its own identity.
Even though the perk system was borrowed from Fallout 3, it's just Bethesda applying lessons from past projects.
Skyrim will be as little Fallout 3 with swords, as Fallout 3 was Oblivion with guns, as Oblivion was Morrowind HD.
It'll have its own merits and shortcomings. Such is life.

Morrowind, Oblivion or Skyrim?
I think Skyrim is closer to Skyrim. At least it should be (unless you messed up and placed wrong disc in drive)