You really have no clue what role playing involves then. There is nothing in Morrowind that makes it a better RPG than Oblivion. Once you have played though Morrowind a few times it just a boring clunky game with dated graphics. Once you have played Morrowind for as long as I have, then you will be qualified to compare the games. After a couple thousand hours playing both, I prefer Oblvivion of the two, however Beth's best RPG is FO-3, which is showing the direction that Beth is moving in for its subsequent games.

Well, what if I completely agree with hamsmagoo, and played more than you? I've already downed about 1000 for hours on Morrowind, with my current character about 300. Oblivion my characters tend to run out of steam before I have to fill it up completely with quest mods, or find mods that add some semblance of branching (but, alas, not true branching)

Morrowind adds more choice than Oblivion, such as, but not limited to:
factions
skills
quests
faction quest lines
clothing and armor options
the game literally telling you to take a break from the MQ and do whatever you want
Lots of little (and big) things scattered around the world

Sure, the graphics are dated, but there are a lot of mods out there to fix that up for Morrowind. Maybe not the animations, but that has never bothered me. But the main point I am getting across, is that Beth set up Morrowind to be a lot more roleplaying friendly, but having a lot more choices, and without factions being purely good or purely evil, which Oblivion suffered from.

You see, you're still focusing on the graphics and combat, which don't matter.

The point I'm trying to make is that Morrowind and Oblivion fit into two different genres that appeal to two different types of people for different reasons.

If you like action and graphics and physics engines, you prefer Oblivion.
If you like deep lore, and slow-paced gameplay, and the freedom to do whatever you want and deal with the consequences, you prefer Morrowind.

The thing about FO3 is that it was an improvement as far as world design and choices and little things like that. But it still doesn't give the feeling of a deep, alive world with a real culture like the old RPGs of the 90's do. It just makes a world that gives a shallow illusion of being immersive because of the good graphics.

Do you see what I'm saying? If you think role playing involves fun, smooth combat and good graphics, then you are wrong. What you prefer is action games, you've just been confused by Bethesda, who have been trying to combine action with roleplaying. Incidentally, they have attracted two different fanbases who want two drastically different things and one side is going to be disappointed.

From the things you describe as important, which are things I couldn't care less about (graphics, physics engine, combat, stealth system), you really seem to be a fan of action-RPGs, which is why you found Morrowind boring. Because it's a straight-up RPG that downplays combat. So, our debate is over because it's gonna just start going in circles.

Now, I'd really like to hear from someone who is really into classic, non-action RPGs, and prefers Oblivion over Morrowind.

EDIT: @EzDC:
Yes, there we go. Choices and consequences, that's what RPGs are about. You're right Fallout 3 was pretty fun because of that. But, here's the thing:
I just started playing Fallout 1. I'm on my first dungeon and it's already way deeper than Fallout 3, I've noticed. I actually have to problem-solve and ask questions and search around to find out what to do next, not just follow a marker.

In Oblivion and Fallout 3, even if you choose to ignore the marker, there's no other way to find out where to go. Because people don't give you directions and they barely have any dialogue outside the "thank you for helping me" quest confirmation nonsense. So much more in the spirit of action games, which are immediately rewarding, as opposed to RPGs, which are supposed to reward curiosity and exploration and thinking outside the box.

Another thing Fallout does is it combines spoken dialogue and text dialogue. So the main quest is spoken, but there's still room for all that world lore and rumors and other cool little details that are absent in modern RPGs, which are way too focused on action and fighting.

Well, I have at least a couple of thousand hours in each game and while I still like Oblivion, I don't think it's a better game than Morrowind (at least modded Morrowind) and it's certainly not a better RPG. I just played a few hours of Ob last night with OOO and I was struck at how action oriented it was compared to my current Morrowind game; truly frantic combat at times.

As far as FO3, I just don't like it, not at all. I've tried twice but I cannot play more than 20 hours without quitting in disgust. I will never try it again, that's for sure. If that's the future of Beth games, I'll be very sad.

A bit of a side note, but how high of a "slope" your character can climb could easily be tied to a skill. This is something they ought to tie to Acrobatics, which has been a pointless skill since Morrowind.

Oblivion introduced me to the world of TES. I bought Morrownd GOTY edition for the PC this weekend, and after being appalled by the graphics and lack of a third person camera option, (as far as I know, at least) I was amazed at the scope and infinite possibilities of this world. From seeing and riding the Silt Strider to my first visit to Ald'Ruhn to my first encounter with a cliff racer that seemed to randomly fly in from nowhere, I began to see why people fell in love with this game and why they felt disappointed with Oblivion.

I know this may seem blasphemous, but I feel like Morrowind is like San Andreas and Oblivion is like GTA4. Much more polished but lacking in things to do.

I believe TAB switches perspective to 3rd person, but it's not that great.

[The perspective, not talking about the game]

@hamsmagoo- Ok, please stop trying to lump people here into different segments. As I noted earlier, it's possible to like deep lore, freedom and consequence, and still want more player-driven action, and actually, I imagine a lot of people here do want the former, regardless of which game they prefer. Also, you talk about Bethesda "confusing" people by combining genres like what they're doing is a bad thing. Combining elements from different genres is, in a lot of ways, how the industry grows and evolves. If we were to maintain the "purity" of each genre, the gameplay would stagnate and suffer. Which incidentally brings me to my last point: what the heck are you talking about when you say that "straight-up RPGs" downplay combat? By that logic, Heavy Rain is more of an RPG than any of the Elder Scrolls games. Combat is an integral part of the experience whether it's stat/turn-based combat or faster and more action-oriented.

I'm not separating people, there's just a clear, visible split between the fans that I'm commenting on.

It's ok to combine elements to create something new and unique, which is what Bethesda did with Daggerfall. Combining the first-person action games of Dos, with pencil and paper tabletop RPGs. They created something very new that drove RPGs in a new direction.

Same with Morrowind. It was something totally new in its time, as well.

Oblivion, the way I see it, was literally Morrowind with less skills, less factions, less quests and less items. Yeah they improved the physics and the AI and the combat, but that's not a new innovation. That's just fixing what was broken in Morrowind, while ignoring and disposing of everything that made Morrowind fun in the first place.

On top of that they add this arrow to show you where to go, and leave out any alternate way to figure out how to get there. So, they didn't cleverly combine two genres to make something new this time. They just took turned Morrowind into an action game, more or less.

I mean, I know Oblivion isn't an action game. But when lined up next to Morrowind it's really the same thing with less stuff and better fighting.

What clear, visible split? Many Morrowind fans like Oblivion. I love Daggerfall, Morrowind, and Oblivion.

Yes, I know that quoting out of context is bad, but there is nothing wrong with fun, smooth combat and good graphics in a RPG. Is there? Have I missed something?
I, for one, want the best of both worlds here. MW-combat was not fun. OB-combat was ..really not that much fun either, but better than MW. This is not a bad thing, and hopefully they'll continue to better themselves.
However, story, setting and mood comes first, and here Oblivion fails compared to Morrowind. Which is why my vote goes to TES III.

I like Oblivion but i think Morrowind is the far superior game. Many others do, also.

Then there are those who believe Oblivion was an improvement and prefer it. There's the split. If you don't notice it, look harder.

From what I've noticed, there are the ones who started with Morrowind and were disappointed with Oblivion.

Then there are those who started with Oblivion and think Morrowind is too boring. Those are the two most vocal groups who argue all the time.

Then there are the people like you who started with Oblivion, but still enjoy the other TES games as historical gems. But if you started with Morrowind and you were expecting more of that with Oblivion, especially since the interviews with the developers didn't give you any reason not to expect it to be Morrowind with more stuff, wouldn't you be disappointed?

Then there are the people who started with Morrowind, but couldn't get into it because they were too hung up on the combat system. But, of course, if you're spending that much time fighting in Morrowind, that it gets tiresome, you're not really playing Morrowind, IMO.

Then, there's the other schism between people who notice the series becoming more and more action-oriented and mainstream and the people who are in denial.

All in all, this thread has swayed way off topic which is not which game is better or more RPG-y.

The question is that:

Why do so many more fans on the general forum prefer Morrowind than those that prefer Oblivion?

And the question was more or less answered:
The majority of people who started with Morrowind or earlier where disappointed by Oblivion.

The majority of people who really liked Oblivion and continue to play it, weren't TES fans to start, so they remain in the Oblivion forum, uninterested in the earlier games which are much nerdier and not mainstream and casual, like Oblivion.

The fans who really make people mad are the ones who will come on the forum once and post a topic like, "Make online fighting! I want to be a daedra! I want more realistic blood!" Then they disappear forever.

The people who prefer Oblivion, but still respect it as a series of RPGs, are not our enemies. We just disagree and if we don't at least express it, TES could be doomed forever, if it isn't already.


There's only something wrong with it when it's all there is and there's nothing more under the surface. And if these are the main things you focus on when judging a game, you're really not an RPG player.

Its completely imaginary. He seems t think that there is some sort of elitism attached to playing Morrowind, rather than just a high tolerance for broken gamplay. I'm somehow a FPS fan because I don't keep playing Morrowind despite having played it to death and being sick of its completely broken game mechanics. I loved Morrowind and played it to death, then I moved on. More to the point, so has Beth with Oblivion and FO-3. With the success of fallout I will be curious to see what comes next, another fallout or another Elder Scrolls.

I assure you that Morrowind is not the only one with completely broken game mechanics(See Oblivion's level scaling).

But it seems like you are trying to say that Morrowind is a bad game, when it is not. In fact, a lot of us think it triumphs over Oblivion in almost every way.

I agree. I felt level-scaling was, by far, Oblivion's greatest flaw, especially when unique items got permanently scaled to one level zone. I always have to look up a quest on the wiki to make sure the reward isn't one of those scaled to my level items, ruining that quest for me ahead of time. Whenever I make a new character in Oblivion, I always try to get to level 30 before actually doing anything without the wiki to guide me, and that becomes tedious, especially when I need to level efficiently. That level-scaling system is the one thing that I can't stand about Oblivion. I hope Bethesda doesn't repeat the mistake of that level-scaling. I want to start as dirt and rise to greatness from lower levels to higher levels.

I definitely agree. There's nothing more annoying than seeing highwaymen with REALLY nice armor.

Yes, but with a good leveling mod, OOO and QuestAwardLeveler, it's a pretty solid game. I don't think I'd play Morrowind without better bodies/heads, a good texture replacer and MGE.

I'm not a mod person, especially with my PS3 version of Oblivion(PC can't handle the game). Either way, I just don't like to use any mods. Regardless of my dislike for Oblivion's level-scaling, though, it remains one of my favorite games(tied with Morrowind for the number one spot). Old graphics don't bother me(was playing Arena last night, and Morrowind looks amazing in comparison), but I do like shiny graphics(the Imperial City in Oblivion is my favorite place to walk around and admire in TES series), but, in my opinion, the level-scaling in Oblivion is much worse than some old graphics, which I still believe are actually pretty decent(water's surprisingly nice).

Ah come on, you can't look at the MGE screenshot thread and not want to use MGE.

But might I ask why you don't like mods? :huh:

MGE would make my mom's computer erupt in flames and, for some reason, I just don't like using non-official content. I only like what feels Morrowind-ish or Oblivion-ish and I just can't get past that train of thought.

To be fair, though, some scaling is necessary in order to maintain the challenge throughout the game, especially with its "go anywhere, do anything" format. It's been noted that in Alpha Protocol (which, incidentally, has a surprising amount of the old-school stat-based style, given its setting and premise-- I've missed perfectly lined up headshots from only a few feet away because my skill in pistols was too low) that the game becomes far too easy toward the end because you gained godlike might, and the people around you did not.

Complaints about a similar issue with Morrowind is why Bethesda implemented level-scaling at Oblivion's level(Daggerfall and Morrowind had very noticeable level-scaling, as well), but the unique item scaling was just a horrible idea and the enemy scaling could have been toned down so I don't get weaker as I level up, in relation to the world. At high levels, though, I want to gain god-like might, especially since I kill gods in Morrowind, kill a demigod in Oblivion, and become a god in Oblivion. I shouldn't get too powerful too quickly, but I should get more powerful and I should be an almighty killing machine at higher levels. In Oblivion, due to level-scaling stopping after a certain level, except for exceptions such as goblins(I hate those things), yet being too fast-paced until that cap is reached, I get weaker first, then stronger, but in the end, I still have to hit my enemies too many times to kill them and friendly NPCs become weak in comparison to the world. At higher levels, it's not too bad, but to have to be level 30+ to start getting more powerful and start playing the game without worrying about permanently scaled unique items is, in my opinion, ridiculous.

This again :facepalm:

Scaling IS NOT NECESSARY TO MAINTAIN CHALLENGE.

TES is "go anywhere, do anything" but that does not mean you should be able to SUCCEED at anything you try or SURVIVE no matter where you go at level 1.

Granted, things like "half scaling" or scaling within tight (10 levels or less) ranges can help without making the game stupid.

I used to be totally the same way.

When I first started playing Morrowind on PC I avoided anything user-made like the plague.

The thing is that by this point there are probably modders out there who know more about Tamriel lore than some of the people at Bethesda itself. If you weed through the dumb ones, there are some mods that really do feel "Morrowind-ish."

You'll probably crave mods more as the years go on. But for your train of thought at the moment, not wanting anything not-Bethesda made, I do suggest the one little user-made mod that lets you bring your Tribunal mercenary to Vvardenfell. That's the one, and only user mod I downloaded back when I was still anti-mod.

Because what's the point of a bodyguard who can only guard you in probably the safest location in all of Morrowind, the capitol, and nowhere else?