What were some of the changes that Oblivion made that you actually liked? I realize that Oblivion does get a lot of bashing (some deserved, some not), but it did make a few good changes. I'll start:

I liked the way they handled Magic in Oblivion. It was actually a viable alternative to using weapons. Unlike in Morrowind where I found it nearly impossible to make a pure mage (without mods), playing a mage in Oblivion was one of my favorite characters. Also, although some might disagree, I do like how spells can't fail in Oblivion. It could get extremely annoying sometimes in Morrowind when you'd try to cast a spell that has a very low chance of failing, but it still would, and you'd get damaged during some fight and it could completely screw you over.

• combat, magic, and stealth systems
  
• more interesting side quests
  
• more balanced skills/leveling
  
• the Arena being a joinable faction
  
• more interesting faction questlines
  
• lack of cliffracers
  
• more atmospheric dungeons
  
• my favorite books and pieces of lore come from Oblivion(great ones from Morrowind, but Oblivion has my favorites)
  
• the ability to create poisons
  
• graphics/physics/AI/other technological improvements
  
• buyable houses
  
• horses
  
• removal of a dependancy on training
  
• the game in general

Improved way of dealing with stolen goods compared to MW
Being able to make & use poisons
An Arena that was used more than a couple of times per game

In response to the OP's choice: personally, I felt Oblivion's magic system was quite a downgrade, but perhaps that's just me.

As for one of the aspects I did like about Oblivion, the stealth system. Sure, it's still not really that great, and there are much better systems out there, but I don't think anyone can deny that it was a huge leap forward from Morrowind's.

Manual blocking was cool, even though I made fun of it.

The NPCs definitely were an improvement, but there's still a lot of work to be done, there.

Quest journal for sure.

Mounts!

Bout sums it up for me.

Oh yeah, stealth too. Except the lack of quiet destruction spells make stealthy mage assassins pretty impossible :sadvaultboy:

Everything else was equal or missing.

Stealth

The way arrows stick into people

Argonians having constant effect water breathing

NPC schedules

Im sure there were a few other things but thats all i can think of.

Lets see, theres

*Sitting down, but still cannot see myself sleep unless via mod
*Guard patrolling the traveling route.
*Female Argonian regain their lost boobies
*Distance seeing of LOD
*Shield, but it still need a bit of work
*Seamless button press of melee and magic, but that as far I would say anything good about magic
*Z button Grab

Everything else felt the same/resort to mod.

I liked the upgraded graphics. Definitively an improvement over Morrowind.

Uh ... that's about it.

- The graphics of course.
- Increased pacing of the game (to an extent)
- Horses
- Easier Alchemy Interface
- More Fleshed Out Quests
- The limited radiant A.I. (i.e. shops closing, NPCs not always in same place, etc...)
- Purchasing property
- Combat

At first glance, I liked Oblivion's combat more. However, now that I understand how it works a little better, I think I prefer Morrowind's combat. One aspect of combat that I do like better is having control over when my character can block, though I think they need to work on making it based more on character skill rather than player skill (somehow). I also like that Oblivion added the ability to create and use poisons, buy and furnish multiple homes, and gave some creative license to designing the look of your character. Physics and NPC schedules were also an improvement. Other than that, the only other improvements that come to mind were graphical / visual ones, but that's a toss-up for me as I like the artistic style of Morrowind better, and I can't really give much credit as Morrowind is four years older than Oblivion.

Nope. Me too.



The stealth system itself was an improvement, but the psychic guards kind of effed it up, IMO. The stealth system in FO3 gives me hope, though.


I will add that I liked the inclusion of horses, but I found them to be too much of a PITA to be usefull. Especially after your character becomes faster than a horse. Also, the FT system made them, well.... useless, except for roleplaying purposes.

The Magic was kinda lame in both the games. My personal opinion. It should be improved, alot.

How stolen items are handled for sure. In Morrowind, if you steal an item, every other copy of that same item is marked as stolen too. In Oblivion it's just the one you stole.

Also several modding related things like separate worldspaces.

I liked how you could cast spells without putting away your weapon.
I liked that they added more music divisions so that we had explore, public, dungeon, and battle music, instead of just explore and battle music.
Horses were a much welcomed addition.
I liked the more humanoid bodies they gave Khajiit and Argonians.
I thought they improved combat with bows a lot.
I think the stealth system was improved.
Some of the dungeons, especially some Ayleid Ruins were pretty damned cool.
The connected sewer dungeons under the Imperial City were cool, I enjoyed exploring them.


I always thought that was a glitch in Morrowind... it wasn't intentional was it?

Let's see, all I'm giving oblivion is graphics and mechanics, other than that, nothing, haha, eat it oblivion fanatics, hehah.

Surprisingly I still own both games, on PC and 360.

I liked archery in Oblivion more, I would have liked to keep my crossbows though.
The stealth system was an improvement over Morrowind.
Poisons being useful, although I think it should be expanded in TES V (poisoning food/drink for example)

Traps...I liked these a lot better in Oblivion, although I think they should have included some magical traps like the ones in Morrowind as well.

I forgot all about the traps, they were a great change, I think the traps really added something to dungeon diving.

I'm a fan of the combat system for oblivion, i never did like it that much in morrowind.

i liked the voice acting too, it was so incredibly cheesy, but i enjoyed hearing it rather than just complete silence.

Nothing. Graphics were okay, except for the retarded infinite view distance, that is so blatantly unrealistic.

I haven't slept in a couple of days so forgive my inability to tell, is this sarcasm or are you serious?

I'm on the same boat as you. Ain't insomnia fun?

I'm pretty sure he is serious, and I agree with him. I can't see an unlimitedly far distance in real life, so why should I be able to in a video game?

Unless Nirn is flat, and has no fog or pollution.

Yeah I am serious. If we considered the actual proportions for Cyrodiil, it would be a hell of a lot bigger than the eight square miles represented in Oblivion. So Bruma would be like 200 miles away from the Imperial City, no way in hell you could see that far.

Oh yeah, one of my favorite things. :laugh:


Well my thinking here is that it isn't totally unrealistic. What leads me to this is that one of my relatives used to own a house at the top of a really tall hill with miles of field surrounding it and you could see for a very long way before things cut off into the horizon when you were at there house. While in lore Cyrodiil is a big country, in practice the game scales it down to something like 7-14 miles if memory serves. There was an exact number posted once but for the life of me I can't remember what it was. there are two ways to go with that.

The way that they did which isn't that bad, to some extent considering how small Cyrodiil was scaled to you can make the argument it's realistic since you can see for miles and miles if you have the benefit of a good location to observe how far you can see on a clear day, however the issue is that game limitations haven't let them implement any sort of visual effect that gives the illusion of a proper horizon like one sees when they look out far into the distance when there aren't any obstructions in real life which I suspect is what causes some of the issues with Oblivion's infinite view distance.

Another option is to limit the view distance at an equal scale which would probably be pretty close to the same view distance as Morrowind which isn't necessarily bad or limit it to say 5-10 miles on a clear day, it gives you a decent view so as to visually compete with other games with high view distances, it doesn't let you see the whole map, and it retains some scaling down to make things look a little more realistic.

It may have not been the best but I'm not sure it was a bad choice considering the limits at the time and what the rest of the market is doing, in my opinion it was an improvement considering that. Typed more than I intended to on my theory with the view distance, but anyway, just my two cents on the matter. Hope that made any semblance of sense.

Active blocking.

Starter nuke/heal spells

Feasible to level miscellaneous skills without having first to train them to a functional level.

NPCs have lives of their own rather than stand in place waiting to be activated.

Buyable homes--although there was a disappointing lack of modest but clean and well-kept houses

Not having to sleep to regen magicka

Grain sacks provide safe storage

Red hand makes it clear whether items are owned

The Black Horse Courier

Voiced dialogue

Improvements to mercantile system

Soldiers patrolling the roads

I liked being able to see the Imperial City from anywhere, because it looked pretty cool.

Then again, it made the world feel much smaller. So, it evens out.

Keep in mind, the main reason the world seemed so much smaller is the run speed, coupled with the lack of obstacles, like mountains. Travel takes so much longer in Morrowind and Fallout 3 because you're traveling around stuff, plus there are more unique things to encounter, along the way.

Of course, that's something you never notice if you're a fast travel clicker. For shame :nono: