I tried to go back to play Morrowind while waiting for Skyrim. I installed it, and started to play. I loaded up a game, went through the intro, created a character, and went into Seeda Neen.

I did not enjoy it. The difference between it and what I enjoyed about Oblivion was incredibly stark. All of the npc's were just standing around, with no purpose. The entire town was static. After walking around and talking to various people, I decided that I definately could not experience the game the same way that I had when it was first released. I want what the new TES games have to offer. I want *life*.

Morrowind completely lacks life. I had to shut it off because it was so displeasing by comparison. I am extremely happy with the new direction that TES is taking. I am EXTREMELY happy with the LIFE that they have managed to put into the game! I want a game that makes me believe that it has a soul! The new TES games try to make me believe that.

Oblivion started that process. And from what I have seen from Skyrim and from what SO MANY reviewers and fans have stated of their experience with the demos- Skyrim will draw me in and demand that it has a soul! And I shall be forced to believe it!!

Because of all that- all that and everything else that has improved over the new TES games- I cannot understand why people refuse to admit that the new truly is BETTER than the old. By so, so much.

What do you guys think? Am I wrong?

I see your point. I am also a huge Morrowind fan. My issue with the newer TES games has nothing to do with the things you mentioned; I love NPC schedules (and Havok physics) as much as the next guy. Rather, I dislike the fact that on the immersion vs. accessibility spectrum, Bethesda has gone too far toward accessibility. Let me explain:

In Morrowind, there were 10 factions with full questlines to join. There were 3 classes of armor. There were 7 weapon skills, and the variety of weapons was greater: daggers, short swords, longswords, claymores, bows, crossbows, darts, throwing stars, katanas, dai-katanas, tantos, wakizashis, staves, maces, hammers, axes, and spears. There were stilt striders, ships, and mages to get where you wanted to go. We didn't have this "quest arrow" thing, we looked for stuff ourselves and listened to the directions we were given (or got lost, which could lead to a whole new adventure). The Main Quest wasn't an overbearing helicopter parent. There was no leveled content keeping us in check. In short, it was freedom.

Now Oblivion added some great stuff, and Skyrim is bound to do the same. Also, thanks for at least trying Morrowind again before complaining; I can at least respect your opinion now. To cap off my rant on a slightly positive note, good luck saving Skyrim.

I understand the desire to look for things based on hints and such, and through searching, rather than with the added help of a compass. I might interject that Todd did state that you can turn it off.

Adding to that- In Morrowind everything was static. Things didn't move much. It is much easier to hint at the location of a person or thing if they are going to be in the same exact spot at all times. Now the game is more dynamic- Something might be in one spot at one time and then another sometime else. That does kind of make the no-compass system more frustrating. It was already sometimes difficult to figure out where some things were in Morrowind when things didn't move at all.

I appreciate what you are saying about Guilds- and I agree that more is better in regards to quest content. But, I will say that the newer games have been reported to have more content and more things to do than previous games- so perhaps existing guilds and factions have more depth than before. And imo depth = life.

As far as the weapons go- the developers have said that the reason there are less weapons is because it would take more time to put in so many different types and that would mean less content in the rest of the game. Would you rather there be more things to do- more quests, etc? Or would you have less quests and such in favor of having a few more weapons to use? Personally, if it means the game is bigger, I would prefer more quests and npc choices etc over more weapon types, as the amount of weapons we will have access to will still provide versatility. With the armor, they were separated into 2 types in order to create a more immersive feeling of 'light' vs 'heavy'. The experience becomes more fulfilling and noticable which in turn is more valuable than simply having more types. There will be various modes of transportation in Skyrim such as what was in Morrowind- this has been stated and one of them that we know about so far is carriages.

Morrowind was the first TES game that I played in the series. I loved it, I played through the main quest and completed most of the guild quests. While I appreciate certain freedoms concerning Morrowind- which can probably be symbolized by the levitation spell-- some of the previous freedoms have been replaced by new freedoms and more in-game choices. And of course, more freedom for the NPC's as well, which adds life.

Im sorry, but to me, the games dont have "life" as you claim,
yes I loved the graphics and the fact that guards and everyone chased you everywhere, but thats it...
the storyline was bland
the quests were boring(even side)
the variety in weapons and armour were awful,
the voice acting svcked same with the facial expressiosn(i could barly tell if someone looked angry,or sad, just happy and that was with the elves) the towns were to small to what they had a chance to do, and I didnt get pulled into the story, the paragraphs of the storys and information given to me about a quest was all vital and intresting to read, instead of the short sentences given to us by the people who sounded like 20 other quest givers

the guilds theyy go from 10 to 4? its not even a RPG anymore, I cant do what I want, without those measly quests they give us in the guilds the game time would be 10 hours, in morrowind, you had so much to join
-the 3 houses
-the fighters,mages,thieves and morag tong,
-The imperial cult,temple and leigon
-the 3 vampire clans
-Dark brotherhood

the skills you can have(which is a MUST for a proper RPG and the whole point) didnt even feel like it in the Oblivion, and most likly alot less in Skyrim
in Morrowind i could pick if i want to be a axe user, or claymore user for my warrior, arrows,short sword for my assassin, spear,long sword or mace with my knight, in oblivion, i can either be a sword,blunt or bow user,

the spells also, alot more varied(did anyone else put multiple creatures in their summon spell?)

Bland, boring, not even an RPG, etc. I'm sorry but your reply does not sound serious to me. Are you merely trying to get a rise?

I am honest to god serious, Oblivion cant even be called an RPG,
sure you pick if you want heavy armour or light,
long range or close range weapons
but thats really it,
theirs no need to WANT to be in the guilds, theirs a NEED to be in them, without the guilds theirs no point of playing,

in morrowind,
with each playthrough(20) I always changed what I did, to create a feel with a character
I either joined the temple,mages and a specific house for my mage character, joined the fighters and arena for a warrior
used my imperial and be in only imperial guilds,
I joined the morag tonge and thieves guild for an assassin stealth like characters
I joined everything possible
just as few as possible
etc etc

in Oblivion, your doing all the guilds and mainquest...big whoop

Well, I'm sorry that you didn't like Oblivion. Perhaps Skyrim will be better, perhaps not- for you.

I actually found that Oblivion was interesting and enjoyable to play. I did not miss the weapons that were not in game, the ones that were there were great by themselves. Spells were much more varied- did you try the Midas magic add-on? If you weren't satisfied with the vanilla spells that add-on added a multitude of highly unique spells with many different effects.

If you think that there was more life in Morrowind vs. Oblivion then I think you must be deriving most of it from your own roleplaying- ie. Not from the game.

Not everything that you have stated has been correct, did you not play through Oblivion the whole way? If you can state that any TES game isn't even an RPG then what you are looking for in an RPG must be very different from what TES does well. Is there a different game that you prefer?

buddy, I played oblivion 5 times, 3 times with each dlc different types of characters, 2 times just for fun.. their was no spark what-so ever , morrowind had me playing the game 20 times, the quests were ALOT more then their was in oblivion so your whole "more weapons and stuff=less quests/npc) is wrong. Morrowind, had more weapons,more quests,more variety in land scape and cities plus areas(tombs,caves,dungons,forts,etc)
and waay more NPC, sure Oblivion can move them, but big deal? just ment it was annoying having to find this person here instead of their, in morrowind the people were much more intresting, ACTUALLY acted differently to your race, and you can ACTUALLY kill quest-needed memebers causing your quests to change/mess up. in oblivion you cant do much, areas are all bland and cant find much of instrest even with shivering isles + oblivion realm it could not compete with morrowind
the story is bland, just like every other new game, the whole RPG factor that you dismissed is the whole purpose of playing DnD games, TES,Mass effect, Dragon age, WOW,Runescape,Guildwars, buldars gate, its what the WHOLE DnD universe is built on,

Honestly, Morrowind felt so much more alive than Oblivion. Because the NPCs moved and talked didn't give me the feeling of life, as they just wandered around on a predestined path and never had anything detailed or interesting to say. NPC's in Morrowind talked about life, politics, religion ect. while Oblivion added voice acting yet sacrificed any individual npc depth. To me, Oblivions NPCs were nothing but drone's. Morrowind with full of detailed background information and lore, correct lore at that, where as Oblivion was completely stylized for marketability towards the console generation (i don't care how anyone says, Oblivion was mainstreamed for a wider audience, understandable since their in this to make money, but undesirable to me). Oblivion was appeasing and fun, very fun, but the life you so claim Morrowind lacked is the life I didn't see Oblivion have. Because the world moved and talked didn't make it 'alive' to me, it restricted dialogue options and topics and restricted life.

I very much enjoyed Oblivion, but life it does not have, and even worse it makes a mockery of the Imperial people, their culture and the lore that made Cyrodiil interesting.

Concerning the "more weapons and stuff=less quests/npc" - Todd's words, not mine-he was talking about Skyrim. He stated this in an interview. Perhaps you didn't like Oblivion as much because it wasn't set in such a foreign setting where pretty much all dark elves didn't like you- like in Morrowind? Oblivion was supposed to just be a basic 'normal' classic fantasy setting, whereas Morrowing was supposed to feel like a foreign, unknown land. Oblivion did seem a bit cut off at the end I admit- but it may be because of all the other new things they added at the time. Skyrim is not so new for them in terms of system, so I think that there should be much more content in it than in Oblivion. It has already been confirmed that you can join more factions in Skyrim than the 4 major guilds.

I wouldn't really compare TES to most of those other games you listed, as it stands apart from each of them. Especially the mmorpg's which are an entirely different thing. And I might add that the 'skills' are still present, they have simply been streamlined in order to remove repetitive/pointless skills. Most of them however have simply been grouped under the three major attributes- health, magicka, and stamina. That doesn't mean that they are all gone, it is just a different format of leveling up. I don't agree that skills are the point of the game, though. It is a major part of the game- but the point of the game is the overall experience from all of the parts, not just one.

I don't think that the story was bland. Mehrunes Dagon is an old enemy in the TES games from previous games too. You said every other new game is bland- so you also did not like Dragon Age 2? I thought the story in that game was pretty unique.

I like the essential character system. I don't want to accidentally ruin the game by killing someone that ties important quests together. That isn't fun to me. But if you don't like it- 'essential' is just a tick in the construction kit. Any npc can be set to essential or not. It is easy to simply remove the tick that makes an npc essential. I'm sure that there are mods that do that so that you can kill the main quest characters if you wish.

--The construction kit was given to the players so that they could edit things like this to their own desires.

NPC's in Oblivion did have things to say. In Morrowind many of them repeated the same canned messages based on local vs global and this became very apparant when they all said the same things- concerning lore and politics. You could still ask Oblivion npc's about rumours and this included all of those things in one. The npc's would talk about politics, lore, etc. It was simply all together-- or it would be under a unique option for particular characters. Also, often times in Oblivion you would hear them talking to *each other* about politics and lore, etc, which also added to the feeling of life. The npc's acting out the movements of having a life does add a feeling of them living out their lifestyles for me, which makes the whole world feel more alive. When I went back to Morrowind it felt dead and void by comparison- and then it lacked voices too which even further removed life from it.

I do not think that the changes made to TES have all been a mere marketing ploy. It has wayyy too much depth for that to be true at all. You might be right if you mentioned a game like Gothic 4 in that regards- but not TES. I think they are really trying to make the game better with every sequal. And for me at least, they have been better every time.

I'd have to say Szerious that your observation on skills was dead on. I was initially alarmed that Mysticism was axed only to later find out that those spells still exist, it's just the name of the school of magic that has vanished. In many cases I find myself liking the elimination of redundancy. Take medium armor in Morrowind for example. That skill was primarily confined to early and mid levels. The medium armors were almost as weighty as heavy armor and yet protection was merely a fraction of what heavy armor offered. Bethesda looked at this and decided to ax medium armor. I also agree that not every change has been motivated by marketing ploys:
1. Todd seems to be (this is just my impression) a way to dedicated gamer and genuine person to forgo quality content over money.
2. One of the mantras of TES devs has been "we only create games that we ourselves would want to play"

I do hope that maybe you can find a way to re-enjoy Morrowind. It is such a good story. You know, I think the whole community would be better off if we all abandoned the what game is better mentality. We need to focus on THIS experience, THIS story and THIS game. While it is natural and good to have preferences calling one thing "bad" and another "good" pigeon holes both and limits the whole creative process and fosters a hostile elitism that will kill the enthusiasm of new inductees to TES games.

I'm glad you're happy.
I'd freely admit Oblivion was better than MW in some ways although that was mostly (but not entirely) due to technical advances. It was severely lacking in some of the aspects that made MW a better game IMO though. I'm not asking for a MW2, just that Skyrim be as distinctive and atmospheric as MW whilst continuing on the path of technical improvement that we saw in Oblivion.

It's a shame to hear that you didn't enjoy returning to Morrowind. Did you try it with the visual overhaul compilation and MGE? That can do a lot for some people's enjoyment of the game after playing modern titles.

I'm lucky enough that I can go back to Morrowind and still enjoy it. Heck, I even dive into Daggerfall every now and again. The way I see it, every game has its strength, and I see each sequel as an improvement over its predecessors overall (even if they take a step backwards in some areas, they move forward in more).

Daggerfall has an amazing scope, and I love losing myself in that world and knowing there is always somewhere new to see. If I played it my entire life, I doubt I would see everything (barring how similar areas can look).

Morrowind is phenomenal for the visual display of Dunmer culture, and immersing me in the conflict between the encroaching Empire and the Tribunal. I actually agree with you about the NPCs though: they may have more dialogue options than Oblivion, but they all say very similar things. Ask them about their profession and someone you've never met before may outright tell you she's an acrobat who enjoys breaking into houses in the night, even if you're a member of the Imperial Legion in full uniform. Every acrobat in the game will give you exactly the same lines. Most of the dialogue is all about the surrounding countryside and towns, or the lore of the province, rather than about the NPC's backstory. But I'm okay with that, since I believe the world is the main character in the TES game, and I always want to learn more about it.

Oblivion did wonders for combat in this series. You have to look at this as a 2006 game, ushering in the start of a new console generation. You can't judge the combat by today's standard, the same way you can't really judge Morrowind's against Oblivion's. But without a doubt, the new combat system made Oblivion a much more engaging and immersive game (rather than swing and miss, swing and miss, swing and miss, swing and miss, swing and HIT! YAY! Swing and miss, swing and miss, swing and miss...), especially with the addition of mods like Duke Patrick's Melee Combat. Leveled enemies were a mistake, as was the lack of prevalent Cyrodiilic culture after the culture-bomb that was Morrowind. But the voice acting was very much needed, sacrificing nothing of NPC depth (as I mentioned above, in Morrowind they really told you next to nothing of themselves, so take off the jaded glasses if you believe otherwise), and the new stealth overhaul made the Thieves Guild questline (the ultimate heist) and the Dark Brotherhood questline the most enjoyable factions I've experienced in a TES game. Even though the number of factions dropped down to 4, there's still hundreds of hours of gameplay in this game, and I always favour quality over quantity. I'm glad Skyrim is taking the same approach, rather than diluting down the content of each faction simply to allow double the number of faction questlines, for a random boastable statistic.

From what I've seen it looks as though Skyrim will once again raise the bar, and return to the cultural depth that was Morrowind's greatest strength (imo). So long as you look at each game and judge it by the time it was released and its contemporaries, I find it easy to enjoy them all for what they are.

I agree that we would be better off if we abandoned the 'what game is better' as far as positive feelings and experience go. I created this thread because there were a couple of threads stating that Skyrim would svck and a couple more threads stating that Morrowind was the best and Skyrim wouldn't compare at the time. I read and responded to each of these but I felt that Oblivion and Skyrim deserved their own thread as a response to those other threads. The Devs do look and see the forum every once in awhile and I wouldn't want to remain silent whilst Oblivion-haters are speaking their minds. The purpose of the thread, ultimately, was simply to balance the message being presented on the forum with the 'other' view, which is that Oblivion did not completely svck and ruin all TES games for all time.

I agree, I think that Todd Howard especially seems very sincere about his passions for the games that he creates. I think that he has a lot of ownership concerning his games and always tries to maintain excellence. I think that he played a role in bring us Morrowind and foward. Because of that, he very well may have revolutionalised aspects of open world rpg's.

I agree, and I think that they are trying to do that with Skyrim- with elements from Fallout 3 as well.

No, I did not use any mods for Morrowind upon returning to it. I just started playing the vanilla game since it had been years since my last playthrough, expecting a fresh experience. But I had completely forgotten about most of those differences- the first thing that I immediately noticed was how the character generator was incredibly limited. I am used to the ability to customize every detail of my characters, and forgot that the options available in Morrowind hadn't quite advanced to that point very well yet. I remember enjoying the storyline in Morrowind, and I am the type to read many of the books that I come across.

I very much agree with less guilds does not = less depth of playthrough. I am all for quality over quanity, especially when quantity signifies an artificial number of things rather than a few fully realized experiences.

Skyrim seems to be trying to find middle ground in many areas, I think it hopes to capture the best of each previous game as well as introduce some new technical advances. I'm very much looking foward to playing it when it comes out.

The technology improves over time. That's a given, and Oblivion was proof of it.

The ability to make the characters follow schedules, voiced dialog, physics to inanimate objects, and the overall graphical improvements over older games were huge steps forward. Unfortunately, the very nature of the underlying game was scaled back and simplified (perhaps partly as a result of the limitations of voiced dialog), and the "accessability" came at the expense of versatility. Many of the basic game mechanics (spellscasting, alchemy, enchanting, lockpicking, repair) were either simplified (from a % chance of success, to a "can't try or can't fail" system) or replaced with mini-games which had virtually nothing to do with the skill involved. The improvements to the task interfaces were in sharp contrast to their decreased functionality. How many OB players are concerned with raising their Speechcraft or Security skills? The excessive scaling in OB made it pointless to level up, since the world levelled with you and kept you on par with everything else, no matter what you did. That broke the fundamental concept of RPGs, where the point is to have the character go from "weak" to "strong", because the definition of weak and strong changed as you went.

The depth of the conversations went from 3-20 dialog options in MW to about 2-6 in OB, and less of the dialog was dependent on your actions. There were random gossip and local info topics in both, but Morrowind had a lot more topics (and even items within those random topics) that appeared as you explored and "unlocked" those topics. The interactions and conflicts between factions in Morrowind were all but missing in Oblivion (aside from a few "black and white" ones between the FG and Blackwood Co., etc.), and the few that existed had little or no effect on gameplay. You could somehow become the head of virtually all of the factions with the same character, and didn't even need a high level or any particular skill in that faction's profession to rise to the very top.

Morrowind was more "restrictive" on what you could do with a given character without having to work to "earn" it (requiring certain skills and attributes to advance), but gave you an incredible amount of freedom as to what you could untimately achieve. Oblivion allowed you to do just about anything "permissable" with no restrictions, but what was permissable was a lot more limited; you could be anything in the game, or everything, with relatively little effort, and that made it all feel shallow and pointless.

If Skyrim manages to improve on the technical aspects, as OB did over MW, while giving us back even a fraction of the sense of "risk versus reward" (as in MW and DF) and sense of satisfaction for accomplishing something that's not being spoon-fed to us, then it has the potential to be more than either of its predecessors. If it goes farther down the road of "streamlining" and limiting the character's long-term potential for the sake of short-term accessability, then it will end up as an all-but-forgotten disc on the shelf in a couple of years, overshadowed by whatever "latest and greatest" disposable entertainment is hot at the moment, where MW will STILL be viewed as a "classic".

I enjoy both games. I like Oblivion a little bit more as i like the setting over Morrowinds. I don't find the setting bland, just monotonious. I do however love MW's mushroom landscape around the Ascadian Isles, but god the ash storms get on my nerves and the ashland is kind of bland. i believe it is possible to thoroughly enjoy both games and not just one or the other.

Morrowinds npc's were just as repetitive as Oblivions in my experience, but yes the story is much much better in Morrowind. I don't know what went wrong with Oblivions story, who wrote it out? Anyway, i just think both games are good despite the opnions of a lot on here.

You're basing your grounds on the fact that people Like/Love Morrowind over Oblivion for its

• Static npcs
  
• what 60 or so voiced one liners and text dialog
  
• Crappy combat system, even for its time
  
• Crap graphics to todays standard anyway (vanilla)
  
• more or less linear questline.

and if thats the case, you have 0 clue as to why some people prefer Morrowind Over Oblivion.

Responses were varied and were the same type of canned messages, only randomized. Their dialogue had little to no depth and when they 'talked' to each other its was again, all the same canned/randomized messages only this time with voice actors. Your feelings are your feelings, I'm just saying I disagree with them in entirely. Oblivion brought with it new abilities in terms of what the NPC's could do, Morrowind comes from a different time with different limitations. However, the formula was the same, the characters in both games still had the same repeated responses, except Morrowind's text style allowed for far more information to be added where as Oblivion's did not. Voice acting added nothing to me other than the annoyance of the same voice actors randomized over and over again, with the individuals having no personal feeling that wasn't shared by some other similar looking character nearby. Morrowind's was more personalized and tailored. Movement on the other hand only made it annoying when they would get stuck in something, fall off of something and randomly get knocked off cource by a glitch. The life felt completely automated and scripted.

We of cource, just have two different opinions. The life you see, I don't, and life I see you don't. However, the depth you speak of is considerably lacking when you look into the lore. Morrowind was full of cool lore that was deep and meaningful. Oblivion lacked everything in that aspect about Cyrodiil. The cultural differences between the Colovian's and Nibanese, their practices and beliefs ect were non existent and even the landscape of Cyrodiil was changed to be less 'unique' and more familiar to players who could have been turned off by Cyrodiil's weirdness. If you look into the lore and saw just how awesome Cyrodiil should have been, you would be disappointed too I would think and would laugh at the though of calling Oblivion's interpretation 'deep'. By comparison, you could tell, and feel the difference between the Great Houses of Morrowind and other cultural factions, I got no such satisfaction from Oblivion.

Personally I found Oblivion a huge step back in an extremely interesting world. Compared to Morrowind and Daggerfall, it was mainstreamed to fit a wider audience where as the past two tailored to those who enjoyed the depth of another world.

edit: Like I said, I enjoyed Oblivion as a game, but I enjoyed Morrowind as an experience, and I've spent sooo much more time in Morrowind than I have Oblivion. To those who don't pay close attention to the lore, I see why Oblivion was preferable, its was really more of a game, while Morrowind was more of a story. To someone who actually cares about the world though, Oblivion barely eligible to be an Elder Scroll's game to me.

Speechcraft and security are actually skills that I used a lot in Oblivion. And the minigame that was added for both persuation and lockpicking was dependant on your skill. I actually like using the minigame for lockpicking because it makes me feel like I'm the one picking the lock- not a random number generator that figures in lock difficulty vs. my skill level. I always found speechcraft to be useful in getting information and winning people over. You unlock a lot of topics when people like you more. And I still stand by that there is more versatility in the dialogue options in Oblivion, whereas many npc's shares most of the topics in Morrowind, and it became repetitive. Both had repetitiveness of course- But Oblivion tried to keep it unique to different characters rather than having everyone in an entire town repeat the same things, or everyone of a particular race, or class, etc.

Personally, I find the % chance of success to be much simpler than what they upgraded it to, regarding spells. The spells in Oblivion were more enjoyable to use. And it makes a lot more sense too, imo. I hated trying to cast a spell countless times in *Morrowind and constantly failing. Same with using a weapon. It got annoying. I don't think of that as 'versatility'- it is just a chance generator. Can't get much simpler than that. The new system is much more enjoyable and, I find, has it's own realism, especially if you don't feel like you are rolling the dice every time you try to do a basic action.

I did not see a decrease in functionality in Oblivion. Everything functioned just fine. If anything, there were many more options in multiple areas as compared to Morrowind.

Regarding earning things in Morrowind... trainers could get you high levels fast and the levitation spell could get you to wherever you needed to go easily. Wether that be escaping enemies, skipping mountains, etc. And after raising the speed skill high enough you could practically reach just about any nearby destination as soon as you started running. (which can be, again, facilitated by merely using trainers.- the money is easily aquired through stealing in Morrowind.)

There were plenty of conflicting factions in Oblivion: Blades vs. Mythic Dawn, Mages Guild vs. Necromancers(not really evil, just outlawed), Fighters Guild vs. Blackwood company, Dark Brotherhood vs. sub-Dark Brotherhood factions, All of Cyrodiil vs. Oblivion(of course)- and all of these had plenty of quests associated with them. Not as many as inMorrowind, but why should the amount of different factions make the ones that Oblivion did have any less?

I do agree that the leveling system in Oblivion was bad. I missed having monsters be a set strength and inhabit certain areas territorrially such as in Morrowind. Knowing to look out for them and having to compensate ability and resources was fun. They have recognized this and have fixed in in Skyrim, I believe.

There was quite a bit you could not do in Oblivion unless you worked- especially after the release of Midas Magic. Those magic spells, especially the powerful ones, were quite difficult to earn. And as you said, you could not use various spells without the required levels. Trainers would only train you 5 levels each in Oblivion too, most of the time you had to train your skills yourself.

Having there be skill requirements for guild positions is a minor nuance that does not effect the gameplay much. To make a big deal about it is, well, nitpicky. In the end the quests are what really matters, it is your service to the guild that raises your position.

Streamlining does not mean spoon-feeding. And you just said earlier that in Oblivion there is never a sense of really getting stronger because everything leveled with you. That indicates difficulty. If you are actually referring to the compass- you will be able to turn that off in Skyrim if you wish. I personally find it to be very useful.

The fad games have never sold me out over the TES games. They have always, including both Morrowind and Oblivion, won me over all games that have come out since. Skyrim will be the first game that I love and regard more highly than Oblivion. I could never imagine myself EVER regarding any TES games as backshelf games.

I did not feel that all npc's in Oblivion were the same. I was not *looking* for them to be the same. If someone sounded similar to someone else, to me, that equals cultural accents, etc. Its all just game meets roleplay in the end. The voice acting added a lot to the experience for me. Better yet- Todd has indicated that Skyrim will have many more voice actors than Oblivions- somewhere around 70 or so. So hopefully you will feel that npc's are more unique.

I understand what you mean about Oblivion. I cannot say that I think that it completely lacked culture and significance, I don't think that at all. But it certainly was not as steeped as Morrowind- I agree to that. I think that Skyrim will amend that with it's culture and lore usage.

I don't think it was to suit a wider audience though. I think it was just the style of fantasy that was chosen for the game.

I never claimed to know why people prefer Morrowind, I only stated why Oblivion is an advancement.

I concur.