Morrowind vs. Oblivion : The Elder Scrolls Series Discussion

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 12:33 am

Just another reminder guys, play nice.

Really, for someone like me that's been around since before Oblivion was announced, I find these topics hilarious. You see, I remember all the things people complained about in Morrowind (and all the people that categorically stated that Daggerfall was better than Morrowind).

Let's take voice acting on NPCs. In Morrowind, people complained about lifeless NPCs, and they had good reason too. The vast majority of Morrowind NPCs have no personality. They were static terminals of repeated information. In Oblivion, it is different. The NPCs have schedules and voiced dialogue. These were Bethesda's attempts to change the lifeless info terminals into something more human. Now, whether they achieved that is debatable. I think from a 'first time player' perspective, the Oblivion system is far more engaging, while the Morrowind system provides more extra info to a veteran player.

One area that Oblivion has a clear advantage (in my mind) over Morrowind is the Journal system. In my opinion, the journal system was an absolute mess in vanilla Morrowind. I honestly didn't use it very much, because it was in fact impossible to use.

On the other hand, Morrowind clearly has a better atmosphere (in my opinion). Oblivion's all about "Go off and be the epic hero that kicks Daedra ass" while Morrowind is "You? I don't care about you. There's a ditch over there. Why don't you lay down and die." I like the feeling of rising from nothing, and bucking the system. In Morrowind, everyone wanted to use me. In Oblivion, everyone was begging for my help. I found it annoying.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 10:15 am

You complained about how there were not that many voice actors in Oblivion yet half of the characters in Morrowind shared the exact same dialogue lines. In fact, almost all of the characters in any given town or city had all of the same dialogue options with the exact same wording unless they were involved in a quest.

Not true, not true, and not true.

As for the first part, I snipped it because it's opinion and can't be proven true or false.

But I never complained about not enough voice actors in Oblivion, and for the other parts, who cares if there wasn't infinitely unique dialogue in Morrowind, there was still more of it, plus it didn't hinder quests and options and the things that people actually play RPGs for.

And to prevent myself from repeating myself any more, I refer you, once again, to my previous outbursts of frontotemporal dementia, urge you to read them instead of skim them this time, then I go to bed.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 7:55 am

You lasted three pages. Some of you need to know when to be quiet, if you've made your point. We get it, you think MW is awesome and feel a need to relentlessly try and convince others they are wrong, instead of having a discussion. :stare: One more chance.

Ratwar is nice than me. And sometimes he has cookies.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 9:43 am

I would also like to add that I will consider people who instead of contributing to the discussion just link to old posts as spamming. You have all been warned.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 6:48 am

Going from Daggerfall to Morrowind was a huge leap forward in my mind then Oblivion was also a giant leap in terms of graphics, I think Morrowinds NPC dialogue system took a great deal of advancement over Daggerfall. It felt more like Arena's which was a bit nostalgic for me. Then Oblivion added full voice and that happy me super happy! :clap:

» Sun Sep 12, 2010 10:40 pm

Each system has merits and faults. Voice acting, while being more immersive by bringing NPCs to life, costs a lot more time and money than a text-based system. And, from what I've read in discussions from people who mod both Oblivion and Morrowind, it is a lot more limiting with regard to including/expanding dialogue options than a text-based system is. Text-based systems also bring NPCs to life, but in a much different way. With each NPC being able share much more information about the gameworld, one is able to get a better sense of the political and social climate surrounding the province. Also, the NPCs themselves seem as though they are actually involved with their surroundings because they are able to 'discuss' a broader range of topics. The downside to everything being 'said' in text is that NPCs end up feeling like living encyclopedias. This, however, has just as much to do with the fact that there wasn't enough diversity in the way similar lines of dialogue were written from one NPC to the next (in Morrowind), so they all wound up 'sounding' the same.

In a perfect world, voiced dialogue would not only be quick and easy (and cheap) to produce, but easy to mod as well. Then, maybe, we would have the best of both worlds. The only thing that seems to be a somewhat viable option to achieve this with current technology is TTS software. For the time being, however, TTS software and technology wouldn't do the ES series justice. The better solution for the immediate future, IMHO, would be to make the majority of the dialogue text-based, while voicing key parts/phrases. That way we still get the depth that a text-based system is able to provide, while still getting a sense of what the NPC sounds like and what his/her mannerisms are. Not the most ideal solution, perhaps. But at least then we don't get shorted on content, and still get the sense that the NPC is a sentient being who lives in some sort of alternate reality.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 9:45 am

I would much rather have a game with less (mainly useless) dialogue that is more to the point with better graphics, gameplay, sound effects, music, and immersion any day.

You complained about how there were not that many voice actors in Oblivion yet half of the characters in Morrowind shared the exact same dialogue lines. In fact, almost all of the characters in any given town or city had all of the same dialogue options with the exact same wording unless they were involved in a quest.

Just look at the metacritic score of both games and you'll see how wrong you are. You're in the minority kid, time to quit while you're ahead.

IMHO fully voice acted dialogs has made the game a shallower one in every aspects.

Voice acting does indeed affect the general game design, directly and indirectly:

Directly: Lets say that bethesda could somehow develop a quest management system that could generate(select, reshape and refit) fully interactive quest-lines and pick any nearby character fitting the role templates of the quests, and start the quests over the available resources and characters, what effect do you thing a fully and fixedly voice acted game would have on such a system, do you really think that it would be possible to make something that flexible in such a game?

You know, I know that if we loose ourselves from the shackles of voice acted dialog lines, some really innovative and ground breaking solutions would start to appear that would revolutionize the quest building concepts and character AI, and IMHO the current trend of fully voice acted dialogs acts just like shackles. It does not kill quests, but fully limits what we could do with them, or with character AI.

Indirectly: If we think of the time, resource, and funds that are going into the fully voice acted dialogs, and consider that game developers do not have unlimited time, resource and funds at hand in order to develop all the aspects of their games, it would become quite visible how it all affects the entire project.

The consumed time, resource, and funds could be spent on more writers, quest builders, dungeon designers, engine programmers and so on...

Solution: look at the next part.

...

For starters, let compare synthesized voices with graphics:

Computer games started without any voices, and graphics, but eventually some really awful(compared to nowadays) graphics and beeps began to show in games, those graphics were their attempt to synthesize the life forms in computers, but they did have little in common with a real world shapes.

We coped with bad graphics, but tried to improve them, so we started to develop our ways to synthesize the real-world shapes into computer graphics, and we have reached the stages that sometimes one would look at a scene with awe and say: "Is this really computer generated?"

And suppose we had decided that those graphics were too bad and hopeless, so we had better start to capture real-life pictures and somehow use them in the games, were we would be now? We would be watching some restricted and guided interactive movies in the computer. And we would not have the freedom to do the things that we do in games now, because any free form interaction with players would bring unpredictable results and the captured life shapes could not handle the results.

So captured real life actor voices is exactly like captured real life actor shapes, and if we stick to this form of game development, we would loose the unimaginable brain-blowing future advancements in game development.

Could the initial creators of "Packman" and "Space invaders" possibly imagine what we are playing now? Their pathetic efforts to create a synthesized life form on the computer screen were the initial steps to the place that we are standing now, and where would be now if the original founders of the games had told them that they did not like the results and lets start showing only real life pictures?

I say lets put all of our manpower and resources into developing good voice synthesizing engines and bear with initial results so that they can start to grow, and we would surely reach places that we can not even begin to imagine now.

That's all.

Edit: some typos.

As for the topic, both games have good potential for moding and IMHO Oblivion mods are more worthy, because in my case they have helped me to play the game for a few hundred hours, which would not happened in the unmodded game.

So unofficial patch to correct a lot of problems are required as well as mods that correct the global leveling of the game and mods that make things and faces look better, but no mod can remove the "hand holding" that has deep roots in all aspects of the game.

Some people like that fact but IMHO this make the game a shallow experience compared to Morrowind.

Morrowind did not need those mods to draw me in, and for current players, I would suggest mods that make graphics better, are required, as well as game engine patch and unofficial patch to correct some problems.

Also do not forget about "Lilarcor".

In the end I want to repost my initial experience with Oblivion, so that people know that I have really tried to love the game, but failed in the end.

You are not getting my point.

At first I just loved the new scenery, the greatly enhanced visuals, HDR and the like.

I even made a mod to help me more into the game and believe it or not, it was called "Pure Immersion", and it would relieve me from power-gaming to gain those 5-5-5 attributes in the level-ups, and let me more into the game.

But the pace was fast, and in this game, Bethesda had put a lot of force into aspects that would push me out of the game, like:

Providing fast travel which one would use if walking had lost it's draw because of similar landscapes and lots of fast paced, but ultimately unrewarding fights that would not let us enjoy the scenery if we could.

In Morrowind every place seamed a bit different from the previous place, you could walk around and watch a bit before the next encounter, but on the other hand, you had to be on guard and watch your surrounding with care, because you might encounter a fight that would prove too much for your health.

In oblivion all the land leveled with you, so fights would gradually lose their thrilling aspects, and also they were so numerous that would not let you enjoy the scenery, which was no big matter, because those did not change a lot, and had nothing new.

In Morrowind, you had to constantly look around to catch the probable high level item that you might find lying in a corner, and those were real treasures to find, but in Oblivion, after a few high level bandits, you would lose interest in further fights because you had all the items you needed, and those fight were always the same difficulty and would show their repeating aspects.

But those fights were relentless and face paced, so they would finally push you toward the much debated fast travel.

In morrowind you had to look around for clues to find your target cave, person or item, but in oblivion you could just follow the arrow and reach the place with no problem, so as I said before, the atmosphere was lacking, and the scenery did not change enough to warrant more focused look around after a few play-troughs, so you looked more and more into that compass which was ready for usage, and finally reached a point that you did not bother to look up much.

I do not say that Oblivion had not its moments, like dream world and the like, but those were mostly deep in the specific quests that when you played though them a few times and knew the end of the story would not draw you to them to see those places, so they were out.

But Morrowind's interesting aspects were day to day happenings like the dreamy and haunting call of those silth-striders that we could hear from a distance, or the fact that people did not like an outsider like you at first but you had to charm you way into their hearts, or those giant mushrooms that with high enough acrobatics, you could jump from one to another, like a dream, and so on...

I'm not saying that oblivion is a bad game, but you can not call that a game that you could be drawn into for long, and if you say that I have not played that, you are wrong, because I have played that for hundreds of hours trying different character to role-play, and gradually lost my interest because those problematic aspects pushed me gradually out of that world.

You know, these games are called role-playing games because we want to role-play in them, not just jump in and do some hack and slash action with quests, and feel good, and jump out.

Oblivion might have some actions and complex quests, but is not a world that would draw you in and lets you sink to the depth of the scenery and story to feel one with, and look around and enjoy the feeling, as I did in Morrowind, so don't blame us if we miss some aspect of the game that you think interesting.

Hope Bethesda does not force the "Hand Holding" aspect of Oblivion deeply in the roots of TES V, and find a way to make those aspects really optional to help the people who need them, but away from the path of the people who do not.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 6:17 am

*snip*
I say lets put all of our manpower and resources into developing good voice synthesizing engines and bear with initial results so that they can start to grow, and we would surely reach places that we can not even begin to imagine now.

I agree with just about everything you put down, but I just wanted to comment on the sentence above. I think those of us who love the ES series would be perfectly fine if we had to deal with the initial development phases of voice synthesizing engines or TTS technology AS LONG AS it were tested and developed in OTHER games. I'd really love to see this kind of technology eventually work its way into the ES series. Like you said, it could open up possibilities that we haven't even begun to imagine. But, I personally wouldn't want Beth to use this technology until it were well-developed. Beth's ability to immerse us so deeply in their world, and provide us with a haven of escapism is one reason why I think we discuss these topics with such vigor and makes us what we are -- fanatics. Implementing poorly developed voice synthesis would only help to destroy the illusion that we are living an alternate life. I think any Beth game that tries to implement such a thing would be promptly rejected by the majority of us, regardless of how ground-breaking the technology is, or what it would do for the gaming industry as a whole.

BTW, I liked your description of your Oblivion 'journey'. I went through pretty much the same process, minus the mods.

» Sun Sep 12, 2010 8:00 pm

One area that Oblivion has a clear advantage (in my mind) over Morrowind is the Journal system. In my opinion, the journal system was an absolute mess in vanilla Morrowind. I honestly didn't use it very much, because it was in fact impossible to use.

I really don't get this opinion, at all, whatsoever. Sure, plain ol' Morrowind may have had it messy, but once the expansions where out, there was a system pretty much the same as Oblivion's. I could look at certain quests and look at the journal entries for each. The only real difference was the ability to look at the loccation on the map, because, obviously, map markers weren't present.

I also found an actual journal to be far more immersive than a menu.

I see the arguing started while I was away. Who didn't see that coming, eh? :rolleyes:

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 11:48 am

I'm pretty sure it'll be TES5 vs. Oblivion. We don't see any Arena vs. Daggerfall vs. Morrowind vs. Oblivion threads now, do we. Here are four games we could be comparing, but we only do two.

^
I
I___That.

I hold about an equal opinion for Morrowind and Oblivion. I don't see one as superior to the other, and both have their strong points and weak points. But then again, I still think Daggerfall is my favorite. Its the one I find myself coming back to more frequently than any of the other four. I sort of play them in cycles.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 11:21 am

I see the arguing started while I was away. Who didn't see that coming, eh? :rolleyes:

There has already been several moderator interventions in this topic. OK, I know it is an emotive one but any more niggles and snide remarks will get the topic closed and those responsible will have a long enough time out from the forums so this topic will be well over when they return. This is the last time a moderator has to post here with advice.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 10:47 am

I really don't get this opinion, at all, whatsoever. Sure, plain ol' Morrowind may have had it messy, but once the expansions where out, there was a system pretty much the same as Oblivion's. I could look at certain quests and look at the journal entries for each. The only real difference was the ability to look at the loccation on the map, because, obviously, map markers weren't present.

I also found an actual journal to be far more immersive than a menu.

I see the arguing started while I was away. Who didn't see that coming, eh? :rolleyes:

I agree with Ratwar personally. Morrowind's system required you to turn each page individually, and the quest you were looking to complete was more often than not not on the latest page. God forbid you have to follow any complex directions either, as if you don't have a stellar short term memory you're going to have to keep going back again, and again, and again to look at them. Not that I have a problem with the directions, but going back through the journal to read them took time. With Oblivion, you knew where your unfinished quests were and they were only a few clicks and a bit of scrolling away. Plus knowing what your current quest is at all times is a luxury I'd love to have in Morrowind, where I'll often juggle a few quests at a time and wind up making my journal a big mess.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 1:25 am

With Oblivion, you knew where your unfinished quests were and they were only a few clicks and a bit of scrolling away. Plus knowing what your current quest is at all times is a luxury I'd love to have in Morrowind, where I'll often juggle a few quests at a time and wind up making my journal a big mess.

This was the same as in Morrowind. Open the journal - options - quests. You have your list of quests and it'll only show you journal entry for a specific quest you choose. While Morrowind could have benefited from a current quest feature, it's really not that different from Oblivion. Morrowind has flaws, but this really doesn't seem to be one of them, imo.

» Sun Sep 12, 2010 11:18 pm

I agree with Ratwar personally. Morrowind's system required you to turn each page individually, and the quest you were looking to complete was more often than not not on the latest page. God forbid you have to follow any complex directions either, as if you don't have a stellar short term memory you're going to have to keep going back again, and again, and again to look at them. Not that I have a problem with the directions, but going back through the journal to read them took time. With Oblivion, you knew where your unfinished quests were and they were only a few clicks and a bit of scrolling away. Plus knowing what your current quest is at all times is a luxury I'd love to have in Morrowind, where I'll often juggle a few quests at a time and wind up making my journal a big mess.

As always, this returns to hand holding that I have said is deep in every aspect of the game design of Oblivion.

IMO the Morrowind method was like burrowing through your notes on the subject, but Oblivion's method was like a pip-boy by your side, which would seem ok in a post Apocalypse environment, but not in a might and magic environment.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 12:20 pm

This was the same as in Morrowind. Open the journal - options - quests. You have your list of quests and it'll only show you journal entry for a specific quest you choose. While Morrowind could have benefited from a current quest feature, it's really not that different from Oblivion. Morrowind has flaws, but this really doesn't seem to be one of them, imo.

Maybe I'm just odd but I rarely remember the names of quests. I remember the information I got from those quests instead. So while I flip through the journal, when I see a specific bit of information or a familiar objective, that's how I identify the quest. So searching for the quest by name has never been a good solution for me in Morrowind. :shrug:

As always, this returns to hand holding that I have said is deep in every aspect of the game design of Oblivion.

IMO the Morrowind method was like burrowing through your notes on the subject, but Oblivion's method was like a pip-boy by your side, which would seem ok in a post Apocalypse environment, but not in a might and magic environment.

Oblivion may be guilty of hand holding in a lot of aspects, including the quest marks introduced in it, however I really don't think that a more streamlined journal system is a bad thing at all.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 6:39 am

This was the same as in Morrowind. Open the journal - options - quests. You have your list of quests and it'll only show you journal entry for a specific quest you choose. While Morrowind could have benefited from a current quest feature, it's really not that different from Oblivion. Morrowind has flaws, but this really doesn't seem to be one of them, imo.

As always, this returns to hand holding that I have said is deep in every aspect of the game design of Oblivion.

IMO the Morrowind method was like burrowing through your notes on the subject, but Oblivion's method was like a pip-boy by your side, which would seem ok in a post Apocalypse environment, but not in a might and magic environment.

Rat's right about the journal comparison. I still play both games concurrently when I am playing TES - clearly neither of you are doing so. :shrug: Going from one to the other frequently, you can "feel" the difference during gameplay in many game-design things, like the journal design. You cannot write it off as hand-holding every time, no matter how much you like the older game - game design issues on different things simply change as development and tools mature, I think.

Even with the expansions, Morrowind's journal design is just not good. It was really bad in vanilla and although they made a good effort to make it a bit better, it did feel jury-rigged. Oblivion - and most games since that time period, this is not unique to OB - seemed to have made an effort at more coherent in-game journaling.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 6:37 am

Oh, now you've done it.

I now refer you to my previous outbreaks of frontotemporal dementia:

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1108155-xzzz/page__st__40__p__16245150__fromsearch__1&#entry16245150

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1106175-morrowind-oblivion-and-the-future/page__st__20__p__16215625__fromsearch__1&#entry16215625

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1107097-do-you-think-tes-v-will-have-dialouge-system-like-fallout-3/page__st__20

I agree totaly with you on voice acting. Not only does it take away from quests, it takes up 1.6GB(give or take 50MB) largest of all BSAs that means less space for graphics and stuff. Voice acting takes to much and gives us to little.
I would miss the conversations though they weren't that great. Here a funny one I heard once.
"Greetings."

"Yes?"

"No."

"Goobye."

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 11:43 am

Rat's right about the journal comparison. I still play both games concurrently when I am playing TES - clearly neither of you are doing so. :shrug: Going from one to the other frequently, you can "feel" the difference during gameplay in many game-design things, like the journal design. You cannot write it off as hand-holding every time, no matter how much you like the older game - game design issues on different things simply change as development and tools mature, I think.

OK, I admit that I have gone too far in this case and this case can be called streamlining. :whistling:

But a point of my arguments was the look of the things and that was that Morrowind's style was like burrowing through your character's notes on the subject, while Oblivion's method are in the UI's menus that are not part of the actual game, but something outside the actual game environment to help the players organize their current quests, and in a much more efficient way than Morrowind's method.

I'm talking about immersion, so Oblivion's fast travel are surely easier to play, but Morrowind's method of negotiating with the ferry man are IMHO more immersive, and so on...

In every aspect, Oblivion's gameplay is a bit or a lot easier to play than Morrowind's methods, but does that make for better game experience? That is very much a matter of opinion, and in almost all of the occasions, I prefer Morrowind's method, so that is strictly my opinion on those matters and I do not force other people to follow my sentiments.

By the way I like the additional Physics, better graphics, Radiant AI, and so on, but those are clever advancement in game engine and technologies that were not available when Morrowind hit the shelves.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 1:11 pm

I've always liked Morrowind simply because it was more interesting. All the cultures and factions waring against each other, the varied terrain, and all the interesting plots. Oh yeah, and there was that thing where the game doesn't get impossible by the time you're level 20. Still. Oblivion had its ups. The NPC schedules were a huge step up from Morrowind where everyone simply stood around and did nothing. Some argue that the combat is better. It's certainly more fun, because in Morrowind there wasn't much else to do but continuously swing away, but the fact that (in Oblivion) the lower your skills were the easier it was to kill enemies was pretty annoying.

Anyway, I like Morrowind better. You should get that. And play it without mods the first time.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 10:26 am

I can't play with mods, so I'm gonna go with potatoes.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 11:18 am

I agree totaly with you on voice acting. Not only does it take away from quests, it takes up 1.6GB(give or take 50MB) largest of all BSAs that means less space for graphics and stuff. Voice acting takes to much and gives us to little.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moores_law. I'm sure the amount of disk space something takes up is the last thing on the Dev's mind

I couldn't stand a game without voice acting. Radiant NPCs are important to me because I don't like feeling that I'm the center of the world. I like them to have their own lives, their own jobs, their own schedules. In Morrowind they didn't move, which I didn't like. Yes, there was a lot more dialog, which I did like, and I think Oblivion would've benefited from greatly. However, overall the NPC's weren't as radiant as I'd like

» Sun Sep 12, 2010 10:39 pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moores_law. I'm sure the amount of disk space something takes up is the last thing on the Dev's mind

I couldn't stand a game without voice acting. Radiant NPCs are important to me because I don't like feeling that I'm the center of the world. I like them to have their own lives, their own jobs, their own schedules. In Morrowind they didn't move, which I didn't like. Yes, there was a lot more dialog, which I did like, and I think Oblivion would've benefited from greatly. However, overall the NPC's weren't as radiant as I'd like

I was refering to the DVD space, but theey could double up on discs. And its not like I didn't like the voice acting in and of itself, but if it takes away from other aspects of the game because of its limitations or space requirement. Also, some NPCs seemed really dry, because they didn't have the resources or time to personalize them.

I suppose now that they have a bigger team it could be improved upon.

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 1:31 pm

I was refering to the DVD space, but theey could double up on discs. And its not like I didn't like the voice acting in and of itself, but if it takes away from other aspects of the game because of its limitations or space requirement. Also, some NPCs seemed really dry, because they didn't have the resources or time to personalize them.

I suppose now that they have a bigger team it could be improved upon.

Yeah. I'm not saying Oblivions voice acting was perfect, but I prefer it to none. I fully understand how some people would prefer none though

» Mon Sep 13, 2010 5:33 am

Potatoes all the way!

I only recently started playing Morrowind, but i already like it for what it is.
Purely character skill based gameplay :goodjob:
The dialogue system with lots of text and little voice acting :goodjob:
Stealing, if no one sees you, no one will know :goodjob:
NPC stand in the same place, all day, every day :thumbsdown: (How would i love to fullfill Morag Tong writs if i could ambush them in a dark alley when they are returning home from the tavern. How am i supposed to assassinate a man that stands in a crowded tavern all his life?)

But i judge games based on their own merits. On their own they both enjoyable quality RPGs with some unfortunate design mishaps. Such as the attribute increasing in leveling system of both games (my preferred solutions are GCD and nGCD), and the can't-be-mentioned-often-enough level scaling of Oblivion. Fallout 3 level scaling was a major improvement though, raiders didn't get Power Armor and plasma weapons once you reached level 20, so i doubt TESV will suffer from this issue

EDIT: autocensor did not like my choice of words :blush:

» Sun Sep 12, 2010 11:06 pm

Rat's right about the journal comparison. I still play both games concurrently when I am playing TES - clearly neither of you are doing so. :shrug: Going from one to the other frequently, you can "feel" the difference during gameplay in many game-design things, like the journal design. You cannot write it off as hand-holding every time, no matter how much you like the older game - game design issues on different things simply change as development and tools mature, I think.

Even with the expansions, Morrowind's journal design is just not good. It was really bad in vanilla and although they made a good effort to make it a bit better, it did feel jury-rigged. Oblivion - and most games since that time period, this is not unique to OB - seemed to have made an effort at more coherent in-game journaling.

I'm not saying they're exactly the same, nor am I saying either is better, but I just don't see much of a difference. They may be different, but essentially, they're the exact same. Kind of a strange sentence, but it makes sense to me.

An attempt at an english translation:

Morrowind and Oblivion are pretty much the same, where the basics of the journal system are implemented. Oblivion is a tad more streamlined, but it's really cancelled out by Morrowind's more immersive actual book. I think they're about just as good as eachother. My personal prefernce is towards Morrowind, myself. Immersion > Gameplay mechanics, for me. It really depends on how you feel about that.

Are they modable to use eachother's methods? I'd love Oblivion's system with Morrowind journal. I just hope TESV takes a look at what was great in all games, and implements something similar. E.g., Daggerfall's randomness and Morrowind/Oblivion's staticness (of quests and such). And a Morrowind/Oblivion journal fusion.