That makes some sense to me. But my theory is that the new age of gamers don't like a challenge. They want to alleviate boredom with little effort. And Bethesda is catering to them trying to bring them into the world of Elder Scrolls. Bethesda needs to keep their dignity and pride and do what is right. Quit catering to the weak and let them play their crap games, instead of making our games crap. Bethesda needs to realize what made Morrowind better in the eyes of the fans and use it to not make the same mistakes.


Yeah, I believe I got a map with both games, but in Morrowind that map was the only way to locate towns, cities, caves, treasure, etc(at least for me anyway) In Obliviion, you didn't need a map at all, you have the compass which showed every ruin, cave, camp, city if you were close enough to it. I'd rather them not tell me where everything is, and that would wield a much larger sense of accomplishment and reward for the player once he found treasure. Easter eggs and secrets are one of the things that really set Morrowind apart from Oblivion(secret caves, hidden areas, secret crab merchants, scattered artifacts not related to any quest)

That's pretty impressive. And, speaking of Oblivion lore, I was actual pretty impressed when I read Report: Disaster at Ionith the other day. I had no idea that Akavir had ever been invaded by the Empire. Oblivion went up a couple notches in my book then.

Morrowind. I will admit there is a strong nostalgia factor, and a preference for the "style" both graphically and in terms of complexity compared to Oblivion. But aside from personal bias, I think some aspects are unarguable, such as the level scaling, and numbers of weapons/armors/factions/caves/NPCs/skills/spells which were all higher in Morrowind.

Morrowind all the way
I love Cliff Racers

I'm going to borrow Lady Nerevar's post from a different thread in response to this:

Morrowind for me mainly because of my nostalgia filter. As it was my first RPG. Although I do find myself missing Oblivion's system for using Combat, Magic, and Stealth when I go back to it.

The only real crime Oblivion committed against me was taking away my beard I loved everything else about it.

I think what it really comes down to is Bethesda is trying to make their games as accessible as possible to all gamers so that they can maximize their earning potential. The unfortunate side effect is that fans of the previous titles (the so-called 'hard-core' crowd) are feeling as though they are being left out in the cold. To be honest, I doubt that they will change their strategy because, let's face it, would a company rather cater to the 100,000* die-hard TES-fanners, or to the 10,000,000* other gamers in the market? I think the most we can hope for is that Bethesda will realize that greater accessibility doesn't necessarily require greater simplicity. From what I've seen with FO3, I'd say that they have listened to what we have to say (to a degree), and are taking steps to address some of their mistakes. I doubt, however, that we'll see another ES game with as much depth and complexity as Daggerfall, or to a lesser extent, Morrowind.

*Source: some numbers I made up out of thin air.

Cliffracers was boring; Morrowind advanced had flying spellcasting monsters however only with a boring fireball spell.
I would like a flying monster with damage strength and silence on target; summon cliffracer and invisibility on self.

Definitely Morrowind for me. However, that's not to say I don't like Oblivion.

They're the only TES games I've played, and they're no1 and no2 in my top games of all time. That may change should I play Arena and Daggerfall, but we'll have to wait and see.

I found Morrowind had a far more immersive landscape and lore. Plus, the Great House questlines were brilliant, and I liked that some Guilds had conflicting questlines.

I could carry on, but I won't. Morrowind > Oblivion > everything else (so far).

morrowind FTW! the only thing oblivion does better is combat. i even prefer the graphics from morrowind over oblivion. mainly b/c of the lack of variety in oblivion. i mean all the races in oblivion look the same (just different skin tones).

the races in oblivion remind me of a painting in my hometown. the painting was a scene from daily life in the town. when painted only whites were on it, and since 1/2 the town was black it didn't really make sense and (rightly) pissed some people off. so they had the painting redone to add some african americans to the work; however the artist just painted some of the white people brown and called it a day!

I chose Morrowind, probably because it's what introduced me to the series. Oblivions nice too.

Oblivion made the mechanics a bit less clunky, which I appreciate, but Morrowind felt more like someone had an actual vision of a world that they were trying to realize. Oblivion felt like it had too many individual designers saying "oh this would be cool" without really trying hard to connect anything together into any sort of larger picture -- like, none of the player-joinable factions seem to give a damn about the Oblivion crisis at all. WTH?

The story was meh -- the story in Morrowind was meh too, but it was alright because they did their storytelling through worldbuilding, which makes sense since they focus on open-world roaming rather than linear action. FO3, while it was even better than Oblivion in the mechanical aspects of design, went even farther down the shallow, random, EPIC!1!, Michael Bay path. My personal preference is that they model TES5 after Morrowind and New Vegas (yeah, not their game, but still) and focus on a world populated by interesting/fleshed out characters, groups, and societies, and tie those all into a world that sort of seems like a functional place instead of the set and props for a high school play.

Well, yeah, sure. Like anybody here, MW or OB fans, wants V to be full of 2 dimensional uninteresting characters who repeat the same phrases while living in a story line no more complex than a few UPS missions.

I've stated before and will again speculate that MW was played only a small way through by most folks who bought it. It's for the hard core only and hard core is a sparse market. I haven't a clue to sales figures (anyone?) but I'd bet that OB vastly outsold MW simply because it was an accessible game playable by those who are interested but hardly hard core (like me). I had to start a few characters in OB before I got a workable one, but once I did, I got right in the mix. When I bought MW (after OB) it seemed to me that I had to wait hours and hours for any action to get going. I only got really immersed in one expansion pack. Bloodmoon where I felt I could understand what was going on.

I've been mildly flamed here for not 'getting it' when it comes to MW. I'm ok with that. I don't claim to be hard core so someone saying I'm not doesn't bother me. My point here is that Bethesda has to look for sales or why bother? Re-issuing a story as slow moving / starting and as complex as MW today will only assure poor sales but great acclaim from the hard core.

Personally speaking, I think Bethesda would be insane to trade sales for hard core acclaim. I will surely buy TESV upon issue, but like MW, if it's too slow or complex, I'll just shut it down before finishing and fail to recommend it to others.

Well, that's odd. I've never considered myself "hard core" in any possible sense of the word, yet I by and large prefer Morrowind to Oblivion any day.

I'm awaiting hearing back from someone here who knows relative sales between the two. You can bet that Bethesda will go with the sales.

I work with a fem here who must weight 220 kg. She considers herself 'big' and not 'fat'.

Oblivion. Morrowind is a little too slow and dull for my liking and i despise the combat system. That said, i'm still fond of both games.

The factions did not care about the oblivion crisis as it supposed to be over; if you do the main quest early it makes far more sense. However doing so you loose access to the sigil stones so most people wait.
Main quest in Morrowind worked better as it had a lower profile, it did not become a public crisis before at the very end and it was something you had to do not the legion.

Agree totally with you that world building was far better in Morrowind while Oblivion was more balanced and had better game mechanism.

One idea for the TES V main quest might be to have a secret main quest; few except the blades and some other central npc know that you did.

Well I finished the Penumbra trillogy tonight and I have to say its a very good game(s). While the graphics arnt state of the art the lighting in the game and the sound makes it very atmopsheric and immersive.

Though all 3 games were completely ruined for me by bugs that happen just before the end, so I'd go looking for a way to fix it and end up having the ending spoilt, ruining the whole story.

I'll play through again one day and apreciate the game even more, because I wont be trying to figure out ways around bugs and evaluating the game.

Daggerfall.

Not an option you say? Fine then. Morrowind it is.

Morrowind and expansions with it, tho Oblivion is very close to it with DLC but idk I tend to enjoy Morrowind more specially cuz of werewolves, they need to be brought back damit!XD

For me Oblivion was an improvement to the past games in nearly every way. Was it perfect? No, but it was an advancement in the series and I enjoyed it much more than I did Morrowind, which is saying a lot because I really enjoyed Morrowind.

There's a lot of truth in this statement and there are people on either side of the argument who still see it otherwise. To add as evidence, most of the people who love Oblivion, including myself, want more stuff, more of everything, the people that the accessibility opened up the series to, are requesting more complexity.

I liked Morrowind's dialog system better, and the add-ons, but Oblivion did stream line things quite a bit. I would have to think about this one carefully.

Probably, for tangible things (armor, weapons, etc) I would prefer Morrowind, but for the intangible (side quests and design) Oblivion.

I vote for Morrowind.

I love both, but I love Morrowind a bit more.

Oblivion, although I hope to see a shift back towards heavier emphasis on stats and less on player skill in TES:V (although much closer to Oblivion's system than Morrowind's).