What's funny to me is the opposite. I like Oblivion's setting, it's lore, its quests, its fast-travel, and its quest marker, but I hate the level-scaling system.

Differing opinions are an interesting thing. Who came up with that statement about the world being a boring place if everyone was the same?

As for my take on the missing thing, I don't understand why the damage changing connection is any less of an RPG mechanic than a chance to hit changing connection. The first type of connection plays out the same way yet is just more appealing to the senses, in my opinion.

Hey , you didn't even come close to offending me so feel free to sound off.

OK, that three day thing was hyperbole but it did seem to me to take forever go transit from the starter town to the first place I was directed to go to. A good deal of my slow travel were the windstorms. Not only did they come up regularly, but they tended to divert me and then I got lost. I also couldn't stand the annoying repeated sound the windstorms made. I mean it was the SAME sound repeated every few seconds so I tended to quit the game rather than listen to it (even at low volume). I suppose I could have just turn the speakers off, but gee, wouldn't it be better if the sound was better?

Obviously I can follow my nose to a goal. After all, I managed to play OB several times including the often complex undergounds and enjoyed that so maybe I can't really put a finger on why travel in MW (by foot) annoyed the squat out of me until I got powerful enough to move faster and also levitate. The neat thing about levitate is that I no longer got close to my goal but on the other side of an unclimable hill.

Two reasons I didn't fast travel in MW initially. First, I didn't know about it. I bought the game through eBay used. It came with just the CD - no map or booklet. Second, I rarely fast traveled in OB because I figure why buy a game and then skip over the scenery? From here, I learned that MW improves greatly when you get more powerful so I figured to walk everywhere to level up and get the game enjoyable.

It was too. I'd replay OB again, but I have no interest in doing MW again because the start up is so slow and painful. That was the basis of my post to the newbie. IMO, the characters are too weak and slow at startup. If you have a LOT of patience, then you can get to where the game gets good, but that took days for me.

Rindill's lengthy summary of both plots seems to cover the essentials of the OB story quite thoroughly, but only deals with the "official" side of the story about Nerevar and Dagoth Ur.

The "other side" of the MW story, as told in part by the Ashlanders and revealed via clues throughout, is that the Tribunal may be almost as much at fault for the current situation as Dagoth Ur, who may have originally had mixed intentions before the Tribunals' actions (obviously, he claims it was entirely their fault). Part of the Tribunal's treachery is eventually openly admitted by Vivec, part is never actually confirmed. The whole beauty of the plotline is that there are more than two "black and white" sides to the issue, and that almost everyone either has some vested interest in maintaining the "fiction" or is powerless to oppose it.

This seems to be an ongoing difference between the games: OB is much more strightforward, MW has a lot more hidden behind the scenes, which it takes time and effort to uncover. The rewards are worth the effort, but you have to be willing to invest that time in the game. Obviously, not everyone has the time, or the patience, to do that, so the differences in opinions from one player to another are understandable.

To me it is more about the presentation of the mechanic. I don't have anything against skill based accuracy, in fact I often prefer it (though lets be honest here, what I experienced in MW was a completely ridiculous implementation of it). If the game had been a third person or iso game it wouldn't have bothered me nearly as much, but if you put me into first person and give me a crosshair, I then put that crosshair right on something and attack, I expect to hit whatever is in that crosshair.

For me, it was the presentation of the mechanic plus the ridiculous nature of it that just made it 'roflmao' worthy.

You could say that, but tell me, do you know what was behind Oblivion? There is more than people give credit for there, although I would agree that Morrowind has more going for it in the background, but Oblivion has some of that too. My problem is I find Morrowind's gameplay actually lacking in comparison to Oblivion, and it can have all the more depth it wants, but I found the gameplay itself to be lacking in motivation or variety, and there are many smaller things I prefer about Oblivion. The lore is still present. That is not debatable. Oblivion has lore, although less of it than Morrowind, but much of Oblivion's lore is completely optional.

I often wonder why people rarely even seem to know who Mankar's father is, how the Ayleids fought and subsequently lost in the first place, Mankar's implied ancestry, or the invasion of under Uriel 's orders. There are a myriad of things that rarely seem to be discussed about Oblivion's lore and people don't even seem to notice the whole Ayleid thing. Who can tell me about the sadistic practices of the Ayleids, or the tribal structure of goblins? What about Reman Cyrodiil? Where was he born? In what era did he live? What is the name "Alessia" a corruption of and who was her lover? Who is the one her lover called "uncle"? Say a few words of the Ayleid language or tell me how an Oblivion gate is opened, in detail. What is the difference between "white" and "black" souls? How did the internal conflict within the Mages' Guild cause it to collapse and who here has ever seen a hist tree before Oblivion? What did the first steal from Nocturnal and how was Sithis central to the Dark Brotherhood? Who does Count Indarys have strong ties to back in Morrowind? Tell me about the Beggar Prince? What was his/her name and how did he/she plea to ? What were the "gifts" bestowed upon him/her? Explain the folk tale of Garridan or the story of Rislav the Righteous. Who was Rislav the Righteous? Explain either the Beggar/Thief/Prince/King series or the Argonian Account series. Pelinal's seemingly holy virtues of sainthood were really only how the races of man viewed him. How was he truly not a man of such virtues? He had strong ties to and . Describe the vampires of Skyrim and Valenwood. Was there always only one tribe of vampires in Cyrodiil? If no, what happened to the others?

Is crossbreeding between vampires and orcs possible? Who was at the coronation of the Emperor Gorieus? How did Uriel Septim VII's experience involving Jagar Tharn change him? Describe the Orum Gang or the Renrijra Krin. What is a famous saying of the Renrijra Krin? How did the Oblivion Crisis worsen an already troublesome situation of the empire and, specifically, Cyrodiil? Describe the coronation process of a new emperor. I could keep going on, but I probably shouldn't. Anyway, I know that most people who say Oblivion has little going on in the background do not even know the answers to many of these questions. Does Morrowind have more going on? Of course it does. Does Oblivion add nothing new to lore? Hell no. It added more to lore than TES I, TES II, and both of the adventure games, by far. I'd say being in second place out of 6 places for contributing lore to the series is pretty damn good.

I can't decide, and I don't really want to. I love'em both.

I'd go a step further and say DF was better than either. However, I'd give MW the nod over Oblivion. Now, if you are playing the pc and able to dl FCOM, that certainly makes it closer to DF. I like the lore, the skill sets etc. The first time King Lysandus(sp?) moaned in DF, at night, I nearly jumped out of my skin. There were other moments like that in DF, that you lose wtih O and to a lesser degree with MW. The music in DF was awful, much better in O and the graphics were obviously better in O as well. However, the story, the water was interesting, the challenge of actually going out and finding stuff...hated the compass. I'm just concerned that they are taking the series in the wrong direction. Hopefully I'm wrong. They could learn something from Bioware, IMHO.

I find Oblivion far closer to Daggerfall than Morrowind is to Daggerfall. Key features with Daggerfall was randomness, most things like monsters / npc in dungeons, loot, shop content and quests was random, all of this except quests was level scaled.
Yes level scaling in Daggerfall was better than in Oblivion as it had a wider range of enemies; you had a small chance of running into a daedra lord at pretty low level.

Key word for Morrowind was hand placed; only monsters and loots in containers was level scaled, outside some locations enemies did not respawn.

Landscape in Oblivion was do a large degree generated by a procedure, yes roads locations and eyecandy was added for hand but most flower and threes are generated. In Daggerfall not only the landscape but also lots of town content and almost all dungeons was generated by procedures.

One feature I miss from Daggerfall is the random quests; I found that many of the quests in Morrowind could just as well be random like the first mage guild quests in Balmora, why not as for some random plants from a list instead of the same all the time. Overall quest quality in Oblivion is better but it has far fewer guild quests. Yes the quests would not be terrible exiting, typically like get me an item, kill somebody or perhaps a rescue at location in a list,
Use a list of quest and a list of fitting locations for them now add item or npc if needed.
Would be a easy way to boost the numbers of quests, now mix them with the good story based quests in Oblivion and you would get far more variation.

Wow, Seti, did you go reread, like, every book from Oblivion to get those questions, or was that just from memory? If it's the latter, I am very impressed.

Morrowind by far. A masterpiece. Oblivion is a good game but doesn't even make it on my top 10 RPG list. Been an RPGer for a little over 2 decades and while OB looks nicer and is technically superior (relatively speaking, for its time), its the characters, story and the vibe of game that you remember and OB just lacked something there (for me).

If i had to summarize:
Morrowind has more content, but Oblivion is a sleeker game.

Both have there own unique atmosphere which means ALL people claiming "morrowind has better atmosphere" are wrong, it's just they prefer that particular atmosphere.

I will admit Oblivion is simplified to a degree from Morrowind. But it's still an rpg and probably contains more content than most games released present day.

Conclusion: There both damn good.

It was all from memory. I'm a nerd.

In all seriousness, I could even ask many more. Oblivion did give quite a lot of material to work with, including implied/visual material that required some observations and inferences to be made (goblin hierarchal systems/goblin tribal structure, political corruption and disunity in Cyrodiil's counts/countesses, political corruption within the Mages' Guild and a now-proven to be true hypothesis on the guild causing its own demise, etc.).

Here's the thing... Each game was brilliant in it's own right.

Morrowind:
Pros: I cannot say enough about Morrowind, simply because I played it consistently from the day it came out for almost 3 years, and I *still* did not do everything there was to do. Morrowind was such an expansive and immersive game with so many plots and sub-plots, dungeons, easter eggs, (the list goes on and on...). The main plot itself was amazing-- a masterful piece of fiction in it's own right (unlike many of today's games), it was intriguing and mysterious, with betrayal, ancient history, lore. At the end you were left to wonder if the antagonist really was the antagonist. Again, brilliant.

Cons: The game play was adequate, nothing too special (by today's standards anyways) and the assassin's guild left a little to be desired.

Oblivion:

Pros: The game play was much better. The combat was fairly dynamic. Dungeon traps usually tended to surprise you (unless you constantly looked for them), the stealth game play was very nice-- the assassins guild was crazy! But again, still a great game.

Cons: By comparison, Oblivion was much simpler. The plot was very simple (kill the big bad demonic guy, save the world). The world itself was much smaller (or maybe it just felt like that because of the fast travel). Which was another thing, fast travel: bad idea! While walking the long distances in Morrowind may have been a bit dull on occasion-- half of the neat little things I found were on the way to my destination! I never would have found Chrysamere had I not been bouncing across the water with slow fall, a jump bonus, and water walking. Or the cave with the boat full of loot after the maze filled with monsters (and the cute little cranny hidden in the ceiling with the Daedric Face of God). I did not like the lack of levitate in this game-- it made the entire world very 2 dimensional!

Anyways-- in conclusion, combine these 2 games and you have the best game ever made. Oblivion game-style, Morrowind depth and plot.

See, people don't know Oblivion has lore. Morrowind's plot structure was exactly as simple as Oblivion's and Oblivion actually has quite some depth to it, as well. No, Dagoth-Ur was most definitely the antagonist. He's the big bad guy you had to kill at the end. I suppose Oblivion's lore will fade into obscurity because of the falsities surrounding it. Morrowind's plot was similarly about killing the big bad guy and saving the world, actually, and both stories had some backstory to them.

I don't think anybody's saying Oblivion doesn't have lore. I think people are mostly referring to how deep the plot runs within the game and how it's built up in the eyes of the player. Morrowind's MQ is, in my opinion, the better one... and it's mostly because of how it's built and introduced to the player. Nobody tells you exactly what's going on and you have to sort of fill in the gaps yourself. It's a truly historical story in the sense that a lot of things in it are uncertain. The characters have more dimensions too, I think. Dagoth Ur is the big bad guy you have to kill in the end, but listen to his story. He's not all bad and evil. In some sense, he's almost got a point.

In Morrowind, you can really get in to what you're doing. In Oblivion, the general feeling is more "okay, let's close this gate, great another Sigil Stone, how fun, let's go kick Mehrunes Dagon's ass".

That's not really a fair assessment, though, in my opinion. You're looking at the overarching background of one, and the individual fetch-quests that make up the other. Of course one is going to sound more menial and tedious when you phrase it like that. Watch-- in Oblivion, you can really get into what you're doing. In Morrowind, the general feeling is more "okay, let's go here, kill/find/talk to the target, return to the quest giver, great now I'm the Hortator, let's go kick Dagoth Ur's ass."

Oblivion's story really isn't clear-cut either. I suggest you look into the background of Mankar Camoran, and listen to his speeches again. He's not really clear-cut evil either, and from an Altmer's perspective, his goals are actually almost admirable. Mehrunes Dagon is irrelevant to the story beyond that you're trying (and you fail) to prevent his return. It'd be like if partway through Morrowind, the 6th House murdered Vivec, stole the Wraithguard, and completed Akulakhan, forcing you to destroy it while it's stomping around Mournhold or the city of Vivec.

I would argue that Oblivion's story is gray and ambiguous in terms of the player character and his influence on the world. You failed to protect the life of your emperor, allowed your enemies to steal the Amulet of Kings, had an opportunity to kill Mankar Camoran and retrieve the Amulet, but bungled it and allowed him to get away, and in the time that it took you to right that mistake, you allowed the Mythic Dawn to put their plans into motion. And, when you've finally retrieved the amulet, put all the pieces into place, and reach the grand finale, it turns out you're not even the big hero, you were just a tool that fate used to move Martin, the true hero, into place so that he, not you, could save Tamriel. Your character is a complete failure as a protagonist, which is far more interesting to me than Morrowind's infallible chosen hero of destiny who saves the day without breaking a sweat.

I voted Morrowind. Although I enjoyed Oblivion, when I compare it to Morrowind it just wasn't the same experience. Oblivion was better when I added OOO to delete the leveled enemies and loot and give more questing, but I don't believe the extra quests were very lore friendly. It made the game more fun.

Morrowind was a more immersive game with more intense gameplay. It was more of a challenge and you'd have a hard time just finding you way to where you want to go, let alone finding treasyre. It seemed to have more depth and an interesting storyline. Oblivion just seemed to be an Elder Scrolls game for the casual gamer, not for the hardcoe fans of the series. And that's the the voting reflects the way it does.

Some of the things I liked about Oblivion more were:
1. Obviously the graphics and also voice overs and physics.
2. Combat system, spells are more fun and I don't have to swing my sword a million times to hit something once at the beginning.

What I would like to see for the next Elder Scrolls game is an experience for the hardcoe gaming and Elder Scrolls fan. The combat system similar to Oblivion would work. A lockpicking system similar to Fallout 3 and New Vegas.

One thing I'd like to cover is that stealing should not be punished if there is no one around(no Karma loss like Fallout and no red text after you drop the item) Similar to Morrowind, if you steal something and no one is around, it is yours(you just can't sell it to the original owner). Instead of in Oblivion if you steal something valueable and want to showcase it in your house, it is red and says "steal" My point is don't make it so clear cut that something is someone else's, let the player have to use common sense to determine if something is someone elses property(anybody should fight you if you steal their property but it should only be a crime if it's a good person or living in a town with guards. The Oblivion and Fallout systems are just unrealistic and really make it awkward to be a thief. It is just something I've been thinking about lately.

Also no leveled gameplay or loot. A level one player should be able to get the best armor in the game from the beginning if he fights for it or pays for it. No more common bandits dropping good armor just because you're a high level, and [censored] armor if you're low level. Basically it should be like OOO mod for Oblivion, it make the game more difficult and way more immersive.

I'd also like to see more unique armor and weapon in hard to get to/secret locations, like Morrowind. More easter eggs.

That's all I can think of right now, it's late, I'm sure I have more to add and I will later as I think of them.

Edit: Also another thing I enjoyed more about Morrowind was that it came with a map with the game. An actual physical map. I remember going from the computer screen to looking at the map trying to find where I needed to go. A lot of caves and secrets were placed in the map, if you looked closely you might be able to find some treasure. Morrowind had plenty of hidden caves and rewards for adventurers. Oblivions minimap/compass thing told you where every cave and ruin was and if you'd been there before. It didn't reward the players nearly as much. Another addition that makes me thing Oblivion is for the casual gamer. Everything is more clearcut, you know exactly where you need to go. It doesn't give you the same sandbox gameplay that Morrowind did. Basically with Oblivion I didn't feel the same sense of accomplishment that I did with Morrowind. Oblivion almost reminds me of Fable, which is a terrible direction to take the series, imo.

Before mods, I never felt like I was in danger in Oblivion, I never had to run from a battle, I never snuck around, and I rarely died. This is not fun to me. Video games are being dumbed down for the new age of gamers. That's why the old school fans rarely stick to the new games. They aren't being created for the original fans, they are being created to bring in new players, a wider range of players. Why do that? Why not make the games for the people who played Morrowind or even Elder Scrolls before that? Maybe because a wider range of players means more quantity? Quantity over quality is the future(and present of video games aswell as other things)

I think you are missing the point.

I think what is happening here is a result of the shift away from the PC to consoles. Those old games were designed for PC, then later ported to consoles (if at all). These new games are being designed for consoles and ported to PC. So we see the experience dumbed-down to fit the interaction with a controller, instead of a keyboard and mouse. When you think of the controller as your main player interaction, then you find yourself limiting your designs to work better with that mode of control. The keyboard and mouse gives the player so many more options (can you imagine trying to map all the functions in Daggerfall to a controller?!). If the game is designed with that mode in mind, we see an entirely different type of game. Since gaming is moving in that direction whether we want it or not, I think Morrowind may have been our Swan Song. The last of the great designed-for-PC games. Prove me wrong, Bethesda. Please.

I don't particularly buy that explanation, especially not the control differences. I use maybe 10-15 buttons in daggerfall and 4 of those buttons are the movement keys which on a console would amount to a single joystick, and then there's individual keys for the sheets which on a console would amount to a single menu button and scroll function, a la oblivion.

Morrowind. I wish I could give a better explanation, but the simple fact is that I have spent months on that game, and only hours in Cyrodiil. I don't know why, but I just can't 'get into' Oblivion. It's a great game, but the minor annoyances let it down.

Um... I got a map with Oblivion, and not Morrowind...

Agree. Converting controls isn't exactly problematic. At least I think interface would be more problematic.
For example, I consider Oblivion's interface/menus good for consoles, but inadequate for PC. Darnified UI is what I would expect from the interface of a PC game.

UI for console and PC do need to be different, and it can be seen if they aren't. Either the text is too small because your expected to have a monitor in your face, or it's too large, because your expected to sit a distance from your TV.

Morrowind without a doubt. To this day it is my favorite RPG.