Hey guys, I've been a big fan of The Elder Scrolls ever since Morrowind was released. I thought it was the most fun and submersive game I'd ever played, and it still to this day satisfies me. I am playing it through again now, as a matter of fact. And now that I've played through both games, Morrowind and Oblivion that is, I've come to an opinion that I believe is shared by most of the Elder Scrolls fanbase. And that is, that Morrowind is, overall, better than Oblivion.

I want to look at the pros and cons of each game (and feel free to add to it, because most likely I won't get them all), and how this could ultimately help the creation of TES V. Keep in mind that a pro of one game could be a con of the other if they coincide and vice versa,


Morrowind
+Better story
+More diverse and mysterious landscape
+Better atmosphere
+Better/more creative enemies
+Seperation of power among great houses lead to variety in people's attitudes, and in cities/towns
+Better guilds
+Almost all NPC's have unique names
+Tons of readable books
+More weapons and armor, and harder to obtain/piece by piece
+Leveling system and many more skills
+Had to take transport, use spells, or walk, no fast travel. Seemed more real and fun.
+Better music
-Terrible combat system
-Dialogue system was boring
-NPC's don't acknowledge some acheivements, and contradict themselves often
-Bad sound effects (rain sounded like static)
-Cliff Racers (yes they do deserve their own minus)
-Reported crime although nobody is near

Oblivion
+Advanced graphics
+Better menues and quest organizer (although I liked the journal)
+Combat MUCH improved
+Bonuses for becoming leader of a guild
+Purchasing a house
+Physics
+Picking up fired arrows
+Magic more efficient and easy to use
+Dialogue gave NPC personality
+Sneak system
+NPC AI is advanced/schedules
+Chemistry between NPC's made it feel real world
-Crime reported although nobody around
-Game overall seemed too medieval
(which I believe is a bad thing because Morrowind made me feel submersed in a different world, but Oblivion just seemed set back in time)
-All cities are walled in, which seemed a little much. Who's to say what's a city and what's a town?
-Fast travel somewhat ruined desire to travel/explore
-little amount of weapons, most armor pieces could be found in one area to obtain a full suit

Now, what I think is, in TES V, the minuses of both sides need to be removed or canceled out. So overall, I believe these are the main problems with the games, as well as the good things about them. The problem with Oblivion is, I feel that most of its biggest +'s are stuff that would expect to be upgraded due to a new generation system.

In my opinion, if they were to remake Morrowind completely with upgraded graphics, combat, and all of Oblivion's pro's, it would be undoubtedly the best RPG ever. What I think would be a good idea personally (which actually could and would work) is to make a TES game on all of Morrowind. As probably all of you know, TES III took place on Vvardenfell, the center island in the province of Morrowind. If they made a game on all of Morrowind including the mainland, it would be the same large size as Cyrodiil, and would incude even more of the great houses (which I thought were a hugely great addition to the game), and the landscape of Vvardenfell.

So let me know what you guys think, add your opinions.

You failed to include whether you was including the PC version or the Xbox (360) version......most of the cons of Morrowind can be fixed by mods...(except the freaking cliff racers) and most of Oblivions can be fixed like that as well....but hey...you made a nice list

Morrowind is not submersive! Don't put it in your bathtub!

Anyway, as I've said before, the problem with Oblivion is that it fixed the stuff that wasn't too great about Morrowind while getting rid of everything that made it great.

If they fix the many things that svcked about Oblivion, keep the fun combat (but have much less of it), and bring back the stuff that made Morrowind good, and include a twinkie in every box, and make TESV free, they will be forgiven.

Now, take cover! :flamethrower:

Well this list was definitely more balanced. I've never played Morrowind that much, but the amount of bashing Oblivion takes from Morrowind fan(atic)s is more than a little unjustified, I think. It just gets bothersome after a while to someone who was introduced to the series by Oblivion. Oblivion is fine to. And besides, most of the problems listed can be fixed by modders.



This is way too conservative for me. I want new, untried, groundbreaking stuff. An entirely new system. Occasionally there might be something worth keeping. But if it isn't GREATLY FANTASTIC AWESOME then drop it and go a different direction. And, mind, the only super great thing about the Elder Scrolls series is its lore....so its the only thing I'd judge worth keeping for a new game.

If they followed your opinion, I would yawn, play through with one character, and go back to a life without video games. If there's nothing new to look forward to, why keep up the monotony? I've stopped playing lots of genres because of this feeling (like shooters and mmos and rts games). After I had played several, they all began to look the same to me and hence not worth the money.

About 99% of us here on the forums will agree with you on that. We like our Morrowind.

I was just saying that to get my point across of the positives of both games. I wasn't suggesting it. I want new stuff too, but old stuff is never bad.

Well, can't have everything can we? :laugh: I'd personally prefer new stuff over old stuff. But I understand a balance is needed. If Bethesda tried out something entirely new, and it turned out crappy or had a poor reception, then whoops--there goes an entire ES title. They've got to make slow changes. Keeping some old stuff while adding new tricks and watching how the fandom reacts.

I'm all talk as a fan about innovation and whatnot. I imagine that if I was in charge of a game design company I'd sing a different tune.

As far as I know versus threads are frawned upon by the moderators, so I fear this will soon get redirected to the geral suggestion thread. But since I can be wrong (yes even things like this happen form time to time) I'll make some comments to your list:

I think that a definitive plus for Morrowind is:
- Less pushing main quest. things do not seem so urgent as they do in Oblivion
- far less black vs. white morality. Each guild has its good and its bad people and often you are given a choice to side with the good ones or the bad ones
- magic system. Oblivion's casting with a weapon drawn and mana regen are nice, but the core system of Oblivion, system that depends on perks is terrible beyond imagining
- combat (yes, I like Morrowind's combat far more the the one of Oblivion as it is far more driven by the character skills and attributes)
- no minigames
- user interface is far friendlier for PC users, Oblivion's is made for consolers, and since I only play on PC, I could not care less
- NPCs have names, almost all of them, this makes them seem unique
- more and better spells
- teleportation spells

A plus for Oblivion:
- stealth - far better made
- female versions of armour and clothing. It was distracting to see women in Morrowind with totally flat chests while wearing clothes
- names of clothes are actually descriptive (so instead of Exquist pants you get velvet pants, which is a bit better)
- Reflect damage spell is nice, turn undead spell actually works this time
- arrows are retrivable from enemies and you can often recover even those that have missed the mark

TES V should improve the physics and their use in combat - I would like to see spells that can reliably push or pull things or other characters, more interactive environment (here I guess beth could be inspired by the Dark messiah game, where you can push your enemies on spikes, throw objects at them and so on) and give us a much better facegen

Well I think of this more as a comparison thread than as a VS one, even though it is in the title.
But good suggestions, these are some I left out. Although I liked lockpicking more in Oblivion. Another thing I forgot to include is the books. But I meant to include a lot of what you said, actually. I'll edit.

Dude I loved the combat in Oblivion, and honestly if I were to suggest anything at all I'd point you directly to the thread about the armor. They have some good ideas brewin' over there. (edit: In fact I will lol http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1095793-tess-weird-armor-system/ )

Oblivion:
+Large cities with their own walls
+Mounts
+Combat
-Towns aren't really towns, they're more like small forgettable settlements.
-Creatures that leveled with you. Seriously, this made it so boring, there was no "Oh [censored], run!" moment unless I turned up the difficulty way high.

Morrowind:
+Probably the opposite of what I didn't like about Oblivion; creatures in caves or other which didn't level up with you, attempting to murder you until you ran out the door, and more interesting towns.
+Everyone else has mentioned the atmosphere, characters, plot, etc. (hell, even the 'bandits' in caves had names)
-Aand what everyone else said about the sound, combat, etc.

ESV (bringing the two together and improving them)
Improving large cities with walls: Make the walls part of the outside world, maybe put patrolling guards on top, and have an option to scale them (a ladder, or grappling hook, or a skill or something). This would make it way more interesting for the shadow types, or hooligans looking to make trouble. You would still have the gate option, of course.

Large/Medium/Small communities: Large is obviously your big cities. When I think Medium, I think of Balmora from Morrowind. Small would be equivalent to the towns in Oblivion. Towns (medium) and settlements (small) should go along with the open world.

Mounts+Combat; c'mon, a match made in heaven. I would LOVE to see bandits charging towards me trying to flail me with a mace. It was kind of pitiful seeing a guard have to stop all four seconds just to get off his horse to attack me. Danger makes a story just as much as dialog.

That's all I can think of now, got kind of carried away lol

^ I like those, although I didn't like that all the cities had walls. It seemed like.. IDK I can't explain.

One thing that I can't explain but I'd like to compare is that in Morrowind, you had no sense of direction. You could follow the guy's directions to Balmora, or take the Silt Strider. You couldn't look at your map, which was awesome. You had to find all the cities individually without any sense of where some were. I remember the first time I came across Sadrith Mora I was amazed that I found such an awesome city out there.

[censored], I wish that was a joke. Unfortunately it doesn't seem that way. I didn't even like Oblivions combat but even that was MILES better than Morrowinds piece of junk it calls a combat system. (My opinion)

I want Mount and Blade style combat (Which is both more realistic and way more fun)

The problem with Oblivions walls and cathedrals: the cities were no where near big enough to justify them. Don't get me wrong, I like big epic walls and large ornate cathedrals. But a city with ten private residences hardly justifies such large architecture. Now, if each city was, say, home to 50 residences on the inside, plus additional businesses, with more people commuting to the city from the outside, then such large structures would be more than justified. As it stands in Oblivion, however, both the Cathedral and the Walls are just to big for the cities they occupy.

This size problem is also why the towns weren't really towns. If you put more than five residences in a town, its size starts to approach the city level. Hence all the one, two, or three house 'towns'.

I prefer the walls that were in Ald-Ruhn and Balmora, they seemed to fit better. What I loved was the diversity. Sure there was some change in architecture in Oblivion cities, but nothing extreme. Redoran cities and towns favored the mud dried buildings, whereas Hlaalu favored concrete, and my personal favorite was Telvanni's mushroom housing.

+1 for "Morrowind's combat system was an absolute piece of junk"

I'm currently in my first ever proper playthrough of Morrowind, having played nearly 700 hours of Oblivion.

So far I'm finding the atmosphere more immersive, and I actually prefer having most of the dialogue in text, which I never thought I would. The only mod I have installed is the one that makes all cliff-racers non-aggressive :hehe: I like the more compact world compared to Oblivion's large and mostly empty landscapes, even though they are beautiful.

The combat is pretty bad though, I really don't like it. I think the music in Oblivion is slightly better, it has a more epic feel to it. I also think the more 'mysterious' atmosphere in Morrowind is due to the fog. If you got rid of the fog I think it wouldn't feel the same at all.

Nope, it still feels just as mysterious and awesome...And more beautiful. (Thank you, MGE)

Morrowind's "combat system" was nothing more than a graphical way of resolving encounters, and was almost entirely dependent upon the character's skill, not the player's (except for timing). Oblivion's combat system was a game of its own, like all of the other "mini-games, and depended almost entirely on the player's skill, not the character's (except for damage nerfing). MW was more RPG than Action game, OB was more Action game than RPG. Personally, I thought that BOTH combat systems were garbage, for totally opposite reasons.

What Bethesda REALLY needs to do for TES V is wipe the slate clean and create a combat system that uses (and graphically depicts) the PLAYER's input to control the "intent" of the character, but the CHARACTER's Skills and Attributes determine how quickly, accurately, and forcefully those intentions are carried out, with some randomization of the results that aren't "obvious dierolls", yet are heavily influenced by them. In MW, you had complete and direct control over your attacks, but the hit/miss outcome was based on a random skill check, and the animations for missing were non-existant, so your weapon often passed harmlessly through the opponent. In Oblivion, control was delayed, so you hit the attack button and then waited impatiently for the attack (always the same old attack) to actually happen, which ALWAYS hit if the opponent was close enough and in front of you, but was then "nerfed" by your weapon skill. In both cases, I felt half in control and half disconnected from the character.

In short, combat needs to be based on BOTH the character's and the player's skills. The Lockpick and Persuasion mini-games in OB are examples of complete failure to do that, where a player with quick reactions could "beat" the mini-game regardless of the character's total lack of skill, and a less-nimble player simply couldn't play a thief because they couldn't get past the confounded mini-game, despite having high character skill at the task. It may have been annoying at times because it was a bit "heavy handed", but made much more sense in MW, where no amount of player skill could make up for the fact that your character just couldn't do something. A better compromise is needed for TES V.

Well as far as walled off cities go, I think that they would fit well into Skyrim. At least some cities should be walled off, BUT cities should never ever again be made separated cells. That felt really weird in Oblivion. I did not like much the walls in Morrowind because both the ones in Balmora and Ald Ruhn seemed way too low and useless, more fitting for villages then cities. In TES V I hope that big cities will have high and magnificent looking walls, while smaller towns have more shabby looking ones. Of course it would be nice if the big cities had some sort of outskirts and places that are beyond the walls, yet close to the city itself.



No, not really, I was not joking. I do not think that Morrowind's system was anywhere near perfect, I just said that I liked it more then the one of Oblivion. The reason is that I find Oblivion's system as boring and annoying as hell. Morrowind had more then one attacking mode (slash, thrus, chop), in power attacks, you were the one to release them, the game did not do it for you and you definitely had the feeling of rising in your combat skills. You could see your own improvement. Also in Morrowind, even if you had the best superweapon ever any you had no skill in it, you would not do much damage. In Oblivion, lack of skill is easily surpassed by the quality of a weapon, which seems strange to me. With a high skill, you should be dangerous even with a rusty dagger, but without a good skill, even a daedric dagger of carnage should be second to useless.

I see where you're coming from, but I feel that Bethesda tried to do some of that by adding perks. Because they felt that they were taking away from the character skills by adding the new combat system.

I would like if there was an indication of a hit and a miss, that would be cool. At least we had body physics that time around.

Really, if I want the best combat system in the world - both for mounted and on foot combat - then Mount&Blade does the job for me. It also helps that despite being action oriented and you pretty much having to fight large battles, it doesn't have that ridiculous, overly polished and shiny bloom that hurt my eyes when I first saw an Oblivion screenshot, and there's a reasonable amount of storyline and plausible, if not realistic setting behind. If people are playing Oblivion because combat is better, I suggest they check on Mount & Blade, because combat there is miles ahead from any TES setting.

Unless you're into magic. In the Morrowind Bias thread, it was duly noticed that the melee system in TES games was rather shallow and dull - which is why I prefer magical characters. In fact playing Morrowind as a Mage can be one of the most rewarding experiences ever, due to the need for all the considerations and thought that goes behind magical combat. How should I tailor my spells? Tough question. There's the option to make bundles of virtually everything, from raw magicka to fire damage, and powerful bundles to boot. But they are expensive. Should my spells be expensive? Hey, there's an enemy there! What kind of spell should I use, frost, shock or fire? And in what magnitude? And finally, will I get killed if my spell gets reflected? (Chooses fire if Dunmer, Frost if Nord).

This is just a shallow summary, of course, but people often call MW's combat boring without giving regard to it. Before OB nerfed magicka and took all the challenges of playing an Atronach away, of course.

Ultimately, MW wins because of the storyline, the setting, the incredible depth of the Quests, and finally the magical combat system. As I said, there are games out there that are much better than Oblivion in the hack and slash department, and if you want the semblance of a story behind your hack and slash, that's not even a problem! Other games also have it. What made MW so singular was the lore first and foremost, the RPG elements, and not the actioney, Doom style gameplay. Even in Daggerfall, which resembled Doom in many ways, a player could cleverly tailor his character to be a linguist, or to be able to cast powerful tongue spells, have your etiquette up there, and avoid combat with half of the dungeon he enters.

Mount & Blade= :wub:
Morrowind's magic = :wub:
Your post= :wub:

Imagine if Oblivion was like Mount and blade with dungeons and factions added, instead of just diet Morrowind. That would have been epicness! Do it, Bethesda! Please!

Yeah.

In fact there are sooo many choices when you play a pure Mage. MW is the best in the series in this regard... Let's see how you, as a Mage with reasonable skills can deal with an everyday situation. Like, when you meet a brute:

Option 1 - I run away.

a) I run away without any help, on my own.
b ) I run away with a fortify speed spell.
c) I run away with an illusion spell, like invisibility.
d) I run away with a swift swim, water walk or levitate spell, plus a fortify speed.
e) I use my bundle of Blind + Sound + Burden on the enemy brute, the fortify my speed and run away.
f) I cast Demoralize Humanoid on my foe, and run away.
g) I cast Calm Humanoid, then run away.

etc...

Option 2 - I fight.

a) I cast a powerful frost spell on my foe.
b ) I cast a powerful fire spell on my foe.
c) I cast a powerful shock spell on my foe.
d) I cast a bundle of it all on my foe.
e) I cast paralysis, the poison, then a bundle of powerful spells just like the guys in the Mages Guild tell you.
f) I cast a bundle of Blind + Burden + Sound, then cast a powerful spell.
g) Same as the above, but with Drain or Damage spells added.
h) I conjure myself a nice piece of armour, a nice weapon, plus a Daedra, and go skull bashing my foe.
i) Same as the above, but with Fortify Skills, Sanctuary + Blind, Burden and Sound on my enemy.
j) I cast invisibility or chameleon, sneak past my foe, deal critical damage.
k) I levitate, conjure myself a nice Daedric longbow, and start shooting my opponent to bits.

Etc...

In sum, I've played bazillions of Mage characters so far in MW, and I haven't yet scratched the surface of all the possibilities available to me as a pure or mixed magicka fighter. I've never played a Witchunter or Nightblade type yet, you know. Much less an Enchanter. Or an Alchemist. Or... Yeah.

Yeah, it's all about creativity. People say that most of the huge number of spell effects were useless.

But really it's just that some were for very rare situations, but perfect for those situations. I love combining mark and recall with the two interventions and the silt striders to plan out my route.

And I can't count the amount of times I'll happen to have some stupid enchanted item in my inventory that I forgot to sell, like an amulet of slowfall or a self-made levitate potion, and it ended up saving me from an otherwise dire situation.

This cuts both ways. Morrrowind gets its share of bashing too. In this very thread we can read several posts referring to Morrowind's combat as "junk".