Elder Scrolls do nothing.

They're barely mentioned in their own games.

They have no integral value to ANY part of the game whatsoever. It is purely asthetic.



What have we learned? Bethesda isn't paying attention when they make a game that HAS TO DO WITH THE DAMN SCROLLS.

Elder Scrolls do nothing.

They're barely mentioned in their own games.

They have no integral value to ANY part of the game whatsoever. It is purely asthetic.



What have we learned? Bethesda isn't paying attention when they make a game that HAS TO DO WITH THE DAMN SCROLLS.

Is Morrowind really that good? First TES game I played was Oblivion and that was last year. But I've put an hour or two into MW and it seems like it totally svcks, what with the lack of quest markers and stealing icon.

If You're thinking that I'm going to talk about THE Scrolls... You're wrong. Let me explain.

For some time I've been wondering what's so different in Skyrim that I feel like it's not as good as Morrowind or even Oblivion. Graphics and mechanics aside ofc. It's not that I say it's a bad game. However something is missing and after a lot of tought, topics about unique items and lack of truly immersive, scary and dark dungeons/caves, I think I've finally managed to pinpoint my problem with this game. It's the small things. I haven't noticed it until recently.

When I played Morrowind, the land of Vvanderfell felt harsh, brutal and... like something I've never seen before. The whole Island and the Dunmer culture was new, something I've never seen in any other game, book or movie. It was kinda fresh and unique. And that feeling that if you won't watch out something horrible will happen... like you'll end up dead, killed by some "outlander" hater or cut into pieces while venturing into Daedric Shrines. Naturally after a while the player was able to create such powerful character that not even a God could be a match for him. At that point everyone randomly met would praise You're name as the Nerevarine.

- progression, from Zero to Hero
- after some timepeople would recognize You
- Dunmer Culture/Architecture
- a harsh and demonic land

Few years later Oblivion came out. Very colorful and bit... can't find a proper word - strange. Despite the flaws like new level-scaling system, awful NPC faces, their animation during the dialogue, dreadful Oblivion Gate closing and few other things, it was still a great game. We were in the center of The Empire, Cyrodiil. Although the cities were very and I mean very small compared to those from MW they were filled with NPC of all races, talking with each other and... spreading gossips. Imagine my surprise when I accidentally heard a chat about Nerevarine! It felt so good to hear stories about what's going on in the world. It felt real and alive. The guild's were back, some had really interesting questlines. It overally felt like I'm in the center of culture for the land of Tamriel. The Shivering Isles made things only better with Sheogorath and his crazy world.

- center of Tamriel, filled with different cultures (races)
- interesting quests (I'm still amazed by a quest where I killed a guy with a Deer Head trophy!)
- NPC's talking, spreading gossips
- Shivering Isles

Now we have Skyrim. What can I say about it. It's a great game. It improved both on graphic and mechanics but... it doesn't feel like an Elder Scroll game so much anymore! You'll say "WTF are You talking about!? There are books, artifacts and tons of other stuff!". Here is the thing.

Anyway it was said that Bethesda plans to improve Skyrim. I hope they fill in some gaps to expand it's story with something more oryginal and... tamrielic?

I do not agree.

Skyrim definitely feels more unique and Tamrielic than Oblivion did. I say it feels more unique because each hold has it's own little idiosyncrasies and aesthetic both in its cities and in its general geography. For example, I could never see a picture of Windhelm and confuse it for Morthal, or see a picture of Winterhold and mistake it for Dawnstar. This is because of the "little touches" like emblems, guard armor, things like that. The things that made each town in Morrowind different from the others even when the towns were in the same style. I would never confuse Ald Ruhn with Maar Gan, say. (This is subverted with fishing villages. I would need a second to differentiate Hla Oad from Gnaar Mok).

The game feels more Tamrielic than Oblivion because of the plot and because of the little touches again. They just have words for things that are inherently Tamrielic. The Voice is capitalized, as is Tongue, when used in the context of the thu'um (which is uniquely Tamrielic). Dragons, while immediately recognizable as Dragons, have the spin of not breathing fire but speaking it, and that their language is itself powerful. Having words be a literal power instead of their usual metaphorical one is very much Elder Scrollsy. Then you have Alduin, son of Akatosh. Ald son of Ald, the god who is son of himself. That sort of weirdo-loop is inherent in The Elder Scrolls. Then with the Daedra, they return to the threatening, alien beings they were.

POLITICS! You have the Thalmor, returning at last to the forefront for the first time since their hastily scrawled margin notes in the pocket guide, seeking to unmake Talos in order to unmake reality and become gods which they consider the natural state of all "true" Altmer. You have an Emperor who is well-intentioned but wrong for the job in these troubling times, you have a Nord warlord pretending to be a traditionalist to rally his people against the Empire when really the only beef is Talos. Then the war, while paced poorly, actually follows reasonable strategy in it's broad strokes,
There's more, but that's off the top of my head. It's definitely got more stuff that screams Elder Scrolls in it to make sure you know what world you're in.

Don't fool yourself, TES games have never had any good system or risk and reward or any major complexity involved in the questing and stories (You could say Morrowind at a stretch but that's about it). They've been doing what they've been doing for years, appealing to the current demographic of gamers - they did that for all previous games.

I had one major complaint about Oblivion, you got shoved into the 'chosen one' role really quickly and it was hard to get out of it.Though there was still a rise from nobody to hero as you did deeds.

In Skyrim, this is even worse though, a mere 2 quests after the tutorial dungeon you are the Dragonborn and suddenly the most famous person around......well there went any sort of character hero development.



In my opinion though, every elder scrolls game is suffering from a major lack of morality and choice. Each game is getting a little better, but the choice in how i want to develop my character story wise (an evil assassin, happy bard, noble warrior) is really restrictive in these games. Morrowind got away with it by having enough content that you just picked from all there was and did the bits that suit....Oblivion had no choice....Skyrim now has some choice, but still quite often you get railroaded into evil deeds all the time.

In Oblivion you know you're someone special during the tutorial when the Emperor has his little chat with you. In Skyrim you don't until you kill your 1st dragon and that can be delayed indefnitely. Skyrim handles it much better than Oblivion did IMO.

This is true, but still not as well as it could. Certainly not as well as Morrowind did.

In Skyrim you escape Helgen and are encouraged to go straight to Riverwood. It makes sense because you're probably at the encumbrance limit, so why not by? To me it's almost like leaving the Census and Excise office and skipping Seyda Neen. Then you get the Golden Claw quest, which is fun to do and all but make sure you don't pick up that 25 lb, undroppable dragonstone if you go...but of course you're tempted to grab it anyways because it would be a pain to come back if you do decide to do the main quest later. And then there's the fact that if you want to use the most centrally located city on the map you have to go up to the guards and tell them you're here to warn the Jarl about the dragon (by the way, from an RP perspective you're an ass if you don't warn the Jarl about the dragon...) and then if you want to visit Baalgruuf you get jumped by Irileth and forced into the conversations, and pretty much shoe-horned into stopping the dragon attack. And then after that the huge, obnoxious cliffracers dragons are spawning and making a mess of everything.

Contrast to Morrowind where you get off the boat with vague instructions to go to a certain city and see a guy with a certain name. Here's a coded package. It's a lot easier to just throw the package in the lighthouse fire and take off on your own if you want to. 'Screw you Empire, imprisoning me unjustly, and then expecting me to be an errand boy'. Of course if you feel obligated to the oppressive system that so magnanimously decided to stop treating you like a rat you can go to Balmora anyways and go find where Caius Cosades is. "Okay Caius, I'm ready to start slaying dragons, or whatever it is you have here," and then he pretty much replies 'Whoa, slow down there noob. You ain't ready for anything this island's got in store for you. Here's 200 gold, go get some training, and do some other stuff...like one of the dozen guilds we have available here for you to join. Or just freelance adventuring - I don't care, just do something besides the main quest while I huff on my skooma pipe. Come back when you want to." Easy for pretty much any roleplay character to at that point say 'Well I did what they asked me, screw this stupid old druggy.'

So hopefully you'll agree that while Skyrim was a step up in terms of Oblivion, Morrowind had far better pacing and options here.