Any there are not many 'hidden' quests, no like morrowind where you could be wandering the wilderness and stumble upon something that is a quest. Most of oblivion hidden quests are unmarked, so they go back to the morrowind style and are quite good. But is not guild conflicts, like the camora tong controlling the fighter's guild. There were a few times when I was suprised by the game (like the grey prince's quest, DB and FG endings), but most of the time NPCs acted 2D

There is 1 NPC that can steal in the plain game...not multiple.




I like to compare the two games unmodded, as modded they are both very good games, morrowind's graphics can be better and oblivion can gain more content.

Really, I view the AI as the biggest improvement over morrowind, as morrowind is very lifeless in the way of NPCs doing things.

Trouble is you state the quest markers are optional, they are not. the game does not give you enough infomation in most case to be able to play through the first time without a marker. Stuff is left out to allow for less dialogue to have to be voiced, so that is where the marker pick up giving directions.

I am not an oblivion hater, I do love the game but I came into morrowind as oblivion was released, so maybe I am swayed that way. :shrug:

Unmodded comparisons seem like the best idea to me. Remember the XBox, the XBox360, and the ps3 versions. Sadly, I have never been able to mod either of the games thanks to that restriction.

which at least gamesas cant be blamed for, all that can be directed to mircosoft and sony

If only I could afford a pc that could at least run Morrowind, but I can't.

Good point you have there. I guess i didn't look at it like that. There really isn't too much information given when recieving quests besides "go here and do this because i said it's important". Which in itself is immersion breaking, slightly hand holding, and discourages exploration. Fast-travel causes you to lose more motivation for traveling and could easily be substitued by a horse drawn carriage or mages teleportation.(Once again hail the modding communtity........ i say that alot)

I agree with AI being very much an upgrade. Especially with new projects like BRAINS and http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1060697. The stuff they are doing is breathtaking.

Morrowind is not a game i have ever explored deeply. I played it for 60 hours or so. So I'm not one to have too many opinions here. And as stated the game you play more you'll like more, i play oblivion more.

I do need to pick up a GoTY Morrowind(availability dependent) and try my hand at it again.

In all honesty I've never completed ANY questline in Oblivion except the Arena. And the first time i played it was in 2006..... i love the game i just don't know what holds me back.

That's not much of a consolation to console players, is it?

Anyway, I think there are two main reasons why people complain about Oblivion.

1. Disapointment

A lot of Morrowind players expected Oblivion to essentially be fully voiced Morrowind in Cyrodiil with better graphics and Radiant AI (wich was being marketed as the holy grail of videogame AI). Then Oblivion came out and it wasn't essentially a fully voiced Morrowind in Cyrodiil with better graphics and Radiant AI. It was fully voiced, it had better graphics, and it had Radiant AI, but it was also quite different than Morrowind and geared towards a different (more casual) core target audience. And Radiant AI turned out to be little more than scripted scheduals. Copare that to the E3 videos where it is said that they don't use scripting at all and that they just give the AI general goals and it then figures out a way to acomplish those goals. Suuuuure it does. <_<

And people got angry because they didn't get what they payed for (a fully voiced Morrowind in Cyrodiil with better graphics and Radiant AI). And they voiced that anger and some of them got tired and went back to the Morrowind forums, but some still persist in voicing that anger. A lot of this anger could have been avoided if the PR department had said something along the lines of "This isn't going to essentially be a fully voiced Morrowind in Cyrodiil with better graphics and Radiant AI. We're redesigning the whole game to suit a more casual core audience."

2. Hope for a brighter future

TES 5 has not yet been announced. Bethesda is probably already working on it, but they haven't made anything official yet and that means they can still change their minds about almost anything. The louder we are about things that bother us about Oblivion, the greater the chance that TES 5 will do things more to our liking. This is the reason why I voice my opinions about scaling and leveling at pretty much any given opportunity, though I don't think I'd actually qualify as a hardcoe basher. I still like Oblivion, it's a fun game. But I just find Morrowind to be so much better in many aspects.

I don't hate it, I quite like it. Just not as much as MW. I do criticise aspects of it from time to time but I also praise those bits of it that were an improvement on MW (like how stolen goods were handled). Unfortunately a lot of people on forums only seem to hate or love games, theres no middle-ground for many people.

It depends on the situation. With the lack of directions, a complete absence of quest markers would've been frustrating. Especially for NPCs that move. Sure, you could look at things logically (the NPC will probably be at his house in the evening/morning) but it was nice to be able to find them at any time without knowing their exact schedule.

But they also used the quest marker A LOT when it wasn't necessary. I don't need to know the exact location of an item I'm looking for in a dungeon, especially if it's placed in a predictable and easily visible place in the deepest part of the dungeon. This isn't Daggerfall, it shouldn't be difficult to find what you're looking for in a dungeon.

I also didn't have to know the exact location of the diary in the house of the first Thieves Guild challenge. I want to explore and feel good when I've found what I'm looking for, not know that whatever I'm looking for is in the chest at the north end of the room behind this door or whatever.

some people get off by being elitist
s'bout it
OP asked why people bashed Oblivion, not why they didn't like it
not liking something isn't a reason to trash it

Well, if you started off playing Morrowind, like I did, Oblivion kind of looks like it took two steps back in comparison. Don't get me wrong; I love Oblivion and I was just as amazed with it during my first play through as you were.

But then I thought about it, and realized TES lost a lot of it's TESness when it jumped from Morrowind to Oblivion. That sense of adventure was completely diminished. Maybe I'm just wearing rose-tinted nostalgia glasses. It's quite possible I am. But in Oblivion, the quest marker tells you where to go, who to talk to, what to do/get/use. The architecture is not very unique, you know? It won't be like in Morrowind where you can stumble into a new region and see whole cities built out of giant plants. I was so amazed the first time I found Sadrith Mora.

The lore is also watered down. The Cyrodiil in lore is a lot different than the Cyrodiil in game (or 'was', at least). I think it's sad that they had so much lore to work with, but they through it all away so they wouldn't confuse newcomers to the series. I can understand that too. Beth is a business like any other; they're out to make money. So why would they want to alienate new players to their games? So they dumbed it down a bit in the hopes of attracting more people. And it's worked, yeah?

I still play mw2 mercs. Almost daily.

The radiant AI thing is really what killed replay for me. I know, I know! You already played it stupid. I was expecting something different when I replayed...NOPE. Scripted. What seems random is scripted. Sure, every once in a while two guards duke it out with a forester over shooting a deer, but that ends the suspense. THe "random" adventurer in a cave only comes to x cave. only goes to Rockmilk. THe three fighters guild guys only stay at that cave after you take care of their problem etc. NO goals. Its more Morrowind than you think. The difference is morrowind wasn't suppossed to have superAI.com/breakyourfaceawesome.quityourjob . No kidding. Where's the dog killer bookstore lady? She goes upstairs at 8 p.m. every night, comes down to open shop at 8 a.m., and the dog lives...EVERY TIME.

Don't get me wrong, it was fun the first time...Good luck getting me to try it again with a different class etc. because I'm not. It won't be any different even though it was meant to be.

What's the point of stealing when you need to be in a guild to sell it?!!? How the heck did they know I stole a necklace in Bruma all the way down in Anvil?!? Since I have the fastest horse they sure didn't outrun me, and since they can't mark and recall how did they get there? LAME.


WHo cares if you level? Not me. You get different gear that looks sometimes better but protects on par with the current level. You can try to make it harder for yourself and use lesser things, but it's still too easy.


MEH!

There's actually mods out there that improve morrowind's grapphics to the point of being on par with Oblivion's:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN0vYp9nabQ&feature=player_embedded#
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kexBQBYKgkU&feature=related

Those probably aren't the best examples, but there are mods out there that do it. Honest!

:facepalm:
OP asked why people bashed Oblivion, not why they didn't like it

Pretty simple answer. Because they don't like it.

then that's just being childish
there are many things i don't like but i don't go round mouthing off about them
if people don't like oblivion why on earth do they visit the forums

Ok Seti makes threads about Oblivion that is great. There was 2 thread 'Applause to Bethesda' and 'Why'. The 'Why' thread was about about how Oblivion to Seti was great and how Bethesda made a great game.

Comments like Morrowind is great and Oblivion was dumbed for stupid people (not exact word but you know what they mean), look at my sig. I love Oblivion as well, so that means I am inexperienced and don't know what the genre is.

I have playing RPG before some of yous(sp?) were born.

Morrowind at the time had it all expect the year it was released in limiting it in comparison to oblivion in a few obvious ways. Oblivion is an improvement over morrowind in every way expect depth and creativity. If I have to choose I like oblivion over morrowind because it looks better, I seen some landscapes when the sun is just right and it almost looks real. I was just thinking the other day how much shivering island kind of reminded me of morrowind, so shivering expansion added some much needed flavor to oblivion.

I also dont see why people complain about the combat in these tes games. Most tes games at least as far back as daggerfall are first person. I mean come on all you see is your hand with sword or maybe sword & sheild. What do people want? Maybe some more hand jive while their fighing haha

Alright, seti, I'm sorry. I was sure that you had made one like this before. But anyway, that doesn't matter.

I agree that people shouldn't be rude about it, but I honestly don't have any problem if people say they dislike the game, think it's for FPS addicts etc. The truth is, I actually agree with them in a way. Like I said earlier, Oblivion was made to be for a more modern audience. An audience who now plays games like Halo and Call of Duty. Bethesda was thinking as a marketer. They need to make a money. Nowadays, a game like Morrowind would only appeal to a small(er) audience, but Oblivion was huge because of it's simpler structure and wider age, skill and attention level.

However, this does not mean it's not an RPG. But it's not a 'hardcoe' RPG, where as Morrowind is.

It all comes down to your opinion of "Bashing."

If someone is jumping into a thread, saying "Oblivion is a pathetic waste of an RPG", but they don't back up "why," or say anything at all to support it, that is Oblivion-bashing.
If someone is jumping into a thread, saying "Oblivion is a pathetic waste of an RPG," and they then proceed to highlight exactly why they feel Oblivion is said waste of an RPG, then it is a valid opinion.

Could it be argued that they simply dislike parts of Oblivion, and that saying they dislike the game as a whole is being melodramatic? The answer is "No." Someone could certainly dislike parts of Oblivion and yet still enjoy the game as a whole, but there is a vast swath of people for whom the sum of disliked parts outweighs the enjoyment of the game as a whole; these are people who either put down the game and don't return to it, or they have to mod the game like crazy to make it enjoyable. So saying, "This game as a whole is a flawed implementation" is not over-the-top.

As for why this opinion appears all over the place...
Certainly, in some contexts, it might be a bit tactful to put things in a different wording to minimize conflict. But the fact remains that this is a forum board, and it's users have a whole collection of opinions on a wide variety of subjects. In the aforementioned "Applause for Bethesda" thread, if someone disagrees that Bethesda should receive applause for Oblivion because of their opinion of Oblivion, then that's not bashing. That's contributing to the discussion of the thread. Are we going to put up disclaimers on threads, saying "If you disagree with the basic premise of this thread, then don't post" now?

And it is very important to note, as others have, that the possibility of TES:V weighs heavily on all of this. People who strongly disapprove of Oblivion do not want to see what they disliked make a comeback. So they voice their opinion. This can be regarding individual mechanics, true, but it's also regarding the overall design philosophy that permeates Oblivion. The mechanics that people disapprove of are a direct result of that Oblivion design philosophy. And that philosophy is what people reject perhaps most of all.



I must say that, personally, Oblivion as a whole does not satisfy what Daggerfall, Morrowind, or even Redguard satisfied for me. Oblivion feels almost anti-TES, almost foreign to the Series it bears the name of (not counting KotN or SI; those redeem things).

Its implementations of leveled lists and scaling to always keep the player "challenged" is ridiculously flawed for a whole collection of reasons, ranging from the stupor of always having an exact game-determined match for your level, to the fact that said scaling permanently traps many character-archetypes and play-styles permanently behind the curve.
Its character dialogue is so limited as to be laughable.
Its usage of Fame and Infamy is completely and utterly ABHORRENT; it's a good/evil meter in disguise, and that's so untrue to what TES is about that it's not even funny.
Its main quest is rushed and damages the mood and feel of an open-world "do-what-you-want" game from the outset by causing the player to sacrifice immersion if they wish to procrastinate and delay.
Its main quest is also ludicrous; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K5rGUBUnnQ (WARNING -Spoilers in the link).
Its factions try and fail to grasp "epic," just as its MQ does.
Further, its factions are completely and utterly unrelated to one another and don't affect each other at all.
Not to mention that its factions are just off in their own little worlds for the entirety of the Oblivion Crisis.
Its lore as added by solid and actually discussable mediums like books and meaningful dialogue is limited as compared to its predecessors.
Pertaining to lore, the fact remains that and in terms of in-depth lore and understanding of that event, we still don't know what the [censored] happened. Total
Morrowind's and Redguard's amount of Kirkbridean works were off the charts; both places reeked of foreign power and intrigue and either Yokudan or ALMSIVI badassery; http://www.imperial-library.info/pge/cyrodiil.shtml that could still have been translated via game mechanics, but they were tossed aside in favor of not just an environment retcon but a cultural, social, and economic retcon.
Fast Travel to any location that you've ever been to before is a beta testing mechanic, not a game mechanic; it is a terrible invention.
Oh, and before anyone comes up with an "It's optional" quip, know that Oblivion's Fast Travel undermines other systems like limited travel systems ala Morrowind, and that Oblivion's fast travel system necessitated the removal of carriages-for-hire, boats-for-hire, Mages Guild Guides, and exotic ancient methods of travel, and the Mysticism skill was so gimped by the removal of intervention and mark/recall spells, it's ridiculous. So this "optional" fast travel system is by its nature killing options. Contradiction much?

The list goes on and on. I don't call this bashing. I call this reasons for why I find vanilla Oblivion largely worthy of scorn and unable to sustain my long-term interest

I love both Morrowind and Oblivion. No question about that.

The difference is I can still play Morrowind unmodded (even without graphical replacers). While I don't play Oblivion without mod. Why? Simple.

I started playing Morrowind, back then, wearing daedric stuff meant something. I remember playing for a LONG time before collecting my daedric armor, shield and dai-katana (I don't cheat or use wiki when I play). Back then, when traveling from X to Y for differents quests, I used my map often with the quests direction given by NPCs : "Ok, I have to follow foyada N until I reach this and then take the road, etc." It was fun.

Now what? There are few directions from NPCs and there is an arrow on the compass telling me where to go, etc. Note that I don't hate the compass, only the quest/place marker.

What about daedric? It's meaningless to me now. Once I reach a certain level, I find marauders in full daedric everywhere I go...


I don't understand the logic behinds those two decisions, but I sure love Oblivion nonetheless! And not only because of mod. Since I mainly use mods to change what I don't like. Same with Morrowind when I use mods.


I should add that I've seen a LOT of thread with people bashing Morrowind because of "poor" graphics or too much text.

well one good thing about the bashing that went after the release of the game is that the devs at least heard the outcry and the next TES will be better. I can't imagine anyone would want there to be the same leveling system there was in Oblivion, or for the game to be further simplified as far as skills and armor variety goes. I'm not saying that bashing is good, but it does come with a decent side effect that it highlights a game's major problems, and these problems can be improved for the next game. Fallout 3 improved on some of the problems that Oblivion had, like level scaling etc.

I don't remember if I bashed Oblivion, I will say that it's flaws are a massive scar on a beautiful game, but it's still one of my favorite games of the generation. Unfortunately, for most people who played Morrowind, the game is always going to be tainted by what it could/should have been. A lot of people feel cheated that perhaps Bethesda sacraficed depth( when compared to Morrowind) for graphics.

So why do people bash Oblvion? Becuase: The feel letdown, they have ridiculous expectations, they are elitists, they hate any game that's popular, they hate any game that gets a good score on a big website, they hate every game not made in the 90's, they hate the big flaws the game has.

There's already proof that the Devs heard the cries/angry rants about Oblivion and fixed at least the leveled item system.

Look at FO3. At level 30, you still see raiders wearing subpar armor and using subpar weapons (and an occasional Missle Launcher or Flamethrower thrown into the mix.) Same assortment as if you encountered them at level 1. The 'Clavers do increase in toughness, but you still see officers and basic Enclave Power armor right next to the Hellfire and Tesla guys. You're not facing Albino Radscorpions at every turn.

What about Oblivion? Bandits get glass and Marauders get daedric at 20. What once spawned as rats now spawn Xivali. Liches now infest undead dungeons rather than ghosts or zombies.

So, if we take a step back from *just* TES games and look at all the RPGs that Bethesda has produced recently, we can get a good feeling as to what to expect in TESV. And i'm pretty sure that problems found in FO3 will be fixed in TESV (at least, ones that can apply to TESV. Obviously the "Level 30 Cap breaks the game!" is a nonissue for a TES game...)

I don't mind the Oblivion bashing; what annoys me is the way that some Morrowind fans use their own opinions and false statements and claim they are fact. Those are also their best arguments, which doesn't really help their cause.

The 'Oblivion has no lore' one annoys me the most. We have been told of the collapse of the Temple, and the Dunmeri emigration from their homeland. We have been told of what is happening in Solstheim, and the Nord-Redoran wars. The game has given us a detailed insight into the world of an ancient civilisation of elves, including its language, with word lists and grammar rules. We have visited two Oblivion realms. We have seen the politics, class system, and popular culture of three Daedric races. We have learned of the relationships between many Daedric Princes. This was something Morrowind didn't even touch on; the only words we know in the Dunmeri language are pretty useless. We have no information about their grammar rules, and we have no information about pronounciation (we hear the Ayleid language in one of the Oblivion quests). We know nothing about the Dwemer, although so much effort has been poured into research about their secrets. The Daedric realms were mentioned, but not explored; no information about the more intelligent Daedric races, other than who they serve. It didn't mention what they think of the humans and elves, or each other, and did not tell us anything about their society (with the exception of the Dremora). But Oblivion does, and it does it well.

The 'generic ruins' one is another; no-one seems to notice the rooms, from barracks, to kitchens, to prisons, to armouries, to treasuries, to throne rooms, to religious centres, to eating areas. The pirate ships, sunken forests, drunken goblins, bandit and marauder wars, hidden monsters, traps, waterfalls, lakes, skooma, and ruins have been abandoned by the 'generic ruin' crowd, as well.

Im just going to direct this at the OP. You had said that you bought Morrowind, yet hadn't played it yet. Perhaps you should do that first before developing a preconception. I encourage you to come to your own conclusions. Decide for your self which game is better and why.

They are waiting for TES: V

Too pass the time they bash Oblivion.