My favorite part of this post is that many of the positive features of Oblivion that are listed here were heavily criticized when the game came out. Proving once and for all that, no matter what Bethesda does, people are going to say that it isn't as good as the old stuff.

If you took the massive environment from Skyrim then the game would have failed. The thing that stands out the most with Skyrim is the vastness of the world but it's a pretty dull and boring place because Bethesda made it like that.

nerevarome1138 I do sometimes wonder what would have happened if all the character build features from Oblviion had been left in Skyrim; would people complain Bethesda was resting on its laurels, not growing?

Sure- there will be complaints no matter what- Bethesda is admired and loved. People do miss the character build, attributes, spell making- why wouldn't they miss choices?

There is a difference between chronic bad mouthing and legitimate realization of loss. People miss choices now gone.

Truest thing said. I remember when Oblivion first came out, and absolutely everyone was saying how it was dumbed down trash compared to Morrowind.. Now all the things that people yelled about are making them swoon.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing. When Oblivion first came out, for example, the level scaling made the game unbelievably dull. All the NPCs talked about were mudcrabs. No one really liked the MQ. The attributes system was abused quite easily to get +5s each time. No one remembers that now, it seems.

That's precisely what I'm arguing against.

There are plenty of people who don't like Skyrim, I'm one of them. But a lot of them take it to ridiculous extremes, to the extent that they even make things up about the game and resort to ad hominem. They end up complaining about and chastising others for its own sake, rather than because of an actual grievance.

I like them about evenly. But the thing I like the most about Oblivion was the atmosphere, art style, and music. I loved just walking around at night and listening to the ambiance.

In my opinion, Skyrim wins by a long shot. The only aspect that is better in Oblivion is the writing and questlines.

I enjoyed the high fantasy setting of Oblivion over Skyrims dark and gritty world. It's not to say Skyrim svcks because of it. I think the entire point of this thread can be boiled down to one thing. It's all personal preference. What I believe is right is always going to out weigh what you believe is right. It is human nature to act such a way.

I love Skyrim.

Having said that, my heavily modded Oblivion was the best game I ever played. But it was the mods that saved it. Without mods like OOO and KCAS to fix some of it's more dubious design choices, it was nearly unplayable.

I hope they can do the same for Skyrim, but I have my concerns. Oblivion was a completed game, and simply needed some system overhauls to turn it into a great one. Skyrim's systems are more or less sound, but the game feels unfinished ... as if there was a whole lot of stuff that was meant to be there that had to be scrapped to meet deadlines. The quests are short and feel rushed, and advertised features are missing.

For some reason, Oblivion was an incredibly fertile ground for modder created quests. There are a huge number of fantastic quest mods available for that game, multiplying it's already massive amount of content several times over. But the Fallouts, in spite of very active modding communities, never saw near as much of that sort of content as did Oblivion. I suspect it's because the NPCs were harder to work with as was the Fallouts navmesh system compared to Oblivion's pathgrids. Mechanically, Skyrim seems to work a lot more like the Fallouts than it does Oblivion.

I hope this doesn't mean that Skyrim's quest mods will be as scarce as they were for the Fallout titles. Maybe Oblivion just had tons of player created quest content because fantasy is easier to design quests for.

Skyrim has a beautiful world at it is a good game but it is absolutely dire in the department of NPC's and dialogue. Half the NPC's could be cut away and I wouldn't miss them. No personality, one line of dialogue boring boring boring.

i love every elder scrolls game minus oblivion i didnt care for oblivion at all but skyrim is a return to form for the elder scrolls series IMO

What he this guy said. I prefer the gameplay mechanics of Skyrim, but the land is just boring. It annoyed me too, because I love the whole Norse mythology thing and the mountainous, far north setting. It's just so dull though, like someone posted a while back, it should be called

TES Canada.

At least with Oblivion you actually could start mod'ing the game after a few hours instead of having to wait 3 months after release. /shrug

Overall, once we get Skyrim fully mod'ed out I think it will be a better game. Oblviion certainly did some things better, the writing for the main/guild quests was better, they were longer, showed more creativity in quest structure, and were overall a better experience than Skyrim's. Oh and there actually was one for Warrior/Fighter styled characters which Skyrim lacks. The Oblivion UI even though it was bad was leaps and bounds better than Skyrim's UI. I thought the magic mechanics were better and spell crafting was a nice addition. The dual casting/weilding is just a gimmick in Skyrim and doesn't really offer anything substantial to the game.

Aside from that Skyrim has a leg up in most areas, the world and the dungeons are beautiful and show a lot of care and creativity. The graphcis are better apart from the shadows, at least in Oblivion I could turn off the hideous self cast shadows, in Skyrim we have no choose but to look at the hideous shadows. And more.

Personally I'll have to wait and see how the mod community turns out for Skyrim. Mod'ed Oblivion for me is a better experience than vanilla Skyrim. Just have to wait and see what mod'ed Skyrim can do.

yeah basically the much more in depth attribute and skill system makes oblivion automatically a better game

?I just want all of the cut features and mechanics back.

Graphics, Combat, and Dragons are a for sure thing for Skyrim.

Quests - Seriously? I love Skyrim's Quests way much more than Oblivion. Specly the Mainquest. In Oblivion all you do is walk around and collect stuff for Martin and only he becomes famous.. In Skyrim's mainquest, you have way much more that makes it even better. Also, Skyrim's random generated quests automaticly beats Oblivion's quests. I love never ending quests. I don't care they get repetitive, I'll keep doing them specially DBH quests.

Magic - Oblivion had better comedy/Godmodding Spells AND spellmaking. Chameleon is a Godmodding spell. Once you master Illusion, you can easily make a 100% Chameleon spells then everything is easy killing because they can't see you. I am happy that people can't do that again. I do miss the comedy stuff in Oblivion but Skyrim, overall, has better and cooler spells with actually sweet effects. Skyrim did really good with magic.

NPCs - Oblivion's NPCs are stupider than Skyrim's. Plain and simple. Do you like stupid NPCs?

User Interface - Skyrim's User Interface is by far way much better than Oblivion. I love it.

Skills - This I kinda agree with you. I like Enchanting's return but I miss Mysticism. I also prefer Blades and Blunts over 1Hs and 2Hs because it makes it easier for me to use Daggers, Swords, and Claymores.

Hotkey - In Oblivion, you can only have 8 hotkeyed items. In Skyrim, there's no limit. Skyrim is better.

Armor - Skyrim's Daedric Armor OVER any other armor from any other games. Idc what it is.

Creatures - Skyrim is lacking creatures, specially Daedra. So I'll agree with you on this one as well.

Overall - Skyrim is better. Also, Oblivion is 2nd worst Elder Scrolls in the main series (Arena - Skyrim). It beats Arena!

Uggh! Grass is always greener on the other side and nostalgia.

Magic compared to previous ES games is a joke. No spell making, limited effects. The only thing that got 'better' with magic was the graphics.

I love Skyrim, but the guild quests were extremely lacking. Every thieves/DB/etc mission in Oblivion felt unique, but I can't remember more than 1 mission from DB and Thieves in Skyrim and I completed those about a month ago.

The Attribute and Skill system in Oblivion was nice but Skyrim has too many good stuff and Oblivion has too many bad stuff for it to win over Skyrim.

In some ways yes. But Skyrim has a much more unique and fleshed out world, like Morrowind did. But the game is somehow inexplicably even more dumbed down (or "streamlined") than Oblivion...

I miss Spellmaking but they added a lot of good spells that we don't really need it.

Paralyze is still so much fun to mess with!
Destruction Spells are deadly when you spam them, and trust me on that one.
Dremora Lord.. No need to explain.
I love the new healing magic in Skyrim.
I love the new Elemental Shields. Makes way much more sense to me.
I am happy how they combined two old Illusion Spells to make 'Rage' which is fun to use if you have the right Perks. *Begins a riot*
Bound Weapons are awesome in Skyrim.
I also like that they have Resurrection as a spell and not a staff's effect.

I do miss Command Spells; they were fun. I also miss the original Shield Spell and Bound Armor Spells but I rarely used them anyways. That's about it as what I miss..

There are less spells. They could have had 10,000 default spells and we would still need spell creation. Destruction is a joke unless its spammed. We lost spell creation, one of the most unique and customizable tools in ES, and lost a ton of actual effects as well. The only thing that got better were the graphics. Mods will fix some of that stuff, but everybody needs the option to create spells and have more effects.

You don't use Destruction correctly. Like I said, no need for spellmaking as long as we have spells that'll be helpful. Spellmaking did made things WAY much easier. More Spells would always make the game better but overall, which ones do you even use? Most likely, A summon, healing, and Destruction. Maybe some sort Ward/Shield spell, if you are a Full-Mage. Most of the other past effects were mainly for fun.