After Skyrim's release, I played it non-stop and am very impressed about the good quality of the game. But playing it non-stop caused me to get a bit bored by it.
So while waiting for the Skyrim Creation Kit and the mods that follow, I decided to play some Oblivion to see if it still holds up. I can clearly see Skyrim is a huge improvement over Oblivion gameplay-wise and graphical, but when playing Oblivion, I couldn't help but smile when I saw some moments that made Oblivion such a unique game.

My favorite nostalgic moments of this look-back include:

* The idyllic landscape; While Skyrim's landscape is more realistic, it does not feel hospitable at all. This is, off course, intentional. Walking through Skyrim's landscape really gives you the feel life there is harsh, like many NPC's there make clear.
But Cyrodiils landscape really has that 'perfect vacation destination' feel. Standing on the Imperial City Island, looking at the surrounding land and listening to the music, sometimes gives me a relaxing feeling.

* The random NPC conversations; despite the fact they were stupid, they had a certain charm to them. Especially when 2 NPC's that hate eachother start talking about mudcrabs. I also started laughing when Raminus Pollus went from a calm demeanor to a big 'NOOO!' after hearing what happened in Anvil and calmed down after this within a second. Skyrim certainly made an improvement on NPC conversations, but does not possess the cheesiness the Oblivion NPC's had.

* The voice acting; hearing NPC's talk to 'themselves' is also good for a laugh. The voices themselves also sound a bit campy compared to Skyrim's, but that makes it fun to listen to. Especially gems like the elvish: "By the nine divines! assault! assault!" and "Muuuuhrdeeehr!!!"

* The Humanoid faces: Oblivion's characters looked stunning during its release, but compared to the more realistic Skyrim, they now look like cartoon characters. This is especially funny when they need to say something serious, but totally cannot get a right facial expression.

* The Guards; "Stop! You violated the law! Pay the court a fine, or serve your sentence! Your stolen goods are now forfeit."
I punched a guard just to have him say this.


What are your favorite nostalgic moments of Oblivion after having played Skyrim?

Oh, how I do miss the guards

All of the vibrant colors. Skyrim is dull in the color department but it suits the landscape really.

- Classes
- Birthsigns
- Athletics, Acrobatics and Mysticism
- NPC don't talk too much when you pass near them
- Landscape
- Certain dungeons
- Lockpicking system
- Weapons and armors degrade over time
- Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean

acrobatics, and getting strong

all the assets which added to a great character build.
Racial differences

charm, warmth, humor.

But mostly, acrobatics and a extensive character build. Without a decent build, a game is just finding and defeating dungeons, castles and bad guys. Once the difficulties are resolved, why are you playing?

A rpg based on character building can be replayed.

I think Oblivion was a better game than Skyrim. Skyrim has many 'bests', but it is not as complete or satisfying a game.

I miss negotiating with people- often bribing them.
"thank you, that will...get you something"

Actually I have not gone back to Oblivion yet since starting Skyrim. But I definitely intend too.

I guess it would be seeing the NPCs again. Even just some of the shop keepers.


Oblivion graphics were stunning when released. The characters however don't look right. This is because the heads are too large in proportion to their bodies. This was a known problem since the release. I guess at the time they though you needed to do that to highlight the character. Then with Fallout 3 Bethesda made more realistic proportions.

The variety of races, and being able to distinguish a Breton from a Nord.

NPC conversations, however dumb they were in Oblivion, I don't think tthat there are any random NPC to NPC conversations in Skyrim

Cyrodiil's friendliness.

Some of the attributes, but thats nothing big.

I loved Acrobatics to no end, and, ironically, the Speechcraft minigame. When I was in the right mindset, it represented idle conversation to me.

I also miss the stupidly random conversations - People were sharing the news of the day, even when it got repetitive... We just need a better script to clean it up a bit.

Are there any mods that take the Dialogue out of that pause menu - Similar to Skyrim's but keeping control of your character? That would greatly increase my enjoyment of the game.

Oh yes - I also miss the Khajiit innkeepers. Now that Skyrim has pretty khajiit, there aren't any around to admire...

So far as I know there isn't. That said, a combination of http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=14669 and its recommended (easy) Oblivion.ini setting modificatioin do make conversations with NPCs seem a tad more natural. (I prefer a distance slightly further back than the recommendation, but that might be because my avatar is a big Nord. In any case the point is you can experiment and find the distance that seems best to you.)

-Decrepit-

I miss the reputation system.

I miss the factions (small in number, but well-done and packed with a decent amount of content).

I miss Oblivion's beautiful landscape.

I miss Oblivion's relatively good technical performance (PS3 side of things).

I miss spellmaking.

I miss my quest journal.

The mods
Oblivion War Cry New Dimension, MMM, Frans, Claudia's Little Secret, OBGE, Integration, Windfall, Vilja, OOO, Hentai Gentlemen's EyeCandy Body, etc, and Wrye Bash to pound your mod combos. Skyrim will not quickly measure up to the wealth of Oblivion's treasure trove. Macho Man dragons and Spiderman spiders is not a great start for Skyrim.

The atmosphere
Skyrim is windy and it's people are dirty and either under misery or the cause of it. Oblivion's atmosphere is magical, charming, and lush and the people of Cyrodiil are pleasant and civilized. They don't lock Khajiit and Argonians outside of the walls. There is more to Oblivion's cities because they are colored with their own theme's and FG, MG, cathedrals and castles. Skyrim calls Dawnstar, Falkreath, and Winterhold 'cities' but they are pissholes. In the case of the College of Winterhold, you will not believe the story because it seems so convenient an excuse to make the 'city' outside the way it is, as in so little to it.

Important things
Spellmaking. Why couldn't Skyrim continue this important gaming ingredient from Oblivion? Wouldn't it be great in Skyrim to open with a left Weakness to Magicka for 3 seconds and follow with a right massive fireball? It would be, but you can't. No more damage over time and creative exploitation, no more damage attributes, no more turning your follower into a monster by fortifying their strength, you are stuck with the spells Skyrim gives you. Attributes. Gone in Skyrim. There is less you can do to control the battlefield with the absence of this. Since there are no attributes in Skyrim there is no enchanting your pieces of gear with Speed, Strength, etc. In Oblivion it was great entertainment and strategy to damage their Speed or Disintegrate their weapon, get better deals and invest through fortify Mercantile / Personality, cheat your foe by absorbing their Strength. Leaving out spellmaking, attributes and weapon / armor health was a vast improvement? I just realized I'm sounding more hostile toward Skyrim. Instead, I'll say that these are great things that Oblivion has.

The nonsense dialogue
"How are you?"
"Terrible."
"That's good to know."
*snort*
"How are you?"
"Fine."
"Sorry to hear that."
This really is beyond terrible. But I've got Oblivion Stockholm Syndrome, so I like it and probably many other Oblivion players. It is also amusing to see someone gossip about someone to the very person who is the target of the gossip. Or to see the person standing right behind them.

Lighter atmosphere, much more fantastical although they did great with how SK should be portrayed, it's just not my favorite province.

Guild length. SK guilds were good in quality but lacked heavily in quantity.

Again, the atmosphere. I LOVE skyrim, but cyrodiil was more of the medieval castles and shiny armor type feel that I really grew to enjoy.

Overall, SK cleary whoops oblivion, it's just that oblivion was my first ES game and has a special place in my heart where all of my nostalgic, rose colored memories will replay forever.

Also, anyone remember the first time exiting the sewers? The midday sun reflecting gently off of the crystal blue water? God how I wish SK had that, although the trek to river wood was pretty neat with ralof.

I remember not knowing about fast travel at all and trekking to weynon priory, busting through the doors at dusk to hand over the amulet.

That is all unless you want me to go into detail on my DB quests given to me by my fav character: Vicente valtieri.

Forgot one:Underwater combat. Whats to prevent me raising my fists or drawing my swords under water.

This is what made my Oblivion experience so great. One could personalize the game in any way they wanted. But I think that Skyrim has the same potential to grow into a great personal experience once the creation kit is out. Just fiddling around with the console reveals some very fun possibilities.


Skyrim has some predetermined scenes between NPCs. They feel more natural than the random conversations and give the NPCs a more unique personality. For example, on the market plaza in Whiterun, Olfina Gray-Mane and Carlotta Valentia start talking about Carlotta's raised prizes while the arrogant Nazeem is treating everyone like dirt. The only problem is that there are few of these, so they tend to repeat themselves.

At least its not as repetitive as having to hear every Cyrodiillic citizen gush about your achievements at Kvatch, even months after the Oblivion Crisis has ended.


Thats also one of the things I miss at times. At the start, however, everyone treats you like dirt, but when you amassed enough fame, everyone simply smiled at you. There was also a clear line about who was good and who was bad.

Good: Almost everyone living in the cities.
Evil: Almost everyone/thing living in the ruins and caves, the Daedric invaders and the Dark brotherhood.

In Skyrim its more gray morality. Especially during the Civil war, in which both sides are right in their own way. Many of Skyrim's quests present you with a choice of which neither answer is good or bad. I do believe its a better system, but it takes a while to get used to compared to the more black-and-white oriented Oblivion.

Landscape, environments, atmosphere:

There are people who say Oblivion has no atmosphere and Morrowinds was perfect etc etc. I personally ADORE Oblivions' atmosphere, the nostalgia there is incredible. All of my dreams, adventures and experiences were in this world.

Dumb AI conversations:

You all know them. They are now immortalised into comedy gold for everyone to enjoy. It seems hard to believe an actual professional put this in, but it's there and it provides amusemant everytime you're in a city.

The Great forest:

My home

I am approximately 250 hours into Skyrim, and to it's credit, I have not played Oblivion since 11/11. I have not returned yet, but I love Oblivion, and my characters have plenty of unfinished business to return to when I resume. Thus far, Skyrim totally outclasses Oblivion when it comes to the technical implementation of the world, landscape, particularly the dungeon environments. For me personally, that is where the "outclassing" ends. As others have mentioned, the rpg elements such as attributes, more complex and involved quests, and custom spellmaking are among my favorite aspects of Oblivion that I find missing in Skyrim. But, there are smaller details as well. For all of the redundant "mudcrab" discourses among npc's there are some rare gems. The other day, I happened to watch a youtube "Lets play" where someone was being confronted by Earana for returning the book to Teekeeus. I always saw this as just another run of the mill quest in Oblivion. In watching the video (outside of my game), I was taken by the excellent voice acting by Earana expressing her displeasure with the character's action. I was also reminded of the background (her ex-communication from the guild) and the choices your character had to fulfill the quest. I was just reminded of how well the simple and mundane things in Oblivion were especially well executed. Another example would be Falcar from Cheydinhal. My character hated that man with a passion, and nothing was sweeter than her ability to exact her revenge upon him later in the quest. Very simple things, however after 250 hours of Skyrim, no npc characters have evoked that level of passion (for better or worse) by my character.

Yup this! Months ago before Skyrim came out I assumed one of the main things I'd miss about Oblivion was its silly conversations, and this has turned out to be true.

There's also atmosphere, vibrancy...everything everyone else has mentioned so far. I don't really miss spellmaking, it was one of those things I didn't use very often to be honest, but I do miss the way our characters cast spells. Holding down the button to cast a spell in the middle of a battle slows me down in Skyrim. I can roleplay this in a way; the way I see it, the entire schools of magics have slipped a bit, and Skyrim's magicians arent' as good and efficient as 3rd-era Cyrodiilians were.

I also miss Oblivion's system of attributes & stats. Don't miss its leveling system at all, though.

The friendliness that the Oblivion environment created was so great. And I hate how hostile the guards are to my mage. They always are yelling at me to put the flames away or to go cast my spells somewhere else. I just hate that.

I have to say, you're either a surrealist, or a glutton for punishment. Those marvellous examples of so-called Radiant AI are among the most irritating instances of faux conversation I've ever heard in a game.

But then, I'm not sure what you mean by nostalgia. That implies something that's past, and viewed with regret for its loss. Whereas Oblivion is only a few years old, still frequently played, and has a flourishing modding community.

My favorite things in Oblivion after playing (for a bit, and put aside) Skyrim...?

Larger, more architecturally diverse, less scruffy looking towns.

A decent UI (well, better than Skyrim's, any day)

The ability to look at your character's numbers if you want them, instead of leaving you no choice, and hiding them.

A good in-game, character development opening.

More stores, with more goods, armor and weaponry,

Better clothed, less dirty NPCs. Because it seems the Skyrim devs were under the mistaken impression that Scandians were all filthy and liked drab clothing.

Spellmaking.

Alchemy equipment, with different grades of quality.

A functioning construction set.

There were plenty of problems with Oblivion, but nothing that modders couldn't repair. Hopefully that will prove the case with Skyrim, but I suspect many changes will be a long time coming.

There, now the list suits me.

- Spellmaking
- Random npc talk about goblins and mudcrabs
- Fractions and quest where better in Oblivion then in Skyrim

If Skyrim had Attributes it would be a near-perfect game in my world. Attributes are what I miss from Oblivion.

I assume you're talking about Skyrim with this. I think it's cool. Skyrim's guards don't trust magic, and if my current character Claire Voyance is trying to cast her clairvoyance spell near a guard, it's neat that the guards actually have an opinion on this.

...if anything, I hate the way Cyrodiil's guards don't respond at all to magic, even if you've thrown a fireball 2 inches away from their head. It's only if you actually hit one of them that all a sudden they get pissed!


So true. Sigh.

With 'Oblivion Nostalgia' I meant the fact that while Skyrim is mostly an improvement over Oblivion, there are some things that I miss about Oblivion, despite them not having a place in Skyrim.
An example is the terrain of Cyrodiil. I really like Cyrodiil's colorful forests, but I also understand Skyrim's climate is not suitable for such a landscape and the fact the developers can't repeat the same thing. Despite that, I still miss the landscape of Cyrodiil.

About the stupid NPC conversations: I think they fall in the category 'So bad its good'.
In Skyrim, almost every NPC reminds you how much the war affects them or how scared they are of the dragons. When returning to Oblivion from the more gritty Skyrim, Cyrodiil's NPC's are just a source for laughs with their talk of Mudcrabs and goblins.


I also see many people mentioning the attribute system. I really do not mind the lack of them in Skyrim, but I am curious why people miss them so much.

Skyrim's NPC's are great the first few times you go past them. Like, when you first enter a town, everything they say seems to matter. But after several quests are taken care of, they start repeating themselves ..."you know what's wrong with Skyrim? Everyone is obsessed with death!" is an example.

It would make more sense if they just said "Hey how ya doin?" or something casual like that. I'm at the point where with my current character, she's not taking on every single quest in Skyrim, simply because I prefer hearing the NPC's talk to one another and not repeat the same things over and over.

At least Oblivion's NPC's make me laugh.


Because they've always been a part of traditional RPG's, and for me, this means role-playing games going back into the mid-1980's. Some of us like seeing our characters grow on a spreadsheet, some of us miss the numbers side of this game. I like being able to say "Kate only has 30 strength, which is weak, but with 60 Intelligence, she's obviously a smart cookie". I like the fact that in Oblivion (and many other games) there is actually a difference between characters when they start the very beginning of the game. Having 100 of health, 100 of magic, and 100 of stamina with every single character at the start of Skyrim feels (dare I say) generic. It's generic as hell.

And I personally fear that with future generations of TES and other role-playing games, this side of role-playing games will just start to be dumbed down further and further, until there's not even magic, health, and stamina. It'll just be ONE meter which is a combination of everything. ONE spell which takes care of all our character's needs. It makes me worried.