I've done a lot of thinking, even soul searching as Skyrim arrived and it was not the game I'd hoped. I even went back and played Oblivion again- though I'm never that far from a current character. I wanted to prove to myself my line that, "in a rpg, character building is almost everything". It's true, for me anyway. I know all of Oblivion's quests- the ones I'm not as familiar with I've only done 5 or 10 times; many of them have been done so much there is no way to count. (There are some teaching quests I dont know..shame on me). And once again I played late into the night enjoying Oblivion, every night.

Extensive and involved character build is what brings you back to the game. For better or worse, that is gone from Skyrim. This is not to knock Skyrim. Bethesda put time and love into Skyrim. Skyrim is made to be immediately rewarding. There is not the same degree of delayed gratification there- you arrive and start kicking puppy butt pretty fast. The Build happens quickly, and is done with sweeping brushstrokes- not a interaction between several variables you help shape. Yes, most of the old elements are there- but not to the degree, not to the extent. Many people feel the new system is better. Who are those people? Well, perhaps they want action and to be entertained and want it tonight- not to have to wait a week of monday's for the steady progress to give them the results they desire. Maybe Skyrim is made for the modern character. A new generation- one that was not raised on reading. But they're are a lot of them, and they're smart and creative and deserve a game built for them.

I will miss what the character build was under Morrowind and Oblivion. I don't think the Elder Scrolls will ever be the same. Oblivion is my go- to game. The game that provides me a home away from home. I've loved Oblivion since I found the GOTY edition and gave it to myself and my three small boys when that edition first came out.

Apparently Bethesda felt the old build system did not play as well with whatever demographic they were going after-ever trying to break larger and wider. I don't know why. Skyrim is a great game- but it is one I doubt very much can be played for as long as I've played Oblivion, and will continue to play. Skyrim may be better at the first play, though that's hard for me to know, being as how I loved Oblivion the moment I broke out of jail and found myself on green rolling hills looking for Chorrol. Maybe at least some of the estactic fans of Skyrim may come around after several hundred hours- but I think most of them will move on to another game and if they're new to the Elder Scrolls never dream Oblivion could be it. Because that's their relationship to games. Games must entertain them- they don't want to invest, not over the same time frame anyway, they want to be rewarded and they are with Skyrim.

I rather think we could have had it both ways- a great game that appeals to those who demand entertainment, and a game that would last much longer than the discovery of every castle and cave. That's the trouble with a game that has shied away from a character investment- it is as good as the features are new and fresh.

Oblivion's features never grow old, because we are there for more than just the discovery of the next obstacle or Keep. Oblivion has given to me since 2007 and will keep giving.

If anyone has wandered by from Skyrim and happened across this post- give Oblivion a try. It is a wonder, a complete game, with warmth and human qualities not many games ever achieve.

And please, try Morrowind, and see how the Elder Scrolls used to be.

I've been with the series since Daggerfall and I think this is my favorite character system so far. I like that classes were removed, and I love the perk system. I do think there's room for improvement, I'd like to see attributes return (although not with the "times #" system of raising them when you level) and I think some perks that combine skills would be very nice - perhaps have some "class" perk trees.

I certainly agree that the value of an RPG often rests on how immersive the character system is. For me I've had some of my favorite TES characters with Skyrim, which is saying a lot given beloved characters from the past. Given the OP this obviously isn't true for everyone, but I wanted to point out that not everyone dislikes it or finds it limited.

I personally believe any preferences regarding skyrim are subject to change- the test will be after it has been played. I don't play Fallout or NV with the same repetitions as Morrowind or Oblivion. I cannot see repeating Skyrim any more than the Fallout series- because they are built the same way. (lets not quibble -more alike than unalike) A player is going to exhaust the events and places and stop or slow the play. I've almost 500 hours in Skryim, am on my third character. First go round with Fallout was 4 or 5 reps. Then I dropped the game. LIked New Vegas a little more- 5 reps, dropped game.

This amount of play, with any other game, would be considered fantastic; with an Elder scrolls game, that's just the warm up. Hungry Donner- you pointed out that not everyone dislikes the the character system in Skyrim- quite the contrary- I think about 2/3 love it. ( I 'love it' in the sense it gives more and gives it quicker- who wouldn't like that? But it is not sustaining.)

But I want to see what they love in one year. I still play Fallout- about once a year. And maybe- they'll love it still, because we may be talking about a new generation of people who were raised on games. The point of diminishing returns is different between people. I grew up reading. The early Elder scrolls games suit me, and I do not buy all games available on the market like many do. Why should they build another character with a Elder Scrolls game when they can buy another adventure entirely? Are you kidding? Replay when you know all the dungeon traps and where the bodies are hid?

I think future games have low over head, and not as much 'homework' invested in play. That fits Skyrim. Future game's have the emphasis on events and locations, not on character building. Without a character build of depth, and that includes all of it- the racial distinctions, stars, attributes, etc, the game will not be replayed as much. People will enjoy and move on. In literature they talk of writers who are character driven or ones who are plot driven. I believe character building is deeper, and that reflects a bias of my generation.
For Talos Sakes, if anyone is listening, could the footspeed and jumping height please be improved in Skyrim??!!


Anyway, I'd like to abide by the rules and take this back to Oblivion- Warm, whole, wonderful Oblvion.

This is really far afield, but Jerry Garcia was being interviewed about rocknroll and asked what he liked, he said that the Quicksilver Messenger Service Album Happy Trails was slicker than anyone knew, anyone in the industry realized, he didn't even know if the band realized how good it was. That's what I think of Oblivion- mocked occasionally by serious SF and fantasy fans of Morrowind, it was nonetheless better balanced, with an incredible human warmth that would be hard to reproduce again. Oblivion is a classic, and may even be the first masterpiece of the studio.

The sad thing is the character build could have been smoothed and left more intact in Skyrim, able to please both plot/place players and character build players. As it stands now, its clearly motivated by the needs of one group.

This can be said about any game. It can be said about any of the other games in the TES series. Why play Morrowind when "you know all the dungeon traps and where the bodies are hid?" Why play Oblivion when "you know all the dungeon traps and where the bodies are hid?" Why play Dragon Age yet again when you know the story and all the maps by heart? Why play Baldur's Gate a fourth or fifth time? Or Neverwinter Nights?

The answer for me is simple. Roleplaying.

Most of the entertainment value I get out of a game - and this holds particularly true for RPGs - is supplied by my own imagination. I make up my own stories. Each character I play is a little different than any of the characters I have played before. And that, inevitably, makes my next experience of these games different from my last experience. Skyrim is no different in this respect than Daggerfall, Morrowind or Oblivion.

I agree with what you are saying. It is why I can still play Oblivion after years, even knowing it by heart. Each new character is a new adventure, who sees the world through new eyes. But we are not the audience that Bethesda is looking for anymore. Even starting with Oblivion, they were trying to open up their games more to casual gamers who buy a game, play it to death for a few weeks, maybe a month, then once they have 'beaten it', they buy the next Call of Duty or Halo game and do the same thing. Let's face it, these are not people who want to use their imagination and have a deep roleplaying experience. To them a game is boring once they know every level back and forward. That is not knocking them. We all like different games for different reasons. I am not knocking Bethesda either. That is where the money is. They are a business, so of course they are going to do their best to get the widest audience possible to buy their product.

LOL If only this were true! I'd have vast portions of time to do other things!

....Sorry. I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing because you're assuming all of us feel the same way you do, and here's me pushing 200 hours with my current Skyrim character. Here's me getting crammed with ideas for new characters in that game. I've got so many ideas for characters whom I know are gonna have lives packed full of fun and fortune, it's overwhelming. It needs to start raining & snowing in Maryland, dangit!

I would agree some of Skyrim's questing and storylines are shorter than Oblivion's, but character-building isn't just about quests and pre-written material.


Because each TES game is different from the previous? They want to try new ideas? Even if sometimes those ideas are fails?


Agree with ya here, though.

Don't take this the wrong way, but how the hell have you found time to put 500 hours into it? It's only been about 1500 hours since the game was released! Accounting for things like sleeping, eating, working and basic hygeine then that basically must mean you've been doing absolutely nothing else with your free time for two months. How have you not gone insane? I started a new Oblivion character round about the time Skyrim came out and I've notched up 100 hours with her and even with that I feel I've been playing it an awful lot of the time. I can't begin to imagine how I could have spent 5 times as much time playing it, it doesn't seem possible to me.

Be careful not to make assumptions about people's "free time," based on yours. There are a bunch of old retirees playing these games, and we can put as much time into them as we feel like. It's cold outside, there's snow on the golf courses, and TV is boring.

Old sure fits=hence my name. I live way out in the woods in Montana and am raising three boys. My wife is a professional (she needs to be with me) and I have time to play these games. My days as a psych nurse are long over, and I don't currently manage any retail stores as I had formerly.

Renee Gade lll wrote I'm, "assuming all of us feel the way I do" paraphrase- and she has 200 hours in Skyrim. 1. If she read my posts, she will see I do not assume others feel as I do. 2. At 200 hours, I felt about Skyrim more like Renee Gade lll.

This is about choices- choices have been removed from a role playing game. The discussion shouldn't be that Skyrim is just like Oblvion and Morrowind when it is not. The discussion shouldn't be that Skyrim has exactly the same level of character development or NPC interaction- because it does not. Some people use word like 'streamlined' or 'smoothed' or the 'dead wood has been removed'.

For me, much of the character build is gone. In a role playing game, character build is almost everything.

Last night I offered some possible explanations for the changes- primarily appealing to a larger audience. I'm not sure I should have attempted that- Because since finding the Bethesda forum I've read posts from many extremely sharp young people who miss the character builds of Morrowind and Oblivion. Interesting- they actually saw this coming. Todd Howard announced these changes and unless the perk system was developed to take up the missing material, which it was not, the character development was going to take a huge hit. These young people saw this coming. And here I was thinking generational gaps.

Skyrim was designed to thrill and that thrill is large enough it will take some time before the realization kicks in that the bottom has been pulled out from under our feet. At 200 hours I was beginning to worry.

at 400 hours I knew. I'm going to play and memorize the assets and enjoy the game for what it is. But in one years time no, I will not be playing skyrim- unless I put it away for a year. That's OK- lots of games are like that.

PS, I just added my hours and the poster is correct- I only have 413 hours at present. I apologize- I thought my first game was 250, not 150. I make these kinds of mistakes a lot more often these days than I did when I could memorize statistical tables over night. In this same time I've brought an Oblivion character to level 40- that was done since I got Skyrim 8 days after it's release. I don't know how many hours that is- 96 I just checked.

This is a lot of hours when I could be writing a novel- shame on me.

I'm just recalling how difficult it was for me the first time I played Oblivion. I had no idea what I was doing and my first 4-5 characters were utter disasters that became impossible to play after a few levels. Oblivion was my first RPG mind you. I think they were trying to avoid that scenario with Skyrim.

It was my second, if you count Sacred. But disaster? No. I can't imagine one. Impossible to play after a few levels? The slider scale is there until you catch up. My first characters were idiots who nonetheless completed everything and went on to greatness. Bethesda made it impossible to fail. No matter what course you took, success. Some people never touch the difficulty slider, not me. I'm no longer lightening fast and my combat skills would make many of you laugh. I played at the beginning for wonder and joy. I remember going cross country to Kavatch and how a small flying human attacked me. I was utterly stunned- almost died. The difficulty slider is there for me. The game is there for the player.

Then there's this; Mark Twain would not rewrite Huck Finn, considered his masterpeice, because some people couldn't read well. People move upwards to understand what they need to. Bethesda did not talk down to the buyer. If some people, like me, who were unfamiliar with RPG's had some trouble- it was well worth the small effort to figure it out. Oblivion was made to be less dense than Morrowind and many complained at thje time it was too watered down. I believe they hit a upon a rarity- simple and elegant beauty. It used to be people were excited to experience a new kind of film, or read a different kind of book that might be out of their experience. They wanted that- it was expected. They wouldn't line up in the Theatres to see a Gone With the Wind that had been rewritten for simple language.

If you think Bethesda made it hard, Sacred had a method of calculating damage that required a slide rule. There were formulas people passed back and forth to utilize the best results. Me, I just played. And my first mages died and died. But Bethesda never was like that.

There has never been a Bethesda game that was not user friendly and could not be played from scratch. We didn't need to go to the extreme of gutting the character development to handle the casual or differently motivated person. There are people who have other things to do besides play games. I don't think Bethesda should have thrown the baby out with the bath water, however.

When features and events become worn people will stop playing.

Not these characters. I think I am remembering the number incorrectly, but definitely 2-3 characters were impossible. I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't even know there was a difficulty slider! (I probably could have played them if I had known...)

Just like everything. I think Skyrim will age similarly to Oblivion for me though. I'll play it until TES6 is released. Oblivion may or may not be revisited in that time as well.

"...that is gone from the game", you said. You've just made a blanket statement that involves the entire community. Maybe extensive character building is gone for you, but please don't assume everyone feels the same way you do.


I'm up to 200 hours with my current character. I didn't include my first 2 characters in that tally. I'm past 400 hours if you include these two with Claire.

Renee creates characters fast!

And works them hard!

Renee Gade lll; this is the second time you accuse me of saying blanket statements and reminding me I don't speak for everyone. The first time you did so, I asked you to read my posts again. In the same post you quote where I make my 'blanket statement', I also say that possibly 2/3 of the people playing love the changes. My 'blanket' statement is my opinion- this is an opinion forum to share ideas and the same, right? I never said I speak for anyone other than myself. This issue brought up once more has become a red herring. Read my posts. Stop attacking me for speaking for you when I never have.

Your conclusions are dffierent from mine- I got that. If most buyers of Skyrim feel the way you do after many playthroughs, then my opinion is certainly in the minority, and Bethesda can ask itself if it was worth it- depending upon how many of us have left the Elder scrolls and what their own needs are.

But it is not a blanket statement without support that the character build has been drastically reducted and that NPC interaction reduced. You may like it better, but there are less choices. The loss of attributes, though some of which still remain passivly in magic, health and stamina, are still objectively quantifyable losses and losses of choices formerly made by the player.

One poster said that they could replay Oblvion well beyond having memorized all the quests and assets of the game. I'm waiting for people to own this game 6 months, a year, and we will see whether they still play it as much.

Arguing about the missing choices is futlle- they are gone. Arguing about the missing racial distinctions is futile- they are gone. The only opinion of any worth here is whether you approve of the changes, whether the changes make the game better for you.

In the first play throughs, when everything is new, who could not love Skyrim? The test of what kind of game Skyrim is, however, is not at first, but much later. Renee Gade lll has played many hundreds of hours and likes the new game- I got that. If enough folks feel the same, then the loss of character building is not considered a loss for them.

I agree that character creation is one of the most important things in an RPG. To be able to twirk and make your character truly unique in a world of gamers. Too bad if that is made more simple in Skyrim but all the more reason for me to stick with Oblivion then.

Like I needed another reason...

For me, the prgress is most important. That progress stops very fast in Skyrim as I hit the damn limit for the skill.. Thus, ending the fun of that character. Experience should be slower, but slower. In Oblivion I at least felt it was the right speed, I didn't level too fast.

I think people are looking at just character creation when they make that criticism. If the game lets you build a character continuously as you play, that's just as good for me as adjusting sliders and dial at the beginning, maybe better for RP.

That, and the missing NPC interactions, bargaining and dialogue script-conversation options.

Only vanilla versions are comparable! Are you sure that you'd still play Morrowind or Oblivion in a clean vanilla environment? The former without Rhedd's low-polygon heads and the latter without Better Cities, to mention just two gems of the modding scene. I don't think so. What's more, I recall my own disappoinment in Balmora before the mod storm of summer 2003. And a stillborn virtual child rose like a phoenix from the ashes...

It's the last game I can make a Mr Potato Head character, yes.

Skryim is exactly the same just without your class physically written out for you at the start. You make the character in the same way. You increase skills in the same way. Only difference now is you don't have to micromanage skills, you can level up through any skill, and you get perks. I fail to see the issue.
NPCs react a hell of a lot more to me in Skyrim than they did in Oblivion.
Bargaining? You mean a stupid slider? Which one of the most popular Oblivion mercantile mods removed anyway?
And dialogue script conversation options? Oblivion was linear. There were literally no quests with more than one possible outcome.

Amusingly enough, I can make that comparison pretty well. I purchased Oblivion about 2 months before Skyrim came out, because I knew that I'd be getting Skyrim for sure, and I didn't want to be totally lost. Oblivion was the first time I played the Elder Scrolls series, even though I've had 15 years of RPG experience, be it Console, pen and paper, MMO, ect. Still haven't used mods for either game (and honestly only found out about them yesterday). I'd say I've cleared around 80% of Oblivion (to my knowledge), and about the same amount of Skyrim (haven't done the mage's guild quest line or picked a faction, and could be thain of 3 more towns, but finished all the other "main" quest lines). I find myself looking foward to (re)playing Oblivion MUCH more than I do about finishing that last little bit of Skyrim. For some reason, Skyrim is giving me that "seen it already" feeling.

I don't agree with everything the OP says, but I do agree with the general sentiment. Our experiences are defined by our limitations, and our feeling of accomplishment comes from overcoming limitation. Since Skyrim seems to give you too much too quick, it feels less "weighty" and "satisfying" as a result.

All that being said, I still enjoy Skyrim. I'm glad that I got it, and it certainly deserves all the praise that it's been getting. My gut is telling me that Oblivion is still the better game though...

Interesting point. I don't have Skyrim, so I won't comment on perceived differences between the two games, but I would point out that one of the reasons that I continue to enjoy playing Morrowind and Oblivion is that I am able to engineer weakness or limitation into the characters. I feel that "real people" are not "heroes," but they manage to do heroic things despite their limitations.

My characters in Oblivion are designed to be weak in some way. I like the "glass cannon" mage who can destroy anything but has the endurance of Kleenex, or the big hammer-wielding Orc who can't spell "spell," let alone cast one. I like the feeling that there are limits, that my Orc just isn't going to get any smarter, ever.

The characters, as they enter the game, are a certain way, and it is part of the roleplaying story in my head that they are that way. They should learn and grow as the events of the game unfold, but their underlying limitations should remain. This is more important to me than the story the game is telling me (because, let's face it, the game tells us all the same story.)

Again, I don't know how it is with Skyrim. I have a hard time understanding how one can create a unique character without some kind of class/attribute template, but I suppose it's possible. In my opinion, that's what Oblivion does extremely well.