Yep! It's true that a lot of discussions are :
1/ pro Oblivion, because they are driven by people who only played Oblivion
2/ Pro MW, because people have played MW before playing Oblivion
3/ some are pro DF, because some started the serie with DF
...

How I see it, from the point of view of those who have experienced the whole serie, there was a great improvement from Arena to DF, which made the serie a special one. DF was revolutionary, compared to CRPG of its time. Then, MW drove the serie away from the generic Medfan crowd with its unique background, but at the expanse of the role playing quality and gameplay richness. Then, Arrived Oblivion, with an even more mainstreamed gameplay, but with also a return to a very generic Medfan background and a dull plot.

The serie evolution, from the gameplay mechanics and story point of view is quite hidden by the technical improvements in the graphic, animation and sound chapters. But, considering technical improvements as the norm in the computer games world, and the other games released at the same time as TES ones, it is not a key feature. Removing the technical elements from the anolysis, I think the apogy of TES was between DF and MW.

I chose MW over OB. The only thing i didn't like in MW was the combat, it pretty much trumps OB in everything else.

I have Arena on my PC but I've only played it for about 20 minutes. I don't like the combat there either, dragging the mouse and whatnot. Movement either. It is an old game so you gotta give it some leeway.

I still CANNOT find Daggerfall anywhere. I wish Beth would hurry up and let us download the damned thing.

I also cannot find Redguard or Battlespire.

I've played Daggerfall, Battlespire, a little bit of Redguard, Morrowind, and Oblivion.

Battlespire and Redguard really aren't anything alike so comparing them makes little sense.

Morrowind is better than Oblivion, no contest.

Daggerfall and Morrowind are pretty much a trade off for me, some things I prefer about Daggerfall, some things I prefer about Morrowind, nothing tips the scales in either's favor though.

I haven't played Arena and never intend to.

I couldn't rightly say Morrowind was better than Oblivion, they seem quite similar to me in so many things. I'd say what tips it toward Oblivion for me is how much the game relates to Arena, whereas if you told no one that Morrowind was a TES game they would never recognize it was. It seems so far away from being a TES title.

Well, the background is exotic, but TES fans will recognize the Daedras and nine divines, Empire-Provinces relationships, Redguards and beast races, ebony and daedric weapons, the Chrysamere, classical TES factions, birthsigns, the character creation by answering 10 questions... And a rule system that, though dumbed down, is built on the DF model more than any other CRPG.

Oblivion is less TESish than MW. It looks like an oportunistic reaction to the LOTR movies trend. The graphical codes in the game are so inspired by those movies.

I've only played TES 3 & 4. While I really enjoyed both games, having played a crap load of hours in both games I still like Morrowind better.

I love the improved graphics in OB and the the AI do make the cities seem more alive. I like that the bandits respawn, although it is sometime annoying because I'd like to live in some of the caves/ruins.

But for MW I love that it was a total sandbox, ANY npc could be killed, I HATE the 'essential' characters in OB, ( a simple pop-up box could have solved the problem, "Before you strike this person down, you pause, they seem strangely important to the very fabric of dystany... do you wish to slay them anyway? Yes/No" or something like that) And you could take over an NPCs house, and live in it, not tresspassing. I also like the broader spectrum of settlements in MW, from ashlander camps and little fishing villages (Ald'Vivthi sp?) to small towns like Khull, to larger towns like Tel Ahrun and the large towns like Balmora and then Vivec. In Oblivion the Imperal City is sweet, and the main cities are fine, but after that... almost nothing, the small inns are cool, I like those, but the little farms and tiny settlements are just landmarks, no smiths, no merchants, other then the odd inkeeper type, food and drink etc. And ashlander camp could provide basic services, you wouldn't get very rich selling to them, but you could buy hammers, or some simple potions or simple clothes. That's another thing that irked me about OB, the lack of clothing, no golves, the armor was reduced to few pieces and fewer styles, and no clothing under my armor?! I think I'd still wear pants and a shirt under my cold steel armor. And no robes over top (tunics if you will).

I did like the changes to vampirism in OB, and the Order of the V. Blood is cool. But the lack of vampire guilds hurt, and the lack of conflicting guilds hurt, no great houses. Oh and one more thing, I can't stand how the mage's guild drastically cut their public services, no spell making no enchanting, boo. The guild is supposed to encourage and foster the responsable use of magicka throughout the empire... Also (last thing) I didn't really like the levelling of the world in OB, a low level character can't encounter any NPC who will really own them? And a higher level character encounters run of the mill bandits in glass armor? And every other murardar has daedric?!

I think that's it for my rant, I sound hard on Oblivion which I don't mean to be, as a standalone game its great. 8.5 / 10 And I'll continue to play it and enjoy it. But because I found Morrowind to be fantastic a 9 or 9.5/10 I can't wait for TES V, hopefully it'll draw from the strengths of all the previous games and produce a 10/10

Morrowind, Daggerfall, Redguard.

Too few people liked Battlespire more :/ I think it has a 100% better plot than Redguard. And it's not a Tomb Raider in Tamriel, it even has a better character creation than Oblivion.

I find it quite interesting that all polls of this kind render the same range of results.

Morrowind's always ahead of the pack, Oblivion being only slightly less popular. Daggerfall's somewhat less popular than Oblivion, and generally upheld by Daggerfall loyalists (if you'll pardon the expression). Arena is always the least popular, seeing that not many people were around to play it and its focus wasn't the same as the later games'.

why you little stealing good for nothing that was my post named "choose" and then cudley bear closed it i don't know why.... Morrowind is the best for me

Is it possible to get a definitive answer. All people like different things

In name, but they weren't quite the same fellows as before. For instance, Azura turned Muslim.

Daggerfall didn't have nine divines.

They didn't really discuss that about Morrowind much.

Orcs weren't an accepted race before, Khajiits and Argonians never had legs bent like that, and the Redguards weren't doing much outside of the books that were copied over from past games, so you could well say they didn't change.

Except ebony and daedric were only similar in color to their past versions. Ebony was one of the lightest armor types, and the third strongest right after Orcish and Daedric, and it wasn't a type of glass, and Daedric wasn't possessed Ebony.

Yeah, they did bring back almost all of the artifacts from past games.

Brotherhood was missing, and it is a lie to call the guild system similar to Daggerfall's.

Birthsigns were a first with MW, and they always were a bad idea.

So they transfered over the questions, but not rest of the character creation and ruleset or even daring to improve upon it? That's like shooting yourself in the foot before the race instead of doing a warm-up lap.

Well, while we're spitballing, what makes Oblivion different from a TES game?

yep same here... but i never had daggerfall, redugard, or any of the expansions so i voted oblivion better and the last option for the second and third question

As much as I like Morrowind, I'm going to say that Oblivion is my favorite so far. And I also prefer Redguard over Battlespire.

1. oblivion
2. oblivion
3. not played either

is there a point to these threads usally they just turn into a flame fest

... That's the point of this thread, to see want people like.

where's the 'cant decide' option. poll fails. seriously though, i cant decide between oblivion and morrowind.

Yes but quite afew of these turn into a The Elder Scrolls Morrowind is the greatest game in the history of the universe./The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion is the greatest game in the history of the universe. argument.

Question 1: Plot. Lore. Interesting characters? Yeah, though, it takes a long time to get into the meat of it, but the meat is of such higher quality than Oblivion's it's worth the wait.

Question 2: Daggerfall starts even slower than Morrowind, so if you try Morrowind again and still can't get in, then probably not.


I have to say about this, they're all good. But for me the bar would be Morrowind>Daggerfall>Oblivion. Yes, Daggerfall had better character creation and a hell of a lot more stuff, but there was something in Morrowind that wasn't there. Just some feeling I get playing Morrowind that is absent from both the other games I've played. And while Oblivion is fun, it just dosen't run as deep as it's predecessors. Just not enough meat, even if it looks better.

Huge amount of new polls detected.

Just use this one?

Sure.

TES III - TES II - TES IV - TES I

I have played 'em all but I haven't played Redguard or Battlespire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-vZEM0JTEY

Ob then havent played any other besides MW

I really wonder if the second option, that is the full TES competition, has been seriously considered. I mean, even with your warning in the first post, I'm sure some MW/Oblivion generation fans couldn't resist to vote for the only game they knew in the second question, therefore, over pushing the last two TES. You should have putted a warning right into the question to avoid this like : If you have played ALL TES games, which one did you enjoy the most?

At least, if the poll do not reverate to DF as it should have, it clearly points the serie dumbing down from MW to Oblivion.

The most hardcoe Oblivion supporters who think that Oblivion was successfull because of its intrinseque gaming qualities should realise that anybody with a bit of experience of the serie, or other CRPG, consider Oblivion as a worst game. Oblivion sold more than MW because it was one of the first original game on the Xbox 360, which was also the first "next generation" console. It was a good marketting manoeuver, not a great design one. If Oblivion had been DF 2, it would have sold as much... but it would also have been the first in most of those polls!