A lot of mixed reactions with Oblivion from most fans here, who were fans around the time of Daggerfall, Morrowing, or even before. I'll even say it felt watered down. But it was basically a launch title, coming out only a few months after the 360 did.

So were the changes Bethesda made due to them going 'mainstream' and forsaking their hardcoe fans for the casual gamer, or was it just a steep learning curve? Hell, I can't really think of a company that made a game as good as Oblivion as their first launch title for the next gen consoles.

Anybody have any thoughts?

I think many of the flaws in oblivion had nothing to do with the hardware accomodation. They were just pure uninspired design decisions.

They developed it for a long time, basically after Morrowind was released, but your right the didn't have the 360 and stuff until like the last 6 months or something like that. I think it was partly the reason but also they decided to go that route. I also think we'll see Skyrim go more inbetween Morrowind and Oblivion rather then even more Oblivionized / mainstreamed.

The changes between Morrowind and Oblivion, wherher good or bad, can probably not be attributed to just one particular factor. I'm sure some came from Bethesda trying to expand their mainstream fanbase, yes, and some came from an effort to adress some of the fanbase's complaints to Morrowind. People seem to forget, when it's convenient, that things like Oblivion's level scaling system and quest compass were probably a product of players' criticisms of Morrowind, of course, it's possible that the players who complained about Morrowind were a different set of the fanbase from those who complained about the attempts to adress complaints in Oblivion, because just because all members of the Elder Scrolls fanbase happen to all like at least some Elder Scrolls titles does not, by any means, mean that they all share the same opinion, and even if they were the same ones who complained, the wat Bethesda adressed the complaints might not quite be what they wanted. Still, it's something to think about. And yes, some design decisions may have been due to the game being a launch title, though I'd say these are mostly in the technical department, since Bethesda wasn't familiar, at the time, with the technology of the new consoles, therefore, they might not have been able to put it to the best use, which probably explains why Oblivion doesn't look as good as many newer games on the same consoles. But I doubt the quest compass, level scaling or any other things that it is considered popular to complain about had anything to do with that.

I don't think anyone has over looked this. Bethesda stated in the past that they only had 6months with final hardware before release. And during development that was a difficult time. But "crunch time" is always going to be tough.

Bethesda did have to drop features because of final hardware limitations. But those are all primarily graphical in nature.

game wise not so much i expect.

I think they did a great job on Oblivion. In my opinion, it is better than 90% of games that came out in the last 4 years. I put 200 plus hours on that game... on 360. How can you say it is uninspired? I think it had many great little stories and sub adventures.. i even enjoyed the main quest but there was so much more to do outside of that. Oblivion is far from uninspired.

Say what you may about Oblivion (I've got plenty of criticisms myself). but at the time it was released there was absolutely nothing from other devleopers that could even compare to its scale and depth until Mass Effect came along two years later. Bethesda has been far ahead of the pack with sandbox RPGs for years, I hope that does not change any time soon.

The only thing hardcoe about Daggerfall was its size. Morrowind, despite being an amazing game was piss easy. It was confusing at times, yes. But not difficult.
Yeah. People forget about all that [censored]ing from the time when Morrowind was released. If you browsed the internet forums when the game was first released, you would see the following complaints; they were all addressed in Oblivion.


Nothing can hit us once we get past LVL30. This is way too easy! - Level scaling.

Morrowind is all brown and alienic! - Colourful landscape of Cyrodil and standard fantasy setting.

There are too many factions that feel completely the same! - Bam, streamlined guild system with slightly improved quest design

There are too many useless items! - Streamlined item system.

Combat svcks! - Improved combat in Oblivion


Say what you will. I'm not too fond myself of some of the design choices, but I can see where they were coming from. Morrowind is my favourite game in the series too, but that doesn't mean it's perfect.

I take it you've never actually played Daggerfall, then?

It wasn't a launch title for the PC. Why was that version so wonky?

Oh yeesh, Daggerfall. Liches that can one-spell kill the player are a thing of the past these days.

(So's using Shalidor's mirror to get them to kill themselves)

"Nothing can hit us once we get past LVL30. This is way too easy! - Level scaling" - Level scaling was a BAD idea and Bethesda know it. You were invincible throughout the entire game in Oblivion.

"Morrowind is all brown and alienic! - Colourful landscape of Cyrodil and standard fantasy setting." - Alien = Much more intriguing ( Also had atmosphere )

"There are too many factions that feel completely the same" - In what way? I didn't see any difference. Infact, I felt the lack of guilds in Oblivion was another blunder.

"There are too many useless items!" What? like Paint Brushes? I think you're nit picking.

"Combat svcks!" - Agreed

I enjoyed Oblivion, no doubts about that.

Morrowind was a greater experience, In my humble opinion.

Bethesda never said they thought level scaling was bad, they did admit that they implemented it poorly and they hated how they did it after the fact. But from there on you are just disagreeing with the person you quoted when he wasn't stating his opinion. Those were all complaints about Morrowind after it release. I saw many of them myself.

oblivions level scalling falled because everything was as strong as the player, there were no moments when the player had to kill a horde of noobs or run from a more powerfull enemy, plus the item system was crap (daedric everywhere). the morrowind leveling system would mean that you would be fine at level 30 because of the combat

yes, more factions were good, but in oblivion i felt they were very poorly done in terms of the lore and characters (fighters/theives/mages guilds were saints, dark brotherhood felt like a bunch of pansies that had their own club and wouldent shut up about sithis.

we need more useless clutter for the world

combat svcked for both games, it was better in oblivion, but thats not saying much

Daggerfall was also hardcoe in the character creation, dungeon crawling, and main quest.
They where all adressed badly in oblivion

Or they could have just provided better end game content and playtested it proberly, level scaling was lazy


Which broke the lore, they could have set it in a provence that supported the setting they wanted better, like Valenwood for example

Never heard this one, but Oblivion factions where uninspired and so was the quest design Morrowinds quest where pretty uninspired so they where about the same

Again bad item design and lazy remove them solution also some players don't want just the uber items and like playthroughs with less than optimal choices

They should never have tampered with the TES combat from the first two games ion the first place combat in Areana and Daggerfall was great


Can see why they tried to address certain issues but they went down a lazy and uninspired path to do it, no morrowind was not perfect they screwed up combat and character creation just for starters.

They took the game in the wrong direction. Off the paths it's followed, they went for more realism. Here are two snippets of quotes from the game informer elder scrolls retrospective:

Todd Howard - "I was really influenced by the Lord of the Rings movies at that time." (I like LotR, but I think it has a different feel from feeling I want from a TES game)

Matt Carofano, Art Director - "After finishing Morrowind I wanted to take the Elder Scrolls in a more realistic direction, with some high fantasy elements. I brought this to Todd’s attention and surprisingly I found out we were on the same page." (The last thing I want in a TES game is any sort of realism or an art direction based off real historical medieval art styles)

The main reason I disliked Oblivion was it's generic, well everything. Generic Aylied ruins, generic fort ruins filled with generic loot like generic looking armor. Where's my indoril/morro-glass/dreugh/bonemold/morro-daedric armor. I know they're in Morrowind and they try to do something new with every game, but none of the armor or weapons in Oblivion looked good, IMHO. That's a game breaker for me because why would I want to explore any caves/dungeons if it isn't going to yield any epic items. Some armor just looked goofy too, like elven armor, daedric, thief, actually all of it. Also, the entire region of Cyrodiil in Oblivion was boring. There were no volcanic mountains, burning ashlands, unique ruins (like dwemer and daedric ruins). It just felt like a generic medieval setting in general. It's disappointing that that is what Beth intended to make. I think the faults in Oblivion are from bad game direction.

Generic medieval was what Daggerfall was, and I don't think I heard any complains about that. Morrowind was way over the top, I couldn't relate to anything. The two main issues with OBs level scaling was the lack of *some* unscaled (high level) foes that you would never go up against, and the number of extreme armors and equipment on scaled enemies. The rest was fine, and seemed to go for a computerized game master. Powerful items was fairly common in OB and would have lasted longer if it wasn't for extreme materials access. If the powerful unique non scaled items that lasted for the rest of the game was present, they should not appear in ways that makes them predeterministic. The world shouldn't be fixed in stone from game to game, as *you* remember where stuff was and you no longer just accidentally find them.

As for armor looks, I loved most of OBs armor, although I would like to have more variations in the low range and the high range not be THAT superior in AC. Wearing glass in MW I felt like a hedgehog in a freakshow begging to get stuck in the nearest tree I could find. No thanks, I want something I can *believe* in, that's the ultimate role playing for me. It does not have to be alien to be fantasy.

There we a lot of factors that could have lead to oblivions flaws, and I honestly expect at least some of them to be improved upon, they're not stupid.

A learning curve for making an RPG? They made 3 before Oblivion and PC architecture changed wildly during those 3 games. If you can make an RPG for the PC you can make it for anything, it has nothing to do with the hardware.

It was "Mainstreamed" for the casual user because that is who they targeted the game for. Being a good game and being a good TES RPG are 2 different things and hardware had to do with it.

I semi agree. The PC did change a little bit, between MW and OB not so much though, 1 up in the DX api, which is backwards compatible, and essentially the same OS, so there is a lot of similarities. However, and it is a big however, every single developer will tell that developing for any console is not like deving solely for a PC. By a lot. Apparently the Xbox is supposed to be the least fussy to dev for. Makes sense considering MS runs the show in both worlds

I hope I don't get massively flamed here but here is my 'view from an old guy':

I was a 'hard core' Elder Scrolls fan back in the Daggerfall/Morrowind days. However, I think many of the core fans have matured along with the series and welcome the addition of a more 'casual' approach. Whether 'casual' is the correct term is debatable. I would call it a 'more efficient' approach.

For instance, my wife and I now both have a demanding job, we have small kids, etc...and therefore have a whole lot less time to play games, especially demanding ones like RPGs. For these reasons I really appreciate the quest marker and fast travel system in Oblivion. In fact, I probably would NOT have played Oblivion if these features were missing. I have also tried to revisit Morrowind ( which I LOVE BTW) and the gameplay is just not 'efficient' enough for me right now.

So I guess the main point is that Bethesda gave Oblivion the *option* of being more accessible to people with a lack of time ( like me ) as well as new players who want a more accessible game. In the big picture, I think this is a brilliant move indeed! Also, as has been discussed for years on the forums, you do not HAVE to play Oblivion 'efficiently'...you can play without the fast travel, etc...if you want to!


I hope I didn't offend anyone. However, I think the opinion of an 'old guy' is needed. :foodndrink:

Morrowind's world was alien, yes. But didn't that make it a lot more exciting. It wasn't generic and because you never knew what to excpect it kept you hooked.
You always wanted to explore the next corner to see what suprises await you.

Oblivion tried to hard to appeal to the casual gamer, the "dwemer" armor for example was renamed "dwarven" armor, as if Oblivion wasn't generic enough.
Also, for me Morrowind's combat was perfect it was everything it needed to be, after all this is an RPG not an FPS , I'im perfectly fine with everything being determined purely by my stats. If you want Oblivion's combat that badly go play a shooter with a medieval mod.

This young guy agrees with you wholeheartedly. It's not only a matter of efficiency or time as it is giving the player options to avoid tedium. I cannot even revisit MW after playing OB. The quest compass, fast travel, distinct landmarks etc. Made traversing a gigantic world that much easier and less tedious.

Role playing to me is the total experience and memories I take from it. I'm sure we all remember certain quests or events, and they stick better in our memories from constant completion rather than step A being broken up from a jog from Skingrad to Bruma that takes an hour or so.

IMHO

Exactly, only the people who were around for the release of Morrowind here would have any idea of the amount of negative posts that flooded this forum, and the funny thing is, most people that look back on the TES series say that Morrowind was their favorite! You see Bethesda can't please everyone, and with Oblivion they did listen and respond, no more alien landscapes, a more colorful palette, the list go's including those mentioned above!

I remember people saying it was too easy even from the start, one guy complained that he finished the MQ in 6 hours, now that was some fancy power-gaming if so One guy renamed it Boringwind.. I mean it went on and on! Obviously with Skyrim they still won't be able to please everyone, and given the hype surrounding it they might not have a chance because everyones expectations are and will always be different!

The problem starts when you start listening to the threads after release BEFORE you have had a chance to get the game yourself, you see living in Australia Morrowind and Oblivion were released in the US before here, and my excitement over both were dashed when I saw 1000 threads of a negative nature! Even before the games arrived I was sure they would be terrible because of the boards and yet I put hundreds of hours into each! lol

I'm like 30, and I hope I never get that kind of old. :tongue: