I'm starting a separate topic to discuss some differences in presentation between Morrowind and Oblivion, and how some of those differences might be anolyzed and improved upon to help better Skyrim.

I've mentioned that I am yet another Morrowind junkie that feels a little bit... out of place in Cyrodiil. I believe a great deal of this has to do with the realism and immersion presented in each of these games. Oblivion is a game that I can play/have played with a group of people while sharing jokes and eating chips. Oblivion does not demand as much attention as Morrowind does, and it goes a long way to provide a pleasant experience for the player (both in terms of gameplay and visuals). Morrowind made no such effort to appeal to the player. In Morrowind the player was supposed to feel like the outcast, and it was the player's responsibility to imitate and assimilate. This made it very important for the player to take the rules of Morrowind seriously. An NPC's disposition, range of vision, faction affiliation and supply of gold were things the player had to closely monitor. In Oblivion, it didn't really matter if you paid attention to any of that. You never had to argue over price, you never suffered terribly for committing any kind of crime (because there were always funds available) and nearly every interaction was customized to your level (making it impossible to screw up too badly).

The result of this is that Morrowind players are much more rule-abiding and rule-conscious than Oblivion players. This also makes Morrowind players more shocked when they realize these rules can be bent or broken. (And how!) Magic that can permanently increase your statistics if you know how to use it right, the ability to fast-travel between dungeons if you have the right items, the ability to create potions that make you nearly invincible to harm, ascension into the role of a god and levitation (woo!) are all examples of rigid rules in Morrowind being outright broken; creating a sense of excitement for the player because these abilities seem almost taboo--like legal cheats.

In Oblivion I dupe items on my 360 just for the sake of seeing a meat-accordion. I know that the cheat breaks the game, but there is no rule there I have reverence for to keep me from doing it (or to make me appreciate it). It's not magic, it's not alchemy; it's a trick. Who cares? If that gets boring I'll go kill an NPC and rub venison on the guard's face. Realism.

My purpose in saying this is that I hope Skyrim will create an apparently rigid and rule-driven game world that I can break in serious ways later in the game (or early in the game if I look it up on YouTube). The reason being, I know I'll be doing something special. I don't want to manipulate the menus to earn gold and items. I want to manipulate the world of magic, alchemy and enchanting to make believe that there still are rules, I'm just smarter than them. Could you imagine how much better fast travel would have felt if it were a spell? Something real in the world instead of a simple menu manipulation?

I'm not scared of big numbers. I don't mind if my luck is at 9999, if I did it using the skill of my character and not some flaw in programming. If my character is smart enough to create a potion that makes him invulnerable, more power to him. It was HE WHO DID IT ANYWAY, not me!

What is everyone's thought on this?

P.S.: If my character can sneak through a group of level 30 mobs at level 10 and earn a level 40 piece of equipment, that should also count as a viable progression (considering it was based on my character's ability to sneak).

HEy Ereptor Rex, I'm Renee Gade II. Hey could you make this poll multiple choice? I'm finding several of the answers seem pertinent, especially for the 2nd topic.

I say nay! Keep the poll the way it is! From my experience, multiple choice polls tend to have results that are so similar to each other, choice shows little or no difference; thus eliminating the purpose of a poll itself.

Nice poll! But I always thought Morrowind wasn't very immersive to me.

Hey Renee Gade II, I changed it for a second but I changed it back. I know there are multiple answers to choose, but I want to know what's most important. I also want to see if it is evenly divided or very one-sided. Hopefully Bethesda will learn something too!

I find it to be immersive on the surface. I always find that my initial "wow!" is replaced quickly by seeing the underlying mechanics and weaknesses in AI, which, combined with the thin, laughable situations like NPC conversations or people standing there smiling while I draw my blade and walk toward them over the corpses of the fallen cause me to have little remaining immersive feel.

I know that no computer game can ever be truly immersive, at least not to the extent of a pen and paper RPG or something, but I'm hoping they concentrate on removing the ridiculous.

"Could you imagine how much better fast travel would have felt if it were a spell? Something real in the world instead of a simple menu manipulation?"

As an anti-fast travel discussion fan, I'd accept fast travel more if it was a spell (an actual explanation to it - a spell; with a small downside - magicka loss), even though I'd much prefer a transportation system a la Morrowind.
I agree what you said as well concerning a Morrowind - Oblivion comparison.

While I did feel that Morrowind's atmosphere enhanced my immersion, every TES game I've ever played has felt immersive to me within its own context.

As always, I advocate the return of immersion-enhancing factors like boats, rickshaws, wagons, spells, and other means of fast travel... in addition to the optional map-click fast travel.

The issue I have with MW's "exploits" is that if my relatively unskilled character can do them at low levels, why can't the more powerful NPCs? I don't mind a few "tricks", but the sheer volume and magnitude of them in MW was an immersion-wrecker. I do agree about the OB absurdities, though, which is part of why I still play MW and not OB.

I find the Elder Scrolls series really immersive, especially in Oblivion, between Voiced dialog, people having schedules, and added physics to make the world behave more believably, it all came together nicely.

However the series could easily come to greater heights, and so far it seems Skyrim will do just that.

Dang. I can't decide. Sorry.

@Renee Gade 2, I felt the same way, however, the OP has considered your suggestion, but (s)he decided that the original questioning was best suited for his/her purposes..

If one has an appreciation for greater immersion in The Elder Scrolls world, then one should frequent http://www.imperial-library.info/ for many bits of information with respect to the lore and geography of Elderscrolls games. It is a great resource.

So basically, what you're saying is "Make it like Morrowind"?

Welcome to the Forums Have a http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r105/Enoil/DarkFishyStick.jpg

Well then I will try that link, thank you.

If I could vote the way I wanted, I'd choose the Elder Scrolls as a whole or whatever it said. I've only played Oblivion, but I've read plenty on the earlier games, and they sound just as immersive in their own ways. I'm sure I'd like all of them for the fact that it sounds as if I could get immersed in any of them.

For the 2nd topic, I would choose ALL of them except the Jeremy Soules one.

For the 3rd topic, I would choose 3 of the topic: "having the entire game to explore unimpeded" or whatever it says, the "little nuances" one, and the "seeing characters interact" one.

I found Oblivion to be more immersive than Morrowind, because the world felt alive in a completely different manner. Partly because of better animations, partly because of better AI, but mostly because of voices. They make all the difference for me. I know, full voice acting is a bad thing for the hardcoe arrpeegeeist, because of the limited information a character can express (for development time reasons, budget reasons, disk space reasons, what do I know) - but for me, it's worth it, because the world feels much, much more alive when there's full voice acting.

I find Morrowind the most immersive of the games. I loved the atmosphere, questing, traveling system, landscape and unique characters. Also, i miss the lantern and the other portable light sources.

No. :shrug:

(though I can imagine a teleportation spell, as an alternative to menu based fast travel).

** The Spell should work anywhere, as it is a feature of the PC, and should come with risks, and deposit you in a weakened state.

Fast travel is menu based because that's all it is ~its time compression. As far as the game is concerned there is zero difference between 'fast travel', and if your PC just walked or went on horseback ~only it doesn't bother showing the trip, it just resumes play after the PC is assumed to have arrived (by conventional means).

A teleport spell would really (actually) be a magic 'poof!' and you arrive; with no time compression at all. One minute you are in a dungeon, the next minute you are on the street in the capitol city.

I would hate that to be all I'm saying for many reasons. I enjoyed many parts of Oblivion, but as a complete piece I didn't enjoy it as much as Morrowind. I feel as if everything in Oblivion flowed into combat, leaving the other two branches as mostly support roles. Enchanting and spellmaking (two of my absolute favorite parts of Morrowind) were severely nerfed, and alchemy didn't possess the same power it did before. Even though there was a big, pretty (cookie-cutter) new world to explore, my decisions ultimately came down to "Now, do you want to hit him with the blue stick or the red stick?" I also took advantage of things I should have considered more closely: fast travel, duplication, difficulty modifier, downloadable content and infinite merchant gold. Sure, Morrowind had its share of underhanded ways to advance, but none felt so sterile. It was always a choice, one that I was very well aware of. Do I cross the guild/temple/house and steal this item? Do I make a down payment on this spell to turn it into one more powerful? Do I purchase/collect/steal alchemical supplies to make myself a potion of invincibility? There was always effort involved, and there was always a sense of peer pressure from the NPCs goading you to assimilate into their norms.

Do I think Skyrim will have things that people will abuse? Yes! Is that okay? Well, it depends. Does the game world approve? Is the game world even involved? If you're using your menu system to directly influence the game (fast travel, duplication, difficulty modifier, downloadable content), your character puts no effort into this and you make no decisions on behalf of your character. Adjusting my difficulty setting raises the question, "Is this the right choice for me? Yes, I will get more done in less time," but fortifying my strength beyond normal levels raises the question, "Is this a good choice for my character? Will I be still a part of the environment or will I irreparably change gameplay and lose my place in the world? I'm not sure, better to be safe and not cause trouble." On one level I am making a choice about my game, on another level I'm making a choice from within the game. I believe this is the immersion level Skyrim needs, and the approach it needs to take in dealing with exploitables.

Morrowind's shortcomings were innumerable, and many were fixed in Oblivion. However, with more careful consideration (and maybe an extra year of development, or a few new members with a fresh perspective on the game) Oblivion could have really svcked me in. I felt immersion on a Morrowind level in Oblivion once, when trying to solve the mystery behind the Dark Brotherhood. I felt danger (even though there was none, I was auto-leveled to win any fight), I felt suspicion (like there might be more to the game than I originally though, a common epiphany in Morrowind) and I felt like I might get something good out of it (even though all my loot was randomly generated or quest granted, either way being leveled to my character). Since that moment, Oblivion has felt horribly... flat.

I hope Skyrim doesn't suffer the same fate once the smoke and mirrors of the new upgrades have outworn their welcome. There always has to be more to a game. A few more X's on the map, a well-hidden side quest, a boss you just can't beat yet or at least the impression that something more awaits you. In Oblivion, I spend my time looking through online maps of Cyrodiil seeing if there are any last little hollows full of goblins to go root out or weapons I haven't yet acquired (unlikely) that I can enchant with something I haven't yet used (unlikely).

I never realized I was so strongly pointed toward Morrowind... I apologize to everyone for my audacity. Please don't hate me just because you like Oblivion. I do too, I promise.



Yay! My first Legendary Fishy Stick! Oh how I have heard of you, fishy stick. You stick made of fishes you.

Naked, and alone. Ready to give a phone book hell.

:obliviongate: <- Whoa, awesome.

:tops:
Could be, but I was just thinking the spell could drop fatigue to almost zero.

Oh yeah, totally. I agree. (Depending on how much fatigue would influence whatever your next action was. My guess is not very much.)

Over time, I've found discussions about comparing Morrowind to Oblivion and ultimately to Skyrim becoming increasingly tiresome: as I've come to realize, lots of Morrowind's game's mechanics aren't perfect, certainly there have been many games with better alternatives (Oblivion included, in some cases). Instead, much of what makes Morrowind so great to me is probably just grounded in nostalgia, and yet at the same time, there are so many little details - the "nuances" as you refer to them, that give it so much soul: light sources, the ability to drop gold, pillow forts, all of that. Little intricacies like uniquely hidden dungeon loot aren't really things a new player will identify with immediately into the game - rather things you'll only begin to notice after hours of playtime, things you won't truly appreciate until you move on to another game and realize just how badly you miss them.

I almost lament newer games, because of how "consistent" and predictable they're becoming in their presentation and format.

I think this is the issue with newer games: the presentation. They've become too comprehensive. A series which followed a similar fate, not many of you may have heard of it, is Sierra's Quest for Glory games from the early 90s. They were point and click adventure games, except your character was one of three (later four) classes and had their own skills and attributes. The game had combat, NPC schedules, all sorts of things. In many respects, the first was the best because the game world was so open. It hardly felt like an adventure game: aside from a few specific things you were to accomplish, you had a completely open world with different ways of proceeding depending on your abilities and class. Many things had to be learned or trained before you could make progress, but that just made things all the more rewarding. One simple example was money - in QFG1, it was very difficult to make money at first. You had to kill enemies or run item errands - a slow way to make profit, but it was still part of the experience.

By QFG4, there was no significance with money anymore. There was a cache that you found in the game, it was almost impossible to miss, that gave you more money than you'd ever need. Instead of exploring the world and fighting to improve your abilities, there was a training area you could just mindlessly visit every day. It was as if the creators were saying "we're tired of the whole character development thing, we know you guys want to get on with the plot - so here's a quick way to bring your character up to speed." <_<

I get this vibe with Oblivion sometimes. Think of how its dungeons more or less always had chests in the same preset places: niches in the walls for forts, corners for Ayleid casks. I can practically hear Todd speaking in my head: "good work, you've cleared another dungeon, here's your reward as always".

What really matters to me in TES games is the world, not the gameplay. My imagination can fill the gaps for the second one, but the world has to be compelling enough to begin with. Think about how Morrowind named all of its NPCs, even prematurely hostile ones such as bandits. I'd look upon their names and think, "wait, I wonder if they have any family?" or "some people in town were mentioning them, I wonder why they turned to a life of crime". Morrowind feels special because it was a world first and a game second. You can tell the developers really had fun making it, adding their own little cliffhangers and mysterious backstories to every location. Morrowind was very sloppy and inconsistent in places: but isn't that just like real life?

Don't get me wrong, Oblivion had nice moments, too: certainly, its side quests were much more enjoyable than Morrowind's, and there were still dungeons with stories behind them such as the Ayleid ruin outside of the Imperial City. Yet there were so few of these instances - most of the world still felt rigid and predictable, and I dearly hope Skyrim won't do this. Forget about skill quantity or the number of factions. I want everything to be alive, unique, and unpredictable: and trust me, that means more than just changing the architecture of each city.

Everything that you just said is the most awesome thing ever.

I prefer find Morrowind really immersive, I love exploring and It's the small unique things that does it for me