I first got into TES with morrowind, in fact morrowind was the first RPG I played. Up until then, I had hated and avoided RPGs as they seemed very two dimensional and predictable, followind a script similar to "Go here, save a princess." or "Go there and defeat the evil despot." etc.. Please bring back the attention to background lore, conflicting accounts of history, political powerstruggles and characters that can't easily be labeled.

Oblivion vastly improved over TES 3 in many fields. But when it came to plot and story-telling, it seemed like TES3 was anolagous to a Christopher Nolan or Coen Brother's film, and 4 seemed to be like a Van Damme or Chuck Norris movie.

Agreed.

I think picking one director and different works of that director would be a better anology as the games were made by the same people too.

Memento, Prestige ~Morrowind.
Dark Knight, Inception ~Oblivion.

Memento and Prestige are movies on my top list as masterpieces. Especially Prestige, it is really a fresh breath in recent years. In the end I rated them 10/10. I can go and watch them over and over to catch new details. They are products which fuel my imagination in each view. All I can say is, "what are you waiting for?" if you haven't seen them. If you've seen them, we can have a nice chat about them sharing our theories.

Dark Knight has some depth to it which I recognize, but it can become boring(stalls) and execution is really flawed but this can be expected as it is a superhero movie, not easy to sell when trying to be realistic at one hand and on the other hand there are all kinds of stupidity going on. In terms of action it has decent parts though compared to its prequel. Inception is the opposite, it has zero depth despite the layers in story which can be seen at first hand(which is the real accomplishment and maybe the doom of the movie). Execution is perfect and it has loads of action but it is all meaningless both in context and viewed separately. A let down which you can't admit easily because of the perfect execution and plot setting. I don't rate them as higher as the the previous accomplishments of the same director. I was watching Prestige an umpteenth time, it was still amazing... so much themes and events in one movie.

On topic, I really liked how Morrowind used "open text" method to let player to make his/her own mind while still following a linear storyline. An amazing accomplishment in interactive game media in terms of storytelling. On the whole Dovahkiin business, I hope they add some ambiguity to it. I wouldn't mind the situations forcing the player to accept the role(blight -> gates -> dragons) but the story still needs to add some room for interpretation.

From Morrowind journal:


From Oblivion journal:


PS. I didn't actually read the relevant part of the journal in Morrowind(just searched now for an example which didn't let me down ). In Oblivion, above was an unavoidable pop-up message box.

Are you watching closely?

Agree totally.

Oblivion had a relatively well-fleshed-out lore, at least as described in books etc (not so much though dialogue, although there was some palpable mudcrab hate going on). But there was never any moral ambiguity in the things you as a player were actually asked to do. It was always 'kill the bad guys, rescue the good guys'. And the Dark Brotherhood, while fun, was just about killing people for the sake of it... no moral ambiguity there either.

Part of the reason that Morrowind still fascinates me today is the complexity of motivations of the various factions. The quests themselves were often quite simplistic (Oblivion was in many ways more creative in quest design), but doing them felt meaningful. You had to take sides, and there were consequences. For me that is a central part of a great RPG.

To me, Morrowind was an choose-your-own-adventure book, while Oblivion was an epic novel.

Agreed.

Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind are freedom
Oblivion and Skyrim are a collection of prison cells.
Emprisoned into being the hero
Emprisoned into being the savior
Emprisoned into being Dovakhiin
Enprisoned in knowing your fate from the start, even before it started
With your life set on a corridor, even if a large one
Crippled on your skill, and attribute choice instead of freed to choose
Crippled on your choice while ingame as missions will be directed toward your higher skills
Crippled on your judgement (AFAIK) as you cannot switch side or remain neutral.
And so on.

TES is slowly putting a straight jacket on its customers instead of freeing them. Ironic isnt it, older games with less technological possibilities were the ones giving you the more options on what and how to play.

Erm, in Morrowind were you not the Nerevarine? A reincarnated hero destined to be a hero again? How is that different to the plot device in Skyrim? As one of my characters I'm intending to tell the Greybeards where to stick it and head off to the nearest fine gentleman's establishment.

This. Although I haven't seen the first two films. Will add them to my list

My favourite movie is Donnie Darko.

In morrowind you didn t knew what you where until you do it.
"Many falls but only one stand" you could be only one more to fall on the path, which path, to do what and what for ?

In Skyrim you are the zero, from the start one of a kind, from the start destined to win over necessarily evil dragons that wan t to swallow the world :puke:

You might already know what you are in Skyrim but you are not destined to win over the "necessarily evil" dragons as we know next to nothing about the main storyline. Albeit, Alduin is the primary antagonist but ambiguity over his origin persists. We're not sure whether we'll have a linear directed path to follow leading to the climix of the main storyline. Perhaps, there will be more sophisticated roles to play.

Also, this game may bear nil resemblance to the TES series but I strongly suggest you play Planescape: Torment. It has surplus instances of moral ambiguity and the story narrative is brilliant.

Yes I completely agree. Oblivion had some good points. But as for the story Morrowind was by far better. In Morrowind I actually felt bad about killing certain people and for others I wanted nothing more than to kill them and that very rarely happens in a game (especially an offline game).

You seem to know an awful lot of the Skyrim story nearly a year before the game is released for the first time.

And it has been officially announced that the player (nor anyone else probably) does NOT know he's the Doovakin at the start of the game for that matters.

I love to see some ambiguity too, sure I understand we must be the hero, it′s just part of being a fantasy game, but I hope we at least can choose if we are a goody good hero of light, or a dark anti hero...and a few things in between.



wait...what? I think your reading different info about Skyrim then the rest of us

You seem to be awfully late on news.
Producers opened their big mouth:
You are the dovakin (or whatever name)
Dragons are evil
You have to save the world
You can t join them
You can t join the dark side
Welcome home Luke Skywalker.

Again we have:
Failed from start sense of urgency, when i suggested many way to correct this awfull and pathetic setting i ve been slapped.
So my dear here s your/our gameplay:
You are the hero and will probably be sent to fetch this and that and :
"clean my boots while your re at it. What ? Your angered? pitifull!! I m immortal, so are my kids. so do it quick or i ll Bslap you, and there s nothing you can do about it".
"Why do i help you if i am immortal ? I m not helping you fool!!! I m just puppeting you!!! I couldn t care less if the dragon swallow this world to make another, i ll be on the next while your not, and if you win ill be there too, now about my boots they arent shiny enought, lick them!"

I totally agree here on pretty much every point made by everyone (great thread!)

Its a real shame that we already know the basic role of the character, it takes a lot of the excitement away from playing the game (but probably builds up more excitement to the average gamer pre-release (fair point?). I remember being genuinely surprised in Morrowind that I was the Nerevarine.

Similarly, I always felt in Oblivion that I was being the good guy (with the exception of the Dark brotherhood of course - but then that was forced 'badness' just as the rest of the game was forced 'goodness'. This definitely felt like a step backwards in terms of storytelling to me.

I'm quietly hoping that Skyrim will be the culmination of the two games - the action excitement of the combat of Oblivion (with improvements) combined with the immersion, plot development and atmosphere of Morrowind.

Yeah but we know...

In Morrowind, you may BECOME the Nerevarine, as you are told by one of the tribal wise women. You have the choice to proceed or not. You have a package to deliver at the start, with instructions which you may choose to follow or not, depending on your sentiments. You are then asked whether or not you are ready and willing to follow orders. The decision to proceed with the MQ is yours, and there are plenty of other things to do if you so choose. At least one character of mine took "the package" and stuffed it into a mudcrab carcass, to vanish permanently from the game world in 3 days.

In OB, you were given the Amulet, whether you wanted it or not. You couldn't just dump it to hide the evidence and vanish into the crowds, or tell Baurus "here, YOU figure out what to do with it". You were constantly reminded "you've got to hurry up and do the next step". The constant "nagging" pop-ups and insultingly blatant journal entries, items you couldn't get rid of, and unkillable key NPCs meant that you were never truly "rid" of the MQ unless you finished the whole annoying thing.

frankly I never found stories with both good/evil sides to be that good, it kinda ends up having two bland stories instead of one good story. I′m all for giving you the freedom to be the kind of hero you want, but I prefer the story lets you be either a hero or a villain, not both.




actually Beth have made it clear the games new AI means the game is going to give you much more freedom whom you can and can′t kill, and actually make you feel like killing people have consequences.

To be honest the story of both games was iffy. Storytelling and characters have never been TES's strong point. I think Morrowind has the edge, but I dont remember much in the way of moral ambiguity on offer there. Could someone give some examples?

If you break anything down enough you just described every single game ever made.

No the diference is that i use my brain.

I hate to be the one to break it to you guys, but not every plot can be the same damn thing. Imagine how boring the Elder Scrolls series would be if every time you put the new one in, it was just repackaged Morrowind.

The player in Oblivion was a victim of destiny. Yes, the main quest seemed a bit unavoidable for the main character. So? Does that somehow ruin the immersion or take away from the game? I know that I feel as though my main character from Oblivion has a much deeper personality than my Nerevarine BECAUSE of the fact that the main quest is unavoidable.

I don't understand why SO MANY OF YOU can't just let things be what they are and accept them and appreciate them for being different, and instead you have to be like I WISH THIS WAS MORROWIND INSTEAD. Morrowind was great and all, but so was Oblivion in its own way, and so will Skyrim be.

Let Morrowind go.

well of course, be hard to form your opinion otherwise

me I like the new system, flexible enough to not punish me if I wanna step out my characters direction, but the perks still allow my character to have a sense of distinction.

Sorry, dragon have been quoted as evil as every child wan t to fight big baddy fat dragons knight eating, village burning, child eating, dog kickking cookie cutter dragons.
also the lore says Aldiun is bound to eat the world to create the next one.
You are the hero, you fight dragons,
You can t join dragon or join the dark side evil, when i did a pol abount switching sides, and diverding ends, Mod slapped it shut as fast as it could over any nonsensic excuse.
1+1+1+1+1+1.....Unfortunatly.
I too expect some more than normal end, but really, wih the given set, it would be fooly to hope so, there s a limit on hope and being stupid.