in your opinion, what do you consider the best game of the series, obviously not taking into consideration graphical/hardware/engine enhancements and improvements due to technology, just apples to apples from a gameplay and storyline perspective?

Ive only started playing the series since MW and I liked it better than OB.

Morrowind is a thousand times better Oblivion... I hope they return some of Morrowind's atmosphere to Skyrim (in a way that suits skyrim), that would be awesome and much better than Oblivion's generic fantasy world.

Best-made game of the series? Morrowind, without a doubt.

Personal favourite? Oblivion (only with mods)

Daggerfall has a lot of amazing qualities it's sequels lack, and i'm sure many people consider it their personal favourite... but for me it's far too flawed to be considered "the best TES game".

Pretty much this. Morrowind is technically superior to Oblivion, but I like Oblivion much more. Daggerfall is impressive considering its age, but I have to grit my teeth just to try to enjoy it.

My thoughts:

Daggerfall had the buggiest but most interesting gameplay, and while the metaphysics side of the story was lacking, the political aspect was very interesting.

Morrowind had the dullest gameplay, very interesting lore, but used far too much padding in the MQ. As a story it's fine, as something your so supposed to play it's lacking.

Oblivion's gameworld didn't really live up to the lore about Cyrodiil, but Oblivion did add some very interesting pieces to the lore, such as Liminal bridges, the Remanada, the commentaries, and several others. It's gameplay was more entertaining then morrowind's but still had some of the same problems. As for it's story, oblivion had a nice, direct story but did a poor job at explaining what was really going on to the player. For example, Liminal Bridges explains how Oblivion gates and the sigil stones are made, but one can go through the entire game without realizing the book exists. It should have done a better job with explaining the omnipresent metaphysical aspects of the storyline.

All in all, I'd say that Daggerfall is the only game I really keep coming back to.

I've played every game, didn't complete Arena or Daggerfall, and I'd have to say Morrowind was my favorite. Mainly from a storytelling perspective it had far more depth and a more original plot. Plus Vvardenfell is an amazing place to explore.

I've only watched my older brother play Daggerfall, and between Morrowind an Oblivion... Morrowind all the way! (although I hate the alchemy menu :sick: )

Yeah, my heavily modded Oblivion was easily my favorite, though Morrowind was superior in many ways. They are not just a RPGs with a story, they are adventures. I simply can't separate the games from the technology and the visceral adrenaline feeling of the action and combat while exploring the setting. While Morrowind was a more interesting place to explore, Cyrodiil was a more exciting place to be. Daggerfall was so long ago that I barely remember it, though I don't miss the huge repetitive dungeons I would get lost in looking for mummy wrappings for a local store clerk. Do miss scaling the city walls and flying though.

Morrowind is the best, it was immersive, difficult, had a good story-line, and it had good customization. It will definitely be tough for Skyrim to dethrone it, that's for sure.

the only bad thing about Morrowind was the...(shivers)....Cliffracers.....

Agree with this 100%. As someone who likes the political aspects of TES lore more than the metaphysical stuff, I'd probably tilt even more heavily towards Daggerfall. All of the games have tons of brilliant ideas and tons of baffling oversights -- that's the Bethesda way.

I like Daggerfall best for the tone of the game. The newer two seemed rather kiddie to me. And the size of the game sure helped the imagination. If they say the Shalgoran army is waiting at the border to invade Daenia, it's much easier to believe when you couldn't hope to run out there and find the army.

Daggerfall was cool with it rougelike qualities, however it was extremely bugy, quest also got boring after some hundreds hours. Morrowind was set in a very interesting world it was far better done than both Daggerfall and Oblivion, main downside was a very static gameworld, very noticeable after rounding it over 10 times.
Oblivion had far better gameplay but the world felt far duller than Morrowind, Always felt that Oblivion was far closer to Daggerfall than Morrowind.

Best game without mods would be Morrowind but with mods my favorite is Oblivion. I hate to admit it but those are the only TES games I've played so I cant say anything about Arena or Daggerfall.

My main complaints with Morrowind were technical and gameplay issues like combat, graphics and voice overs that have been improved in later games. I also hated the lack of player dialogue in Morrowind. There wasnt much in Oblivion either but at least there was more. At least I think there was. Its been a year since I last played it. Dialogue is one of the biggest things that immerse me into my character and to the world so I'm hoping for a lot of it. It has to be interesting dialogue though which really lets the player interact with other characters. Not just a lot of meaningless and boring questions and topics that the player can ask. I want my character to be able to tell his opinions and thoughts and interact with other people. If there is no interesting player dialogue I'll just have to make it up like I did in Morrowind and Oblivion.

What I love about Daggerfall is the many different storyline branches you could take, and the many different endings. Morrowind has many factions you can choose between, which will affect the game a bit. Oblivion had none of that - you could do everything in one playthrough. Other than that, I love Oblivion despite Morrowind felt a lot more exotic, but Oblivion is the game that got me into TES and it definitely raised the bar with the pretty impressive attempt at Radiant AI.

I haven't been playing them since 1998, but I did play Morrowind when it first came out, and I've recently started Daggerfall. Morrowind's my favourite because it was an explosion of awesome to the power of >9000, so it'd be easier to say what was wrong with the other 2.

Oblivion was great, but it lacked the sense of lore. The combat went from simplistic to halfway between simplistic and action, which really didn't fit - it just ended up being clunky. This generally represents the feel of the game - very grand, but without much good substance.

Daggerfall I'd say isn't the best is because of how many restrictions it places on the player. For example, every quest, even the Main Quest, sets a time limit on the player. This means that you'll have to turn down a bunch of quests purely because you can't do one of the awesome mega-dungeons in the time you have left. This 'restriction' quality, as in Oblivion, ricochets throughout the whole game - for example, it's incredibly difficult to play a fighter (or any non-mage class for that matter), most dungeons will have extremely cheap enemies (like the paralyzing spiders) and you have to get a certain weapon before you can even hit them.

And Arena?

...yeah, we kind of ignore that one


You say it was difficult, but honestly I think its difficulty was somewhere in the middle - not too hard, not too easy. I wasn't dying constantly like what sometimes happened in Oblivion at later levels, and in Daggerfall at all, but I was still having a fun, challenging time. Because, to put it bluntly, there's nothing that's more jarring during a dungeon crawl than death.

Actually, no we don't ignore Arena.....which was the =first= CRPG that let you out of the dungeon and pathed world into a world where you were outside. And could go any direction you bloody well pleased. Remember, DOS 5 was cutting edge when Arena was being outed for the masses. 256 megs of RAM was the equivalent in cost of 16 gigs of DDR3 top end current memory. For the available average memory, hard drive size, and 8 bit VGA graphics, you couldn't beat it.

That said, Daggerfall was the king; yes, there were timed events, -but only if you started the timers.-. All you had to do was simply =not= do a specific quest, and the main quest timer never starts. You had unprecedented control over your character; you could make anyman, uberman, trade some abilities and characteristics for others.... You could cheat your little fingers off, and have no one to blame but yourself. Yes, there were bugs galore; partially due to having to run a 16 bit DOS game with the 32 bit Causeway extender....never the most stable bit of software to begin with. The other biggest cause was all the things they were working on, and simply couldn't get to work with the then current level of tech, or they ran out of time and had to go gold. Just the fact that 'that old DOS game' is =still= being played today says quite a bit about it.

Morrowind had a lot of promise, being the first true 3D game. And it provided a world alien enough to fit the dunmer well. Size was an issue, and the general fact that most of the work wound up aimed at eye candy and Xbox. The CS was a godsend....but also showed just how much was left out of the game

Oblivion was simply too bloody small. This was supposed to be the -center- of the Empire of Tamriel; and what we got was Orthanc, not Minas Tirith. The so called imperial city was more a mages tower. There was nothing but nothing around said tower. You found Aylied ruins within an hour's walk of the Imperial city. There should have been encampments for the Imperial Guard. The city should have had sections for each race, and been large enough that 'Little Blackmarsh' wasn't spitting distance away from Little Morrowind. Frankly, it would have worked better if that tower had been an outpost, and the Imperial City was sealed after Septim's demise, until Dagon appeared. It was calling a raisin a watermelon. There was good tech, and good level and terrain design; but it just was not worthy of a continent spanning empire...