Been playing Skyrim extensively, but also played Oblivion some.

Oblivion's questline felt more like... a crisis. The battle for Kvatch and the other battles to close the gates of Oblivion were by far one of the best things in the game. I like the ideas of battles like that. I think there were like 5 guards and 3 Legionnaires and we were fighting the daedra, it was fun.

In Skyrim the only moment like that was when we fought Mirmulnir at the Western Watch Tower with Irileth and a contingent of guardsmen. It'd have been cool to, like in Oblivion, have similar events throughout each Hold in Skyrim. But I imagine dragons and/or dragon priests attacking the Holds with armies of draugr which you, the guards, some legionnaires/stormcloaks, the Jarl and housecarls having to fight through the city or around it and defeat them.

It just gives a sense of battle and crisis to the quests.

Urgh, the quest to close the Oblivion gates was one of the worst parts of the game. It's like the devs got together and said "Hey, remember that part of Morrowind's main quest, where we made the player run around getting certified by all the Great Houses and Ashlander tribes, and everyone hated it? Let's do that again!"


I hear what you're saying about the sense of epic battle, etc, but to be honest they became very repetitive very quickly. Also, the TES engine just isn't really designed for group fighting.

I'd say Oblivion did a pretty poor job itself. If you had people actually getting killed by the Daedra sans Kavatch.. then maybe. But aside from the guards there was very little casualties or tension, so the threatening atmosphere in basically every TES game you have to help along in your own head. At least with Skyrim there's occasional burnt down homes and displaced farmers. Dragons should have burnt down or taken control of other minor towns though.. that would be sweet.