So I've noticed quite a few posts in my time here saying that Oblivion is their least favourite or Skyrim is their least favourite because they were really looking forward to it and it didn't match the previous games and their expectations. I'm thinking that the majority of the time, fans get into the series and really enjoy it, but haven't been let down by an addition before because none have been released, so when one is announced they go wild and can't wait, but set their expectations too high and end up hating it for a certain length of time, if not forever.

Personally, I've fell into this as well. I was introduced to the series through Oblivion and went back to Morrowind, enjoying them both immensely. Then Skyrim was announced and I was never more excited for anything in my life as I was for that. In less than a week it became my least favourite of the three I played and I ended up not playing it for over a year. I've seen the same thing happen on here to people who were introduced through Morrowind and Oblivion.

The problem may lie in the fact that we wait for too long in between games, longer than other series, so we build up our expectations, but we're never let down as much as the first time we got excited. If this is the case, the disappointment of The Elder Scrolls VI will be huge worldwide, as most will have only played Skyrim and want it to be exactly like that.

So is this the case for you? The only exception to the case seems to be people introduced through Daggerfall, as everyone seems to love Morrowind here.

Yes, my least favourite game is the TES game I was looking forward to the most.

Here's why: I started with Morrowind, so I didn't have any strong expectation on it: I just read a few articles on a magazine and saw some pictures.

As for Skyrim, I had already been exposed to the concept of open world action rpg's for quite a few years, so the novelty wasn't there anymore. (though, I admit building a new PC just for it)

So, Oblivion: MASSIVE expectations: I posted a huge amount of posts on an Italian forum during the months that were leading to its release.

I bought it on release date and built a new rig just for playing it.

Massive disappointment: the atmosphere of Morrowind was abandoned in favor of the most generic setting possible. And once I knew level scaling was in, I couldn't bring myself to play it until Fran's mod was released.

Yes

My 1st in the series was MW which I was very pleased with

Oblivion was much anticipated and a huge letdown

I didn't have high expectations for Skyrim or ESO and was pleasantly surprised by both

My expectations for Oblivion were...not encouraging when I saw the first images for it. I was optimistic that despite the look, the exploration and story structure would still be fun. Oooh boy was I wrong.

Because I didn't expect much out of Skyrim, I was rather pleased with it started playing it. Most of my issues with it were not as bad as they were with Oblivion.

I voted no. Skyrim was my most anticipated and it is my favorite. I absolutely love that game. Oblivon is second

Well, Arena is at the bottom of my list so no? I was an infant when it was released.

As for my most anticipated, I guess I was let down quite a bit by Skyrim. I just expected to improve on what Oblivion did, and while it did to some extent, I did not anticipate so many things being cut altogether instead of being improved on or even just left the same. The fact that the game was rushed probably had a lot to do with that, which is unfortunate. That's not even taking the nasty business with the DLC into consideration, since although I was actually on the better side of it (I started on the 360) it still kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. Is this what the Horse Armor DLC was like or...?

I guess that, retroactively, Oblivion was also highly anticipated and let me down (I waited 2 weeks for it to be delivered to me)? After learning about what could have been in the game I suddenly felt kind of bitter, and as a poster (here I think?) put it, with people trashing Oblivion so badly and praising the older games, I was immediately impressed by its predecessors. They're both great games.

I now have very low expectations of future TES games and ESO wasn't as terrible as I originally thought it'd be. So. Yeah. From now on I guess putting my expectations aside might be for the best.

I went in with Oblivion and had very few expectations when I first got the game. It was actually a gift that my mother had given me, after she had heard about the GOTY edition going on sale from a gamestop employee. I had heard of the elder scrolls series in passing before but I never knew too much about it. I ended up spending over 1,000 hours playing Oblivion.

When Fallout 3 came out, I also had no expectations for it, having never heard of the franchise previously, and I once again strongly enjoyed the game.

Then, when Skyrim was announced, I started to actively post here on these forums, and I feel a few friends of mine in real life and I were very massively hyped up over it. There was even a period in July of 2011 where I had to go to the hospital due to a car accident for about 3 days, and I was excited to see what news would be announced by the time I got out and was having dreams about it. It's probably the most hyped up I've ever been for a videogame and I was ultimately disappointed. It felt weird, as well, since I couldn't place why I initially felt disappointed until sometime later. Sure, the attribute removal and many of the skill removals were weird, as well as many of the perks disappointing, but I would look around at the gorgeous world and find myself asking "why am I not able to enjoy this as much as I feel I should?"

Ultimately, I felt like the dialogue and writing issues as far as Skyrim goes were what ultimately held back my enjoyment. I couldn't enjoy exploring a new settlement when almost none of the NPCs would have dialogue or acknowledge my presence. I understand that it's definitely not good to have NPCs treat you like you're the center of the universe and that there are many places in the real world where people might not have much to say to you, but it just felt like a massive reduction in content. You should always be able to unlock dialogue with NPCs, even if they're not initially very friendly towards you, depending on the actions you commit to.

Other than that, there were only 5 or so quests in Skyrim that I ultimately enjoyed. I also expected the jobs and economy stuff to be more fleshed out, as well as the magic system, which was skeletal at best. I spent about 90% of my time in Skyrim just mindlessly exploring dungeons, fighting through them, and about 10% trying to take on quests, which I ultimately found to be rather boring. The college questline was great and I had high hopes for it initially, but its small amount of quests and strange pacing after the initial quests were off-putting.

I feel like in Oblivion, even though one could argue that the NPCs are often not as memorable as many in Skyrim, the quests in Oblivion helped to make each NPC involved much more memorable. You'd ultimately remember them more through the enjoyment of the quests involving them. That's how it was for me, at least. In Skyrim, due to many of the poor quests and overall writing, plus the sparsity of dialogue options, I felt like ultimately there were very few memorable NPCs.

But yeah, tl;dr - I'd have to answer "yes."

I'm going to be approaching Fallout 4 with low expectations, and hopefully TES VI as well. I somewhat have a feeling that BGS have noticed this same trend that you're asking us about now, and I feel like this might be the reason for their more silent marketing approach as of lately. Where they tend to sort of just keep quiet about everything they're working on, until it's practically done, and then they show very little information about stuff minus a few new features here or there. I suppose one of the great things about branding is that now BGS doesn't have to do too much marketing for itself. Most people know what they're getting into.

I feel like the "discovery" aspect is also something that colored my experience in Oblivion. Ultimately, I think the less I know about the game's plot and the more idiosyncrasies of the region that I have available for exploration, the better for me. I feel like many of the spoilers I was reading up on and the lore speculation here around Skyrim may have impacted my enjoyment.

TES is definitely an interesting series, in that to some extent, with many fans, I feel like you have to sort of "learn" not only how to utilize the new systems in each game, but you also have to "learn" how to enjoy each game within its own merits.

Yes, but in my case at least I would have to caution that correlation does not equal causation. By the time I got into Morrowind in 2008, Oblivion had already been out for several years and I was well aware that Oblivion was rather a let down compared to Morrowind. But when Skyrim was announced, I grew cautiously excited and ended up with a game much prettier but hardly better than Oblivion. And now every time I get the faintest bit excited for FO4, I remember Skyrim (and that FO4 is sadly not being made by Obsidian).

Well Arena aside...

Yup! I looked forward to playing Skyrim, even got hyped for it's release and it was the first game I actually preordered. Much like monkeyemoness I was expecting them to improve at least something over Oblivion. Everything just felt so shallow

Their treatment of the Ps3 version and their constant lying "They play the same" is downright insulting.

This is pretty much the way I feel! Let's not forget NPCs hounding you to force feed you quest in Skyrim.

That's my plan! I'm not closed to hyped for Fallout 4 and have no expectations of the game or any future TES games. And ESO as of now is one of my favorite TES games.

As with most, Morrowind was my first game. I wouldn't say that my expectations were "too high", I think that Oblivion is that one that ended up being too different in some aspects. I'm not going to say I was horribly shocked and that I wanted to toss the disc through the window right away, but I was pretty WTFed at some things, art design being the major one.
Skyrim actually surprised me quite a bit. Since I've got older I learned not to expect way too much, and avoid major letdowns, and knowing how it went with Oblivion I played Skyrim with no expectations at all. And it was awesome.

So, yeah, I expect TES VI to be complete crap, and I'm sure I'll hate it and that it will look worse than original Tetris.

I expected to enjoy Skyrim as much as I did the previous two. That's fairly reasonable, right? My first impressions were great, but it went downhill from there. But thanks to Requiem, I still play it sometimes.

I started with Morrowind and was greatly anticipating Oblivion. But boy was I disappointed back then. Skyrim was the game I knew nothing about, only that it took place in the home of the Nords. But Skyrim turned out to be my second favorite tes, behind Morrowind.

I was super pumped for the elder scrolls online, hearing everything i heard about it I imagined an elder scrolls game with other players... Instead we got an mmo with and elder scrolls theme. Graphicly I can't decide if I was let down or not. It's beautiful in a lot of areas and lacking in others and yet where it's lacking it's still pretty damn good for a mmo. Gameplay was a disappointment mostly because of the auto lock on and homing spells and arrows As well as ( either lag or the hit boxes are damn huge) getting killed by a two handed sword from 3 times the length of the blade away.

Not at all. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who figure out what the games going to like from the promos. I haven't been disappointed b any of the last three TES games nor by Fallout 3. Oblivions's relative normalcy put me off a little off at first but I quickly warmed to it.

A definite No. I don't pay any attention to game hype, and I never buy games on release. I don't care if everybody else plays a game before I do; with Elder Scrolls games, I wait for the final collection to be released, and buy it on discount when the price goes down. By the time I see the game, the friendly modders have fixed what should be fixed.

Going at it this way, I don't get disappointed by the games, because I know what the changes are, going in.

It took me a long while to get around to buying Skyrim, because it's so far from my preferred sort of RPG. Modded, it's adequate.

Absolutely. Oblivion was probably my most anticipated game of all time, and probably ranks up there with my first girlfriend as 'biggest disappointment of my life'. Especially after my transition from hating Morrowind, to adoring it, i just expected so much out of Oblivion, i now realise that it was entirely impossible to fulfil.

On the plus side, since then i've been largely impervious to hype and anticipation. I can look forward to games (and movies, and books) but i've been incapable of getting 'Kid at Christmas' excited about things. Except Cyberpunk 2077. CK Projett Red needs to cut the Witcher weight and get to work.