From what I've heard it seems like it's getting more complex

even if they did take out some content a lot seems to have been added in. I'm especially interested in how dual wielding magic will change how mages work.

I didn't say it was removed, I said some skills lost their usefulness as the series moved along and used Security as an example. It could easily be removed from the game and not affect it since lockpicking works just fine without security skill, oblivion gave it a nice new mechanic that can be stand-alone.

less armor and clothing slots

removing the requirement to find a silt strider or boat and pay a fee to travel for the ability to press an icon on your map and be transported to the location free of charge without any downside is DUMBING DOWN. saying its the same is ridiculous.

casting magic was significnalty dumbed down. you had to change to a casting stance unlike oblivion where you could be holding a shield and sword and just wave your hand. also you had a chance to fail in casting your spell in morrowind as opposed to oblivion where you were always successful. oblivion also had virtually instant magicka regen.

stamina in morrowind was much more important. you could run forever in oblivion.

heres my favorite. in morrowind you were given a set of directions from an npc and then you had to go find the location. in oblivion you got a big shiny green arrow that not only told you where the "lost temple" exactly was but it would even show you the exact location of the "long forgotten sword or lostness" was located in the cave.

guild requirements. in morrowind you had to have some skills in magic to go up in ranks in the mages guild.........in oblivion.............nothing, nada , zip zero. theres tons more.

level scaling......in oblivion enemies were your level.

for the love of God did you even play morrowind.

I'm not saying Oblivion was dumbed down, but you are missing the arguments people are making if you think the removal of skills is their logic for calling it dumbed down. People who believe OB was dumbed down from MW will say that level scaling is dumbing down, having every cast of a spell succeed is dumbing down, that fast travel is dumbing down and that the speechcraft/security minigames were dumbing down (or at the very least replacing character skill with player skill. I never made security a priority in OB because I could always win the lock picking minigame no matter what). Skill removal of skills is not at the top of the list of arguments, though the removal of spear eliminating a certain combat tactic was disappointing to some.

All that being said, I don't think OB was dumbed down in terms of gameplay. Different yes, but I'd be more disappointed if wasn't different. Same goes here. I'll reserve judgement on any dumbing down, though I doubt I'd say that even if most other people do. Differences don't have to be bad, regardless of personal feelings. One person might like a change, another might not but as long as not everyone hates the change then it isn't a "bad" change.

I've read about some changes that I don't agree with, to say the least. But they have been so vague in their descriptions. We only know the basics so the decisions could end up being adequate, and if they are bad then at least we'll have features like random quests, dynamic story-lines, realistic AI and tactical combat to keep us distracted at least for a little while.

Has Bethesda even revealed that attributes are indeed out, or is this speculation due to a lack of their mention in the GI article?

I'm locking this thread and will have it reviewed, but frankly, it's basically a MW vs. OB thread and by page 2, going the usual route of these threads. The thread topic seems to be intended to get a reaction out of people to no purpose other than to go with the very tired, boring old "it's dumbed down" trope.

2 very different games, different approaches as technology changes. Both gave 100s if not 1000s of hours of playtime, both have their strength and weaknesses. :shrug: