well, we have been greatly spoiled in the last years by modders. compare vanilla oblivion to a fully modded FCOM+++ game ( UL, BC, DR etc ) . then consider what is yet to come: Unnecessary violence 2 , WAC , ARES , BRAINS ... plus of course let's not forget QTP3, OBGE v2 and all the awesome, deep and complex quest mods out there. plus tamriel heightmaps, elsweyr anequina...

Oblivion fully modded is an awesome experience and it will be even more so 10 months from now. how will skyrim fare against such a juggernaut? some points to consider:

1) it will obviously not have the amount of detail, polish and variety that modblivion has. nowadays this kind of depth can only be achieved by modders it seems, since they are immune from the woes caused by time and money contrains. game developers these day are more and more interested to make the game as good as it has to be to sell, and not a tiny bit more than that. most games that came out in the last 5 years or so have always felt rushed, incomplete, shallow and lazy, oblivion included ( luckily with mods this changes a lot ) , to me. hopefully this will be a bit less of a problem with skyrim, considering bethesda at least doesn't have a completely external entity like EA pressuring them to get the game done sooner rather than later ( look at the shame civ5 is... ) . of course the parent company will not allow them to throw money out of the window, but it shouldn't be as severe as it would be if they had an external producer.

2) I'm pretty sure it's going to NEED modding way less than oblivion. it's probably going to be similar to morrowind in this aspect. go figure, the most popular and best oblivion mods actually FIX the game rather than ENHANCE it. for example OOO/Francesco's deals with the horrible levelscaling. nGCD/realistic leveling fixes the horrible leveling system. unique landscapes fix the boring as hell vanilla landscapes. the list goes on and on and on, there seems to be no limits to the things in Oblivion you can look at and say "what were they THINKING??" ( favourite example here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wK9dc_O3pM ) .

hopefully this was only due to time contrains and not due to bethesda having become lazy and only caring about money, since it seems they are taking their time for Skyrim.

morrowind otoh felt like a complete and finished, polished product right out of the gate. I've played most of it 1.0 without mods without issues. ( although I did have much more fun with it after adding giants - me loves seeing a huge variety of creatures when running around ) the thought of playing vanilla oblivion unpatched is frightening.

3) how did modded morrowind fare vs vanilla oblivion? this one is a hard one to evaluate since they are very different games... morrowind is way more rpg, has more depth, character and doesn't need many mods to fix its flaws. oblivion is clearly a rushed game, but the action parts are way better, graphics of course, and radiant AI ( not as good as it could have been we know, but still great ) .

my humble opinion is that oblivion still comes up the winner , even with all its horrible flaws. morrowind definitely shows its age, and the combat is atrocious. NPCs standing in place, as opposed to NPCs that walk around, are a big deal for me. but players who enjoy the roleplaying and lore more than me will certainly prefer morrowind still. imo oblivion is a better GAME, but Morrowind is definitely a better RPG ( oblivion is action/RPG. when you look at morrowind combat, I think it's safe to say that the developers didn't think it was very important for the game overall ) with a better story.

4) I think the gap between skyrim and oblivion will be way less than the gap between morrowind and oblivion. same console, and they've said themselves it's an evolution, not a revolution. it certainly looks and sounds that way based on the ingo we've got right now



so, yeah. these are my thoughts. whatcha think? all things considered, which one will be the better game on 11/11/11?

The basic system of Skyrim will workbetter than Modded Oblivion. Mods don't fix the core mechanics (well not all of them). It'll also have better dragons, the radiant AI/story, a different system of skills and stuff which could be better depending on youropinion, better graphics, etc.

As of now.
In MY opinion.
Since you asked and everything y'know.

Vanilla Morrowind > Modblivion.

But hopefully it goes like this.

Skyrim (Vanilla or not.) > Morrowind > Modblivion.

I have to give the same reply that I did in the "Will Skyrim be better than Oblivion?" topic, even though this topic asks different questions.

"Better" is a subjective term unless you define what your criteria for something being "better" are, and even then, the criteria themselves will be yours and may differ from mine or anyone else's, rendering it subjective anyway. What you're really asking is, "Do you think you'll personally like Skyrim better than previous TES games."

I don't know. I like every TES game I've ever played in different ways. (Started with Morrowind on Xbox, then moved to the PC version. Absolutely loved it. Then Oblivion came out which I played on PC. Finally I loved both so much that I managed to run Daggerfall after a lot of headaches and loved it to, albeit in very different ways. Never could get Arena to run well.)

I think the thing that happens is, a game comes out, and people love it, but have some major complaints. Those complaints are heard by the developer (and modders,) so they try to address the complaints that a majority of customers had. That changes the subjective feel of the game though, which is something very ephemeral and hard to define. (It's also different from person to person.) So, they've addressed the complaints people had, and in theory, people should like the game better, right? It doesn't work that way though, because people loved the previous game, and miss that intangible "feel" that it had. That's what happened between Morrowind and Oblivion, and there are going to be - I can almost guarantee it - a lot of people who never played Morrowind but played Oblivion, and are going to feel that Skyrim doesn't have enough of the "feel" Oblivion had either. The number one complaint people had about Morrowind was that they couldn't find things. So they gave us quest markers. Another complaint was that it was too spread out with large areas empty of content. So they gave us more closely spaced locations and content. Etc. But a lot of Morrowind fans hated those changes, and said they were dumbing the game down and making it too crowded.

Essentially, Bethesda can't win, and they can't please everyone. Modders can help here, but ultimately the "feel" of the game is going to be qualitatively different than previous TES games, and will be dictated by the majority of customers' complaints, and the kinds of things Bethesda wants to try implementing in the game to satisfy their own ideas. That will be true of every TES game that follows in all likelihood, as well. There are some things they're doing with Skyrim that sound like I'll love them, and some things that sound like they're going to make me miss the old systems. But at the end of the day, I just want another TES game that's relatively expansive, has rich lore, lets me explore a world, lets me create a character that's my own, and tells some kind of a story (or many little stories, as the case probably is.) How they do that, and whether or not the "feel" is the same as previous games (with my favorite being Morrowind thus far) isn't really as important to me as those core factors.

Skyrim definitely, wholly and absolutely.

Well, initially at least modded Oblivion will of course be more expansive, but Skyrim will be better in the long run. Better core game, so when mods come out it'll be great.

yeah, of course modded skyrim will be better than modded oblivion

but vanilla vs modblivion? will the obviously better core mechanics be enough to make up for the inevitable lack of detail, polish and sheer amount of stuff to do/see/explore/kill/loot/etc. ? that's why one of the points I made is "let's compare modded morrowind to vanilla oblivion" . you can't just add dx9 and radiant AI to morrowind, and the same will be true now. but it seems that most of the new features in skyrim are ones that are already in modblivion, the combat system being a prime example. of course it will be better since it will be embedded in the game instead of added upon... but this doesn't change that after years of deadly reflex, skyrim's combat system will hardly be revolutionary

from a modders point of view....modded Skyrim could be the best ...but only if the creation kit provides a heightmap editor that is not that limited and buggy as it was in the CS....if not modded Oblivion will be better..at least for long time playing...

Edit...in this case...will be using Tes4 resources the same problem as it was with Morrowind resources ?

Yes, no assets from any one game may be transfered to any other. No exceptions.