I think Arena may be the worst feature game in the series, but it was a start at least. On the other hand, I consider Skyrim the second best, behind Morrowind. Daggerfall probably even passes up Oblivion in my opinion, though. I haven't tried any of the other off-shoot games either, like Redguard or Battlespire.

If we're talking about Travels, then yes. They are the worst. But if not, then Arena svcks nutz in comparison to the later installments. Morrowind is when they started to get great. Daggerfall is OK.

..No that's definitely oblivion.

No, out of all the ones I've played, I think Arena is the worst. It is 90% dungeon crawl and the lore for daedra and aedra hadn't been invented yet. There are no books or skills, either. But I do feel very anxious when playing Skyrim, as if I'm in a hurry to go somewhere or finish something. I think one of the reasons is that once I finish one quest, the game displays another pop up saying "Quest ___ started". It's like they never end. And when I have active quests in my journal log, I feel that I need to finish them so that I won't have any pending quests to do. But they just keep coming without me even asking for them.

I just finished sacking Whiterun and helping the Stormcloaks defeat the Imperials. I must say, this is definitely an action/adventure game, far more than Redguard, but not the worst TES game.

I'd call Arena the worst, simply because it was a primitive effort in so many respects, even for its own time.

Daggerfall was an overly ambitious attempt at something awesome that was only partially successful, with the strongest character development system and politics, but repetitive random quests and minimal detail. I'd love to see a spititual "successor" done in the same "old school" RPG style, but with modern algorithms to create the generated worldspace, modern graphics, and "intelligent" random quests.

Morrowind was a slightly "dumbed down" RPG, but an improved exploration game with a detailed world. It offered a lot of player options and choices of equipment, spells, and factions, most of which you had to work to get (not necessarily balanced, but who cares in a single-player game?). Until someone else makes a decent character-based RPG (similar to DF or MW), after a decade it's still the most modern open-world sandbox RPG that the "old school" players have.

Oblivion removed "failure" from skill checks, and made many things almost entirely dependent on the player's skills with a rodent or controller, making it a far weaker RPG, but a more exciting action game. It attempted many new things (physics, radiant AI, etc.), several of which were ony partially or crudely done. The blatant scaling made it increasingly tedious and boring, the longer I played it, and the lack of fixed placements meant that there was rarely anything of interest to find in all of those ruins.

I can't rate Skyrim, since the Steam requirement makes it impossible or highly impractical to play, but it sounds like even less of a character-based RPG than Oblivion, but with an improved worldspace. I don't care for "action" games, so to me it's only one step above Arena.

Many of you have clearly never played Battlespire.

Lie?
Oh really?
Name few of those lies.

OT:
While it's true that Skyim has disappointed me a lot, I'll still have to wait until all the DLCs and patches are out to see where it stands when compared with other games.

No.
Arena.

I really don't think it's fair for people to list Arena as the worst one.
When deciding the best TES, I think that it should be only between TES 2 and newer ones.
Arena is more of an experiment than an actual TES game imo.
Still, even if you decide to judge it, you need to accept the fact that it's 18 years old.

I agree. I can speak from experience, I've beaten Arena and spent a lot of time with the game. I really liked it, the messages when entering the stores, the dungeon music, among other awesome things just make me smile every time.

Morrowind is the worst

Lol, u funny

I haven't played Skyrim, and I can't imagine many people here have played all 7 games thoroughly enough to judge.

Perhaps, "Is Skyrim the worst TES game you've played?" would be more appropriate.

I haven't played it either, and I assure you that it's definitely the worst.

Just kidding. I don't get this need to compare "goodness." I play what's fun for me, and I don't play (for long, anyway) what isn't fun. I don't worry about what's fun for somebody else. If it's fun, it's good.

On the other hand, I can (and do) speak up about substantive differences. I see a gradual simplification taking place in TES, from game to game, and a shortening of quest lines. Things seem to be trending in a direction that I find less fun. It's a personal preference, but...well, there it is.

No. Arena is the worst =3

Yes, I still play Skyrim

I wouldn't say that it is the worst game in the series, but I think I've played it long enough to say with certainty that it isn't my personal favorite. Although I still play it from time to time, I find that whenever it comes to playing Skyrim or doing something else, I usually decide to do something else. While I enjoy the scenery very much, I don't find that I'm very motivated to go explore -- all thanks to the POIs, Sat Nav terrain map, quest objective marker, and the EverPresent^TM compass.

Also, I don't feel very motivated to delve into any of the beautifully crafted (but terribly linear) dungeons as there seems to be a 90% chance that I won't find anything that I haven't already smithed for myself five levels ago, nor am I likely to find anything else that is all that interesting, unique or valuable. For the time being, I'm trudging through Skyrim whenever I have nothing better to do, and biding my time until I can afford a decent gaming rig so that I can run all the mods that I feel are required to make Skyrim the game that it could have been.

No, it isn't.

No.
I still play Skyrim regularly and have played since release.
Oblivion was the worst in the series for me, and Morrowind (and expansions) the best.

We talk about comparative 'goodness' to get the Devs attention and reinforce what should be implemented in future games. We whine, not for the sake of the present, but for the sake of the future.

Yeah, that's what my second third paragraph was for.

I'd say at worst it's second behind Morrowind, at best it edges out Morrowind.

But keep in mind, I love ALL the TES games. I don't like putting them in order because they're different games, they do different things right and wrong, and it's unfair to compare them.

But I'd also say to keep in mind that the best part of Oblivion was (IMO) Shivering Isles, which was an expansion pack. Skyrim has not yet even announced any DLC/expansion packs. So it is equally unfair to compare Skyrim to the other games when they are complete and Skyrim is not (yet), unless you take Shivering Isles, KotN off the table for Oblivion and Tribunal, Bloodmoon for Morrowind.

Well no?
I think oblivion is the worst,but by saying a elder scrolls game is worst does not mean i hate it or think it is a bad game,i love oblivion but in my opinion is the worst in the TES Series.
Seems like skyrim and oblivion is consider the worst of the tes games.
I like both.

I like Skyrim, I loved Oblivion.

I wouldn't call Skyrim the worst in the series. But out of three TES games I've had the opportunity to play I rate them like this.

Morrowind: A
Oblivion: D
Skyrim: C