I hope you're not serious. There's a lot Skyrim and Oblivion did much better than Morrowind in terms of gameplay, story, and challenge.

Please, go play Daggerfall again.
Every time I hear people boast about how little time they put into Oblivion "Because its so bad", I have to think less of them - Level-scaling issues aside, that game has quite a bit of depth.

The difference is that Skyrim and Oblivion deal with living worlds, while Morrowind was a dead, static world where you're just tying up loose ends centuries after everything interesting has ever happened to the province - Until Bloodmoon.



I'm not sure where you're losing your sense of progression in terms of skills... Skyrim's skill progression is the strongest since Daggerfall

Of course he's not serious. He's doing his usual sarcastic "putdown" of the Morrowind fans....even if he's at least partly correct in his statement.

And yes, SR and OB did a lot of things much better than Morrowind, but they did a lot of things worse. It just so happens that most of the things that I particularly liked the old game for were the things that are now "worse" for me: level scaling being one of the biggest offenders, and the change from a "character skill" to a "player skill" focus being another. The change from a mix of static and levelled content to mostly levelled and/or scaled content rendered another aspect moot. I like a lot of the other changes, but they don't compensate for the underlying game becoming something that I don't want to play.

Simple - I just don't like how they've implemented perks. The perk trees are poorly thought out in my opinion, and skill progression seems overly reliant on them. Perks should be there to compliment Attributes and Skills and add a bit of flavour and uniqueness to the character. That just isn't the case in Skyrim. Instead, it feels like most of them are there for the sole purpose of speeding up progression.

Combined with the lack of attributes, this makes character development n the game seem incredibly lacking...

@GiygasDrillBreak: I've never really liked the way Arena handled worldbuilding Daggerfall and then Morrowind did much better. Also most of the lore in TES came from Daggerfall and Morrowind while Arena is a game that derailed from fighting in arenas to something far cooler but not quite the TES. The fact that you become an unbeatable god by the end of the game isn't that much of a design flaw since you are a overpowered hero. The questlines may be smaller but they have far less filler than Oblivion. The Arena faction was a repetitive hack and slash that was easy at level one without exploiting the game in any way. The whole arena section of the IC was boring filler from the building to the quest. The other quests were better but not by much from having the Mages Guild quests nerf lore and turn the guild into a necromancer hunting club to having the DB take any random killer into their ranks and having the thieves quests very robinhoodish.

Skyrim has the best daedric quests and decent faction ones. More than that the enviroment is far better than the Cyrodiil of Oblivion. The interface in Skyrim is the worst since... since... the Gothic games? No I'm quite sure they were slightly better. Now is Skyrim the best TES game? NO. That honor rightfully belongs to Morrowind with Daggerfall being a close second despite the fact that both games aproach things very diffrently. But is it the worst? No. Oblivion was gamesas biggest mistake and Arena is quite forgetable.

Yes, it is.

Skyrim isn't a bad game by it self, it is just a bad TES game since it seems like a cheap rip off compared to former TES titles. If I wouldn't expect a RPG and the game wouldn't take place on Tamriel I would probably love the game, since it is a damned good action adventure...during playing i felt more like playing the newest tombraider than actually playing The Elder Scrolls. I can't say I didn't enjoy playing Skyrim, but sooner than expected it lost it's glory to me and my motivation to replay the game is zero at the moment, that wasn't the fact in TES I - III, even Oblivion I've played 2 times in a row.

This all the way, bloody hypocrites. Imo Oblivion was the worst by far, bad story, mediocre and too much seen landscaping, and badly done at that because the objects were placed by generator instead of by hand, 0 dialogue creativity and battle system that was fun for the 1st couple of hours, but then gets ruined because of horrible skill system in relation to creature leveling way faster than you and the rpg and action gets lost in micromanagement of leveling your character. Few witty written quests didn't help the game much, so I hardly think anyone saying Oblivion is better than Skyrim is a blind fool. But each to his own.

I'd also like to point out a feature in Skyrim that made it better then oblivion was the leveling characters, like bandits and such. They don't get uber strong armor like glass and the heavy armored ones don't get ebony or dwemer which kinda ruined Oblivon :\

Each game is an improvement to be honest, e.g. up until Oblivion you didn't have much voice acting. Some may say that TES ended after Daggerfall when third person camera wasn't around, but there's still Might&Magic series that develop around that. Saint Row the Third wouldn't be possible if GTA hadn't gone for more serious and gritty story based more in "reality".
If someone wants to bash Skyrim's graphics improvement then he might not be familiar with Uncanny Valley - not every game can have cartoon character like Mario, and not every game can have gameplay focus like Minecraft.

No, and yes I play Skyrim constantly. My favorite region is Markarth and the Reach which is rich in lore, wonderful locations and interesting quests.

Problably not. Of the main series, Arena would be my least favorite.

However, its most telling when I spent the entire summer of 2006 playing Oblivion 24/7, spending hundreds of hours in it and Morrowind , while its not even a month after I got Skyrim and I can hardly force myself to open the game up.

Skyrim was meant for the folks of this time while Morrowind, for example, wasn meant for another. So, there's no such thing as a worst TES game. This is like blaming ancient people for being ignorant. Its not their fault. They are victims of their time.

Fair enough, I apologize for sounding harsh. It's just a little outlandish how often I have heard that argument. It's frustrating because it's probably the most condescending thing people around here say but it crops up in seemingly every thread comparing the games.

I've grown up playing everything from text adventures to table top RPGs to JRPGs to western RPGs like Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate to sandboxy games like Elder Scrolls to MMOs. Outside of very few examples, none of them are worse or better than others. They're just trying to do different things, which means that people are inherently going to prefer some over others. It's kinda funny; people use to mock sports games all the time for just being the same thing every year with roster updates, but then whenever a new Elder Scrolls game comes out you get complains about how it's not the same game with spruced up graphics and updated lore.

I haven't played any of the spinoffs, but I enjoy different things about each of the main games. Arena and Daggerfall were brutal and unforgiving; a testiment to the series' (I'm guessing first edition) D&D roots. Daggerfall in particular really started to push the lore. Wouldn't surprise me if some of those guys played the original Tomb of Horrors. The games tried to let you do whatever you wanted and let you suffer the consequences. Morrowind took that spirit of "here is an ocean; now swim" and put it until a fully 3D world that also had an inspired, alien look to it.

Oblivion started taking steps to embracing the medium the series was on and started tossing some of the D&D holdovers that didn't fit a first person real time computer game. Blocking was now manual instead of a dice roll, and if your weapon conected with someone then you always hit unless they dodged it or blocked it. It also took steps towards making dynamic AI for NPCs. Features such as flight were removed for the sake of being better able to more consistant challenge and give players terain obsticals that are obviously obsticals. The game became more forgiving of newcomers; no longer allowing "essential" NPCs to be killed and making it a lot easier to find things.

Skyrim took a lot of what Oblivion started and pushed it further. Attributes that accomplished the same thing as skills were axed and we were given a leveling system that actually resulted in characters becoming more and more unique from eachother, as opposed to Oblivion and Morrowind where everyone slowly became more and more the same with every level. Dynamic AI was improved a great deal. Character customization became more of a dynamic choice than decisions that were set in stone from the beginning of the game; even things like birthsigns which were originally permanant choices at character creation became options the player could choose between whenever they wanted.



They're all different games and I wouldn't trade any of them or any other. Do I prefer some features from certain games more then others? Of course. But if I want to play one of the previous games then I'll just play that game. I for one would be immensely disapointed if I payed $60 for a new Elder Scrolls game and found it was the same as a previous game but in a different setting with new lore. That's what DLC/expansions are for. The entire point of buying new games is to experience something new. The reason I buy new Elder Scrolls games is because I want to experience something new in the context of a huge game world that rewards exploration with layers upon layers of lore.


I guess if I absolutely had to ever rate them in some way, I'd put Oblivion near the bottom of my enjoyment list. Those baloon faces are just too far into the uncanny valley for me, and every conversation forces you to get a closeup of everyones' fat face right in the center of your screen. It almost makes me dread talking to people, which makes it really hard to enjoy the game at times.

Oblivion is the worst. That is the only thing I am 100% sure about. Oblivion was broken for me. I could rarely play for more than 5 hours before it would crash, quests regularly bugged out, the conversations were horrible... the only thing that made that game bearable was modding.

Oblivion modded to death was one of my favorites until Skyrim came out.

I would put Skyrim Somewhere near the top, maybe second or third.

Implying that Morrowind-lovers are ignorant victims of their time. Okay.

I'll keep loving Morrowind, New Vegas, Baldur's Gate, and all the other RPGs that actually offer depth and choice and you can love...

Skyrim... whatever it is that is.

Honestly, Skyrim broke a new level of bad for me. I thought Oblivion was as bad as TES could get... Now, that's debatable with Skyrim's release...

Skyrim is wurst cuz it dont have crossbowz and spearz lulz. I like levitate also, Skyrim sux.

Five hours, thats very stable. Quest bugging out, I dont recall maybe I had a minor one. The conversations are not an improvement in skyrim, you get the same broken records, at least in Oblivion when two npcs walked up to each other you got some random stupidity in their dialog, especially if they dont like each other. As bad as Oblivions Npc faces were they did have emotions, happy, sad, angry, scared, and you could tell just looking at them.

I think skyrims still a bit to new to get a good comparison, a good number of people are simply going to be biased to it for that reason alone.

I feel the same way about Skyrim. It is pretty fun but it does not get you hooked in my opinion.

This is my opinion I have no interest in starting a debate.

I think you misintrepeted me, or maybe I wasn't too clear with my post. What I meant was there isn't really a "worst" TES game because people have different tastes and are somewhat of a different generation. For me, MW was great. Sure, it had its sum of failings but that was the times. New TES players who haven't played the old TES game only Skyrim think that Skyrim is the best. They say MW had horrible graphics and the combat and attributes are not good(which I like, btw.)

I don't like the game mechanics of Skyrim at all; is too easy, but I would be stupid to say its the worst game in TES since many "new" players love what Beth has done with the game mechanics and other things. So, in the end, there's no worst TES game because of players points of view. If I had to choose from any TES game, I would choose MW, not because is "better" but because is better for me; for my playstyle and personality.

I love Morrowind and still play it but I enjoyed Oblivion and there are elements I like in Skyrim, melee combat is far more fun for one. I don't think the time period each game was released in makes much difference to be honest. The TES series is ever developing and its a reflection of trying to make the RPG genre as accessible as possible to a wide audience. Over the years more and more RPG's have become streamlined, any game has a limited development time. Money is also a huge factor to how creative a company can be allowed to be and broad appeal has to be considered for any game to be successful and profit.

Admittedly I'm one of those people that like stats, levelling, roleplaying depth, but I can realise these things can appear stuffy to some people. I think each game should be considered on its own merits and not compared because different people like the various games for different reasons.

Contradiction.

And I'm an "Old" player who loves Daggerfall, yet considers Skyrim to be superior to Morrowind. Stop trying to make blanket claims such as "Only New Players like Skyrim".

You're very correct. But of course, there are far more "new" players that like Skyrim than the older games.

Nope , It is a very fine game . Vanilla Skyrim is better than Vanilla Oblivion IMo and I love Oblivion.

No
I think oblivion is the worst
And dont get me wrong i love all TES Games.But if i have to choose i choose oblivion.