I like games that are good. I think all the Elder Scrolls games so far have been worth the money I've shelled out on them. As a series overall it's been constant as a star. There's a few minor things wrong with each one, but the good usually outweighs the bad. I'd like to see more factions and more political choices in the next one, ala Daggerfall and Morrowind, but not at the expense of the graphical and combat improvements of Oblivion. I think it's possible to find room for both.

The thing is that I'm open-minded. I accepted Oblivion for what it is and enjoyed it.

But that's way different from considering it a "worthy" sequel to Morrowind.
All I know is that Morrowind was just a miracle of nature, and I don't expect any game to be better than it. That doesn't mean I didn't have the right to be dissapointed Oblivion turned out to be nothing special (fun as it was). And it doesn't mean I can't at least hope TESV is at least as deep as Morrowind and express those hopes.

I will play and enjoy TESV, regardless. But I will only spend money on it if it's a "worthy" sequel to Morrowind. I think there's something a lot of you new fans are forgetting. Not all of us can just ask our mommies whenever a new game comes out. $60 don't grow on trees for all of us and if I'm going to invest money in something, it better be something that will keep me entertained for a decade, like Morrowind. And not something that I'll get bored of after less than a year, like Oblivion.

Find me a modern game that lasts as long as Oblivion. Oblivion, whether people want to accept facts or not, has much more content than most other games out there. If Oblivion isn't worth $60, what, besides Morrowind, is?

I agree with you that compared to Oblivion, pretty much all modern RPGs are pure doody. But, compared to Morrowind, Oblivion is pure doody.

You have to understand, I just have my Morrowind when I wanna play an RPG, my Total War when I wanna play an RTS and my GTA when I want to mindlessly kill things. I really just have the best, IMO, of everything to entertain me, then I borrow the rest.

You don't have to agree with me, but there's no way you'll convince me to invest in a game that I'll be done playing in three months. And there's nothing wrong with me for having expectations when I buy something. Paying for a video game, and not expecting anything of it, is just silly, in my opinion.

Expect an Elder Scrolls game. Don't expect exact details, just expect an Elder Scrolls game. Do you really only own those three games and Oblivion? Of all the games in existence, TES games, above most, if not all, others, are games to be bought. Oblivion, as an Elder Scrolls game, is no different. I've been playing it on my PS3 for the past year and a half and I'm still playing it. Three months is a long time to be borrowing a game. That's all I will say.

I don't think things are gonna change that much, other than the subject, there will still be heavy schims, morrowind fanatics will just jump over Oblivion and start ripping into TES:V, and Oblivion fanatics might rip into TES:V as well.

But really, it's all gonna depend on how TES:V is put together. If TES:V jumps back to Morrowind gameplay without proper improvements, it will be heavily criticized by Oblivion fanatics, possibly some morrowind fans as well. If TESV is with less content, than both Morrowind and Oblivion fans will disapprove.

Really, even if they make it a perfect compromise of both worlds, the question is who is the group ranting against it consisting off. I'm guessing it's gonna be a mix of both.

Some of the posters here are "equal opportunity deplorers", and will criticize the game as "unworthy" of the TES name no matter how incredible it turns out to be. Others will praise its virtues as "the greatest thing since peanut butter", even if it's "dead out of the box" and unplayable. No matter what, some will criticize it for being too shallow, others for being too deep, or too dark, or too happy, all at the same time, for the same game.

For example, you've got people who hate Fast Travel, others who won't play without it. You've got some who can't stand the massive reduction in dialog due to full voicing, while others would never willingly spend the time or effort to go through 3 pages of text in an in-game book, or read through a handful of text-only responses. A number of players resent the declining relevance of character skills as the game becomes more "player"-centric and "arcade-ish", while others want more manual control over attacks and blocks, and more perks and "finishing moves" without being bothered by "die rolls" and other "pen and paper" concepts.

The TES series, with its "reinvent the wheel" philosophy for each game, has managed to attract moderate numbers of fans from at least two different game genres: first-person action games and classic RPGs, as well as smaller numbers from various "hunting", "fashion", "home-making", and other such specialized niches. Trying to produce a title that won't leave one or the other major group feeling neglected and cheated, even without considering its effects on those smaller markets, is going to be a serious challenge. I just hope that Bethesda can pull it off, otherwise we're going to see another 5 years of flame wars on the forums here that could make the MW-OB debates look like nothing more than the "warm-up act".

I have faith that TES V will be something impressive and commercially successful. At this point, though, I have no clue whether or not I'm going to like it or buy it. If TES V jumps back to MW style gameplay without incorporating much of what was developed for and since Oblivion, I'll be one of the first to "bash" it, because there were many improvements made between that and OB, along with those "other" development decisions which caused most of the resentment. If it continues the "streamlining" trend that started between DF and MW, and became "problematical" between MW and OB, then I'm not even likely to buy the game.

Well, I payed for Oblivion when it came out and was really disappointed. Because, honestly three months isn't long enough if I'm gonna pay for a game.

Learned my lesson and waited for my brother to beat Fallout 3 and he gave it to me for free. Since I didn't pay for it, I expected nothing, like you say. I actually expected it to be a straight-up action game, that's the amount of faith I had left in Bethesda at that point. I was very pleasantly surprised when I found a settlement in which I can trade and pick up side quests. Ended up enjoying the game immensely for months. Had I spent money on it, I would have been very angry and hated the game.

Same thing goes for Fable 2, paid six dollars for it, so glad I didn't pay full price. Never bought Two Worlds, Dragon Fable, or Mass Effect 2. Morrowind has spoiled me for RPG video games. I refuse to buy another RPG unless I know for a fact it'll keep me entertained for as long as Morrowind.

On another note, what keeps you playing Oblivion? Maybe I can get back into it if i look at it differently. Because I will admit I was going through the opening menu to see what nords look like, and I was a little enticed. I can tell you the things that really turned me off and made me sick of playing were A) the sheer lack of quests/spells/dialogue/weapons/skills and B ) "You cannot sleep in an owned bed).
Honestly those two things, especially the owned bed and lack of skills, really left a sour taste in my mouth and I noticed myself missing Morrowind, ratehr than enjoying Cyrodil.

And @ Kovacius: yes, streamlining is the enemy. They try to "balance" and "simplify" by trimming away the "unnecessary" skills and weapons and spells, but always end up shaving away a lot of the fun, as well.

Well I think I got my moneys worth with Oblivion. Well over a thousand hours of play for ￡30 and I'll go back to it again since I still haven't done everything in the vanilla game never mind mods, and SI. It compares very well to other CRPGs that have come out recently (Gothic 3, The Witcher, Two Worlds, NWN2) IMO.

But it doesn't really match up to MW. God knows how many thousand hours of play and still more to do and much more replayable than Oblivion. Mind you I wouldn't call myself a TES fan. If I'd played DF or Oblivion first I might never have bothered with MW. I'm very glad it was the first TES game I played.

$60 for 3 months ( approximately 90 days )

$0.67/day

since when was $0.67 for 24 hours expensive? You're using more money/hour when you're renting a movie.

I don't rent movies, either, lol. Or pay for cable.

I won't get into how to watch movies and TV for free, but I will say this:

Why spend $0.67 a day (and it's more like 3 hours, because I don't spend all day playing and never eating, sleeping, or going to work) on these newfangled, flashy and shallow video games when I'm still having more fun playing Morrowind and Daggerfall? I don't get why everyone keeps trying to convince me to buy a game I know will disappoint me.

Why don't you buy TESV first. Then, if it turns out I was wrong about it, you can try and convince me to buy it, then.

I'm not trying to convince you of buying the game, I'm just trying to put your reasons into perspective, but it seems you've thought it through. I mean if you're unwilling to $0.67 for 24hours of experience with a game, I'm not sure it's possible to convince you of using money on anything. If you don't play pay for other games than morrowind and Daggerfall, as well as not renting movies, or watching TV paying for cable, I don't think it's possible for me to be that pedantic about what is money well spent.

Rolston's not on board any longer so my optimism for TESV went from 60-0 in 1 sec. Oblivion was good, but too mainstream. Not saying this is bad... :nono: But I definitely recognized a change in direction from the "story telling" to the "action" based play. Actually I started to see a decline (may be a bit harsh) with Bloodmoon back in '03. A change in marketing pressure?

Will I berate the devs or shun the game and curse the gods for lack of this or that? Will I join in any reindeer games bashing this vs. that? Nope. I'll take it as is.

Oh well. My two cents anyways :shrug:

Y'know, people don't JUST pick on Oblivion because it's the New Game. I remember when Morrowind was the next big thing, it was accepted and treasured pretty quickly. There was some debate as to whether moving in the direction of smaller but more hand-placed environments was a good idea, but that was about it.

There are a lot of people who played Daggerfall before Morrowind, but prefer Morrowind.

Is there a single person out there who played Morrowind before Oblivion, but prefers Oblivion?

Oblivion is just broken. The gameplay and the writing is shoddy. There are some awesome improvements to Oblivion - the fighting, the graphics, NPC behavior, distant lands, and above all the construction set is a triumph of programming - but the core of the game just doesn't work.

Well, I believe Rolston was largely responsible for the "dumbing down" of Oblivion, so...

Actually, no it wasn't. The acrimony generated by Morrowind was about equal to that generated by Oblivion - and lasted about the same amount of time. In the case of Morrowind it was so bad I couldn't take it anymore and stopped coming here a couple of months after the game was released. I returned the day Tribunal was announced and there was still a lot of negativity to be found in the General forum. I'd say these forums finally began to settle down about December 2002 - January 2003.

I can't wait to see the effect of TES V's release.

I feel sorry for the mods that are here when TES V is released. They have to control it all. Just how bad was the criticism? How many people actually praised the game and what were the criticisms about?

That's not how I remember it. I remember a LOT of acrimony when details of Morrowind were coming out but it wasn't released yet, and it settled down after the release. Maybe I remember wrong though

See, but this whole thing is assuming TES V isn't the best thing since sliced bread like Morrowind was. If it has certain memorable redeeming qualities (Morrowind's combat svcks, of course, but the way the world looks, seemed to work, and everything in it was so well presented you couldn't help but love it), then criticism won't matter to most people as much. Gameplay is awesome, but flaws can be overlooked if the overall work is made great by the sum of its parts, rather than the assessment of each individual aspect.

I am thinking there should be a vote for the forum naysayer. One person to use one of those 2 phrases on every new thread about the features. See how long it takes people to catch on.
Any volunteers?


Halo *ducks head* But that is only for RP'ing a chunk of metal that projects smaller chunks of metal, and sometimes plasma state metal.

I *think the OB+MW schism will disappear as SK people claim Righteous Victory over the series. Everyone get to work practicing kicking soapboxes.
As for right now I *think it is less of a schism and more of a *respected boarder.

Halo? It has several hundred hours worth of content and a high replay value? How so(I believe multiplayer is a gimmick that does nothing enhance to gameplay nor do I find it fun)?

I plan to be assimilated into the Skyrim crowd.

I joke.

apparently I did not duck far enough :frog:

weee-oooo-weee-oooo-weee-oooo

There's a SCHISM in the forums! No, maybe a RESPECTED BOADER!

:thumbsup:

Any new game would attract new fanbase; usually as to how the game present itself would attract different kinds of players all over the place. As for the rift within the current members, let find out rather then guess. I bet it would fun.