The lack of simple perspective sometimes cloud our own judgement. Somebody (can't remember now who) said on another post that, when Morrowind came out, the reception to its vanilla version was atrocious. I was surprised with that, but it made perfect sense. I realised that, yes, I never even had the perspective of what was vanilla Morrowind. I first started playing MW on it's GotY version, packed with balancing, texture and - old fond - Tamriel Rebuilt mods.

After a week and some change of Skyrim, I have to say I'm pretty satisfied with its vanilla version, some flaws here and there, but a great gaming experience overall.

On that note, I'm very curious to know from the people who have been around since the old days about the evolution of the vanilla versions of TES: Morrowind, Oblivion and now Skyrim. How it's been evolving in your perspective? Do you think the community feedback made a difference with new TES titles? Was the reception always the same?

And most important: in terms of the original package - with all its built-in features - in each vanilla version, how you old timers feel it has been going?

Best regards from Brasil.

Hi!

Though this wasn't my first account I'd still consider myself an "old-timer". I bought Morrowind on release (and their following expansions) as well as Oblivion and Skyrim. Out of the three Oblivion was hands down the biggest disappointment and for me the worst experience.

Comparing Morrowind to Skyrim is for me just too damn hard. It's been too long and I've grown considerably older. All I can say is that when I got Morrowind I was immersed for days, nights, weekends. I lived, dreamt and breathed Morrowind.
With Skyrims release it was much the same (except full-time job so.. you know.) and just as I in Morrowind did not need the mods at release I do not crave them for Skyrim either.

Oblivion though... Oblivion was another history. I played through most of it - I think. Shivering Isles was a great addition and far surpassed the original game.


To your question I will summarize in bullet points what I think of them at launch:

* Morrowind - perfectly fine to play without mods and the addition of mods simply took the game to a whole new level.
* Oblivion - desperately needed mods, I think following Morrowind this made the game have an especially high hype for me personally and I couldnt possibly live up to it.
* Skyrim - fine in my opinion. Some small stuff mostly. Following Oblivion makes Skyrim really stand out in my opinion.

Definitely old timer here, started off with Morrowind (non-GOTY) on the Xbox, then on PC as GOTY. Seen the evolution of the game and participated in it too. Then Oblivion, seeing it's evolution was equally as huge. From the basic game on my Xbox 360 to my fully modded version on my main PC (see signature for link to modded oblivion videos i recorded).
Now, it's time for Skyrim. Already such a huge bar set, I honestly feel we'll get a even more amazing and well developed modded Skyrim focussed more on content than previous graphics due to it's already great visuals. With such a good baseline set by Bethesda I believe all modded content will be of a whole new league than both Morrowind and Oblivion. Good times to come.

I agree with this. I also think that with Morrowind mods, while some "fixed" aspects of the vanilla game people didn't like, a lot of the mods were keeping the original game in touch with the newer developments in graphics and gameplay.

I've noticed how there are quite a few threads here demanding mods for Skyrim straightaway - they seem to forget that most decent mods took some time to build, introduce, and sometimes become an essential part of the gaming experience.

Btw, I agree particularly about the hype for OB - not just that there was hype, but the way in which the hype was handled (remember the mysterious countdown on the Beth website that appeared suddenly? And we all got excited, only to find that... it was the countdown to an announcment about an article in a magazine that you had to subscribe to.) That kind of set the tone for Oblivion, and Skyrim - while also hyped - has managed to avoid in the most part the mistakes OB made.

Well, i will be considered somewhat of a heretic, but... MW introduced me to TES, but Oblivion made me love it... Skyrim is somewhere inbetween for me... being a gamer from Germany i focused mainly on the Gothic series (with Gothic 2 being the absolute masterpiece)

That's an interesting point altogether. How's the curving mod evolved from your perspective, in terms of how much time it took to get into full gear? Because I was thinking that, with new technologies and the experience from the modding community with two previous titles, things will progress much faster (and better) with Skyrim wouldn't you say?

I'd like to correct that there weren't the magnitude of complaints on the boards for MW that you saw for both Oblivion and Skyrim here today. There were complaints, but the consolidated and incredibly similar nature of the complaints is relatively unique to OB and Skyrim (people have been complaining for FIVE YEARS about how easy fast travel, compass and simplification have made the game.)

For one, in MW's day nobody was complaining about not being able to fast travel, and the MW boards were mainly filled with questions about where and what to obtain, what skills to work on and where to use them, and how to complete difficult quests or find difficult landmarks.

With Oblivion, the boards were really, really angry about numerous things, fast travel and compass marks primarily, but a whole lot of other stuff (the horrifically lame high elf voices etc.).

Now, the same complaints about OB are being made, with more posts similar to that on an MMORPG board (this is OP blah blah blah).

I generally find the boards are beyond discussing what's in the game, and instead focus on what they hate, or what they LOVE or fighting between the two.

Basically, the game has become much easier. Rarely do people ask questions about quest, crafting or location intricacies. Instead, the older people lament the loss of difficulty and mystery in the game, and the new people fight about what is OP and talk about what part of the graphics they love.

LOL! You and me both, buddy. We're getting old...

I feel the same way about good things to come my friend, even tough I can't compare it with previous games. Oh, btw, great page dude, if only my secretary hadn't entered the room just when I was watching some of your vids... You kindda lose some authority when your employee catches you watching YouTube videos about computer games. Oh well, now I'll have to kill her... :gun: Or maybe buy a copy of Skyrim for her son would do the trick...

Two weeks later from OP and I'm already impressed by what's out there in terms of mods. Good times indeed.

The CS isn't out yet and there's already some good matter. I think Skyrim will have a great library of mods very quick.

I agree. I expected vanilla Skyrim to be very very cool but in some ways inferior to heavily modded Oblivion. I was not surprized. I do feel Skyrim is considerably better out of the box though and seeing what is being done without the CS, I'm really excited.

Well, as a console gamer (BOOOOOOO hiss yeah yeah lol) I've only ever really played the vanilla versions of each. I loved Morrowind, I loved Oblivion and I am loving Skyrim. The buggiest one for me was Oblivion, used to freeze left right and centre. Skyrim actually hasn't been too bad for me, especially since I've avoided the patches - my only moan is quest items having weight and not being able to be placed in a secure chest - puts me off freelance dungeon diving as I dont want to wind up with no carry space due to having stumbled across multiple quest items.

I'd say Morrowind and Skyrim have the better atmospheres, with Oblivion a firm 3rd in that respect. Desolate environments, for whatever reason, do better in terms of atmosphere. Just look at the difference between Fo3 and Fo:NV.

Amem brother. I remember at times logging in some 1-2 hours of MW gameplay just to wander around, taking in all that atmosphere. Old fond...