magic.

@ Kalarn

Now was that so hard?


Another funny thing is that Cyrodiil was actually a forest when Daggerfall came out, and Vvardenfell was completely ashlands. So, Morrowind broke lore, Oblivion broke lore, and we already have people screaming about how Skyrim broke lore with its dragons.

It was 3 pages, so yes, why yes it was. Just kidding. You asked, I answered. Most sides can't come up with an answer other than theres is ebtter. Although, for level of fear inspired, Daggerfall, Best Game Ever Made. I do not play it at night with the sound on. I'd suggest that to any and all, personally it ties with Morrowind for me.

It's like I'm obstinate, if my sense of humor precludes me from one of Bethesda's jokes.

Silly me for not liking that punch line.





I know right? That's just impossible. My disbelief cannot be suspended. I'll go back to casting spells with a stick, now.

The jungle thing is actually kind of funny,

Cyrodiil in arena is like Oblivion

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/1920/fb552e64e7614b778df9b27.png

http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/7427/2b62b893af8c4414bf760ce.png

http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/1522/30055207993b4c50810f576.png

http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/7192/f18e2a7b5e4945deba73be8.png

It was changed in morrowind and returned to what it was originally in Oblivion, there just weren't a lot of arena lore fans to criticize the change, well really it wasn't even changed, it was reworked, you're supposed to forget what you saw in arena, like it somehow never happened, at least Oblivion gave a lore reason for the change back into normal woods.

Nobody cares about a bunch of fanatics who feel proud because they have taken over the forums. Just enjoy each game with for its own unique features. If you don't like it, stop moaning and go buy another game.

Game comparisons are [censored].

Arena was generic DnD basically.

And the reason in Oblivion was crap. Talos remade it? Pfft, I call that Developers getting lazy.

Still living Daggerfall fan here. Unless I'm way off base, hasn't 90% of that sketchy proto-lore survived right down to the present day? A few things have fallen by the wayside, but for the most part Daggerfall (and our friends Ted and Julian) established the major foundations for all subsequent TES lore. The politics and character of Tamriel were there, even if the edges were a little rough.

As far as the Cyrodiilic jungle is concerned, the argument is constantly misrepresented. People aren't upset that there was no jungle, per say, they're upset that nothing equal to the society described in the first PGE was in the game. Bethesda is welcome to change the lore around whenever they want, but they shouldn't shrink it. To say people are upset that Cyrodiil wasn't a jungle makes the argument sound much pettier than it is.

Let me say though, that as someone disappointed with the lore in Oblivion, that list of books provided by Seti is far longer than what I would have guessed. I think part of the problem might be that, unlike Morrowind, most of the best lore books in Oblivion were extremely rare and difficult to come across, whereas in Morrowind you were bombarded with lore books early on and as a big part of the main quest.

I have this strange feeling that Morrowind was like windows XP, Oblivion like Vista and Skyrim will be 7 and simply awesome ^^

I can't wait for the Oblivion vs Skyrim threads.

I'll pick all the Oblivion (and potentially Skyrim, if it turns out horrible, too) arguments apart until nothing remains and mention Morrowind, like I always do.

Alright, I'll put in my two cents as well.

I am sick of the argument that Oblivion was generic fantasy while Morrowind was completely unique. There is very little that's unique about a race of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drow

What determines whether a world is well-designed is how they expand from that base. Morrowind's dark elves were not evil, they were arrogant and hardened by their environment. The history and lore were fascinating and rich, and delved into many historical aspects that helped to distance it from its Forgotten Realms roots. My point isn't that Morrowind is bad because it's got a generic foundation, my point is only that if you try to frame the issue in those terms, anything can be made to sound generic and derivative.

What about Oblivion, then?



Ruins of a race of sorcerers and slavemasters who built an empire nearly as impressive as the Cyrodiilic Empire, if not more so, who used torture and sacrifice as means of entertainment, and whose absolute corruption is completely at odds with the beauty of their architecture, art, language, and the craftmenship of their armor. They were not the fair, kind, perfect elves of Middle-Earth, they just look like it at first glance because they were very beautiful.

What you call a troll, I call a three-eyed ape unlike any classical depiction of a troll I've ever seen, and one that was clearly established as existing in the lore (Trollbone armor, anyone?) As for unicorns, they're a doomed race-- there's only one left before they are extinct, and you're asked to kill it and bring its horn to a god as a nice trinket. Furthermore, how many classical depictions of unicorns are there as rampaging rhinos that will attack anything that looks at them askew, going on a rampage of bloody murder that would make Pelinal Whitestrake himself say "now, that's a bit much"? This was true of a lot of Oblivion's "classical" monsters. They would have little subversions of the established mythology, or ties to Tamriel's lore, that made them much more interesting, in my opinion.

Oblivion was about as generic as Morrowind, in my opinion. It was smaller, it was shallower, and it was more immediately familiar to us because Tolkien's mythology is much more mainstream than that of D&D, particularly the Forgotten Realms universe. But it was still very deep, rich, interesting and beautiful, with so much to discover if you're willing to dive beneath the surface, and actually explore the world and all it has to offer instead of just fast traveling everywhere.

Iyou make it sound like to fix oblivions mistakes there would be a large inherent possibility of MW flaws creeping in.

I hope Beth continues to evolve and think differently, push the envelop.

while a big MW fan I would dislike for nearly any of the in game mechanic systems to return verbatim. That would svck. New game please.

No need to get personal friendo.

I played the hell out of Oblivion and didn't use fast traveling, I'm of the mind that it detracts from the game experience. Don't try to minimize other's opinions based on assumptions you make about their play habits.

That said you make some good points. I'm just far less familiar with the Drow cliches and I'm pretty sure 99% of the population of any given continent are far less familiar with Drow cliches than with European High Fantasy cliches.

I found Oblivion to be lacking a lot of the undertone that Morrowind had. They had considerably fewer factions and you could be lord of each of them, regardless of their polar differences, in a single play through. Was the appearance of the troll different? I suppose so, but the appearance of a Nix Hound was considerably more unique, not to mention all the other life forms in Morrowind.


All that said I had a lot of fun with Oblivion. I was delighted every time they diverged from standard high fantasy, I just wished it was a 80-20 unique ratio instead of 20-80. I have high hopes for Skyrim and will be buying it so long as they don't bring back Auto Levelling Everything. I hope for a Unique gameworld capitalizing on Nord mythology and conflict with the Imperial Legion.....but even if everyone gets along and the Legion is magical knights in shining armor I'll still happily buy it.

Essentially...I hope for a new story in a new world, but the game and gameworld are strong enough I'd settle for a familiar story in a familiar world.

I love Morrowind, and I think it's a fantastic game. One of my all-time favourites, actually. But even I sometimes get a bit sick of it, when it's constantly mentioned as God's gift to mankind, compared to Oblivion, which is of course a piece of crap not worth the box it came in. What you guys are doing is driving some people away from Morrowind by the constant and blind hailing of it. Why not enjoy each game for what it is in it's own right, instead of crying over it "not having X, like Morrowind did".

We don't know anything about Skyrim yet, besides its titular setting and that it involves dragons. One can't really judge a game's "epicness" based on a teaser trailor alone.

The debate has never been "Morrowind v. Oblivion" - it's always been "the game that introduced me to the series v. the game that usurps my expectations for the future". In this way, the debate to come won't concern Oblivion or its defense. It'll be about the fans comparing their first exposure to the series (which is their favorite, 90% of the time) to the newest installment - how it lives up to their expectations, and how it betrays them. The fact is, the debate will contue regardless of whether skyrim meets expectations or not. The same members of the old-guard who refused to accept Oblivion will refuse to accept Skyrim. It's inevitable.

As for me, I appreciate each TES game as a unique experience. There are elements of each game that I feel the others could do with or without. Chances are, I'll find myself defending Skyrim from detractors the same way I did Oblivion. I consider it my contribution to the fanbase, however small.

Your in the wrong forum arguing with the wrong people then.

I liked Oblivion, I liked Morrowind. But Morrowind > Oblivion. Even though I fully enjoyed my play-throughs of Oblivion, it didn't immerse and ensconce my brain in RPGjelly like Morrowind did.
Both games had really deep and well thought-out design in terms of characters/culture/architecture/quests etc., but nothing beats that ol' "Ah, yes...We've been expecting you."

I hope not. If we really can't have peaceful conversations about a series we all love...that just svcks.

You're missing a lot of the issue that I have. I know Daggerfall fans were harsh with Morrowind fans, but not only did that sort of harshness die off very quickly, nothing I've seen indicates that it ever focused as heavily on insulting fans of the new game as Morrowind's fans do when they talk about Oblivion. I guess the best way to put it is that where Daggerfall fans would very harshly and bluntly tell Morrowind fans "your favorite game is terrible and nothing about it is good", Morrowind fans will bluntly tell Oblivion fans "your favorite game is terrible and you're an idiot and a child for liking it".


I'm not going to go into the longer discussion over this that's been going on, but... that's not really true. Morrowind has quite possibly the most clichéd basic plot in RPG history (you are a hero of prophecy, whose coming was foretold and who will defeat the spreading evil that threatens to consume the world), even despite its few flairs. Yes, Dagoth Ur was arguably not that bad of a guy, but what he was doing was still pretty unquestionably terrible and stopping him was still unquestionably the right thing to do. You can talk as much as you like about how the game's villain was morally gray, but the fact is that a gray villain does not make for a gray plot. Besides that, the game world lifts pretty unashamedly from a lot of more recent fantasy stuff, from Dungeons & Dragons (see: the post pointing out that Drow exist), and from Dune. Credit to them for blatantly ripping ideas from a sci-fi novel while making a game set in a high fantasy universe, but picking interesting places to lift your ideas from doesn't mean that you aren't lifting ideas.

Oblivion, on the other hand... well, I've explained this before, but Morrowind is the odd one out for this series in terms of setting. The setting Oblivion takes place in is the setting that the rest of the series (excluding Morrowind) takes place in. It's also the setting that Cyrodiil was given in Arena, and that was reinforced for it both in Daggerfall and in Morrowind. Cyrodiil is a fairly standard high fantasy place with some slight Roman influences, and Oblivion reflects this more or less perfectly. If you don't like that setting then that's fine, but you should still show at least some appreciation for the fact that it was established long before Morrowind even existed. And even setting aside, claiming that Oblivion is entirely clichéd still doesn't really work - its basic plot actually isn't all that common, mainly because they went out of their way to subvert a common cliché. You aren't the hero in Oblivion. That, in and of itself, is an astoundingly original point in its favor.

Now, I'm not saying that Oblivion doesn't lift ideas from other places or that Morrowind falls prey to more clichés than it does. I'm just saying that the point you've tried to make here is unfair not only because of what Morrowind and Oblivion actually consist of, but also because of what the series as a whole consists of. All that said... well, I'm not going to touch the FPSRPG discussion here. People who use that claim without justification usually use it without actually having a particularly good justification for it, and it takes far too long to explain why it doesn't work.

EDIT: Oh, and Morrowind always wins in the polls here because Morrowind is the game that brought most of the people who bother with this forum section to these forums. It has nothing to do with whether or not Morrowind is better or even whether or not it's seen as better to the broader gaming audience (it's actually not - Oblivion's a significantly more popular and well-regarded game in general, regardless of what people think or say here), only whether or not this particular forum's most common bias leans toward it or toward something else.


Other way around. Constantly taking things to a personal level and insulting people qualifies as trolling and flaming, both of which are against the rules here, so if you can't have a discussion without resorting to those I'd say you're probably the one who doesn't quite belong.

Eh, what? The plot is essentially Demons invading Earth Tamriel because of a Cult with a whole bunch of Good vs Evil all over the place. The "hero" in Oblivion is not the hero, but a heavily glorified delivery boy that is practically svcking up to Sean Bean in nearly every conversation. This is in the line of "cliche" in my stand point of this. I find it that Morrowind did particularly tries to not goes cliches as much as ya claim it to be but goes along with the Chosen One (or just mantling and forcing one to become the one) but the thing that save its grace is namely that it flesh out a heck lot of lore into the whole process. Obviously, Daggerfall would win "originality" if it were to be the contest of plot among the series so far.

Followed by Morrowind, followed by Arena, followed by Oblivion...

Edit: Honestly, save the emperor because he was betrayed is more original than save the world from demons.

So you can name another RPG where the main character is a heavily glorified delivery boy who svcks up to the actual hero of the story in nearly every conversation then? Because I'm pretty sure that you can't.

"Cliché" doesn't mean that you don't like it, it means that it's overdone. Whether or not you like being a delivery boy doesn't change the fact that the plot revolving around being a delivery boy is more or less the opposite of clichéd within the fantasy RPG genre. The fact that the rest of the plot is loaded with clichés doesn't change that.


Morrowind doesn't necessarily try to go into clichés, but whether or not it tries to do it doesn't mean that it doesn't do it. The game is saturated with them, just like most every game in this series. Once again, clichés are about what's common to an excessive degree in a genre - it has nothing to do with how "fleshed out" anything is.

EDIT:
The fact that you listed Arena above Oblivion doesn't really need a response. Anyone who's played Arena can tell pretty clearly just what's wrong with that.

Arena was drab and dull, but you weren't fighting the demon apocalypse...

"Morrowind has quite possibly the most clichéd basic plot in RPG history (you are a hero of prophecy, whose coming was foretold and who will defeat the spreading evil that threatens to consume the world)"

because "The King is Dead, Long Live the King" is an incredibly original story? And supporting the Knights in Shining Armor against the Red and Black humanoids from a Fiery Dimension is so much more original?

If you boil either game down to their base elements they're both quite cliche, but that's because they're both based on the same basic story format. It was the gameworld itself which was more unique, or if you prefer "less common", than that of Oblivion.

If you read enough everything is pretty damn similar to something, but I think you'd have a hard time arguing that the world of Morrowind would be familiar to more people than the world of Oblivion.

I have high hopes for Skyrim though. I suspect they'll learn from their triumphs and trevails in Oblivion/Fallout 3/Fallout New Vegas. I don't know how to spell trevails. Screw it.

Diablo 2 if one were to look at as an "action" RPG. Hell, the portal in Oblivion and the portal in the expansion pack of Diablo 2 looks so similar. We could even use Tyrael in the place of Sean Bean, up to the point they both become the big hero in the end.

The Cliche part of the whole thing is Good vs Evil and Demon Invading X place. The Delivery Boy is usually a given in any RPG.


But usually on the line that Morrowind would go with the theme of "Chosen One" but it is own, weird way.