Companion system was great, NPC dialog was better, Game was more immersive (Though still lacking), the Speech system is a great concept, the places weren't generic like Oblivion's, and actually had stories behind them all, as well as a few other features I can't really think of at the top of my head.

I'm not saying Fallout dominates Oblivion like a angry german shepard with a flimsy chew toy, but it was a step in the right direction.

Morrowind generic?How could daggerfall fans of all people say that?

I blame the http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NostalgiaFilter.

In fact, Daggerfall was MUCH more generic than Morrowind, even because of huge amount of buggy, randomised, generic content.

Vvardenfell was supposed to be a kind of "volcano island" (just look at those old Arena maps) and it was just like that (the rest of Morrowind is not). Sure, they changed various things, as they often do in their games, however, you could feel like you really are in the centre of Morrowind and you could immerse yourself in this alien world rather easily. It was the opposite of generic fantasy, although compared with Daggerfall some things were just bad - number of NPCs in the cities, lack of Holidays etc. Besides, the introduction of Imperials in their Romanesque form was probably controversial. About MQ - well, Daggerfall had 6 endings occurring, in fact, simultaneously. With that they were hanging on the balance of absurdity, but it turned out to be interesting in the end. Also, in Morrowind we've got [censored]loads of lore...

Cyrodiil was supposed to be a capital province mostly covered in jungle, full of politics and interesting places. It was nothing like that. I wouldn't even say that it was like Medieval Europe, because things were VERY interesting and confusing in that period and FULL of intrigues. It was just bland and boring, although in itself it was an ok-game. However, there was not enough lore to cover it all up, which is why I don't really care for Oblivion much. I read the books in UESP and they were good, but I couldn't force myself to play the game to the fullest. And we've got even fewer NPCs in Oblivion than in Morrowind.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Demographics

Just my opinion.

Hehe, good one

I have good hopes for TES V actually, especially after Fallout 3. If they keep the uniqueness of NPCs and dungeons and the choices in quests it wouldn't surprise me if it turned out better than Oblivion.

And it's not like they can remove even more skills this time...

I hope that at least Shortblade will make a return. It turned out to be a bad design decision to merge it with Longblade.


Don't know, the game was rather boring. There weren't many NPCs and IMO they were still worse than NPCs in Mass Effect, not to mention NPCs from previous Fallout games.

However, I liked Shivering Isles and I hope that Bethesda realised that we want unique setting and MQ, not generic ones.

I found them better than Oblivion's NPCs anyway. NPCs knew who they were talking to and said something accordingly. No weird 'I saw a radroach the other day' conversations. They also interacted with the environment more (eating from a plate, hanging on the bar instead of sitting upright, leaning against a wall, holding stuff) and they moved their bodies somewhat in dialogue instead of just being a talking head.

I'm just wondering if they can pull it off in a TES game. In Fallout 3 they could make all the dialogue between specific NPCs because there were so few NPCs in total. I hope it won't turn into Oblivion-style generic NPC pvssyr again in TES V when there are probably many more NPCs.

true

I remember "The Great 2002 Dialog Controversy" very well. The hate directed at Morrowind in these forums made me stop coming here for awhile. Rabid Daggerfall fans were slowly ruining my enjoyment of Morrowind.

The irony is that after Oblivion was released, overnight you began seeing posts praising Morrowind's superior dialog...and criticizing Oblivion's lack of dialog choices. It all begins to feel so wearyingly repetitive after awhile.

I think when TES V is released I will stay far away from these forums for the first six months. I will come back when when all of the people who treat forum posting as a form of cutthroat verbal PvP are gone.

Oh lord, just when it couldn't possibly get worse.

It's the route Bethesda is taking. I'm sorry, but if anyone believes they can deny that Morrowind/Oblivion were dumbed down from the earlier games, they are indeed idiots.

Personally, I myself think there are many ways in which Morrowind changed too far. The combat WAS too simplified, the world WAS too small. But, some things are just pure crap. I mean, generic fantasy? Did they not see Daggerfall? While awesome, it was pretty generic.

As with virtually anything, the earlier parts are far superior, and it loses it's flavour as it goes along. As said above, it happens with games, films, music, whatever. Unfortunate, but true.


I have to say. That pretty much says "old time things svck. People are ONLY allowed to like modern tuff, whether it svcks or not".

I mean, look at the Elder Scrolls part:



The person who wrote this believes that the new games only added to the experience, and never ruined anything. They think the old games are awful and those of us that don't like Oblivion have completely invalid opinions. They've listed things that are GOOD about the games, in a lot of opinions, as if they're awful:

• More Dialogue
  
• More Skill Based System
  
• Graphics (TES has ALWAYS been to a high standard when the games are created)

I'm sorry, but this is pure crap. Most of us know wasn't perfect, and Oblivion fixed certain issues. Also, Oblivion itself wasn't perfect, and there where many bad aspects about that, just like there are about any game. There are also blind fans of Oblivion, just like there are about the others.

There are 201 imperial NPCs in morrowind and 207 in Cyrodiil... Thats really interesting...

I would hope that during the extra time TES:V is being hushed up is being used towards the extra writing and rendering needed to "complicate" the game and reverse this trend.

I think they actually cut some of the extra fat when they shifted to Morrowind. Seriously, who needed all those useless language skills? Ah, but complainers are inevitable.

Well, I read the article and I must say that it is interesting but does not apply to all those aspects uniformly.

I chose four subjects as the others did not interest me at all:

• Film
  
• Music
  
• Video Games
  
• Western Animation

Film: the filter does not apply to me at all. I prefer the quality of most of the current movies to the original films that I grew up with, although there are always exceptions.

Music: the filter applies to me almost completely, and I do not like the current mainstream musics at all, except for some video game musics.

Video games: the filter applies to me in completely random fashion, I like some aspects of a lot of older games to the current games but on the other hand, I like the quality and some other aspects of a lot of newer games over the older games. That's a mixed soup.

Western animations: Yeah, here the filter does apply to me, but I think that it is not a filter, but a fact that current animations have lost some of the soft and soul soothing aspects of the older cartoons, and have become more action oriented and harsher than previous generation, but as always there are always exceptions for the rules.

Edit: As for TES V bashing:

I think that for all the aspects that Oblivion is better than Morrowind in them, TES V will hopefully better than both, like graphics and AI, and Physics, and actions, and so on...

But I hope to see some improvements on the features that Oblivion lost over Morrowind, and I'm really hopeful in this era, as I have seen some improvement in the Fallout genre.

So yeah, I'm going to be more satisfied with the next TES and would not be as much as disappointed with it as I was with TES IV.

I agree! Fallout 3 is a good indicator of what's to come, just turn it up a few notches!

Yeah, I mean, who needs a silly skill like climbing? Who needs Lyanthropy without an expansion, who need extremly customisable characters? Who needs a realistic world where time passes by, with seasons and basic AI? Who needs polical quests? [/sarcasm] [/rant]

Well in fairness it was weird seeing your character walk up a wall(no animations)but if they made climbing as realistic as it is in assasins creed 2 then I would like the skill back(as long as it was done well).

Of course there were no animations. It was purely first person... And I doubt if included in Morrowind/Oblivion there would be none.

I would love to see a completely overhauled third person, nevermind just a better climbing system.

But if they readd the climbing skill I want my character to look up at his arms when climbing buildings and the progress through the skill has to be realistic(who wants a players with 1 climbing skill to be as good as a guy with 100),and it would be good if your strength attribute helped when you are hanging one to things and want to pull yourself on top of it.

The language skills were useless. They don't belong as skills, maybe some perk system.

But that's neither here nor there.

I'll continue to like Morrowind for its characters and environs. It's no longer fun to play. I didn't keep Oblivion. Daggerfall does a lot I respect, but it is also not fun to play. I'll probably burn through V very quickly, too. Hopefully not, but I'm realistic. I believe the "bashing" is generally, well deserved. They make money off me, so they can also put up with my complaining.

I don't, if the trade-off is a more detailed world, more lifelike NPCs, and higher general quality of quests. It'd be great if every idea Bethesda ever had could make it into the game, but if it takes some pruning to enhance the aspects that remain, that's a compromise I'm more than willing to make.

(I'm pretty sure I know the argument you're going to make next, but hey, maybe you'll surprise me)

The thing about Oblivion is that they didn't have to prune away all the stuff they pruned away... maybe the reason was time, maybe it was accessibility. Either way, it was unnecessary, imo.

As for Morrowind, if I had started with Daggerfall I would have been totally disappointed by Morrowind, just because of how different it is and how much they stripped away. However it was an even trade-off, imo, and there is much less combat in Morrowind than in Daggerfall. You can avoid combat almost entirely, if you play a certain way in Morrowind. Whereas, in Daggerfall, it's impossible to avoid combat unless you exclusively do thieves guild quests. So, whoever said that Morrowind is more focused on combat was totally wrong.

However I do admit that a lot of what made Daggerfall great is just plain gone in Morrowind without any acceptable reason. Same thing happens again with Oblivion. It's a trend that I believe will kill Bethesda.

Todd Howard says, "plus 1 sequels are franchise killers." Maybe he should take a look at "heroes of might and magic" "total war" "sim city" "final fantasy" "warcraft/starcraft" "baldur's gate/ icewind dale/ neverwinter nights" etc, etc. and eat his words. Oblivion is the best selling TES game so far. Which means that TESV will have the largest group of disappointed haters. It's gonna get to the point where Bethesda has let down every fan of every obscure genre and no one will want to buy their games anymore.

I'll say it again: it costs 5 times more to attract a new customer than to keep an old one. [/rant]

Oh no, don't worry, every one of those series have people ranting about how the older games were so much better and the new ones are just dumbed down. It's an inescapable part of developing video games, so I'd rather Bethesda and Todd Howard stick to their vision and make the game they want to make, rather than worry about the game that their fans want because it is literally impossible to please the fans. I know I'll play (and love) the game they create.

EDIT: It's like the argument in the modders' forum about whether the focus of a mod should be the artist's vision or what the players want. If you try to please every potential player of your mod, you risk ending up with a watered-down version of your original goal that is nowhere near as good.