The main difference is that Morrowind's system is actually a travel system. Oblivion's system is an instant teleportation system that only the player has access to, and that has no explanation other than "PC can't be bothered to get on a boat".

I agree with Troyatz.

The way I'd put it is this: Morrowind's travel happened within the game world; Oblivion's travel system happened outside the game world. Oblivion's system was a meta-game system, accessed by a menu that, as Troyatz points out, only the player has access to. That is not a good roleplaying mechanic, in my book. To me, Morrowind's in-game, dialog-driven system was far more immersive and far more conducive to roleplaying.

I like Oblivion as a game
In many aspects I felt it superior to MW - graphics obviously, many mechanics

Still I'd say they should do what MW did

In Oblivion I didn't feel I had as much choice in character creation (DF had more still) or in character choices during the game as in MW. In a RPG the range of choices available to the character are much more important than the game mechanics (which haven't been superb in any TES game) which is why although I felt Oblivion to be a good game it was still something of a disappointment after MW

Wait wait, let's back up a moment and look at this post again.

Crappy combat? Being able to swing my sword in multiple directions instead of just spam clicking away in Oblivion was better. Daggerfall perfected it, Morrowind dumbed it down a little. Oh wait you're talking about your hits missing aren't you? Try specializing in agi if you're a melee based character then. And using a weapon you also specialized in. Picking up a dagger when you're specialized in axes isn't a smart thing to do. You shouldn't be missing much at in Morrowind.

Non-regenerating magicka? Um... yes to this as well. What's the point of even having a magicka bar if you don't have to worry about conserving it? You can literally just spam cheap spells over and over while traveling, at no cost, to train abilities on the go.

Skill perks? Half of them were hidden and in the game already. The other stuff like water jumping and somehow having all the shopkeepers in the game being richer were just silly. If the perks are done right they're a welcome addition.

Quest compass ruined the game. What's the point in even playing it if you just follow the arrow? I don't like feeling like I'm attached to a leash the whole time. I'll find things on my own like I do in pretty much every other game ever.

There's no such thing as a "smart AI" in the games. In every elder scrolls game they brainlessly fight you charging on headfirst. Or stand back flinging arrows or spells at you. They might have more detailed animation cue to fool you into thinking they're "smart" but they're still the same old dumb AI. If they were truly smart they'd run away from the guy decked out in full Daedric armor.

Spears useless? A melee weapon that puts you at a bigger distance from your enemy but lets you still attack him while he can't return the favor is useless? Yeah okay.

Or a crossbow which fires further and hits deadlier being useless? Mmhm...

I am Morrowind fan, albeit not a rabid one. I can see it's short commings.

However I can find only one thing I liked about Ob and that was the DB questline.. sure it had it ups and downs (and it was waaay too short imo). But it was while playing that I felt an almost emotional connection to the game; litterally thinking with myself that 'I can't do this!' or the utter disbeliefe and if not shock at a particularly unforseen twist in that storyline. Perhaps the irony was that the DB was full of slightly sadistic, and if not psychopathic murderers yet somehow it drew you in, or that was the effect it had on me at least.

It is all a matter of personal preferences. Why don't we stop with all this nonsense and get along with eachother?

Morrowind and Oblivion is separate games,doing their thing.
With that in mind I′m pretty clear what I prefer in both games,and thankfully some of their shortcomings is solved by mods,that goes for both of them.

For future games like the coming Skyrim,I hope of course some stuff from Morrowind comes back,like spears,more variations in armour,classes and factions,much like Morrowind has it.
On the other hand some elements from Oblivion makes things easier,and originally a lot prettier (vanilla that is),it was cool when one got up in the terrain and could look everywhere,see the world actually instead of fog in a not so distant view.Still unmodded.That compass is honestly handy when I just want to game for a short time,the same with the travels,but since they both are different games on their own merits they are from my pow judged by that,so oblivion is more like an action-rpg of some sort,and morrowind more rpg-like where immersion and belivable travel for example is far more important,to get in the mood so to speak.I personally don′t have that kind of expectations in oblivion,it is more plain fun,and for fun it works wonderful.

So yes thank you,I take both of them

If Skyrim is the sequel to Oblivion, I will dislike it. If it draws equally from Morrowind and Oblivion, it will be exquisite. That's is not the usual approach to gaming sequels, which is why people say what is in the thread title.

Bingo! :goodjob:

The OP of this thread, although inflammatory and long gone from his own fight, raises one valid point which I can say I wholeheartedly agree with:


They sure as hell shouldn't do what they did in Morrowind for Skyrim.


Nobody really wants the same game twice.

Even though we all clamor for our favorite this... or the next best that... in truth what we're all after is the Idyllic Child. We all want a successor worthy to the throne... and we each come to the table with different feelings on what that might be, and how to go about getting it. This is, of course, where the OP and I diverge in our opinions. After all, he was fairly quick to call all the things I] enjoyed about my game, garbage. That alone should be representative of the kind of topic that this was created to become.

Still, I do agree that I don't want them to do what they did in Morrowind... but not because Morrowind was terrible.

Morrowind was a stepping stone, just as Oblivion is now. Every game ever made is a learning experience...

I want them to do better than the game before... not just keep feeding me the same thing I enjoyed the first time around!

While I hate the "dumbing" down of skills which has been so popular lately, not just in the Elder Scrolls but in ALL games claiming to be RPG's, I acknowledge that the general fanbase no longer seems to hold that as being important. The number of skills, and the variety of items, and the QUANTITY of stuff that we get for our money has been getting increasingly smaller... but it hasn't been for nothing.

This is a transitional period... a time when the priority of genres are constantly shifting... and the traditional paradigm just doesn't really apply anymore.

In order to create a more detailed game with more complex characters and quests instead of just pumping out the same game rehashed, a number of things which a lot of us would have liked to see... such as spears... had to be axed. (Or should I just say blunted now?) The reason for this was because, as a general rule, there were FAR too many other systems and problems and issues with the previous game... Morrowind... that needed to be updated and fixed. People wanted more depth. But if you want even a -little- depth... you sacrifice breadth. People wanted a more intuitive game... they got a system that held their hand just like they asked. People wanted quests that felt deeper than FETCH and KILL THIS. For the most part, they got that too... despite the elements of fetching and killing still being largely prevalent.

They did it in Morrowind, too, as they were moving on after Daggerfall. We went from a whole wide open world full of mediocre random dungeons and middle-of-the-road location designs... to hand-placed towns and dungeons, with imposing ruins and amazingly detailed scenery. The world of Morrowind wasn't just a PLATFORM across which the story played out, like it had been in Daggerfall and Arena. Suddenly the WORLD of Morrowind was a Character.

It doesn't matter if you liked the character or not. It doesn't matter if you like Dirty Harry or Principal Strickland... your dislike doesn't make them any less a character in the film. By that same stroke, even if you didn't -like- the world and creatures of Morrowind... that didn't make them any less unique or iconic. You didn't step off this boat into a typical fantasy RPG setting with knights and medieval castles and haunted forests.

You got dropped off in the middle of a BOG... on a volcanic island... surrounded by nothing but water, and swamp, and imposing mountains in the distance.


But none of that would have happened had they not narrowed their vision.


And so now, as they prepare us all for Skyrim, and they make announcements about Mysticism being cut and dispersed through the other schools of magic... or about weapons being 'condensed' down into one and two-handed skills, with specification perks to diversify your ability... I don't feel the same dread as I did with Oblivion. I'm confident. I think that this is, in fact, what we'd all been hoping for.

I believe that they've learned how and what to sacrifice... in order to get the right amount of gameplay depth. I see evidence of their realizing what their mistakes were as they developed Oblivion, and then Fallout.... and then saw what people wanted out of Fallout: New Vegas. It's all been a learning experience. Everything they've learned... it's going to go into this game, in one shape or another. Whether or not we like it, is irrelevant.

In the end what it will boil down to... is experience.

And then we'll all be back here next time, debating the high-points of Skyrim over Oblivion... and we'll all talk about Morrowind like we do about Daggerfall now... and in the meanwhile, Bethesda will sit up on high and watch their bank accounts. As long as they make in the ballpark of the amount of money that they predict... and the community manager doesn't burst in panicking that three billion fans are screaming for a refund... then they'll know they've done a good job.


They should do what Morrowind did?

No...

... they should do that which Morrowind could only -dream- of doing. And more.


As long as the goal remains the same... to keep learning how to make a better game... I'll happily tolerate any of the missteps between here and perfection. Despite Oblivions flaws... despite Fallout's flaws... despite ARENA , and all of its bugs and broken bits and pieces... I still have faith that Bethesda is learning. If they weren't... they wouldn't bother to change anything at all. We'd still be playing Arena and Daggerfall clones.

They're learning. So we'll get there, eventually.

Well, I did.
It was way better than click, fail, click, fail, click, fail, click, fail, click, ah, finally. What a fun thing to do lockpicking in Morrowind.
In Oblivion you could actually do something, at least try, instead of relying exclusively on an equation and just wait.
Sure, the minigame have to be overhauled a lot, but ANYTHING is better than Morrowind's system.

Well it's obvious that Morrowind did a lot of things right. The world was interesting, involving politics, epic stories, loads of lore, and a truly unique landscape. There were more guilds and more character options (I'm talking skills here). Oblivion certainly improved aspects though, such as combat, stealth, and magic mechanics. Spoken dialog was a step forward (as it's industry standard now). AI was improved.

Therefore it's a sensible conclusion that Bethesda would take aspects from both. When I'm looking at Skyrim I see a game which is just that. Handcrafted dungeons and world, more interesting world, potential for political intrigue, with excellent realtime combat, magic, and stealth systems. While on the surface the Character Levelling looks reduced it's actually the reverse! The Perks system opens up more options to the player, not less.

Overall Skyrim has the potential to surpass both games overall, or if not, improve many areas from previous games.

Thank you!

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU... for finally showing me that there's some [censored] OPTIMISM left in this community.

Oi. It's almost gotten as bad as the Fallout fanbase. "Blah blah, this svcks... blah blah... this was better... they're gonna run TES into the ground..."


Seriously...

... what ever happened to a bit of loyalty? It's like rats on a sinking ship, only the ship's fine. Sure, the storm is rattling it around a bit... but these things are built to last. Sometimes you just have to have faith that your Ark is gonna hold together. Otherwise, it's YOU that'll fall apart, long before your raft.

Do I want MW 2.0? Not at all. The game had its fair share of problems, and there was a LOT of stuff that needed tweaking. Some things even needed to be scrapped and rethought from scratch. Besides, we've been there, done that.

Unfortunately, the next game went out of its way to appeal to a different market segment in order to draw in a wider audience, and changed the fundamental nature of the series from a "try until you succeed" to a "can't fail" approach. I can live with the simplification of weapons into "blunt axes" and "blades except axes", I can put up with a Lockpick mini-game, and I can even suffer through one character switching back and forth between several different "voices" while 3 others of different races all speak the exact same words with the exact same voice. Those are petty annoyances, not the "core" aspects of the game. They can be fixed, either through mods or at least in the next game, with a bit of tweaking and rewriting.

What I CAN'T deal with is having the game suddenly remove the relevance of character stats in favor of PLAYER skills, or to "auto-succeed" at everything. That includes "can't miss" combat, "can't miscast" spellcasting, "can't fail" alchemy, or other tasks, which went from "improve through practice" to "can't try" at 24 skill yet "can't fail" at 25. When exploration in quests goes from "it's in a cave a short ways off the road from A to B" to "It's located north of here" and automatically placed on your map (about a day's travel to the NW) to teleport to instantly, or else you can just follow the big green arrow right to it, that takes away any sense of accomplishment for finding it. Worse, when the game PUNISHES you for improving, rather than having it make life easier, it defeats the entire purpose of playing. That's going from a RPG to a FPS in its underlying principles, no matter how nicely they try to dress it up and hide the fact from the former fans.

No wonder the old FO fans kick and complain about FO3; Bethesda did the same thing to that series, taking a game with dire consequences for your actions, brutally harsh choices, and pitifully little chance of success at low levels, and turning it into another "can't fail" game with no MEANINGFUL consequences even for blowing up a town (the most important merchant just reappears elsewhere in slightly different form) or other heineous crimes against humanity. The change from 3rd Person Perspecitve to 1PP as the main point of view was "significant", but not as drastic as the change in gameplay from a RPG to a "FPS with RPG elements". In spite of the clunky interface and awkwardness of the game (which BADLY needed to be overhauled completely), I can say that I "liked" FO. FO3, in spite of its far superior graphics and user interface, left me with pretty much the same "empty" feeling that I got from OB.

There were a lot of "details" from MW that I don't need to see again. What I DO insist on is that the TES series continues to be a RPG, not degenerate still further into a mindless "hack and slash" fest with no meaningful choices, no consequences, and no real purpose to improving your character as opposed to practicing your own skills with a controller. I'm just skeptical enough after seeing the last two Bethesda projects not to buy Skyrim unless and until I hear enough positive commentary from a few of the real "RPG" fans here, since I see no point in buying another shallow action game that I won't enjoy after the first couple of hours, like OB. It's not so much a matter of doing "what Morrowind did" as doing things in the same spirit of gameplay, with the same sense of artistic vision and care, instead of the "this will sell" attitude that I felt in OB. I "hope" that Bethesda has managed to pick up what the MW fans are REALLY asking for, and not try to pander to the specific details like Spears, Crossbows, Levitation, and other "symptoms" while blissfully ignoring the root of the problem.

Kovacius... you've hit the nail on the head with the problems. Or at least in acknowledging the source of the issues at hand.


The problem you are describing, however, is not one limited to Morrowind / Oblivion / Skyrim / The Elder Scrolls. It's one which has expanded out across the -whole- of the RPG market. People liked those things in the old days because they were all you had! They were fun because they mimicked the true-to-the-stats gameplay of pencil and paper RPG's which had come before them. This was the existence of the Role Playing Game when the likes of computer gaming came along.

Arena, which was meant to be a gladiator-styled game and not an RPG at all... just sort of fell into the role. Daggerfall, which followed afterwards, was very true to form.

And at the time, these were what people -wanted- when they wanted to play an RPG. This was the very definition of a Western RPG.


By the time Morrowind came along, when it did, people's minds were already changing. RPG's were getting a stigma for being 'slow' and 'clunky' and 'too involved' for the average computer player to understand. In short, the market began to shy away from these games because they alienated the potential customer base by making them feel dumb. Or boring them with ceaseless menus.

Morrowind didn't bow down to these conventions. It stood upright and said: "I'm The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind... and I'm probably the last game of my kind you'll ever see."

People loved the scale and scope of the world. The lore, and the books, and the music, and the feeling of traversing across that alien landscape... it drew people in. And a lot of those people LOVE the game, even still. But it also drew the attention of the folks for whom the industry was changing. And they would say: "Well this is fun, but I hate having to WALK for hours." or "Seriously? Dice-Roll Hit-or-Miss Mechanics in a First Person game? That's ridiculous! It looks so stupid!"

And so the complaints piled on. And on. And before you know it, while Bethesda is designing Oblivion... they're having to cater to this massive growth of people who don't want anything that really resembles the things that you and I (because I really -do- feel the same about Morrowind) loved about the game.


This is the transition-period I'm talking about.


Gamers like you and I, Kovacius... the types who actually ENJOY the things we do about Morrowind... we're a dying breed. But that doesn't mean that every change is BAD... and that everything DIFFERENT is wrong. You've been making it out to sound, from your first comment on, as if some grate travesty has befallen The Elder Scrolls because of a misguided judgment on behalf of its creators.

Instead, if you wish to point blame for stupidification of the gaming industry as a whole... start pointing them at the people around you. It's the PEOPLE who are killing the RPG. It's the aversion to reading... and the lack of an imagination.... which are contributing to the downfall of our civilization. And by civilization, of course, I mea nthe games we all know and love... and the styles of games we want to play.

We're being phased out... in favor of a new crowd.



It's a sad truth... for the likes of us... but I believe that it can be just as much a force of rebirth as of destruction.

For now, though. I need to get back to sleep. I'm exhausted.


-Cheers, folks

From what I've seen of the modern US educational system, reality TV, and the general decline in the ability to read or write coherently, it's not even just the game industry. Sadly, you're probably understating the problem. The game industry, however, certainly seems to be at the cutting edge of the change.

What I've been hoping for since MW is a game that allows you to MANAGE the balance of risk/reward, by allowing you to choose to "play it safe" or "push the envelope". For those who don't want to deal with failure and a lot of micromanagement, just accept the default option. If you want to go for the offhand possibility that you can pull something off that's one step harder, the option would be there. The ongoing simplification into "just follow the big arrow and you can't lose" takes the "game" out of the game and leaves you with nothing more than an "activity". That appears to be sufficient for most people in a world where school newsletters are awarded "First Place" if they fall into the upper 50%, and "Second Place" if they don't, and where "pass/fail" grading is being pushed as an "improvement", especially since it's unthinkable to give someone a "fail" without risking a lawsuit for "damaging the student's self-esteem". The funny part is how so many players will "follow the dotted line" and then boast about what skilful players they are to have managed to accomplish something that's been designed so that you can't fail at it.

I'm still hoping that the companies will at least "toss a few bones" to the old-school players, and include at least a bit of interesting content, because I'm pretty sure that many of them fondly recall those days themselves, and would gladly try to produce the kind of game that THEY would like, if only marketing wasn't so insistent on making it more "streamlined". Somehow, I wonder if my car will work as well as it used to, after they "streamline" it by taking away 3 of the 4 tires as "redundant". After all, nobody really cared about those anyway.....

Let's take out the last tire too. I found a http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f74/DJ-Models/Back%20To%20The%20Future/DMCIII03.jpg for a limited time.

I understand the thing about miscasting spells and failing alchemy, but this can't miss crap gotta stop, I've missed a million times in OB. Next thing we should get clear is that exploration is not the same as searching, when you are searching, you have a goal, when you're exploring you don't have a goal other than to uncover what's around the next corner. Then we should probably illuminate that following orders is not an accomplishment, and that isn't what was hard about morrowinds directions, following directions is so trivial a task it's insane, when you're shopping you're following directions, the only reason it was hard in morrowind was because the directions were vague and unclear, and NPC's were to [censored] to discus them. Morrowind basically took a trivial task and then gimped the player, the task didn't get any less trivial, it just meant it took longer. Really, it was a cheap way to prolong the game, instead of making quest completing accomplishing. Really when they put the "challenge" in finding the quests (as opposed to solving them) is where you get the excitement, that is exactly when there no purpose of playing. Morrowind took a perfectly functional directional system from Daggerfall with position specific directions, and screwed it for no reason. Do we really have to have debate about how fast traveling isn't teleporting? OB Fast Travel is as much teleporting as waiting is Time Traveling, reusing old arguments aren't going to further any debate. Let's not forget that even though you apparently think FPS games are the bane of gaming existence or for some reason contain genre properties which they don't, The whole TES series have always been in First Person Perspective, has always been an action rpg, and have not deviated from that formula in any way that is significant enough to valid it an shooter game, really, it just shows that people are ignorant about what makes an rpg and more obviously, what makes an FPS.



Discussing Fallout 3's Choice & Consequences requires knowledge of the game which I don't think you have if you consider losing "the most important merchant" a MEANINGFUL consequence. Maybe it's the fact that you seem to have trend of playing games for a few hours and then think you get to talk about them with any sort of merit. But hey, you're welcome to start a discussion in the Fallout 3 forums about how Fallout 3 lacks meaningful consequences, personally I feel it had more meaningful consequences than Morrowind or Oblivion put together.



I'm guessing you will be severally disappointed, not because Skyrim wont be an rpg, but because you have such a convoluted perception of the world that it's amazing your still on this board. The diablo series is a Hack 'n' Slash game, would you say that is mindless? Or who considers OB a shallow action game, proudly showcasing how ignorant you are about what makes an action game. I like how you call it a shallow action game though, you're so afraid of acknowledging it as an Rpg or as it having depth, that you would rather make a completely flawed statement of saying it shallow by action game standards, instead of making a statement like "a deep action game" which with the assumption of OB being an "action game", at least would be true.



I'm a MW fan, but more Importantly I'm a TES fan, and what about those who want spears, crossbows, levitation, they aren't MW fans? Well they aren't True Scotsmen MW fans amirite?!

Jesus Christ :verymad:

A lot of people started the series with Morrowind. The quality drop from Morrowind -> Oblivion was pretty steep. So Morrowind is the only good TES game a lot of people know so it makes sense that folks would call for Skyrim to be "more like Morrowind".

But yeah, I don't want Morrowind 2. I don't want Daggerfall 2. Every TES game had its strengths and tried to approach the "massive world" goal in a different way. The ideal TES game has not been created yet and it will take more experimentation and lessons before it happens.

No, its clear guys, no TES games should have anything in common with the last ones. Why are we still in Tamriel? Mages? Pff, give me techno bastards and astro warriors. Let it be an FPS and it can also be squad based. In fact, just get rid of the TES name, that ties it in too much. It can be called "Guitar Halo Duty Hero".

Don't know what game you played, but Oblivion very much had relevance on character skills. Sure, your weapon no longer magically went through opponents based on the weapon skill, but instead did significantly less damage based on weapon skill. Does it matter if you miss 3 times out of 4, with a hit doing full damage, compared to hitting each time at 1/4th damage? Does it matter if you only block 1 time out of 10, compared to blocking 10 out of 10 but with 9/10ths damage getting through on each hit (with requisite shield damage, possible disarming, and possible staggering to leave you open to attack, all based on... character skill and attributes)? Magic was also scalled to character skill, along with having level requirements. What did magic failure accomplish, that can't be done in a more positive-feedback way, besides making pure mages impossible to play?

You'd have a better argument with the lockpick and speechcraft minigames. Be good at the lockpick minigame, and the skill becomes meaningless. The speechcraft minigame was also easy to find the pattern with and max out disposition (not that speechcraft was very useful, mind).

I occasionally say that Morrowind was better but not because it was MW, simply because it was better, I personally enjoyed Daggerfall much more

In my personal opinion, with wich no-one has to agree, Morrowind is a vastly superiour game over Oblivion in every way that matters. I cannot think of one single thing that Oblivion did better, I even prefer Morrowind graphics. (more detailed, less bland, less copy/paste. Soul gems and deadric armour for example.)

I could print a whole diatribe explaining this point by point, why the magic system was better, why quests were better, why the graphics were better, why the gameplay was superior, but I dont think that would serve much point.
Its just my opinion.

Morrowind is the best game I have ever played, and Oblivion was such a let down, the horrible level scaling and empty world even ensured it had almost no replay value. What is the point of continuing once there is absolutely nothing to do in the world after youve done the few quests?
What is the point of building a character differently, using different apparel, when all characters cant really start doing quests till lvl 25-30, unless I want to settle for a vastly inferior reward?

In my opinion, if Skyrim takes absolutely nothing from Oblivion, and loads from Daggerfall and Morrowind it will be a fantastic game.
This is not going to happen though, as the mostly hack n slash that was Oblivion was very popular. To the point where we now have fans who do not really understand a game that isnt a hack n slash and who petition to remove the last things that make it an RPG, for instance that thread I read about removing the ability to play on after the main quest.

I loved Morrowind so much that Im willing to overlook Oblivion and give Bethesda a chance with Skyrim.
Im going to buy it as soon as it hits the shelves, and that is something I never do. I always wait till the price drops.
So that shows Im still a fan.
It is the last time however. If Skyrim follows the trend oblivion started I will mourn, and never buy a Bethesda game again.

I disagree about Morrowind's magic system. I tried magic several times in Morrowind and just didn't enjoy it. In fact, I wasn't able to play Mages in any game until Oblivion came out. Magic and archery, I feel, are the two areas of combat where Oblivion improved upon Morrowind.

In my case, the game mechanism was more of a let down compared to game content, the excessive hand holding in any aspect of the game that did not let us fail in a lot of our actions, and there was no dire consequences for any of our actions, and the actions themselves were a lot easier to perform, and they did not show any progression of our character related to the environment, so the game did not give us the sense of satisfaction when we developed our character and his gear, to overcome initially difficult actions, or to be able to go where we could not go safely before, and so on...

Of course the game content had its flaws as well, but I was more concerned with game mechanism, which severely diminished the most important feature of a role playing game, the character development and the sense of progression and character specialization to create a unique feeling character as your Orc Barbarian could become the head of mages guild, WTF?

If I try to remember all my grievances with Oblivion, it would become a long list, so it better stop here.

But from what I have learned about Skyrim, I'm fairly sure that they have returned to a more RPG style game with adequate sense of progression and specialization and consequences for our choices, and might even surpass Morrowind in some of these aspects, as I hope so.