What I don't agree with is Todd disassociating himself as if Oblivion sacrificing something special was Oblivions fault he made it clear beth..or he or they were shooting for Lotr elements just as they are spamming Conan and rough and rugged garbage this time around, sure there is flexibility with a setting that has yet to be personified but using these series as a crutch for a game that has an assload of its on internal elements in the lore to make several games many times over, when he accepts that they are the cause of the game "sacrificing what made morrowind special" then credit is due, and ffs Morrowind is not the holy grail of the TES series Im pretty sure when people awaited Oblivions release they were hoping it would SURPASS Morrowind...

Prime example of PR talk, If I must say so myself.

Yes, the thing here is honesty. I can admit to Oblivion's flaws and concede that several things were better in Morrowind. The rabid "Morrowind faction", however, are so obsessive about asserting Morrowind's superiority over Oblivion that they won't acknowledge ANY flaws in Morrowind, even cliff racers. It also seems like they muse over some mystical depth to Morrowind's gameplay that simply doesn't exist. Morrowind may have deeper lore, but for every gameplay mechanic that is supposedly deeper in Morrowind, there's another that is deeper in Oblivion. It's a wash. Now all this dishonesty about these two games seems to spill over into the Skyrim hype, which clouds any truthful information about the game to say the least. Skyrim will not be Morrowind II, for whatever that's worth.

I honestly didn't get a LOTR feel of out of Oblivion. Rivendell was a much better and prettier settlement than anything seen in Oblivion and its setting literally reminds me of my former backyard while LOTR has walking trees. The animations were also far too clunky to do justice to the horse-riding of LOTR and the views were far too limited (I wish Bethesda would increase their gameworlds' sizes... just a bit). I'm still waiting for the complete Mines of Moria experience that I didn't get in Oblivion, as well. Oblivion felt like an homage to Arena (TES I) and thereby a clone of DnD's setting mixed with, yet again, former backyard. It was too familiar to even be like Lord of the Rings, in my opinion. I agree that Bethesda's own lore should be investigated with their settings. Skyrim looks promising in that regard, even if they are aiming to mimic Conan, in my opinion.

The cities certainly look creative and Skyrim-ish (I like Markath), I'd say. I also, while appreciating the introduction of new settings and improved gameplay mechanics, do not support Bethesda's removal of older mechanics to do so. It makes each new game, to me, feel as one step forward and one back or just a step to the side. I like steps to the sides in some ways because it's a completely new everything and that keeps the series fresh. However, I would prefer the games to be a step to the side and a step forward... as in I'd like new features and a new setting yet the same old mechanics being improved instead of being lost. I think it makes sense for Bethesda to have their games surpass previous ones in all ways instead of just some ways, but that's something Bethesda doesn't always seem to agree with. Let's see where Skyrim goes.

Bullcrap. Todd wanted a LotR 'familiar fantasy' style for Oblivion, he said so many times. Only realizing your mistake now? I don't buy it. He's retconning as bad as turning Cyrodiil from temperate rainforest to the sparsely forested meadowland we got in TESIV.

I though OB was better than MW and I played MW long before I played OB. OB is my fav game, MW is #2 followed by the Fallouts.

I definitely think Morrowind had a more unique and bizzare feel, though one thing I don't like in comparisons of OB to Morrowind is when people say everything in OB looked the same and had no diversity. I mean in terms of landscapes, Morrowind looked brown, twisted and alien pretty much everywhere, except the dull ashlands, same as Oblivion looked European most places. And for the architecture, Oblivion may have somewhat less diversity than Morrowind (though more actual distinct styles) but you couldn't say they all look the same. You could say Chorrol, Cheydinhal and Skingrad are fairly similar sort of European styles (Skingrad being the weakest link) but you couldn't say any of those was like Bravil, or that Anvil looked like Cheydinhal, Leyawiin looked like Bruma, etc. and the Ayleid style in the Imperial City and ruins is just as unique as, say, Hlaalu.

Skyrim, I have some concerns that some aspects may be too similar to Oblivion, or too one-note Nordic, but from what we've seen so far, there seems to be a fair bit of diversity. Solitude looks like Imperial style, Markarth is rather unique, Riften is fairly typical but has a nice feel, and a Dunmer city sounds promising. I do think the feel of Skyrim will be stronger, Oblivion, TBH, doesn't have a terribly strong mood with it. I guess the best word would be "majestic", but the feeling does not come off as strong as Skyrim or Morrowind. And I know Todd has been pretty repetitive with his explanation of the feel, but sometimes there isn't really a lot of different words to describe something. I mean even Morrowind, I barely here anything used to describe the feel other than "alien".

There is much more to the game universe than TES. Oblivion was stale for me having played a few RPG's in a medieval setting previously as well as Morrowind so there didn't seem to be anything new that i hadn't seen or done in other games and i was never able to take to Oblivion. Skyrim looks great but the Nordic thing has been done in Bloodmoon and i and a few million others have been playing the Wrath of the Lich King expansion for the World of Warcraft MMORPG for the last couple of years which is also in a Nordic setting so i can't say i feel overly enthusiatic about the latest offering.

A temperate rainforest/jungle. So, they got it right.

? The "forests" in TESIV were not http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperate_rainforest. Not in the least.

There is actually in-game lore to explain why Cyrodiil is no longer a jungle.

http://www.imperial-library.info/content/oblivion-mythic-dawn-commentaries-3

What we had in Cyrodiil was no jungle, so there was lore explaining why we got what we got. Also, where is your source on it being temperate?

You know that Cyrodiil was originally a deciduous forest, right? To anyone who's ever heard of TES I: Arena, I've actually played it. Cyrodiil is most certainly a deciduous forest in Arena. The "lore-breaking" for Cyrodiil's terrain first occured with the Pocket Guide to the Empire changing it from its original form to a jungle. Oblivion changed it back to its original form. That is a fact. Whether you approve of the changes or not is one matter, but Oblivion did not "break" any lore with its terrain. The only two times Cyrodiil has ever appeared in the series, it's been as it still is, now.

I do know it was originally a forest in Arena. But it was retconned into a jungle and it's even explained in Oblivion why it's no longer a jungle.

Its transformation back into its original form got an explanation, yet its transformation from its original form to a jungle had no such explanation. I find it funny, then, that people complain about Oblivion "breaking lore" in that sense.

It was retconned from a standard fantasy forest to a jungle. Retconned. Oblivion has an official explanation for it's lore-based cosmic retcon, and you're supposed to assume it was a jungle before than despite Arena indicating otherwise. I never played Arena, so I can't comment on the lore but I'm told there wasn't much. So it was tolerated from going from forest to jungle because jungle is more interesting.

And Oblivion was my first TES game, so I'm not really that upset about it being a forest. I personally think a jungle would have been more interesting, though.

That's fantastic, but that original change to a jungle "broke lore".

Technically, yes. But I personally think I jungle is more interesting than a forest.

Notice how I never said Oblivion broke lore.

As I said in my post, however, they are different issues.

Notice how I never you claimed you did say such a thing.

Arena was a very graphically limited game. Notice the Imperial City was absolutely nothing like the current one, or how it is described in the Pocket guide. Bethesda has said the games are only attempts at representing the world, and in Arena, there was very little lore and very little thought put into their design of the world. How they write it in the lore is how it really should be though. But that's not to say they should go changing lore completely on a whim. The changing it to a temperate forest was a retcon. It was explained in the lore, but in a cheap and crappy way. You can explain EVERYTHING in lore if you wanted, you could explain making the Nords in Skyrim green midgets who spend all day eating sweetrolls and counting backwards from a million with a quick sentence of lore, but that wouldn't make it any less cheap and contrived.

I guess the moral of the story is "Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should, because it might be confusing and stupid and piss a lot of people off".

I honestly like all TeS games for different reasons, i approach them knowing its going to be different than the last morrowind was great, so was oblivion and if skyrim really is going to walk the line between the two it will be epic.