Yeah, um I'm a console gamer but the more depth, the better. If my PC could run games as well or better than my 360 Id be a PC person, but i dont have 700+bucks to build a PC. While RPGs are scarce on the consoles I feel strategy games are neglected even more. I would murder for a Total War game for the console. if they came out with a Total War for the PS3, Id buy one just for it.

Guys, stop patronizing him because he was more comfortable with Oblivion. I don't see what the problem is. And the reasons you give you are usually subjective. And I do prefer Morrowind to Oblivion.

Unless a good portion of the end game has a ton of zones with maxed out NPCs, static leveling makes everything stupidly easy to kill once you hit the level cap. There's a different between feeling like a bad ass and being God, the latter of which should obviously be an option with Easy Mode, but I at least want a challenge when I kill crap on Hard Mode. At the same time, Oblivion style leveling with Bandits decked out in Glass Armor felt off from a lore perspective, I think taking the best both options have to offer would be the most sensable choice if Bethesda can figure out a way to do it.

I'm hoping for Morrowind style factions, or at least FO:NV with the ability to burn your bridges, being Arch Mage and the Gray Fox is sort of... Well stupid.

I will also punch a kitten if I don't get fast travel back.

Being able to fly via Levitate is sort of an instant win button against melee NPCs. Then again, it's not too useful in cramped Dungeon corridors, I could see it being "balanced" in open world combat if it cost more Magicka to maintain and/or Levitate users recieved a weakness to ranged attacks or something like that.

Finally, I hope the OP realizes that only a fraction TES's player base actually goes to these forums and that this isn't a totally accurate poll, nice effort though.

Epic-Win.

I'm going to send you to Parody School...

So, if I'm grocking the gist of this poll, it's more to do with "casual" gamers than anything else, it seems. I've also been frustrated at times seeing PC games that don't make full use of the greater potential for UI and such, but other than, I don't think consoles have much to do with "dumbing down" games, these days.

As far as the "casual" thing goes - I think a common misconception (among developers as well as the more committed fanbase) is that "casual" has anything at all to do with "simplistic." Couple of cases in point:

My wife is a pretty casual gamer. She rarely plays any games at all, and she's very picky about exactly which games she is interested in playing. She absolutely loved Knights of the Old Republic, however. RPGs like that, with a strong focus on narrative, and getting a sense of the companions she was with, were what really pulled her into the game (she still has a big crush on Carth Onassi.) And while KOTOR didn't have the most complex RPG system, it wasn't the most simplified of RPG mechanics I've seen. As a casual gamer, she had no problem with any of that stuff. She really didn't care, either. Mostly, she just picked the auto-level-up options, and picked whatever equipment she thought looked the neatest.

For her, the mechanics weren't even something she thought about very much. She just wanted to progress the story forward, and everything else was just a hurdle she had to push through. I once gave her Oblivion to try out, and it just plain didn't interest her. It wasn't that she couldn't wrap her head around the mechanics or anything (it probably could have been a lot more complex and she still wouldn't have cared.) She just couldn't connect to any of the characters, and didn't feel like she had much of a grasp on the character that she'd created, either. (Something the both of us feel that Bethesda's game design philosophies could stand some improvement on - and why we find Bioware's way of handling narratives more compelling to us.)

If you think about - by definition, us more "hardcoe" gamers spend a lot more time thinking about - and care more about - the game mechanics in a game like this, than your more casual audience does. What keeps them from playing a game (in my mind) has little to do with how "easy" it is - and is more to do with whether or not what they're actually doing "grabs" them sufficiently. My wife absolutely loves Mass Effect for this reason. She doesn't care whether or not the mechanics are simplified (and probably wouldn't even have noticed if the mechanics were "bulkier.") She just likes identifying with her character, and the relationships she's developed.

For another example - my little sister is the embodiment of a casual gamer. She doesn't even play videogames for the most part. But she is hard-core into The Sims. Which I've always viewed as kind of that perfect storm of drawing both "casual" and "hardcoe" gamers equally. That game (especially if we're talking Sims 2,) has pretty deep mechanics, if you want to really get into it. Especially so if you take into account all of the added wrinkles all of the expansions bring to the table. Again, she doesn't care about the complexity involved, or how "deep" it goes. She just likes playing the game.

In short - I don't think what turns casual gamers off from a game, is necessarily it's complexity. There's no reason to "dumb down" a game to appeal to a broader audience. I think what's more important is elegance and accessibility. A game system can be intuitive, while still having lots of consequences; deep, while still maintaining an ease of use that's easy to jump into . (Again, I think The Sims is actually a good example of this - doubly so if you approach it as a type of RPG.)

A single button press could have tons of calculations attached to it, with reams of information and variables if you really wanted to look under the hood. So long as a "casual" gamer can easily understand that raising their Strength affects the sorts of things that you'd intuitively guess being stronger would make you better at - I don't think there's going to be much of a problem there.

TL;DR - In an "ideal" game - the ruleset isn't what going to turn a casual gamer away. So long as it's intuitive enough that you don't necessarily "have" to spend a lot of time thinking about these things, you can probably get away with tons of complexity under the hood, without turning away a broader audience.

No, I just prefer the way things are in Oblivion, and, quite frankly, seeing as most of Vvardenfell is covered in volcanic ashland, and I don't like volcanic ashland, that definitely weakened the setting for me. Terrain and coloration makes a very big difference to me.

I prefer the majestic Romantic architecture of the Imperial City.

I prefer the subtle, more believable differences between regions.

I prefer the dark and mysterious Ayleid ruins and the sorrowful music that accompanied them.

I prefer luscious, green forests accompanied by the rustling of leaves in the wind and the chirping of birds.

I prefer the docile falling of snow as I hike through the mountains of the North.

I prefer the oriental accent present in Cloud Ruler Temple.

I prefer the mysterious mist of the Southern swamp.

I prefer the menagerie of Tamrielic architecture present in Oblivion's cities. Cheydinhal is somewhat out of mainland Morrowind, Bruma is somewhat out of Bruma, Leyawiin is somewhat out of Elsweyr, and Anvil is somewhat out of Hammerfell.

I prefer the fantastical familiarity of Minotaurs and ogres as well as the realistic familiarity of deer and wolves. Nix hounds and kagouti seem cartoon-ish to me, as do the mushroom trees.

I prefer the walled, secure feeling of cities, and I believe they should make me feel safe and secure.

I prefer the isolated castles of the disunified counts/countesses of Tamriel, who range from beloved leaders to corrupt scoundrels.

I prefer the mysterious and shady, yet aristocratic, feeling of Skingrad.

I prefer the sleepy and partially dilapidated feeling of the peaceful and calm Anvil.

I prefer the crumbling, increasingly corrupt feeling of Cyrodiil as its once great power slowly fades. The cities are segregated, the central government is weak, the military is spread too thin, the Empire is without a leader, many of the counts/countesses are incompetent, and the Mages Guild has opposed law and torn itself in half.

I prefer the haunting vision of the once-great city of Kvatch as it is besieged by fire.


Are you referring to me? I'd say I may be the type of person who gives too much reason. I've most certainly been very aggressive about my love of Oblivion, but I've never said I hated Morrowind. I just prefer Oblivion, and I've played Morrowind very much. I also played Arena and Daggerfall, and I've enjoyed parts of them much more than parts of Morrowind, in a similar way that I preferred parts of Oblivion. If I must list my reasons once again, so be it.

I hate Morrowind's slow pacing. The running speed is pathetic, the fast-travel system is repetitive, and I don't enjoy running around to look for a place while being attacked by cliffracers. Due to a lack of a fast-travel system similar to the one I like, due to the lack of a quick way to return to places I've already been, and due to the lack of Morrowind's mapping of locations such as caves and mines, coming back to dungeons I saw earlier but didn't dare approace due to danger of overencumbrance, is far too tedious, discouraging exploration. I enjoy Arena, Daggerfall, and Oblivion's pacing, in which I actually feel like I'm playing instead of tediously running around.

I hate Morrowind's ashlands, but as a whole, I do like the setting. I just don't like the setting as much as Oblivion's, but I've already listed my reasons for that above.

I prefer Oblivion's side quests. Morrowind's became far too repetitive and lack the variety and personal touch Oblivion's have. I played through the Fighter's Guild questline, the Imperial Legion questline, half of the Redoran questline, and and half of the main questline, and I've yet to find quests that satisfy my desire for variety and interest in quests, a desire that was satisfied by Oblivion's.

I do not like Morrowind's combat, stealth, and magic system, and it has nothing to do with being casual or not giving skill-increasing a chance. I have 100 long blade skill, and I still hate combat with it. Oblivion's wasn't much better, but I enjoy it more, as well as Arena and Daggerfall's There was a bit more variety involved in Oblivion's, Daggerfall's, and Arena, as well as the more natural movements of swinging from side to side, which was more satisfying for me.

Most of Morrowind's named NPCs, despite having more to say, were copy-and-paste involving dialogue. Walk around any city in Oblivion, and most named NPCs will have something unique to say. Morrowind's generally repeat things, and only repeat things. In addition to that, Morrowind's NPCs all stood still and did nothing. Even Daggerfall's NPCs moved around and gave off the illusion of locking their stores at night. Morrowind's did nothing and a store could be entered at any time of the day, legally, in Morrowind.

Morrowind's lockpicking completely lacks interactivity.

Morrowind's dungeons were generally tiny, lacking in traps, and lacking in atmosphere, both in regards to dungeon music (which Morrowind lacked) and lighting. I've never experienced an eerie feeling in Morrowind's dungeons.



From another thread:



From that same thread:

can anyone let me know how the polling is going? im not allowed to vote so i cant see the results.

I don't even know how to answer this without feeling stupid.

click the button "show results" and see for yourself

Nicely put, Seti :goodjob: I'm inclined to agree. But then again, i started with Oblivion, so my opinion doesn't propably count :rolleyes:

And The Byzantine makes an excellent post too; get on with the times, consolitis has been eradicated

I'm not gonna trawl (or troll) endlessly over whats been said already, but i'd just like to add that whilst i would dearly love all the pc modding and even just the dlc available to x-boxers - i can't. why? cos i'm on ps3 (which i love) and i simply can't afford to literally wear out an expensive piece of pc kit by game playing on it for like 2000 hours. i'm on a little gaming break right now (3 months of non-gamer activities), but i played the incredible oblivion for like 4-5 hours a night (average), every night, for 30 months solid, so i reckon that consol or not i gotta be 'hardcoe'. so, i think that dlc (or expension discs) should be made available to everyone regardless of platform.

i would like to see 'some' requirement to eat and sleep - with a penalty like weakness/health/fatigue for not doing it. Its rpg afterall and realism is key for me. I'd like to see the removal of 'invisibility' altogether - great fun though it is, its just too tempting to defeat everything with it. i would also like to see ways of gaining the huge magika reserves needed to really have fun with super powerful home brewed spells.
Please let us create nice/attractive chars (ok, sixy Lol) in Oblivion nearly all attempts ended up with old faces or lopsided features. i hated fast travel - its just a cop out saving all the walking time and missing out on creature encounters - maybe some limited 'flying' (like superman) would solve the crossing great distances issues. near photo realitic scenary would be an essential step in the right direction i feel - the whole point of an rpg is to feel like you'reactually there.

ah well, i guess its pretty much already 'designed' for tesv now - so just fingers crossed then.

This poll will be ineffective, casual mainstream players aren't on the forums. You only gathering info from the more casual side of the TES hardcoe fans.

Whoever did the long quote about did you....Quit. That's not cool. Seti may have different views (and at times be louder about them), but that doesn't mean you need to do that to him.

I'm a console gamer. Have been since the Intelivision when most of you PC monkeys were svcking milk from mamis teets.

I want 0 scaling. None at all. Not location, not bosses, not items, not joinable NPCs(maybe joinable NPCs). None. Zero Zilch, Squat!! No scaling. Scaling svcks. Scaling is for stupid PC gamers. Old school console style Zelda, Final Fantasy scaling which is none.


These are my steps for preventing scaling from the Dragon Age forums


First dump the filler combat. DA was ripped for having so much filler combat with waves of mindless cohorts. By dumping the filler combat you can cut the level scale from 1-20+ to 1-10 which is more like Baldur’s Gate.

Second thing Is to provide some clues for what the PC is up against. The last thing you want is an open-ended world with many choices that lead to the same lvl of difficulty level but you don’t want people to feel railroaded. So in a game like DA where you have less paths than Zelda has dungeons you could simply give a description of each path so the PC can manage risk/tactics/reward. It cant just be risk or it will end up being a linear path in the order of difficulty.

Third is to make low level encounters knowledgeable to what they are up against. Have them flee, avoid, bribe, or use great numbers in an ambush. It beats removing them from the game.

Fourth is to do the same for high level encounters. High level creatures should always be relatively rare especially away from their habitat. Intelligent high level creatures are usually more passive with what they don’t perceive as a threat. An Evil Dragon, Vampire, or Beholder isn’t going to go out of their way to attack a group of travelers.

Fifth is the use of skills to avoid combat. Less intelligent encounters or the occasional blood thirsty individual/s will attack on sight. Storm of Zehir did a good job with this. There were lots of skills to help you avoid unwanted combat.

Sixth is to cheat… kinda. If a boss knows your PC is coming instead of hiring unrealistic waves of filler how about if they hire merc types that are geared to stop you. So if you are low level and they haven’t even heard of you then they wouldn’t hire anyone. If you are mid level maybe they higher 2 mercs etc etc That’s just one example. They could also employ better arms. Basically they tighten security. Arcanum which was an open ended game if you ever saw one and had zero scaling did something like this with the assassins it sent after you.




I want Fallout 1-2 style factions with some comp and some overlapping. You can join multiple factions but not all.

I want Fallout 1-2 style fast travel. FO 1-2 isn't as good as you PC kids say it is but it had good fast travel and faction style.

I want houses if there is something nice that goes with it.

I want strongholds if they take the time include followers and group battles. A stronghold without an army is a waste

I can live with a couple essential NPCs. Having to design a decent plot that factors everyone being killed in the plot is a waste of dev time

Hunger, Thirst and Sleep should be default.

I don't care about Quest markers as long as it doesn't have a stupid trail like Fable and the location was already marked. In other words don't mark what the character shouldn't know.

I want Levitation Spells.

Teleportation Spells should be in the game which is why food and water has to be default. You have to reward the spell caster for being able to teleport and not eat up all their food fast traveling



Since I'm older than you PC kiddies and I am not a virgin my opinion matters more.

OK, I get it.

You like mysterious subtle peaceful, majestic aspects of oblivion, all of which are in different places of Morrowind as well, but pales against the other aspects, IMHO, so I did not mention them.

And most of those things were a lot like each other, so I think we got a bit repeating ourselves, hmm?

By the way I do not say that Morrowind could not be better, so for instance the blade goes through the monster aspect could be implemented as blade weas dodged or parried, and the like.

But from the items that you mentioned, I think you should love Morrowind better, because it has a lot more mysteries, it was more misty, it had more corrupt guilds and factions, it has equal oriental aspects, and I do not agree on Morrowind's quest lacking compared to Oblivion.

But I give you that Kvatch was new, and docile, walled and sleepy cities were lacking in Morrowind, and docile environment were scarce.

As for hating the ashland, the pace, and lockpicking and the like, those completely depend on the tastes, and we apparently differ in this era.

And I could not believe anyone could be able to love docile, sleepy and walled in feeling of Oblivion cities to exotic, moody and novel cities and culture of Morrowind, thanks for increasing my knowledge in this era.

Edit:

* Morrowind's fast-travel system
Was better. IMHO.

* Morrowind-style side quests
Were better. Note in the bottom.

* Morrowind's pace
Was better. IMHO.

* Morrowind's navigation (a halfway point between Morrowind's and Oblivion's would be ideal, for me)
Was better. IMHO.

* Morrowind's setting
Incomparably better.

* Morrowind's cheerful music playing dungeons
Old technology, wont happen again.

* Morrowind's running speed
Was better. IMHO. Oblivion was too fast paces for my tastes.

* Morrowind's house-owning system
Old technology, but you could always kill a person and use his.

* Morrowind "cut-and-paste" NPC dialogue (at least Oblivion's named ones typically had something unique to say, albeit brief)
In a heap you can find a lot of good and bad items, when you have fewer, you have less bad items. Note in the bottom.

* NPCs standing in one place all the time
Old technology, wont happen again.

* Morrowind's or Oblivion's animations, with a great emphasis on Morrowind's
Hopefully fixed. As Todd informed us.

* Morrowind's uninteractive lockpicking
Was better. IMHO.

* the well-lit atmosphere of Morrowind's dungeons
I think you have used "Darker Dungeons" mod for Oblivion, or another one that includes it.

* Morrowind's combat/stealth/magic systems
Old technology, but IMHO the dice roll was a good idea if badly implemented.

* Oblivion's level-scaling
;)

Note:

As for quests, Oblivion had fewer but more meaty quests, but a few aspects of the quest system ruined it all for me.

I want to use my eyes and my mind when I do quests, and I'm nor a kid or robot to be pointed to the exact place of the target and be told exactly what to do, and I did not like the clean cut, good/evil better/worth or single path with flashes and marks to follow aspects of Oblivion quests.

Morrowing's gray morality and twisted confronting view points of the quests were a lot to my taste.

But I do not deny that Oblivion had several really interesting quests, in interesting settings.

:bowdown: :goodjob:

Never seen someone sum up so well the reasons why I care for Oblivion as much as I do.

I couldn't get past playing Morrowind for more than 20 minutes, I walked around Balmora super confused, and when I finally got into a fight I could not hit the thing for the entire battle and then I died. I quit right there, now I'm pretty damn sure the reason I failed at Morrowind as much as I did is because I'm so used to newer games, and I didn't take the time to get to know the game, grind and familiarize myself with the mechanics. But... It was just so boring, frustrating and the worst thing about it all - I still to this day do not know what the [censored] it was that killed me right before I quit. All I saw was this teal/beige colored slender blob floating in front of my face, then it'd dissapear to the sides before I could turn the camera. And I was dead.

Awful, terrible.

There's so many biased polls on this forums, and they just type in Morrowind and Oblivion as poll options and Morrowind wins no matter what. Even when half of the people that voted don't even know what the Morrowind option entails, like with the level scaling poll where a bunch of the guys thought Morrowind didn't have any level scaling at all.

It just makes me sigh really hard, I'm so glad to see someone like you Seti18 who actually likes Oblivion so much and you're willing to take the time to write why I'm 100% positive that if I had played Morrowind when it came out, before Oblivion and I had taken my long sweet time with it I'd have cared for it alot more, but as it is I just don't think it can stand up to the new generation of games and for the new generation of gamers that are used to so much more.

:whistling:

I never tried to hide that fact, and I explained why I didn't like Morrowind. In fact I supported exactly what you're "whistling" at me about.

Without consoles, you probably wouldn't have seen an Oblivion or will be seeing a Skyrim. Without consoles, this TES would never be making the glorious amount of money it has been. Making the series a stable in the rpg scene AND GETING OUT OF THE UNDERGROUND AND BECOMING MAINSTREAM. Mainstream = money. Games that didn't make it to mainstream usually stops at 3.

I understand that, and that is what we people mean when we separate hard core players from casual ones.

And I know why BGS went to Oblivion's direction, or you would not be here.

And after all those comments, I'm quite excited for Skyrim, as I have seen that BGS had turned back a bit, at least in some aspects, and did great in Fallout 3.

Ugh.. I get sick of this whole attitude that console players aren't as good or as devoted to the games as computer players.

Just because I can't have mods doesn't mean I'm an idiotic fps lover that wants to ruin the game by making it halo.... I just happen to prefer a controller and enjoy playing on a larger screen.

Thanks, but you're treating me too well. We must resume the fighting.


No, you don't get it. You keep insisting on your opinions being of a greater nature than mine and you continue insulting me by telling me what I should like more. There is more I could say in my opinion on the matter, but it would be to no avail. Still, I can't let you take that as me giving in, so:

I prefer the peaceful (as opposed to harsh cliffracer county; peaceful in how truly separated from the cities the pure wilderness can be in Oblivion), gorgeous (in my opinion, forests leading down into a water-filled bowl with a grand city made of white marble in the center is gorgeous), and vibrant (as opposed to ashlands) aspects. Morrowind always felt as though it used an excessive amount of browns, dark greens, dark purples, and tans in it's color palette, to me, while Oblivion has a "pretty" color palette, as I would put it. Everywhere in Morrowind, whether in a dungeon or in a safe inn, has the same, exact songs and mood to it, from my experiences, and the color palette as well as the lighting also remains the same. In Oblivion, when I go inside an Ayleid ruin, I experience a dark, sorrowful sense of ancient loss. It's a creepy experience that gets contrasted pretty well by the outside area. I love going into an Ayleid ruin and coming back out about 45 minutes later to a bright, sunny world full of swaying leaves, deer, and grass-covered grounds with completely different music playing. The wind blows by and I can hear the rustling of the leaves while birds chirp in addition to seeing the bright, prominent White Gold Tower in the distance. It's absolutely perfect for me. Then, I could go the Imperial City and, like always, I would hear specific music for the city and notice my sense of security. That contrast isn't in Morrowind. The music, the lighting, the ambient noises, and the color palette remain the same, with no regard I'm inside an ancient ruin , outside next to a mushroom tree, or at my home in Vivec.

Vvardenfell isn't ruined, either. It's a bit of a backwater place, but it seems more along the lines of just being settled and tamed rather than falling apart in its own slow, subtle way. The ruins left behind by ancient settlers there didn't feel very ruined. For example, Dwemer cities, in addition to matching the features of the outside world as I mentioned above (lighting, music, etc.) also were up and running. The machinery still worked and the places don't look ruined or all that abandoned, at all. Ancestral tombs didn't feel like the resting place of the dead, but coming across an interior tomb in Oblivion did give off that sense of death, in my opinion. Civilized parts didn't feel aristocratic or majestic, to me. As I said, the place seems backwater. Oblivion's showing of reverting to archaic anything was done solely through the talk and thoughts of the authorities and the city of Bravil, but the other cities themselves remained very regal. With the exception of cities such as Vivec, Morrowind's cities didn't feel grand enough or separate enough for me. If it had Telvanni or Redoran archicture, if felt like a village where nomads recently settled. Once again, I refer to contrast. Vvardenfell still had competent authorities. The Duke of Vvardenfell still seemed to care as did Vivec. The Count of Bravil is a drunk has-been, the Countess of Bruma wasted taxes for personal profit, The Count of Anvil was the king of thieves, the Countess of Leyawiin was a racist pig, the Count of Kvatch was just gone, and the Emperor was just gone, leaving Ocato in charge, but what he was doing was maintaining a spread-too-thin military. He couldn't even assist the Imperial homeland, at all. The Great Houses may have shown division and political differences, but the Imperials and the other higher-ups were still doing a decent job of running things. Cyrodiil was just crumbling, with no higher-up to help.

I'm not a hardcoe gamer and I play on consoles but I still want high quality games. Quit stereotyping.

Sorry to offend your feeling and I did not want to, and I wont do it now.

I know every one have different tastes, and you like peaceful settings more than moody ones.

But I must warn you that Skyrim seems to have even more grim settings than Morrowind, and those dragons could not be possibly level scaled to player character, and would be really terrible and fearsome foes.

No peaceful setting there, and I like it!!!