For me,it was the combat. Morrowind's is hopelessly outdated,oblivion's felt unnatural and clunky.

Visauls and animation. I'm still impressed that both Oblivion and Skyrim were released in the same console generation.

I think each one has its own 'charms'. Skyrim of course has better graphics. The combat system appears to be alot easier than Oblivion, but what made Ob's combat unique, it made you think and plan.

There are pros and cons to them all. I enjoy playing each one. Right now I am focusing my fighter on Oblivion and Skyrim is only my thief. Morrowind...not sure yet what I will do. *shrugs*

Oblivion? Maybe magic combat but with archery or melee just chug potions and flail away.

ya me too! When I saw skyrim on the 360 I droped my jaw I never thought such an improvment was possible on the same console generation

All forms of combat, with the exception of Magic. I also believe Skyrim had the best NPC when it came to personality.

Perks. Oblivion assigned four Perks to every character who used a skill whether it made any roleplaying sense for the character to acquire those Perks or not. Each and every character who maxed a skill was forced by the developers to accept the same four identical Perks. That is not a proper role playing game mechanic.

Skyrim's Perk system has its share of flaws but it is a vast improvement over Oblivion's Perk system.

I feel the levelling system is much more smooth, in that it's realistic. You use a skill, it improves and that makes sense. Also it is graphically better and I think it has just had better timing. It has been released in the few years that the gaming industry has really started to boom

Skyrim's combat would be better than Oblivion's (but not Morrowind's) if it weren't for the finisher moves. For that reason alone, it has the worst combat in the series. I also disagree that perks are an improvement. The prerequisite perk tree was a terrible idea and most of the perks aren't even perks. They're just % increases that speed up and ruin natural progression.

A few things it does do better in my opinion:

- Dungeon exteriors

- Smithing (welcome addition, even if it is too easy to exploit)

- Simulation of battles (still not great, but much better than what we saw in Oblivion)

- Ability to rotate items to get a good look at them (even though I hate the rest of the UI)

Pretty much everything in the graphics department.

And followers I guess (Oblivion had them, sorta).

Oh, and you can cook in the vanilla game, which is a huge plus for me, even though it's pretty barebones and I haven't had any luck in finding a mod that adequately adds to it. (I had better luck in Oblivion...)

Combat has a bit more "oomph".

Crafting (better alchemy, better enchanting, and the introduction of smithing equipment)

NPC conversations (idle conversations, quest conversation between two NPCs, conversing in live time unlike Oblivion freeze frame)

Roleplay potential (radiant quests, the ability to work to make money, the ability to cook)

Leveling (no need for meta-gaming or contrived strategies)

it was designed for consoles.

Oblivion tried to find a half-way point.

Morrowind was designed for PCs.

You can tell based on the relative number of mods for each of the games. Even if skyrim was as old as Morrowind, it would have nowhere near as many mods.

I'm not so sure that's true...

According to the Nexus, there are:

3,039 files in total for Morrowind

26,206 files in total for Oblivion

35,361 files in total for Skyrim (+ however many mods are found only on the Steam workshop, which I imagine is quite a lot)

Now of course you could say that a lot of the older mods for Morrowind may have been removed over the years (a more accurate number appears to be closer to the 15k mark according to Morrowind Modding History). You could also make a strong argument that the overall quality of mods for both Morrowind and Oblivion is higher than it is for Skyrim at present. I think Skyrim is definitely winning in terms of sheer quantity though.

The way casting feels is a lot better, IMO. It makes a lot more sense to have the spell in your hand, unlike Oblivion where your RH Weapon kind of just disappeared when you cast a spell.

Enormous, immersive game world with graphics thst were closer to photo-realism than I'd ever seen.

Morrowind's combat actually serves it's purpose, it's just the purpose is misleading in such a way that's aggrivating to new players. Morrowind is a purist RPG in the sense that even though you attack as frequently as you please without a turn-based system, a dice roll determines a successful hit. In that sense Morrowind is more an RPG with action game elements. Yes the premise was unpopular, but it's not fundamentally flawed.

Oblivion's combat is actually superior to Skyrim's in that there's more thought and strategy involved. In Skyrim for example if your opponent raises his shield, this is absolutely meaningless. Infact, it's a free invitation to get free hits in. Free hits at diminished damage, yes, but there's absolutely no downside or reprocussion for beating the [censored] out of his shield as if it were a door you're frantically knocking on. By contrast, in Oblivion a raised shield requires some thought before you act. Attacking an opponent with a raised shield is a waste of stamina in the sense that your damage is limited but you take a hit to stamina, which having lower stamina reduces the damage of any future hits. Likewise, while it is possible to stagger someone with a raised shield with a well-placed power attack, it's equally likely that you will get staggered as your weapon is deflected off their shield, providing them with a safe open window with which to attack you before raising their shield again. And again since stamina actually mattered, you didn't swing mindlessly at your opponent and instead weighed options, waiting for moments to defend yourself and build stamina back up while also considering whether you wanted to stick to frequent normal attacks or a couple strong power attacks. Toss onto this the simple fact that magic was faaaaaaaaaaar more diverse in Oblivion to the point where combos could be set up, and I struggle to see how anyone could prefer Skyrim's combat, which ultimately boils down to leftclickleftclickleftclickleftclickleftclickleftclick. I'm sorry, but Oblivion gets a lot of [censored] for simply not being as amazing as everyone considered Morrowind to be. But this, along with the writing and design of Oblivion's guilds, is actually one of it's stronger points.

It's functionally identical.

I would agree the format is theoretically an improvement and CAN be utilized in a superior way (with the exception of the fact that skill level is of absolute trivial importance now and functions more or less like experience points) but in practice it was utilized practically the same. The prerequisite perk system ensures you end up with the exact same four perks because if you want the shiny one at the end, you need all the ones leading up to it. There are a few exceptions (few. VERY few), but it's more or less the EXACT same system in Oblivion, merely in a different format.

Just about the only thing Skyrim's perk system accomplished is it added the ability to nerf yourself. How thrilling.

How have either of these been improved? Alchemy is functionally the same whereas enchanting has lost detail as enchantment options are far more limited. The only noticeable change to enchanting is the requirement of destroying enchanted items to learn the enchantment rather than learning the spell.

Please tell me you're joking...

I'll see myself out.

Main quest is better and more coherent. Has some really interesting stuff like Blackreach, Sky Haven temple, Paarthurnax, etc.

Better secondary options: cooking, smithing, woodcutting.

Caves are visually more appealing and it's always nice to find a word wall somewhere. More a sense of finding interesting things at the end of a dungeon. Random loot increases replay value

Keeping a challenge. Morrowind got easy after level 10 or 20. Oblivion and Skyrim both keep up and Skyrim has the better level scaling (because it's not fully scaled)

Better NPCs: no more "Make it quick outlander" while the NPC stands in the rain 24/7 doing absolutely nothing and where each NPC has the same random topics. The world actually feels alive, although still swallow

Smoother gameplay, no sudden jumps. Every thing seems to progress better.

Skills matter, but only in that you learn what you use. Versus the old make a character that didn't use the class skills to keep the game simpler (oblivion, and to a point morrowind). Or have a character that trains/grinds non-needed skills to make sure they get the best stats per level up (both previous games)

The quests are a bit nicer and clearer (objective wise, both good and bad... ) Some factions are well done, others not so much.

Better DLC content ... yeah I said it. All the DLC addons are nice (not quite shivering isles, but that was a full expansion)

It's got flaws, but all of them did. It's a slightly different beast, but a lot of changes for the better

Unless you really, really love the idea of dragons and being dragonborn, I don't see how anyone could possibly claim that the main questline in Skyrim is better than any other in the series.

Well, it's more varied compared to its predecessors. I never disliked any main quest in TES but I've played through the main quest of Skyrim the most times. There are lots of main quests that do not directly involve dragons, like negotiating a peace treaty, visting Blackreach, going undercover in an embassy, going back in time, etc

The world building was better than in Oblivion, that's for sure

Oblivion seems like it was designed to play in first person. I'm glad Skyrim was fluid in both. Third person animations in Oblivion are terrible.

Archery in Oblivion is terrible, glad that's fixed in Skyrim.

Voice acting is much better in Skyrim.

Khajiits look like cats and not camel faced humans in Skyrim, that's a plus for me.

Very lush enviromnents I love that.

More wildlife. I can travel for a good 30 mins or so in Oblivion and maybe see 2 wolves and a rat. In Skyrim... so much better. I don't feel alone out there.

Quests are easier to follow. And I don't mean the quest markers.

I know people complain that Skyrim menus svck. Well I love the menu/inventory system much more in Skyrim.

Encumberment. So much better in Skyrim and starting out you can carry more.

Prices. While the bartering system in Oblivion is pretty cool and realistic, 5 coins for a sapphire? In Skyrim I can get at least 90 if not more without any speech perks.

I do like the fact armors come with tops and bottoms in Oblivion, something I easily fixed with a mod in Skyrim.

Skyrim is a much more open world then Oblivion is. And in Skyrim the markets are usually in the front or middle area of the city. And on that note Skyrim got the merchants right. A smith, an alchemist, a trader and a jewler. Oblivion has like a merchant for everything. If I want to sell off my haul, I'm visiting like 6 shops in Oblivion where as I only need to visit 2 in Skyrim to sell the same stuff.

Oblivion shows way to much info on items. worth+weight+damage+repair status. I feel like I'm playing a game of stats in Oblivion instead of RPing like I can in Skyrim.

Animations. Even without mods, Skyrim got this pretty much right. Everyone just stands around in Oblivion but in Skyrim? They seem so alive.

Dungeons. Now I know people say the back door that leads out instead of having to backtrack is a cheaters touch to Skyrim but I like it much better over Oblivion. Dungeons in Oblivion make me feel like I'm playing Eye of the Beholder on the SNES. Seriously its that bad compared to how awesome Skyrim is.

While I agree with this, you can "exploit" archery in Oblivion to make it more viable. With a sufficient alchemy skill, around 50 or higher, you can make triple damage potions that damage health, do shock and fire damage for about 30 seconds with a single poison. You can kill most creatures with a single shot in Oblivion with a poison.

oh, a couple I forgot:

1 - better gender spread in npcs. In skyrim you can enter a bandit camp and get beat down by a bunch of girls, in the earlier games the number of female hostiles was a lot smaller (often the random/level list didn't include female versions iirc or skyrim seems to have better random system)

2 - marriage with a reasonable system (and adoption with hearthfire) that actually works well

Had mountains. That were bigger. And cooler.