I was bored so i googled "greatest rpg's of all time" to find where morrowind and oblivion were ranked. I found that the first result Morrowind came up 3rd and Oblivion came up 4th on the second result it said the Elder Scrolls was the second best rpg series. Then I looked through the rest of the results on that page and the Elder scrolls, morrowind or oblivion didn't come up in any more.

These two games were really looked forward to, they both won Game of the Year and people are still modding the games to this day even morrowind which was released 8ish years ago. So why do games like the old final fantasys, Zelda (although these are good games) and games I havent heard of that were released ten years ago beat Morrowing and Oblivion to it? Also IGN didn't even add it to their top ten computer RPG games!! Is it not considered an RPG anymore or somethin?

Lists are down to personal preference. Some of the stuff on those lists I wouldn't consider RPGs anyway. Some great RPGs like Arcanum rarely appear on lists because they weren't great sellers.

This. It also depends on the moment. Right now Fallout games would score well because they're a popular subject since New Vegas was released. It has been a while since there was any TES related game news, so people might forget a little. There can only be 10 games on a top 10 list, that's not a whole lot.

Yes, that the moment thing counts alot.
Dragon Age 2nd best RPG of all time? I like it but its a bioware game, its strengths and weaknesses are the same as most other bioware games. Good game but better than NWN or Baldurs Gate?

I rarely even look at those lists because the Top RPGs are going to be different for each person.

(If I had a list, there would be a lot of games before Dragon Age.)

Never trust IGN's lists, they are most likely bribed to put games on there.
And as long as you enjoy the games, who cares what these writers with no taste in games think?

It's just nice to see your favourite series glorified once in a while, i suppose.

i agree wholeheartedly.

look up lists of MMOFPS games. there are only two MMOFPS games i know of that exist, ww2 online, and planetside. anything else advertising to be such is really a standard online multiplayer FPS with a "massive" lobby. games are restricted to 32 players max (if that) yet on the lists, planetside and ww2 online dont even show up.

i dont think the folks at IGN even play the stuff they review and rate. i've seen one indy developer assert as much, and his evidence is convincing.

it's one reason i upload to nexus but not PES. IGN can jump in a lake for all i care.

Ye tbh it is probably a matter of opinion. I havent played many of the RPG's mentioned so I dont know how good they are but I jst thought that it would be really hard to beat the elder scrolls games!

First of all, many big sites get paid by their sponsors to place games favorably on lists like these.

Secondly, it's a list that exists on the internet... Therefore, it's not to be taken seriously in any matter. There is no journalism or calculation put into such an article... Just opinion.

Search through video game forums where fans discuss "the greatest RPGs of all time" and you're going to see many people mention TES games.

Oblivion was put in IGN's top 10 xbox games in 2010 as no.10 but the funny thing is Modern Warfare 2 isnt even in the list but the first Modern Warfare is I guess that list is a joke!

Most games i wouldn't count as RPG. Especially if it has a linear fixed. A few of Bioware's i barely qualify as RPG, this includes KOTOR, and Jade Empire (haven't touched many others recently). They were fun, and had some RPG elements, but only 3 options when you talk and no matter what you choose didn't really change the storyline/outcome at all.

Perhaps the question isn't what happened to elder scrolls. It's what happened to the public? School tests have dropped it's requirement to pass, games & movies are nearly all special effects and have very little plot and not very good; When compared to what was around 20-40 years ago. There's also the commercial brainwashing that goes through all channels of advertisemants, convincing you to go for the new and better (even if it's not better), telling you what to eat, snack on, how to look, what to wash your hair with, what kind of tooth brushes to use, what games to buy since it's 'best of XXXX'. The list goes on. Honestly, the average intelligence overall has dropped, and more good and complex games like morrowind, are left to be forgotten compared to a game you can beat in less than 4 hours.


What drew me to morrowind when i first started was the sheer openness of the game. Sure it daunts you at first but it didn't require anything of you, while others force you with no other possible options. You could become rich killing mudcrabs every day and selling the meat, while staying near any one village. Sure it would take forever, but the game wouldn't stop you from your personal or professional goals. In some games you can't even attack anything that wasn't a monster (In KOTAR, i whip out dual lightsabers in a bar and swing them around. No one reacts, gets hurt, or even cares... woot).

i agree wholeheartedly.

What most of these lists qualify as an RPG is quite laughable. It is also almost always drawn from personal opinion rather than polling. A well internetitized person should know that the interwebs are a place of extreme personal bias, like the first thing I said.

I wouldn't go as far to say that the general intelligence is dropping, it's more that computers (and computer games) are becoming more accessible to the general public. It's not that gamers are getting less intelligent, just that they are getting diluted. And this will continue, as they draw a wider margin for their games, they must be made to fit everyone so they will continue to be dumbed down. The target audience is shifting! Let us intelligent people move on to the next big thing :rolleyes:

the thing is, is the media encourages this type of thing. look at the space sim genera, usually noted for the incredible detail and openness of its games (think star control 2, batlecruiser/universal combat, that kind of thing) it's been assassinated by the major publishers, now only indy developers keep it alive. because the game is too "hard". even though the game is not really all that hard at all, it's just that you have to read a manual, are not forced into any one course of action, and actions generally have consequences.

ES games, prior to oblivion, share many of these elements (oblivion does as well, but suffers from "dilution to attract 'casual' gamers") and thus are not very popular or advertised by outlets paid to keep you attracted to the latest, greatest thing. which usually is a mod packaged as a full game (think just about any source "game")

speaking of "casual" gamers, why must a game be "easy" or "streamlined" to appeal to those who dont have a lot of time to play? isnt that what savegames are for? do we have to make everything into smb1?

Simple. Most people hate losing... Me too, but what I hate even more than losing, is an easy win.

in my opinion, the elder scrolls series is underrated compared to the zelda and final fantasy series that are pretty overrated

If its a top rpg to you, then thats good enough. Sod what other people say, its your gaming 'world' lol; you do what you want, but you have to agree these games are not mentioned much. They have been heard of but some don't really take intrest :violin:

This is true as well. Of course, in theory, if you're trying to make a list of "The best RPGs of all time." the moment SHOULDN'T be relevant because if you're looking for the "greatest" anything of all time, you need to give things from all times equal oportunity, that's sort of the definition of "Of all time", after all. But since which game, exactly, is the "greatest" in its genre is subjective anyway, we can't expect an objective answer on the subject. Games that people are currently concerned with, often new games since these are generally what everyone is talking about, are more likely to get on the list. After all, the people deciding what games deserve that honor might not care about or remember older games, if they've played them at all. Also, the games that are most likely to get on the list will naturally be the most popular ones. YOU might think that the Elder Scrolls deserves to be called the greatest RPG ever, but that won't count for much if the people deciding which games get on the list disagree. I don't know exactly how which games get on the list and where is decided, but I'd guess that it's done by voting, and naturally, the games with the most popularity have the best chance of winning. While the Elder Scrolls isn't exactly some obscure franchise that no one has heard about anymore, I still doubt it can beat Final Fantasy in a popularity contest, so that probably explains why no Elder Scrolls game is in first place.

I don't think it's important, myself. I still like the series, and the fact that it didn't win the title of greatest RPG ever won't diminish my opinion of it, while I suppose if the games I play are popular, it does make it easier for to find people to talk about them with, how popular a game is really doesn't effect my love for it one way or another, if the Elder Scrolls is successful enough that Bethesda feels it's worth continuing the series, I really don't see how it's relevant whether or not it can match Final Fantasy or the Legend of Zelda in popularity, and although Bethesda has yet to announce a new Elder Scrolls game, I don't really believe they've abandoned the series.



Easy and streamlined aren't the same thing at all. Just look at Morrowind, I wouldn't exactly say it's the most streamlined game ever made, but it gets extremely easy once you hit a certain point if you have any sort of decent character. On the other hand, lots of old games on the NES and SNES were quite difficult, bur they were also pretty simple. It should be pretty easy to see why developers want to make their games streamlined, because this makes it easier for more players to approach, thus potentially allowing it to reach a larger audience, which translates to more money. Do you really need to ask why developers would want that? Besides, just making the game needlessly inaccessable is pointless if it doesn't add anything to the game (Not that I'm saying Morrowind, or any other Elder Scrolls game is like this. Admitably, Morrowind does have some elements that make the game require a bit of patience to get to understand it in order to really play it properly, but I wouldn't say it's just needlessly making the game less accessable, in this case. Sure, I did some pretty stupid things in Morrowind when I first played it, yes, but eventually figuring everything out would not have been as satisfying if it hadn't been for that early confusion.) This doesn't mean they still can't be challenging, because like I said, a game doesn't need to be incredably complex to be challenging. But that's not really relevant to much of anything.

this is what i'm speaking of when i refer to the negative aspects of "streamlining". it strips you of the satisfaction of figuring it out. the problem is finging the "right" level of complexity to make it challenging, but not frustrating.

Good points and a belated reply
Yes, as a PNP RPGer most crpgs don't really count as true rpgs, fun to play but fairly limited
MW was incredibly open and it was disappointing to see that Oblivion was much less so (although much more so than other RPGs including TwoWorlds or Gothic 3)
I wouldn't put it down to declining school standards myself, more that much bigger games market has made companies more focused on the general market than they were in the 90's when PnP D&D was a signifigant niche market

Main factor seems to be that EVERYONE knows how to use a computer nowadays, and if not, then at least a console. 20 years ago, only a few percent of the population could figure them out, or had any reason to. Now that "few percent" feels cheated because the market that they created has moved on and left them with "mass consumer" products in place of the challenges they enjoyed.

To the OP: Why might it not be #1, well it came out like 8 years ago. Since then a lot of people have moved on to either no longer game or just moved on to newer things. Over time many games will fall off the charts.

What I am disappointed about are many of the new games that do not lack the depth that MW has. Hell my son got Gears of War 2 (i think) and finished it in 3 days. What a waste of money. MW on the other hand takes countless hours to explore and finish (if you ever do).

My personal top games would be MW and WoW. Both offer almost endless things to do and styles of play.

True. Also, IGN is a joke.