Oblivion was my first real game, and I think that it was absolutly amazing!

I think its the vast amount of possibilities and options you have. You can rp any type of character and you can explore. or you could just be a normal person and just live eat work and sleep. Its non-linearity (even a word?) makes it good. some people hate this because they feel they "have to" play the game more than once to do every thing. Ummm ok I'd like a game that can be played multiple times not just once.

for me it was teh world, there is so much to see and do.

Morrowind is quite possibly my favorite game of all time due to the fact that it is what I would consider the epitome of "RPG". You create a character and have full freedom to do what you choose with that character. So Oblivion succeeds simply for being of the same foundation. Same way that I know Skyrim will be great, same way I knew that Fallout 3 would be great, simply for the game structure. As it is, Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 are my favorite games of all time. Point blank period.

Now, Oblivion certainly falls short of Morrowind in many of the content areas (less customization for your character as many skills are absent from Morrowind to Oblivion, the biggest one for me being the Enchant skill) and I certainly feel that the in game content is richer in Morrowind than Oblivion. That said, Oblivion improves in many other technical areas - graphics, AI, combat mechanics, etc.

And where it falls short of Morrowind, it doesn't fall short badly enough. Oblivion is still an amazing game. All 3 of my Bethesda Big 3 are about equal in my eyes for greatest game ever.

What mainly sold it to me was the large, expansive world that you could explore, teh preteez, and simply that I could be my own person while playing the game. Particularly the last option, the primary selling point of any Elder Scrolls game is that it enforces so few limits on the player, and it lets you play it the way you want to. No other game save Grand Theft Auto has allowed you to do this, and even then GTA limits you to mostly bad-boy activities. You can truly be your own person in TES games.

My 2 drakes.

For me it was that it was a giant open ended sandbox game that was huge and had an amazing modding community. In fact, some of my best Oblivion moments came from unofficial content like Verona House Bloodlines, Heart of the Dead, Frostcrag Reborn and The Lost Spires (and many others ... sheesh, there are a lot of great quest mods out there!). Plus, unlike the capital wasteland, Oblivion presented a world you actually would kind of like to live in ... if you were hero material with a gift for magic and stuff, of course.

For me it was definitely the atmosphere in Oblivion that made it one of the best games I've played.

Other: The ability to design a character class that is not constrained by D&D typical medieval fantasy stereotypes. Fighter, thief, mage, yawn. *Oh noes! Yer a mage! Put that bow down or you'll hurt yerself! * Lol.

Oblivion was so good when I stopped playing. I was so embarrassed when I came on here and posted how well I was doing. Only to find that everyone was doing well because of level scaling. You literally could not die. Wherever you went, regardless of level....... you won.

I felt robbed.

The dev's have learned their lessons, the nightmare that was Oblivion will never be repeated.


Skyrim will rock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well obviously a combination of all of the above, but the main point was the freedom. Freedom to go wherever I wanted, join whatever guild I wanted, and generally do whatever I liked.

Oblivion was "ok" it didn't hold a candle to Morrowind though. Oblivion was way too mainstream, but i don't think those are things a first timer would notice. I'm glad you had fun, but i urge you to checkout Morrowind too. I think Oblivion's story and graphics where it's strong points, even today it's graphics are still superball things considering. It's rare for visuals to age so gracefully like Oblivion, but i still find myself in awe sometimes when i lookout off of a mountain.

A huge world to explore. I love exploring in RPG's - Which is why I'm no fan of bioware games.

My main reason is not on the poll.

It is the open "sandbox" like world. Bethesda created a rich, immersible world and said go do what you want in it (ie "find your own path").

There was so much to see and do. The graphics were also absolutely stunning.

thing is though i would say the same with morrowind compared to daggerfall , i would consider daggerfall far superior to morrowind . Saying oblvion is mainstream is silly , name another game like oblivion since then ? there isnt one . I dont think many people played oblivion for its story , i think story and choices is were oblivion is awful , certainly compared to a bioware game . I think oblivion stands out with its free roaming giant world of endless possibilities.

I read this a lot on here, but I'm inclined to disagree.

I certainly agree with the point that compared to Morrowind, the game was rather simplified. But compared to pretty much anything else out there, it's a rather complex and deep game.

Morrowind did certainly set certain standards in customization and content that Oblivion definitely didn't match. I wasn't a fan of some of the skill removals, mainly Enchant as that was one of my favorite skills in Morrowind. I didn't like it's removal as a skill in Oblivion, I wanna be able to Enchant! lol.

I can understand removing Medium Armor. I'm okay with just Light and Heavy Armor. I could understand condensing Long Blade and Short Blade into just Blade (although I do *prefer* the separate skills, as I think being capable with a dagger is certainly different than being capable with a claymore). But I wasn't a fan of removing Spear (even though Spear was a skill I never used personally, it was a unique skill selection that at least in Morrowind, offered a rather different style of gameplay for combat), I didn't like condensing Axe into Blunt, as there is nothing "blunt" about and axe. And I also wasn't a fan of removing Unarmored skill either.

I also didn't like the removal of the amount of guilds you could join, and the complexities between all of the guilds. While my first playthrough, that I actually beat Morrowind with, my guild selections were pretty simple (Mage's Guild, Thieve's Guild), there did come a point in later playthroughs that I was enjoying joining some of the not-so-"cliche" guilds, like the Temple. Being able to join all those different guilds, and the requirements for advancing (actually being GOOD in skills relating to the guild, instead of just doing quests) was a major part of what made Morrowind great.

I also like the environment of Vvardenfall better than that of Cyrodiil. Sure, the graphics in Oblivion are obviously better, but I just liked Morrowind's environment much more.

That said, I'm totally not bashing Oblivion. Oblivion did improve on Morrowind in many ways. Game play was improved. Graphics, obviously. Technically, Oblivion is a better game. And while it's lacking in content as compared to Morrowind, I don't believe that it's lacking in content when compared to the overall gaming world. It may be "dumbed down" by Bethesda's standards, but it's not dumbed down by gaming standards.

I still find Oblivion to be a very rich, very deep, very detailed game that is certainly worthy of mention alongside a great game like Morrowind.

This for me too.

I'd say that the attractions of Oblivion over Morrowind were immediately obvious: traps in dungeons, poisoning weapons, expansively beautiful cities, more complex enemy behaviors. The negatives that make Oblivion less attractive were more lasting, however: incessant faux-dialog between NPCs, endless hand-holding quests, boringly identical countryside, combat and alchemy reduced to always successful (FPS) instead of failure chance based on stats (RPG), enemies that constantly respawned (and at your same level), loot that was always at your level, game balance issues that actually made it easier to deal with endgame monsters if you were low level rather than higher, etc.

Which is why what makes Oblivion not just playable but very good these days, in my opinion, are its mods. The modding community has produced a host of excellent coding that fixes most of the flaws gamesas put in the game, and added much new content. Vanilla Oblivion is to my way of thinking a 12-year-old's exotic FPS title with quests. Ramped up with mods, it shines.

Its the immersion. Ive being playing video games for over 20 years and I can say I wouldnt be typing this if I didnt think it was one of the best games and will go down in history as a timeless classic..

Everything. The fact that I could build a character to perfectly fit my style of play, the depth of the game, the sheer amount of things to waste days on, the number of clothes, weapons, armor, and other items to collect, and so many other things. Plus the gameplay just flowed better than any other game I have played. I only felt overwhelmed when i charged into a fight unprepared. I also loved being able to toggle the difficulty with a slider to fit my current mood perfectly. You could do so much to get the upper hand on the enemy, it was awesome to dungeon dive just to loot everything and kill everyone.

the FREEDOM,

i've played over 300 hours and i've never once finished the main quest,

not likely to either, imagination is king, and elder scrolls accomodates that to perfection

I think for me it was probably the concept of the sroty.... it intrigued me! Well, this and the massive world that cleverly used a vivid expression of colours throughout the game world! The vibrant green forests or the warm orange countryside of County Anvil, for example....

"was" good? I hope you mean, still is good. It's because your able to get trapped in someone else's life for a while when your own life isn't going so good. You, the user, have complete control over your avatars life and can do, be whoever/whatever you want. You get to step into someone elses shoes for a little while and detach from the real world. It's not about graphics, physics, any of that, it's all about how great of an immersion tool it is. It's like a book, you just get svcked into that world for 1,2,5 hours! It's truly an amazing game and I can't find another game that's even close to as good as it is, not even Fallout 3. Morrowind is equally as good, but I started playing that after Oblivion so I feel kind of one sided towards Oblivion since it's pretty hard to get used to Morrowind's gameplay mechanics. It's all about being someone else, and that someone being whoever you see fit.

I can't vote for just one thing, as I think it was the combination of several things that made the game great. The world, the atmosphere, the quests, the NPCs, the music, the gameplay, the graphics - the whole package.