I'm glad you're being honest. You're not flaming and you're not being disrespectful. I respect your feelings in regards to Oblivion, but I can't say that I fully agree with you.

Generally, Oblivion was a great game. I must've put at least 200 hours into it. But, as an Elder Scrolls game, I'm afriad it was mediocre at best. Good on you for becoming an Elder Scrolls fan because of it, and of course its okay for you to think it's a great game, BUT it is not okay for you to dismiss us who prefer Morrowind as irrational Morrowind-lovers or conservatives who fear change. Here's why:

I played Morrowind and loved it, logging at least 1000 hours. When I heard about the making of Oblivion, did I say "oh that game is going to svck because its not Morrowind" ? Of course not. When I saw the amazing screens did is say "that's stupid because it's totally different than Morrowind"? Nope. I was ecstatic, and looked forward to Oblivion with all my heart, happy to think there could exist a game better than morrowind. And then I played it. I was let down in many ways. I didn't go in thinking it would be bad, it was the opposite. So this is not being irrational, it was an objective judgement.

As I said, great for all you who were brought here by Oblivion. But know that anything you say about Morrowind is not valid, ever. You played Oblivion first, and thus have a different impression on what Elder Scrolls is. Elder Scrolls to you "new" people is different than what it is to us. I'm afriad you will never be able to truly understand Morrowind (unless you have amnesia about Oblivion)

My biggest gripe with Oblivion was the level scaling. Meeting highway robbers in deadric armor ruined immersion, and leveled loot was a really bad idea.

I still played it for hundreds of hours, and enjoyed it immensly.

I know who you mean. xD

There are so many things wrong with it, it was a step forward in some ways for TES but not enough to make up for what it lacked that Morrowind did not - a creative, atmospheric, and exotic game world believable in the context of itself, with consistent and visible lore/politics/economy/religious conflict/etc etc... Oblivion's randomly generated content and typical fantasy world we've all seen before didn't hold a candle to it.
Hopefully once Skyrim comes out we'll think it of the awkward transition stage between two of the best games ever, and see how well they learned from their mistakes.

Note that I'm not saying this is good or bad, I'm just trying to explain this discrepancy between predominant Morrowind and OB fans

And to add my opinion further to this thread, yeah the artifacts are a huge game element to me. From Diablo 1 to Final Fantasy to Zelda to Morrowind, finding unique artifacts was one of the best experiences in games. I felt like Oblivion sort of "forgot" about that in many ways. I hope that in Skyrim we will see it implemented on a static level, where you will find certain artifacts in certain dungeons and not have it be "random". Also unique artifacts at that, not anything randomly generated.

Better yet, I hope that artifacts have puzzles centered around them to complete like Zelda. This is personal hope

This is mostly compared to morrowind since the only other TES I've played is daggerfall for like 30 minutes since it crashed every 10 minutes for me,
have been meaning to play it some time though.

Oblivion pros:
Great side quests
The world feels more alive
Better combat
Great expansion


Oblivion cons:
Awful level scaling and item scaling
A lot of boring enviornments
Uninteresting characters (they also have hideous faces and bad voice acting)
All-knowing guards and merchants
Uninteresting main plot
Super compass

I guess these are my main concerns, then there are the minor pros and cons but that list is way too long.

Hey what about the Daggerfall fans? Always forget about Daggerfall... just kidding... but its a great game...

I think http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/forum/26-the-elder-scrolls-series-discussion/ would also work.

This thead has nothing to do with the game Skyrim. The Skyrim posters are the target audience, but still...

If someone thinks a game like Oblivion is "bad" I automatically assume they never played it. It's like when people tell me Mass Effect and Shenmue svcked. I mean, seriously? There is ALWAYS room for improvement because they're building a world from the ground up, and by nature we're inclined to compare it to the reality we're all familiar with. A game simply can't encompass everything real-life encompasses! It should entertain - and there is no denying that Oblivion was entertaining for a bajillion hours!

While I like Oblivion, I love Morrowind, and there are many serious flaws in both games I would like to see avoided. Some have already been dealt with, like the dialog and such.

Well, let me begin by saying I LOVE Oblivion. Along with Morrowind and Skies of Arcadia (yes, yes I know; you can park your game-type elitism at the door ) it stands among my most beloved games of ALL TIME (after gaming for two decades.) But with that said, my main criticism of Oblivion were the (in my opinion) lack of distinct culture, and the homogeneous visuals.

What I mean by that is, the game world lacked visual variety and the NPCs all seemed the same from town to town imo. Everywhere in the world had a similar appearance. The Shivering Isles is a stark contrast to Cyrodiil and is, in my opinion, a great argument for hand-crafted, unique environments. It felt exotic and different. Cyrodiil not only felt similar everywhere I went, but the appearance and "feel" of the game felt much too familiar. I didn't feel like I was in a fantasy world unique from that seen in other games or fiction, so much as a TES-ified version of cliched, redundant fantasy trappings seen elsewhere. (Knights on horseback, castles, western-European architecture, forests, etc.)

Don't get me wrong. Oblivion still scratches an itch no other recent game can. In fact, I just purchased it on 360 for the first time (my PC got fried,) and will be playing it as much as I can to kill time until Skyrim's release. I just wish it had been more packed with variety, minutiae, and cultural distinctiveness.

I think I've heard even Daggerfall fans saying that Morrowind was really neutered compared to it.

Well, in a sense it was. Less skills, smaller world, fewer factions...

You also have to consider what motivates certain people to criticize a game. There is a very strange thing that happens with certain types of people, where, if they see that a game is getting appraisal from a large number of people that they don't agree with they will feel obligated to "balance" that appraisal with criticism even if much of it is trivial.

I will give you a real life example. Goto Amazon.com and look at the reviews for Starcraft II. Many people are giving it 5 stars and feel that it is the best game since Super Mario World (or what have you), you will also notice that many people are harshly criticizing that game and giving it one star to, in their own view, balance out the criticism. This might be a strange natural social dynamic that we have built into us, but it isn't a reasonable one on all counts.

Here is another example. Goto IMDB.com and look up the movie Inception. Many people writing reviews comment on how they are appalled at the the people reviewing the movie for 10 stars (or 5 whatever it is) and are harshly criticizing the movie for its "many flaws".

So it becomes obvious that when some people have their "flowery colored glasses" on, there are a group of people who do just the opposite. Truth be told Starcraft II is well made, Inception is great theater entertainment and Oblivion is a well made game.

I think it's summed up into two main complaints.

1. Dumbing down
2. Extreme console influence

I loved Oblivion, it was the gmae that got me into TES and since then I've played Arena, Daggerfall and Morrowind. The only things that made it seem less awesome are the long loading times, fast travel, empty cities and handholding quest walkthrough that was the compass and journal. Oh, and the LEVEL SCALING. If they'd have skipped the stupid scaling, we wouldn't see this many complaints.

Not that I want to argue your point, but if that's the case, then why does it seem that Morrowind is held up as the gold standard that all future TES games must live up to and not Daggerfall?

I think that most people here don't dislike Oblivion like it seems to you. It's just that very many complain about it, but still say that it's a great game. The most common types of complainers, in descending order are:


People who enjoyed older TES games, and complain about Oblivion's features compared to those older games.
People who enjoyed Oblivion, but see things they want to be improved.
Trolls
People who really dislike Oblivion.

Edit: Wrong order

I liked the combat somewhat. But being able to easily kill umbra at level 1 is a bit disappointing. I enjoyed the DB questline and Shivering Isles. The increased movement speed was definitely a plus too. We don't hate oblivion, we're just used to better.



I disagree...radiant AI made the cities feel somewhat alive, but that was it. Where was the industry and the politics? Why are there hundreds of mines but only one in use? (And you never see the miners) Why are creatures suddenly becoming extinct now that I'm level 20? (Not that it would be frowned upon if they were cliff racers) Every single location that isn't a tavern/city/settlement/shrine is riddled with monsters or bandits. Morrowind had plantations with many farmhands and slaves, ebony/glass/kwama mines, and some ruins without hostiles in them.

Yes. However, unlike the later games where it's a bit muddied, the skills you picked in Daggerfall, being that most of them did nothing, didn't matter so much as the fewer but better defined skills of Morrowind. Now if they had all worked, or if Daggerfall wasn't almost a beta on release, it'd be different. If something does not work ,it must be removed without mercy in art. That is the first thing a writer has to learn. I'd imagine the same goes for programming and animation.

Compared to morrowind oblivion was:

Less immersive (the main point)
having the worst level scaling system ever. Bethesda games all have some but not like that (the second main point)
There was not enough dialogue and information (no historian who knew many things and less books to read)
The main quest hadless background and was not nearly as epic (but that's maybe just me. I don't really like being forced to be the sidekick. In morrowind at least you could chose to believe you were a reincarnate hero nearly turning into a god or just a fool manipulated by the emperor and/or azura)
lacking of variety (town, geography npc voices weapon skills...)
bigger but seemed smaller and too uniform.
too short
having the worst interface I used in a long time
The snip compas and fast travel (And I already debate about it, it was not more optionnal than fighting bare without any weapon)

Oblivion was a very good game with many improvements but there are tons of defaults to designate too.

most of oblivions let-downs have already been mentioned but the main one in my opinion is the world levelling, to me this simply ruined a very good game. With that said oblivion did improve from its predecessor morrowind on several aspects which have also already been mentioned so I won't bother you guys by blabbing on. However I just want to make it clear that in the great morrowind or oblivion debate I am morrowind fan.

I still think it mostly depended on which ES game you played first