My favorite is Morrowind WITH the Bloodmoon and Tribunal expansions. My second favorite would probably be Daggerfall, followed very closely by Oblivion. If we were talking about favorite Bethesda game, then I would rank Fallout 3 as my second favorite, closely followed by Where's Waldo?

Ashy, boring wasteland isn't as unique as people say.
Thats the only reason people liked Fallout 3; Wasteland.

And saying Oblivion was dull and repetitive is just making excuses. Have you seen the view from the Jeralls? Not just Dive rock, but in general. And mountain can give you such a beautiful view.

The west weald was just as unique, do you know why? It was the only generic fantasy 'plane'. Because it is the only of its sort, it is indeed unique.

Blackwood was a swamp, and lets leave it at that. After all, it DID belong to Elsweyr/Black Marsh, no? At least West Blackwood belonged to Elsweyr

The Nibenay Basin is unique because of so many hills and dips and rivers that make it hard to traverse without getting wet. Key point, streams between hills (Forgot the geographical name)

The great forest is I think, but I ain't sure, a forest.

For some odd reason, I do not have KoTN or SI despite the fact I was an avid Oblivion player.

I wasn't aware that you spent the majority of the game up there...

Seriously, you can't use the view of a place you rarely see as a reason for a good game setting. I'd understand if 80% of the game took place in areas like this, but it doesn't. Most of the time I'm just looking at the same boring scenery. And even then, it's still boring to look at things I've seen a million times before.


I'm going to ignore everything else, as you have just listed a bunch of cliché, bland regions, but, Blackwood was no swamp. Regardless of what you say, or how many modded screenshots you send me, I didn't even know it was a swamp until I was told.

Oblivion's bland scenery is one of those things you just shouldn't defend. Oblivion did get some things right, and this isn't one of them. Please, just realise that Oblivion has flaws, just like every other game out there.

They turned Cyrodiil into classic fantasy Neverland because they wanted to make it "fun and cool" and attract many casual gamers who like knights and horses. Cyrodiil should be much more diverse than portrayed ingame - a mix of exotic jungle scenery, unique landscapes closer to the borders (Colovian Highlands, Blackwood, Jerall Mountains etc. - although the Jeralls were ok ingame IMO) and more classical monsters (that part was actually covered, although diversity was rather poor and there were hardly any differences between the Jeralls and Blackwood swamps...).

Also, come on, politics in Oblivion was non-existent and they chose the worst possible province for such scenario - the centre of Empire. It should be bustling with activity - plots, corruption, power-plays, intrigues... Cyrodiil also lost its Roman themes, not the mention the fact that Imperial Legion and Nine Divines were more vibrant in Morrowind than in Oblivion - you would expect that a game taking place in capital province would expand those elements, but no...

Hopefully, the next game will be as rich in lore as Morrowind was.

Give me Oblivions rich green land over morrowinds ashland anyday.

http://www.tesnexus.com/downloads/images/25387-3-1245925614.jpg? What you fail to realise is that Oblivion is just one big, cliché grassland, with hardly any diversity. Morrowind had the Grazelands, Asadian Isles, West Gash and Bitter Coast that all catered to your need of green land. the only areas that were wastelands were Red Mountain, the Ashlands an Molag Mar (Azura's Coast and Sheogorad Region coming somewhere in the middle). Diversity is great. It was all over Morrowind, and even Daggerfall, to an extent. Oblivion is the only game (1-4) where noticable diversity was gone.

And I completely agree about the untapped potential of Oblivion. Cyrodiil was an amazing setting for politial quests involving corruption and nasty nobles. I wanted to be able to join the Imperial Legion, and eventually find out about some corrupt leader, and choose to steer them in the right direction, or continue with the corrupt ways of the Imperials. I wanted the Imperial City to be huge, and take up the majority of the world. I wanted dark alleyways and a small portion of noble filled "nice" areas. I wanted to see an in depth Imperial Cult. Instead, I got Oblivion.

Oddly, that picture comes from tesnexus.

Hypocrite much? http://oblivion.wikia.com/wiki/Blackwood

Ok, now tell me exactly what is so swampish about that picture? The fog can happen anywhere, so we'll rule that out. The person taking that picture has just took it during a foggy day. I mean, just look at the bottom two pictures. There are no dramatic changes in any of the detail (flora, rocks), there's only the slight retexture, and occasional slightly different mesh. If you look at Morrowind, for example, the trees are vastly different between the Bitter Coast (an atual swamp), and the Ascadian Isles (An actual forest like region, we'll ignore the mushrooms).

Can you not honestly accept that Oblivion has flaws? Every game, Oblivion, Morrowind, Daggerfall, Arena, Battlespire, Redguard, TES Travels, even Super Mario 64, all have flaws. Every game. Oblivion is no exception. The bland wilderness is one of those flaws.

Also, there's a Morrowind section of TesNexus. It's just mostly Oblivion.

Look at http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Bitter_Coast. Not taking the outdated graphics into acount, that swamp actually feels more of a swamp than blackwood. There's scum filled ponds, and just look at the shape of the trees. There's moss and vines hanging off some.

I won't reply for some time. My internet is going crazy. Took me 20 minutes just to load this page.

I think the reason i prefer oblivion is because i wasn't involved in the enormous mass hype pre release. I mean i would have expected an absolute monster of a game beyond reality if all i knew was morrowind (next gen platform and all that). So i'm not too ignorant to understand that. But in late 2007 i went out and bought then played it and loved it, so to me it's just a great game that i love.

Tabletop dungeons and dragons with foam swords and paper goblin helmets beats everything.

My favourite is Morrowind I started playing morrowind and loved the series ever after will play every TES game that comes out

I voted for Daggerfall, but really I think it's dead-even between that and Morrowind. I can't make up my mind. I've never played Arena.

Oblivion was my least favorite. It had the most promise but delivered the fewest goods. Oblivion, absent level-scaled content, a less repetitive MQ, and actual AI, would have been sick. Maybe ES:V??

I will go for..... Tes4 Oblivion/Shivering isles because thats the only one that i've played.

Morrowiiiiiiiiind!!! :drool:
I've discovered the Elder Scrolls series with Morrowind, offered with a magazine, in 2006. I really loved the possibilities of this game, especially the completely opened worldspace (without any 'invisibles' barriers or scripted conditions) and the modding aspect with the Construction Set.

One year later, I've bought Oblivion after buying a new computer, and, again the same result, I loved it...
But... I was a bit bored of the landscapes and architectural styles of Cyrodiil after lots of hours of gameplay, preferring the mysterious and unique atmosphere of Vvardenfell (well, and installing lots of mods and graphics enhancements!)...
Otherwise, I've also installed Daggerfall some weeks ago... Maybe I should test it... Hmm... ??

Yes...you should... :hubbahubba:

And Potato beats Arena.

I vote Daggerfall in term of overall vanilla state of the overall series.

Oblivion, thanks to mods, but I love Morrowind, and had a lot of fun with Daggerfall too

Morrowind.

For me its a tie between Oblivion and Morrowind.

Sums up my feelings about this almost perfectly.

Morrowind is my choice because of the many paths you could lead, the weapon types that were left out of Oblivion, and the sheer variety found all over the face of Vvardenfell.

To me Morrowind combines the newer grafics, halfway updated combat system, and interface aspects of Oblivion, with the giant open world, diverse paths, and number of factions aspect of Daggerfall to make the best of the four.

You mean you didn't like (the change that made it not like Morrowind?) it as much as Morrowind right?

Because if you didn't like it at all you're a moron. Sorry! But if that's the case, then you are.

Unfortunately you are probably right.

When it comes down to it (most) diehard fans of game franchises do not like anything but additions to their game and improvements to graphics.

Any other changes seem to cause them to get angry; amazingly sometimes they still get angry when it makes the game better.

I don't mean to be rude but you are really stumbling over your own words.

You made yourself sound like an idiot when you said "Oblivion was ridiculously simplistic. Even by other RPG standards it was an extremely small game."

Oblivion is actually one of the much less simple/streamlined RPGs in today's market and when you said it was "an extremely small game" I laughed.

Oblivion's (vanilla) game world was bigger than Morrowind's (vanilla) game world:
Oblivion = 16 sq. miles > Morrowind = 10 sq. miles

And to all of you people still living in the past, there is actually a lot to do in Oblivion. So what if there are a couple more factions and quests in Morrowind. I'd take quality over quantity any day.

Don't get me wrong I love all of The Elder Scrolls games, especially Morrowind (I actually haven't played TESI: Arena that much. Only about 18 hours. Lately I've been playing a lot of Daggerfall.).

It just really annoys me when there is a bunch of unwarranted hate for something.