Daggerfall by a mile.
Oblivions was... not so fun, I prefer Morrowinds over Oblivions... but then I cant stand Oblivion overall.

To be honest, I prefered Morrowind's to Daggerfall's. Have yet to see how Oblivion's works...

I like the idea of Daggerfall's best but like many things in Daggerfall the execution of the idea was flawed

eg Racial attribute bonuses get overidden by class so they have no effect, too many pointless and/or flawed skills, advantages/disadvantages etc

The best executed character creation system was MWs IMO

I liked the MW system. Though born under the Thief or Shadow and telling them you're a Thief or Assassin class should generate a response like, 'Hmmmm. According to the information you have given here it occurs to me that maybe we'd be better off throwing you into the nearset prison. No good can come from such a background'. Then you could break out. hahaha. Who's the smart one now you Imperial swine.

In my opinion-It's really just plain ignorance or stark opinion to not choose Daggerfall. I mean sure you can do it twice in oblivion and you have questionaire in MW but really based on system there is only one poll option.

"I hear Daggerfall's is good but I've never played it so I'm not voting for it." :rolleyes:

Even if you haven't played it, seeing http://uesp.net/wiki/File%3a%44F_Custom_Class_Creation.jpg image should be decent enough representation. If anything I'd expect those who have played Daggerfall to vote for it less, because they know of its various quirks and imbalanced choices.

Well, I have played all three games, and I voted for Morrowind.

User-friendliness:
Oblivion's system was the worst - it was way too "immersive". Instead of saying "This birthsign will give you +300 magicka points" it says "People born under this sign are good mages". Same for race/gender. The descriptions are kind of nice (although each similar description in DF and MW was more entertaining), but you just can't make the character you envision with all that uncertainty in your choices. Additionally, you never get an overview screen at all, but even right at the end you have to check 3 different menus. Really bad design.
Daggerfall's system was good because you had a good overview over your current advantages/disadvantages, but you didn't get much information along with it. It also takes a couple of trial-and-errors to find out which part of the creation process actually gave you that life-saving ebony dagger...
Morrowind wins here simply because it had a great interface for that kind of stuff - at least once you got used to it. On the race/gender menu, you could see the special traits of that race, all the information on classes was put on the class creation menu (sometimes in popup-windows so that there wasn't too much confusing text). In the end, you could look at everything you just chose in one structured and simple menu, with the buttons to change something right there.

Immersion:
I'll have to say that Oblivion is the worst one again. The scenario is just not adequate, in my opinion - it just doesn't feel right to create your character while escaping from assassins/crawling through caverns. Also, you don't get the multiple choice questions from DF and MW, which I found really nice to "get immersed". On the plus side, we have believable descriptions of every aspect of the character generation - things other people from that world would probably tell you about that kind of stuff instead of boring numbers. Also, the birthsigns are still great.
Daggerfall had two very nice multiple choice parts in the character generation, and the story how you got to the Iliac Bay is very nice and immersive, I think. Other than that, there really isn't any immersion at all.
Morrowind's character generation is easily the most immersive one, with all the officials (and Jiub :>) asking you questions about yourself. It fits perfectly into the setting. Oh and I really like the change from simple bonuses your character "somehow" has to "You were born under a certain sign. And what would that be?" (i.e. I like birthsigns)

Complexity:
Oblivion is worst again. Easy. No complexity at all.
Daggerfall is very complex and that's great, but for my taste, it's too flexible. I like restrictions in my character generation process, because that's what roleplaying is about for me. This is kind of why DF doesn't win here, although I love the many skills you can choose from, the different bonuses etc.
Morrowind's system is fairly complex, but it follows the rule that in order to be someone special, you need to have a history that shows why. If your race is a "mage race" and you're a strong warrior, well then that's probably because you were born under the Warrior birthsign. And if you aren't, well then roleplay the reason for it! But it is something that demands an explanation, and something that makes your character interesting. DF didn't demand any explanation, and that makes the characters you create with it more generic.


Another point would be the question "Is the creation part still fun after the first time?" And, sadly, Oblivion would lose again, because NO, it's definitely not fun to do THAT all over again. Daggerfall and Morrowind are on a tie here, and it's really only my love for the immersiveness of Morrowind's character creation that I'd say Morrowind wins again; but actually, both are easy and fun to do again and again and again.

Did anyone else catch the tip-of-the-hat to the 'seemingly meaningless questions' in fallout 3?
I absolutely LOVED that you were given a sweetroll at your birthday & it was taken by a bully.....'what do you do?'
Daggerfall had a BRILLIANT character gen. system......the believability is ALL in the presentation (Fallout 3 as an example w/ the beloved sweetroll question )

Holy [censored]... After all the times I went through FO3's chargen, I never recognized that slip-in! That's awesome!

Oh crap, I finally get it now.

Or are focussing on different aspects of character creation than you are. This really seems an apples and oranges discussion of how choices are presented in game, at what point you finalize character design, and how certain stats are determined.

Daggerfall character gen does allow enormous opportunity for customization. It also allows me to get the dagger down by giving an Altmer (immune to paralysis) a critical weakness to paralysis and invites gaming the system by going for the Ebony Dagger and then making your character unable to use iron or steel weapons. Just sayin ...

That 'cheat' was then replaced by console commands. No one has to use either one of them.
I usually make my character as gimped as I can, with hard to raise skills. That is, dagger high. Much more fun than the instant gratification of later games.

My point was that the Daggerfall system lent itself to exploits. I also think it offers greater opportunity to gimp oneself via bad choices than the later titles. Certainly, if I'd not looked around a bit, I might well have chosen to play a linguist. With majors like Centaurian and Faerie, I could play a diplomat, right? Intentional gimping by an experienced player can offer a fun challenge. Finding out the hard way that a game allowed you to choose relatively useless major skills likely not so much for many people.

Yes, some characters are gimped especially if using the presets. Bards and Nightblades have a hard time of it (although bards always seem to have a hard time of it in TES).
Character Generation is one of the most interesting bits of Daggerfall but the system has some serious flaws. At least with custom classes race attribute modifiers have no effect. Altmer, Bretons and Nords all get a resistance or immunity to help them out but so far as I can see the only reason to take one of the other races is RP. Given the frequency of paralysis attacks not taking an Altmer is never a good choice from the gameplay pov.

Ragna, no need for that sort of flaming, others have their opinions and are entitled to them. If you want to reply to a point someone made, then you can do so without resorting to personal attacks.

Anyway, I'm somewhat torn between the three. Oblivion's was the most accessible and easy to understand in my opinion, Morrowind's felt the most integrated into the actual game world (the whole census thing was really quite clever) and Daggerfall's was simply amazing by the number of options (although as already noted, it can be difficult to decide what to do without a manual).

I'd give my vote to Daggerfall, simply for the sheer number of options available to you.

I hated Oblivion's. Anytime you wanted to start a new game you had to go through that stupid tutorial where it taught you how to play, and determined what your class is. That's nice, and I really like slow beginnings in games, but it just got so damn repetitive after a while. If they do that for the next game, there has to be a Quickstart option.

I voted Morrowind because it's fast and to the point, with the option of having your class selected for you based on your personality. Mostly, it's in-out, badda-boom badda-bing, steal all the stuff in the census' office dining room, grab that ring, and you're out. No tutorial, no nothing. They just throw you out into the world.

Well if you keep making a new game everyday then it's obvious that it's going to get repetitive after a while. Also, the game's intro doesn't determine what class you HAVE to be.

It doesn't take a new game every day to make it repetitive. I've gone almost a full year before rerolling a character, and I found that I had absolutely no desire to go through the tutorial dungeon again. Hence why I use alternate start mods. I know they pulled the idea of a starter dungeon from Daggerfall (and to a lesser extent, Arena), but I wish they would have also pulled the idea of giving the player the choice at the beginning to disable all the tutorial pop-ups. And I personally am not fond of an opening "prologue" of sorts for sandbox non-linear RPGs.

Also, he did not say the game determines what class you HAVE to be. But it is true that the tutorial dungeon determines a class based on your skill usage. You can ignore it and change it, but it still determines one for you.

You can close the pop-ups just as fast as they appear, negating any annoyance that any normal individual might have.

It's a good thing there are mods to place you somewhere else at the start of the game, otherwise you would've needed medical attention from all the frustration caused by having to go through some horribly easy dungeon.



He said it in such a way as to make it seem, to the reader, that a specific class was forced upon the player during the starter dungeon. Since he had an obvious bias against Ob, it was reasonable to assume the obvious.

Negating all the annoyance except, of course, the annoyance at having to close them in the first place. So in other words, not negating the annoyance at all.


I prefer a drop into the world. And I prefer that sense of uncertainty that comes with a drop into the world. Horribly easy though the starter dungeon may be, the fact remains that I must run through it every single time I want to create a new character, and that I find said running through incredibly pointless. It's not that I go into rage-filled convulsions when I traverse it for the dozenth time, but it is my preference to avoid it. And this is a thread about preferences, is it not?

Another issue I have with Oblivion's chargen is that the whole thing is designed to svck you straight into the main quest immediately, giving you a sense of intense urgency to get started on the MQ right away. Guilt-tripping, essentially. And while it's not a bad thing for the storyline to svck the player in, I feel that the beginning of the game is the wrong time to do it in a non-linear sandbox RPG. It's difficult when RPing a character using the vanilla chargen to give them a reason to put the MQ off, after going through all that with the Emperor. The beginning should provide you a quest-hook, to be sure, but it should be a casual quest hook; a "peruse this when you have time" sort of thing (but that's more of a critique of Oblivion's MQ structure as a whole, not a critique of the chargen).

Um, thanks for putting words in my mouth?
1. I don't make a new game every day. In fact, I stopped playing a couple years ago. I had three characters. The tutorial dungeon was boring on my second character.
2. I never said it determines what class you HAVE to be. I said, "determined what your class is". Which it does. I did not elaborate any further, because I'm pretty sure everyone here knows that you don't have to choose to be that class. That wasn't even the main point of the post, so I don't know why you picked up on it.
3. I also rather liked the way it suggested a class for you through your playing style; I have nothing against that feature. But it would be nice to be able to skip the whole beginner dungeon.
4. Please quote me where I lied.
5. An, uh, I wasn't trying to prove anything either. I just said I didn't like that tutorial dungeon. :shrug:


6. Ah. I see now. You misread my post or got the wrong impression from it.
7. My bias against Oblivion is obvious? Nonsense!

You know, man, I've seen a few of your other posts. You seem like a very angry person. Chill, okay? It's just a game. You don't have to take every opinion that differs from yours as a personal attack. People like different things.

I chose Daggerfall and would really like to see the advantages/disadvantages system make a return in the next Elder Scrolls game.

Morrowind, from what I've seen, it was the best.

I have only played MW and OB.

You should grab http://www.elderscrolls.com/downloads/downloads_games.htm as well, being free and all.

I really don't see why you guys that didn't like the Oblivion starter dungeon didn't just make a save file right at the sewer exit.
I did this so that anytime I wanted to roll a new character, all i had to do was walk forward a couple steps, click on the grate & 'edit' may Character to re-roll.
....made things SOO much easier