I'll admit that MW was my first attempt at RPG. But I have since played the heck out of OB and await Skyrim. My question is simply this: why does MW feel so different . . . like I am really in another world? It didn't have the bells and whistles that OB has and yet OB has 1/100th the immersion as MW. Walking outside of Balmora, I can still get that sense that I have to look over my back. I don't know if I feel this way because this was my FIRST, but I don't think even Skyrim can equal MW in THIS respect.

And if you chose to mod MW, then the possibilities seemed endless. No matter how many times I play MW, starting a new character and finding new places always feels new.

Oblivion was my first ES game but let me tell you I agree. Somehow Morrowind never loses it's charm.

It had creativity and effort behind it, unlike Oblivion where the bulk of the work went into graphics and flash rather than actual exploitative content, which was an after-thought.

It's not just charm. Everything felt more alive. I felt more attached to it. It was charming, sure. But REAL. Did it look 2-dimentional and fake? Yes. Did I feel like I was almost in the screen with my character? Yes.

did I feel like my decisions really affected the NPC or the game world? Yes.

Because Morrowind is so different from the generic 'medieval' it promotes a sense of unease in players. This unease never truely leaves, even for experienced players.

I also feel, that because morrowind lacks graphically your mind makes up extra detail, whereas oblivion is graphical enough that your mind isnt making up as much extra detail.

I feel it, too. I think it has a lot to do with the type of atmosphere and the location and the political/historical climate of the game. Like you, it was my first RPG that I really got into. First and foremost, the game world is more or less completely original, which is something the "medieval" Oblivion atmosphere lacks. Most of the creatures were completely foreign and not based on other conventions (like imps, goblins, run of the mill evil spirits, but I have to say I love Oblivion's deer). They were unpredictable because of that. They could paralyze us, eat our souls, bake us cookies-- we had nothing to base our notions on. I know when I first played Morrowind I feared for my life when I left towns, and I shuddered to enter any ruins because I knew I'd get my ass handed to me. I was also eleven at the time of release. lol We feared because in many cases enemies were at a defined level, which is something we lost in Oblivion. Leveling everything gave a new level of difficulty to the game as we leveled up, but it also made it easier initially, and fogged the player's understanding of the PC's position in the world at level 1.
Fast travel was my saving grace and really my only means of getting around back in the day on MW. Finding the Urshilaku camp was a nightmare, if only for the backwoods way of getting there and the creepy atmosphere of the Ashlands. I feared entering the Ghost Gate.
In Morrowind, no one was really textbook "evil." In Oblivion and in other comparable RPGs, I feel that the characterization is at least a little more cut and dry for ease of interpretation and helping to make decision making (that sometimes you cannot actually make) make more sense.
Finally, Morrowind was a big deal when it came out and was the pride-and-joy of sandbox RPG-ing (even though that's a rather small category) for both story, atmosphere, and even graphically. Even though it was the third in the series, it could have very well been the first, as new technology truly breathed new life into the already riveting history of the Empire. Morrowind mods also actually enhanced gameplay, and still do. Oblivion mods I find either "Morrowfy" aspects of Oblivion or simply add an object or house. Rarely do we see the same type of modding that Morrowind modding had brought us, with in-depth quest mods with new guilds and factions, companions and slaves, mods that changed the way we viewed the PC death, etc. etc. To this day most of the articles that say "Let's replay Morrowind" detail mostly graphical enhancers to bring the game up to date. The story remains untouched. It has its own innate replay value. It seems that Morrowind has developed a timelessness and a special place in the heart of its players whose shoes not even the game's sequel could fill.

I have to say though that for me the Shivering Isles expansion for Oblivion did what Morrowind did for me to a certain extent. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

don't get me started with ghostgate! that place was/is awesome!!!!

One of the things that I found so amazing in Morrowind was that the game didn't restrict you to predefined paths, and not only that but it would let you leave the ground and fly around without having to enable some cheat code. This was absolutely mind boggling to me at the time! Even though the draw distance on the Xbox wasn't that great, I loved the fact that no matter what I saw off in the distance, I could investigate it up close and even fly over it. At the time I was used to playing games that might have an interesting looking location in the background, but you couldn't necessarily explore it, and even if you could it was often far less interesting up close. The next RPG I played after Morrowind was Fable, and I could barely enjoy the game because it felt so restricted compared to Morrowind. It had the feeling of being on a rail car and only switching tracks every so often.

Oblivion didn't have that level of restriction of course, but they did do away with levitate. I missed flying around more than any other feature.

It's pretty weird, isn't it? I have thought about this before, and I think it's many factors. One important thing is absolutely the music, no doubt.

I really think it’s to do with the narrative tbh, Morrowind just has a much more mature story than Oblivion. I mean, discounting the fact that when you get right down to it it’s a pretty basic good guy vs bad guy in order to save the world theme, it’s the way it’s put together that really makes the entire thing shine.

Certainly, the thing I love most about the MQ (and possibly the entire game) is when Cauis leaves. That was a kick to the nuts the first time it happened, just because you come to rely on him so much; he’s like the go-to guy for ‘what do I do next’, and when he turns around and pretty much tells you you’re on your own – well, you know, [censored]. And it really shows that Bethesda valued our ability to (not be [censored]tards) be able to make our own decisions after that. That they assumed we would actually listen to what he said and learn about how to, well, survive in Morrowind – it was a pretty big thing.

Dagoth Ur, of course, was an absolute badass. Typical villain on the outside, but with an amazing amount of depth when you looked into it, and he was actually doing something interesting with the Heart and Akulakhan. Oblivion kinda drew the short straw here, just because you can’t really do much with the Prince of Destruction other than have him, you know, destroy things (unless they were to include the Leaper Demon King or the Magnus-is-Dagon stuff, but no doubt that would've had people shouting WAT at Beth, so fair play). While I loved the Commentaries, Mankar himself just came of as kinda a bit of a nuisance. Like he was never really going to be a challenge at all, but just someone you had to deal with to end the invasion.

I feel this way too. I love Morrowind, even more than OB. I think part of it, or at least for me, was the story. It pulled me in from the very beginning. You didn't know who you were or why you were there. You get a simple task, deliver a note to someone, unlike in OB where almost from the beginning you're charged with this great, all important task. Morrowind was subtle, you didn't know everything all at once and you had to work to get your imformation. Even to this day nearly eight years since I first started playing it Morrowind's main quest is still my favorite.