I'm probably the only person ever that is happy with vanilla Oblivion. :tops:

Now, I actually struggle getting into Morrowind as a game, I play Oblivion way more often, but I'd definitely say I prefer Morrowind's world.

I'm not entirely sure if generic is the right word, but I'll attempt to explain why I think Oblivion's world is a little bland.

Firstly the style. Oblivion, all in all, seems a pretty generic European style. Cheydinhal (despite apparently being Dunmer inspired, really closer to the Morrowind Imperial style), Chorrol, Skingrad and Leyawin are probably the most generically European. Anvil has Medditeranean features, Bravil seems pretty original and Bruma is obviously Nordic. It's nice seeing some variation there. The Imperial City is probably the most original style, and I quite like it (shame there's so little to do there). The European style probably would have been great, had I not already seen thousands of fantasy worlds feature that style. Morrowind on the other hand had very interesting and distinct styles. Could anyone guess what was the single main influence for the Hlaalu architecture in Morrowind? And then there's the Redoran stuff made of shells of giant crustaceans, and the Telvanni stuff with giant twisted mushroom buildings. All very fantastical, exciting and unique. Yet they also had Imperial buildings for those wanting a more homely world. Actually fewer unique styles than Oblivion, but each felt original, new and diverse. Then it comes to the landscapes. Now, like architecture, I often defend those who say Morrowind was more diverse, because they seem to forget that Oblivion had snowy mountains, rocky mountains, huge forests, grassy valleys, dry coastlands and marshy subtropical swampland (my favourite). But with the architecture, most RPG gamers and/or people in Europe/America who would be the majority of the users, will be very familiar with most of it. Morrowind had much more alien styled landscapes, with arching rocks, fetid swamps, the (though these were pretty dull) ashlands, weird rocks jutting from the water in the surrounding islands, lava, along with some semi-normal but still sort of alien landscapes like the farmlands and plains.

And really, one of the biggest parts was how the world fit together. After seeing Morrowind, Oblivion, honestly, feels sparse and disjointed. In Morrowind, the towns feel like they're built into the landscape, it all blends seemlessly and naturally, and when you travel around the world, there is a wonderful sense of discovery, everything you see is handplaced and seems different to what you've encountered before, dungeons., towns etc. Whereas with Oblivion, and I think this might be partially to do with the fact that the cities all have identical walls, I just feel like I'm walking along and then there's a big brick wall appearing. Yay. And while they still are to some degree, they don't seem to be built into the world so much as just sitting there. I love it when I see things like Markarth constructed into the cliff, and Riften seeming to be so connected to the lake it's on and the forest surrounding it. And then, returning to landscape again, the procedural placement ofthings in Oblivion makes it much less interesting. The whole forest area or the whole marsh area looks more or less identical, no distinguishing features for diffferent locations in it. And the ground is all rolling hills the whole way in a fairly consistent pattern. It's just all too smooth, not interesting enough.

I'm pretty happy with it. If I had it on pc I suppose I would use mods. But I'm on xbox. My most played game.

I believe that the term generic comes from the fact that Oblivion isn't Morrowind 2 and the fact that it doesn't have a lot of Morrowind features. I wouldn't consider Oblivion generic far from it. 5 years later and I can still put the game in and play it for hours.

You mean vanilla Oblivion, as described in the remark you responded to? Did you take a survey of us that I missed, or did we all appoint you spokesperson? Because speaking only for myself, modded Oblivion is great, but vanilla Oblivion is dumbed down and barely worth exploring its terrain--and several others who have posted here before us have said as much, too. To my way of thinking, there's no reason to check out a second, third, or fourth cavern if they all look alike, and not only have the same standard creatures, but regenerate these in a few days after I kill them. Or any reason to go off into the wilderness, which is largely empty of interest, and offers pretty much the same environment.

To its credit, gamesas provided modders with the tools in Morrowind and Oblivion to make something wonderful. But arguably Morrowind offered a more distinctive product at the start, with unique things to see and investigate: hundreds of individualized locations that had specific uses with enemies that didn't respawn, for example. And the next place you stumbled upon might contain something angry but tiny and easily beaten, or several things many times your size and strength, looking to supplement their diet with nourishing adventurers. There was no certainty of what you'd face.

Don't get me wrong: I play both games, Morrowind and Oblivion, and mod for both, too. But the elements of surprise and distinction that were features in Morrowind were missing in Oblivion, and the developers later acknowledged as much in interviews.

Yeah I caught that after I posted and edited . . .

I've heard Todd Howard talk about Morrowind being more "alien" in its environment and he probably says that about Shivering Isles too. I'd rather run around in a world I recognize. It's ok for a bit of an alien world with giant mushrooms and strange plants in an add-on though. It was a nice change of environment to have Mothership Zeta with Fallout 3 as DLC but I prefer the natural Oblivion world for TES. It's familiar and at times, it takes my breath away with its beauty.

:tes:

Fair enough. Especially as I'm one for regular editing and re-editing.



Each to their own, Kicenna. I'm not suggesting that my preference is better than yours. It's just mine. I go to RPGs for brief escape, and one of the ingredients in that is what John Mandeville called, many centuries ago, wondrous wonders and marvelous marvels. I like the sense that I can't expect the same cave every time I enter one, the same monsters in every cave, and the same look to the environment a mile or ten ahead.

But the portion of what Howard said that I specifically meant to refer to (and I just looked it up) was this:

“With Oblivion, we’re dealing with the capital province, and we wanted to get back to the more classic Arena and Daggerfall feel of a fantasy world that felt more refined and welcoming, a place that you instantly understood. But in that, we sacrificed some of what made Morrowind special: the wonder of discovery."

Whether one likes that sense of familiarity or doesn't, Howard's comments help explain in part why some of us think vanilla Oblivion has a certain generic quality. Though I think it can be found in other aspects of the game, as well.

Generic = Boring

I know Morrowind is the odd one out in the series (look back and the other games were really generic)......but its the one that stood out....that made ES int oa great RPG series.....and yet they dont try being creative anymore.....

There is nothing amzing or fasanating about a LotR styled game.......because its been done ot death plenty of times before.

Ok so first... Morrowind was my first RPG. After being so captivated by the world created in this game I became very interested in rpg games and played Neverwinter Nights, which is ok but just not on the same level than Morrowind... Then I played Daggerfall and I had quite a lot of fun... all this to say that I have enjoyed games with a more traditional approach to fantasy.


That said... I do use the word "generic" sometimes to speak about Oblivion for these reasons:

-The forests look fabulous, but I live in Europe in a forested area... the castles look great but again there are MANY of them in my region... so yeah, I think the world of Oblivion looks beautiful but I have never felt it was something "different," or "intriguing."
-There are places in Oblivion that look nothing like what you can find in the real world... but they are not original to me in the sense that you can find nearly identical places in other games or in movies... for instance the huge tower of the imperial city strongly reminds me LOTR and Two Worlds (I know two worlds came after... but I just think this tower was something very uninspired).
-Since forests are not really something Bethesda "invented" nearly identical forests and trees are to be found in many other games... I remember playing at around the same time Oblivion, Two Worlds and Gothic 3... Their forests were nearly identical.
-The looks of creatures were for the most part not very exciting.



So yeah... for the most part I did think that the world of Oblivion was not something they "created" but rather something pieced together. And yes, I know that when you create something you always take your inspiration from other things... however in the end, with many sources of inspiration in mind, you can transcend them and come up with something "new." I didn't feel that Oblivion managed to do that.


So I didn't find the world to be exciting.... but the game could have overcome that with an interesting plot, interesting quests and background.... sadly I found the story (in my own personal opinion) to be extremely generic. Yes, I know the same could be said to many other games, including morrowind... but the way it was told in Morrowind had an aura of mystery, religious fanatics, multiple factions... and in some of the best Bioware games, the stories were a bit more complex and involved characters that had some personality. In Oblivion, it felt very manichean, too much imo, and too "epic and awesome." I don't know how to say it exactly, but I found the main story to be very undewhelming.
Misc quests were good, but the final nail on the coffin was the mages guild quests... I just found them extremely "generic," whatever that means I guess.





So to conclude, I found Oblivion "generic" on two levels: world design, and story. To have one of them generic is ok, but the other one should provide a gamer with something "new" to experience, and I never felt Oblivion managed to provide me with that.
Oblivion is a very beautiful game, but it just lacks this "something" that would make it remembered and unique. It's a great game, but it doesn't go beyond that. Sorry if that sounds stupid, but there are some bits in Morrowind that made me think that yes, video games can be works of art.

Wow, this is beautiful

In my first post here I only addressed the Oblivion game but so many people have brought up Morrowind that I feel compelled to comment about that game. I found Morrowind unrelentingly drab. A world of mud, peopled with manikins. Dungeons supplied with artifacts that steadily diminished as I toured and raided leaving empty caves that no longer served any purpose. Graphically, the game seemed washed out and lifeless. It becomes more so as the game progresses.

I don't live in Europe. The only castles here are in Disneyland. When I step outside my door, I don't see deep forest; I see the urban portion of a small town. Demographics seem to indicate that most of us live in urban areas not deep forests. I noticed for those who complain about 'generic forests' and the lack of fantasy landscapes, they seem to studiously ignore the planes of Oblivion. For one of my characters; Sarrah, the planes never got old. She died while closing her 39th gate.

I played Daggerfall from the time it came out. I played it for years. I played Morrowind when it came out. I played it for years. I played Oblivion when it came out. I'm still playing it.

Oblivion has it's limitations but being generic isn't one of them. As I said before;

Generic? I don't think so. Rolling a pair of dice and looking up a combat chart for the outcome; that's generic.

When I say generic, I'm not specifying anything but the feeling Oblivion has. Morrowind was amazing, I imagine from how the OP has put it, they probably didn't play morrowind when it was new. It hasn't aged well and the graphics, which were amazing at the time, are hardly as impressive as they once were.

The biggest point of difference between the two that would lead me to say "generic" is the fact that Morrowind was hand crafted. Oblivion on the other hand was mostly computer generated. There are 3 choices cave, fort, or aleyed ruin. With the exception of like 10 of the places they are all for the most part identical. Don't get me wrong, Cyrodil was an amazing place, but there wasn't much variety. Most of my play time has been spent on indistinguishable forest or plains in Oblivion, while beautiful there isn't much to break up the monotony.

Instead of going into a dungeon and possibly making an amazing discovery, you were guarenteed to see nothing but leveled loot. Real interesting and engaging...

Morrowind I loved for the exploration and discovery aspects. Oblivion pretty much lacked that. It improved the combat system drastically, yet cut the number of available guilds drastically. Oblivion is a great game, but it could have been a lot better. Bethesda has admitted the mistakes with computer generated landscape and generated dungeons and Todd said they are fixing it with Skyrim. I'll put my faith in them.

Yes, indeed. There are limits.

There are quite a lot of limits for this game, to tell you the truth. It all falls to how well the engine was made. Unfortunately, Oblivion's engine, while pretty impressive with what it is capable of doing, was terribly optimized, and the game suffers quite a bit because of this.

Granted, this one is actually Microsoft's fault more than anything, because they didn't give Bethesda enough time to test their game on the Xbox 360 before demanding a release.

If you take one single glimpse at the mods that have come out for this game (specifically the Unique Landscapes project), any argument you might have about the landscaping being special in this game falls flat on its face. To bring back my comparison, vanilla Oblivion is like mass produced bread. It tastes pretty good, yes, but once you try the artisan loaves, you will really understand what you were missing out on.

Oblivion DID NOT live up to its full potential, not by a longshot.

Oh, and on the topic of combat in this game, replacing die rolling with endless, super-boring hack-n-slash WAS NOT an improvement, it was just replacing one not-very-good system with another, equally not-very-good system.

Why do we ignore the Planes of Oblivion, then? Good question, so let me answer that. They are uninspired, bland, uninteresting, and contrived. All of the monsters look like rehashed hell demons, the scenery is made up of everything I have seen before... there is nothing interesting about the Deadlands. And then you get to the point where Bethesda starts recycling these worlds between their gates, which is where things get really repetitive... the Oblivion Invasion was executed terribly. And that is on top of the overarching plot cliches behind these gates.

But you know what? I can pick apart everything about this game all I want, but when you put it all together, it really does feel special. Oblivion is without a doubt a case-in-point of a game that is better than the sum of its parts. And in this game's defense, everything about the atmosphere and art direction Oblivion did wrong... Shivering Isles did right.

I find myself disagreeing with virtually everything you said and I find you disagreeing with yourself. You say that the game engine is the limiting factor then say that the game is so much better for all of the mods (which don't change the game engine.) and that the game does not live up to it's potential. How can it have more potential if it's limited by the game engine? One could argue that they should have had machine guns, spaceports, and more chickens in the game. I've seen that landscape mod and thought it was hideous but that's just my opinion. Someone else might think it's wonderful. Generally speaking though, I tend to trust the aesthetic sensibilities of professional artists such as the ones that developed Oblivion over enthusiastic amateurs.

The simple truth is that the limits on a CRPG are legion; diverse user hardware, development time, MONEY, creative talents, target audiences, cultural sensitivities, legal issues, and to some extent, the game engine to name just a few.

Those limits will always be with us. What's left over is what there is to work with and the result will be something less that perfection but; generic?

Generic because there weren't enough unique geographic features. Mostly rolling hills with trees for vast stretches of the map. All kinds of rocks scattered across the land. Then again, I suppose Morrowind was fairly generic in its ashen wasteland.

Most caves in Cyrodiil were cookie cutter rooms. Shivering Isles did a good job at trying to make underground caves more unique.

Wolves, boars, deer, bears, dogs, horses, and mountain lions are all real world creates, leaving nothing special about them. Minotaurs, goblins, ogre are nothing new, all from the Greek and other real world mythologies. Most of the "mythical" creatures are considered "classic" which could also be a synonym for "generic". Most of the undead are nothing new in concept or originality.

I'm glad most of the towns' architectures were varying enough and something different from what I'm used to.

Also for those like me, coming from playing Morrowind and its originality we got spoiled with (at least I did), Oblivion seemed rather mundane after playing its predecessor, in terms of story, atmosphere, etc, etc.
Of course, I was also one of those people who initially complained about Morrowind coming from Daggerfall. Then I've come to appreciate Morrowind. Things in MW were different and I got used to them, eventually likeing its originality. Oblivion, I've tried appreciating it for what it is, but here are things I still miss about MW, even after playing OB 5-ish years down the road. After considerably playing MW, I didn't find myself missing much about Daggerfall. Can't say the same for Oblivion though, coming from MW. Of course there are quite a few improvements with Oblivion over Morrowind, but I feel there were also a significant number of steps back on some of the elements/ features missing from Morrowind.

Unfortunately, your conclusion is ignoring a very important point: developers are forced to maintain certain framerate quotas on the consoles when creating their games. Usually, they are not permitted any drops below 30 FPS for extended periods of time (short stutters and dips are okay, but sustained lower-than-average framerates are not allowed).

This was quite destructive for Oblivion, because Bethesda had to sacrifice a lot of what we could consider "quality graphics" in order to preserve the framerates. The result is a world that feels empty, devoid of population. This is directly related to the engine being as inefficient as it is. Bethesda needed to cut out a lot in order to preserve the framerates on the consoles because when they started testing on the 360, it was too late to really go back and optimize their code (three months is just not enough time).

PC users on the other hand, who can mod their games, do not need to abide by framerate quotas, they are only limited by their hardware. Because of this, they are the ones who can see what the engine is really capable of. It comes with slowdown that would be unacceptable in a console game, because despite being horribly inefficient, the engine is very flexible. There is a fairly large difference between efficiency and flexibility.

I hope that clarifies.

I'm going to go against the tide a little bit here.

A lot of people seem to feel that Cyrodiil's appearance and overall impression are "generic." I don't agree with that. I think the world, the dungeons, ruins, and (to some extent) the cities are well crafted, seamlessly rendered, and almost believable. This, within the constraints of what the hardware is able to handle. We could argue that it would be better if some of the hardware had been better, or it they had had more time, but the fact is that the world that Bethesda produced is special enough to keep us re-entering it over and over, some of us for hundreds or thousands of hours.

My gripe with Oblivion is the story content, the limited dialog, the linear and inflexible questlines, the lack of consequences for one's actions. These are the things I find ordinary. They simply do not match up to the well-rendered world. Oblivion is a game that is better lived in than played, as any role-player will probably agree. It's a great sandbox, but a very ordinary, very "generic" game.

Ugh

I agree.

Let's take dungeons as an example. There are those who like to claim that Oblivion's dungeon's are "cookie cutter." But when I travel through the game I'm constantly amazed at how different each dungeon is. I invite anyone who thinks Oblivion's dungeons are "cookie cutter" to examine dungeons on the UESP. It will come as a surprise to some players to find that the floor plan for every dungeon in Oblivion is different.

Now it's true that the tilesets used to make those dungeons are limited - but that's the case with every 3D game I have ever played. And it was the case with Morrowind as well. There are no more boring dungeons in any game, in my opinion, than Morrowind's Ancestral Tombs and Dunmer Strongholds. Even Daedric Shrines and Dwemer Ruins felt monotonous to me after awhile. The only dungeon type in Morrowind that I did not quickly seem monotonous to me were caves.

To be clear: I'm not saying that I think Oblivion's dungeons were more varied or more interesting than Morrowind's dungeons. I'm saying that, in my opinion, Morrowind's dungeons were every bit as monotonous, after 100 hours of play, as Oblivion's dungeons - despite the alien designs. No offense to anyone who feels differently about it, but the mere fact that something looks weird does not automatically make that thing more interesting to me. And even on those occasions when it does, that initial "gee whiz" effect wears off pretty quickly for me.

Thank you for helping me realize I have been missing the point completely here.

The main thing Oblivion lost that Morrowind had was culture. Morrowind's world may have been drab and gray, but what it did have was a sense of life. This life was communicated to the player through the dialogue, we got to see the politics up close, we could clearly understand the disputes between the Great Houses and the Guilds. We could feel the tension in the air between the Temple and the Empire. We even got to learn of the customs of the people who called the land home. Finally, you were not forced down a set path with the questlines. Yes, the results were still set in stone, but what you COULD do was pick and choose how you got there.

In Oblivion, everything above was absent. We never learned of the culture of the land, we never got to see any of the major politics. The quests also became very linear, and you could no longer choose which path you took to the end. Most of the major choices were made for you, as well.

Now on major events of this game, Bethesda failed to capitalize on the Oblivion Crisis and missed a great opportunity to really hit home the effects it had on the land. Kvatch, for example, remains a charred hulk forever, we never see any legion patrols trying to deal with the Gates except in one spot, and finally, the gates never have any real presence. You encountered them so often that they became commonplace; they started to blend into the rest of the world. It feels like the entire crisis is happening simply because A: the Emperor told us it would, and B: there are gates open all over the damn place. Aside from that, I never got the feeling that the Oblivion Crisis meant anything to the world.

In Morrowind, the Blight was omnipresent. You saw the effects it had on the people, you could even participate by letting a Blighted creature infect you... heck, you got the worst disease of them all at one point. In Oblivion, the Oblivion Crisis is... just there. Outside of a single city being destroyed, nothing really happened until the end. It left me feeling a bit empty when I was done, because I was wondering "what exactly did I just accomplish?"

It wasn't the landscapes, it was the background/history/lore, that was generic.

To this day, the only thing I dislike about Oblivion is that they changed it from rain forest to deciduous and coniferous.

I was (and still am) a major fan of Morrowind's distinct, alien culture and art style, but Oblivion's fits, and in fact is done very well, to the point that even though it is standard "medieval fantasy/LOTR" it isn't in any way generic.

One thing I do appreciate about Oblivion's caves/ dungeons is the fact that they were larger. It's only the tilesets that bothered me. You go down a narrow corridor of a cave in Cyrodiil only to come out to a larger opening that looks too much like many other ones I've seen before it. Like the chasm or any gap with a walkway across it. They seem to have improved their tilset though when they released Shivering Isles.