Today I have Oblivion installed on my modern gaming rig along with hundreds of mods from the fantastic modding comunity. After watching the demos from E3 and following all Skyrim details I come up with these conclusions/comparisons:

1) My Oblivion install with graphic mods, notably Qarl's texture pack and MTAEVWD looks better then what I saw in the Skyrim demo
2) combat overhauls to Oblivion from Deadly Reflexes and Unnecessary Violence (created by amazing modders Skycaptain and Hex_Off) give more exciting combat then what I saw in E3 videos of Skyrim
3) Many mods today completely change the magic system in creative ways, much more then one system in vanilla Skyrim.

As for quests and the main story, meh, never was Bethesda's strong suite. No doubt the most exciting choice we will face in Skyrim will be if we respond to a quest giver with a "yes' or a "I'm not ready yet".

6 years ago I was stunned by Oblivion's graphics, delighted with it's open world but today I am seeing small improvements (no where near a Qarl's Textures) graphics and pretty much no change in the world design dare I say it, Skyrim is a re skinned Oblivion. So if a PC gamer can mod Oblivion into a better game then Skyrim why should said gamer run out on 11/11/11 and pick up his pre ordered copy? given it will be years if ever anything like todays mods for Oblivion are created for Skyrim

Please my fellow PC gamers give me and other forum readers your reasons for buying Skyrim on 11/11/11

Why can't I keep myself away from reading these forums and threads like this one

I need to play it vanilla to know what needs to be modded.

Um, because I would find the vanilla version lots of fun in its own right?

I won't be running out to buy a copy, as it will be Steam pre-install for me, hopefully unlocking at 12:01am.

Yes, there are going to be some excellent mods for Skyrim, but I'm going to enjoy the hell out of the game from day one.

In fact, I predict that by day two there will probably be more than 1000 mods uploaded to tesnexus.

:facepalm:

Main reason for me is new vanilla mechanics and even with tons of mods you can only play a game for so long which is why I do not play Oblivion as much as I use too. Also other then RO2 its the only game I will be getting this year

I agreed with every word of this post.

lolwut

new story
new environment
new skill and attribute system
new quests
radiant story
new dialogue system
new economy
new engine
creation tools

Vanilla is needed to see what you need to get changed.

I don't disagree with the reasons you put forth, but the new quests, new content, the new world to explore are good enough for me to go out and buy it. Oh and the dragons are looking epic!

Yeah it will take a while for the mod community to get up and running and turn it into a good PC game instead of a decent console port, but I'm sure I'll enjoy it plenty in the meantime.

If the game can't stand up as vanillia, it's not worth modding, plain and simple.

for 1, the game in the demo is on xbox. graphics are severely less on xbox than on a PC.

2, the fighting in skyrim is obviously improved from vanilla oblivion, and withing a few weeks there would be a mod to increase it to much tougher than your mod. plus things like dragon shouts add to it.

3, once again, you will see magic type mods in a week or so.

4, if you think bethesda isnt good at making storylines, then im wondering if your playing the same game the rest of us are.

Who doesn't want to play with the creation kit!

Even with tons o' mods I don't think Oblivion looks as good as the Skyrim seen in the demo. The environment in Skyrim looks muuuch more fleshed out, dense, varied, and interesting. The textures in modded Oblivion are no doubt much higher res, but that alone doesn't make the game world more attractive - to me at least.

And as Tribal said, I need to see what needs to be modded and what doesn't. Waiting 4-6 months for strong, quality mods to start appearing isn't worth the wait for me. I don't think vanilla Skyrim will be as bad as vanilla Oblivion was.

epic post^ i very rarely get to see a "Please continue, my good sir." put so eloquently. THANK U

also if your estimation of "Oblivion + mods > Skyrim" were at all accurate why would they be moving the middle earth project to the new engine?

I predict 950 of those will be nvde mods/ anime character model mods.

quod volo ad

Because I want to

Well, I'm sure Bethesda appreciates your custom.

Because Oblivion was crap, and I want to see if they've learned their lesson this time.

That, and the new engine and the new mechanics make new kinds of mods possible.

Anyway, like you, I'm not pooping myself over Skyrim. I'm more excited presently about Far Cry 3 and Red Orchestra 2, but I still want to see how Skyrim turns out.

Because it is a new entry in the TES series?

That part is a bit foggy really.. will it be better yes has to be by now its almost impossible not too xD.. but how much better is the question Oblivion High vs 360 wasn't too different in all means mainly because they kept almost everything and limited options. For example draw distances and AA

Quite possibly, but out of those remaining 50 mods, one of them will be my own mod that I'll make on day one to increase all merchant prices by 5x.

Perhaps even a second mod to raise the perk cap from level 50 to level 70, depending on how easy it is (probably just a matter of changing one field from 50 to 70).

Because the game comes out at that time?

But if you think it's just a total conversion of Oblivion then it's your loss...

have fun watching the gameplay videos on day one...

lol bikini armor beating better than actual armor... Joy