The Imperial cult is the official religion of the Empire. Cyrodiil being the seat of the emperor... If no where else, I would expect it there.

Yes they have learned and will improve like every game. I have seen the complaints about oblivion and most of them are nit-picky and preference. If you don't like fast travel then don't use it or if you don't like "uninspired settings" play something else. The reality is i would play oblivion any day rather then morrowind because it does somethings with gameplay a whole lot better. Sure I liked somethings in morrowind BUT that doesn't mean that morrowind wasn't frustrating as heck when it came down to controls and some play systems and even finding the next place to go was a pain. Oblivion fixed a lot of mistakes morrowind made but had to be made a little more simple then morrowind probably because of design time. The next game will be closer to a better game and the next one after that will do the same.

There are always things you can improve with a game and that will never change. I can't wait for the next game!

After playing Fallout 3, I have to say yes, they have.

Oblivion lacked any encouragement to explore. Enemies were generic and levelled, loot too, and there was pretty much nothing of interest to find on the roads or off the roads besides wolves. Fallout 3 has random encounters, quests and handplaced loot in wilderness locations.

Fallout 3 has less 'dungeons', but their existance made sense, whereas I don't see the logic behind the placement of all those abandoned forts in Oblivion, or their interior design. Or the Ayleid ruins. Some were just filled with traps, how was anyone supposed to live in those in the past?

At least the Dwemer ruins in Morrowind had beds and other things lying around. Same for Fallout 3. When there were raiders living in a building, it really looks like they live there, and are not just standing around waiting for you to show up.

NPCs in Fallout 3 have more personality than just an initial greeting and a city topic. They talk to each other about normal stuff, not how they saw a radroach the other day. Nasty creatures. And NPCs recognize who they're talking to when they talk with each other.


About fast travel: Another very good thing about Fallout 3 is that it doesn't have any existing map markers when you start the game. In Oblivion you start in the Imperial City, and you can fast travel to any of the other known cities, in all corners of the map, without ever having been there.

Imagine having to travel to Chorrol by foot from the Imperial City, and later by horse from Weynon Priory to Cloudruler Temple for the main quest, instead of always being able to conveniently fast travel to the nearest town of your next goal, and then reach your goal within a few minutes.

You really get to travel and explore new places in Fallout 3, like when you go to Rivet City for the first time. It wouldn't have been as great if you could just fast travel there from the start.

True, the overuse of level scaling in Oblivion came because the lack of high level content in Morrowind, in Morrowind the game became way to easy at level 15 with a decent character, far earlier if you powergamed and searched up the good items at low level.

Lots of things where cut to disable exploits. levitation, fortify intelligence potions, even fortify alchemy is disabled, cast on use items was also probably cut because of exploits.

Yes they overdid it far to much, simple tweaking would have made the game far better, however one of their decision was that all quests could be done at any level, that was a mistake. However Oblivion is far more balanced than Morrowind.

I'd say they've probably learned something from Oblivion, and from Morrowind, and from Fallout 3, and other games Bethesda has developed and probably even published as well. I'm sure Bethesda is always looking at how their games perform financially, the critical and fan response to them, what people liked about them and what they didn't, and so on, and using this information to help decide what they should do for future games too. It just seems like a wise business practice, as it helps them know what gamers want, and what works and what doesn't, thus, by learning from past decisions, they can hopefully make future games even more successful. Plus, looking at Oblivion, a lot of design decisions in it seem like a response to criticisms of Morrowind. People complained about not being able to find quest objectives, so they added a quest compass, people complained that the game got too easy at high levels, so they made it so no matter what level you reach, some enemies will be scaled to it. People complained that the skills were poorly balanced or that some skills were worthless, so Bethesda removed the worthless skills, probably thinking that they could balance the skills better if there were less skills to balance. Of course, some of the results of these lessons were criticized, but that kind of thing happens. Just because Bethesda listens doesn't always mean you'll like the decisions they make after listening.

I think the important question here is "What has Bethesda learned from Oblivion?" Because sure, while some fans had complaints with certain decisions made in Oblivion, it was also a commercial success. Maybe what Bethesda learned from Oblivion is that this is the direction the main gaming demographic wants the series to take, and they should keep following it.

I always thought of tht line as a homage to Ob. In OB the NPCs idle chat would say something exactly like that, but just about Mudcrabs instead. oh wait... did they never say that?

I think, as always, Bethesda learns a lot from its previous games. Theres no such thing as a perfect game: I enjoy both Oblivion and Morrowind immensely. Both have strengths, both have weaknesses, but both are very fun. I told people this years ago: To enjoy Oblivion, simply remember "It's not morrowind and isnt trying to be." I think Morrowind handled magic, atmosphere and overall story better. But keep in mind, Cyrodiil is much closer to a traditional fantasy realm than Morrowind: A whole lot of depth was put in just because of that reason. We know why there are castles and caves. Why are there ancestral tombs? Daedric ruins? Dwemer ruins? Much more "new" fantasy elements in Morrowind. On the other hand, Oblivion did superbly better with getting the story it had across, without feeling overwhelming. While I personally adored spending a real life night or two reading every book in Vivec, I can see that not being the grandest of times for many. It also far outstrips morrowind in combat. They both share the same too easy/ridiculously hard jumps in difficulties which I dont much enjoy. But still, its better than "I can clear out anywhere in the game without stopping with my daedric dai-katana"

Yes they listen to complains, Fallout 3 has put in lots of Morrowind's features even if it's a totally different game, mostly pre placed loot many places. One weakness is that you always swim down to rivet city after breaking into the sheriff house for the bubbleheads.
Some of the items like Lincolns repeater has a lack of ammo at low level who balance things out but it would not work in a elder scrolls game. Hide the good stuff better, like the way you could get the daeric sword in Morrowind by killing the guy at the Dren plantation. Or how you farm gatling lasers from the enclave outpost north of the location of the nuke cola quest.

One little but important feature in Fallout 3 is item condition. I wonder if that it leveled as you find higher quality items over time or location based.
Imagine Oblivion with the change at level one you run into enemies with iron weapons and armor in poor condition perhaps 10%, as you level up quality improves so at level 7 its perhaps 50%, new material are introduced manly at bosses who might wear some iron at level 5. Steel only start to appear on standard bandits at level 10 and little use for the standard bandits to go past silver. but at level 30 it would be 100% quality.
Now you have solved the level scaled equipment on bandits in Oblivion.

About level cap, I would hate it and mod it at once, much of the fun is levelling up.
Also totally unneeded from a balance point of view, how much more effective is a character who has maxed blunt and blade than one who has only maxed one of them, same for archery and destruction or light and heavy armor? Some as he has more equipment to choose from, he also has higher attributes, but the main benefit is that he has more than doubled his health, as endurance goes up he will gain more health for each level up.
Far better to restrict max health some way with a hard or soft cap, perhaps by starting endurance as fighters would need more health than mages. but mainly that at some point either level or number of hp, it stops or start raising very slowly.
This would keep higher level enemies a challenge without making every fight a slugging match.

I don't think they do say that, I made it up. But it would've been pretty funny if it was rare.

I know I have learned from Oblivion: Dont trust game demos at E3. <_<

Otherwise I KNOW that theyve learned from oblivion from playing Fallout 3. But instead of just improving things (like they did in Fo3) they should also try to be creative and come up with new things that havent been seen before in TES.

That only fixes half the problem, while ignoring or even increasing the other half. All of the armor and weapon types SHOULD be included in the game from the start, but their typically poor condition and your inability to afford to maintain them could be used to make them all but useless to the starting player. At minimal condition, they'd be only marginally more valuable than the routine stuff, and the price/difficulty of repairs would keep it out of reach until your skills or finances improved substantially. What good is a battered piece of Daedric armor if you can't fix it, can't get much for it in its present state, and it weighs half a ton? The maximum difference between basic and exotic equipment could also be reduced, or balanced by other stats like durability: one armor type could be more protective but less durable, a second could be less protective but last just about forever between cheap repairs, while a third could be both protective and durable, but restrict speed or movement while costing a fortune to fix. That strikes me as far better than the far-too-linear "rat race" to get better equipment in OB.

One huge difference between MW and OB was that items of all qualities could generally be found somewhere in the world, but were non-existant in OB until you reached the appropriate level, where they mysteriously appeared and suddenly became common overnight.

Remember that the age of casual gaming is upon us, and with a lot of developers wanting to go where the money is I fear that things can only get worse for the "hardcoe" among us. I think that Morrowind and Oblivion reflect this somewhat, following a general trend in gaming through two different generations. I hope that Bethesda will be one of the developers that get through the casual-kinnect scourge unscathed.

It's my impression that joining the military tends to limit your freedom to come and go as you please. Just like you couldn't become a priest in Morrowind because that would require that you devote yourself full-time to the work of the church.

The Imperial Cult is not a religion, it is a missionary organization that does not operate anywhere but Morrowind and Solstheim.

I voted yes because I think they learn from the criticism of all of their games. Do I think it will be better? Well that's a matter of personal opinion, and something I don't even know yet. I obviously hope it's going to be better though.

No, not necessarily. You can join the Legion in Morrowind and it doesn't limit you're freedom at all. Actually the Imperial Legion is one of my favorite factions in Morrowind and pretty much every character I play joins up at some point. Since Oblivion is set in the very heart of the empire I assumed that the Legion would be playable in Oblivion as well and was disappointed when I found out otherwise. Maybe the Legion in Cyrodiil isn't exactly hurting for recruits, but neither is the Legion in Morrowind. There is only one fort in need of new recruits, the same could have been true in Cyrodiil. Making the Legion playable would have added another playable faction to a game that, in my opinion, doesn't have enough playable factions, and that would have been a very good thing indeed.

Looking at the product of FO3 and FO:NV, I would predict some sort of pendulum back towards a greater complexity. Probably not back to Morrowind's level, but better than Oblivion.

I said yes. Eve thoug the gameplay part didin't make any huge leap I think the overall feeling improved so much from oblivion to fallout 3 that i have my hopes high for the next TES... although i hope they work a little on the melee combat system

(sorry if my spelling svcks)

Which was hugely unrealistic.

From what I have seen from FO3, Bethesda learned well from Oblivion, and I expect to see a continue trend of tightening up their franchise to produce an even more solid product than the last.

So yes, I do believe Bethesda learned well from Oblivion, and it can easily be seen in FO3.

I say "Yes". I can hardly wait for TES V!! The suspense is killing me!! :ahhh:

One think I can say with relative certainty is that the criticisms over the fact that the entire game levels to you in Oblivion will motivate Bethesda to scale that back in TES V. Meaning, more like Morrowind, in that only certain NPCs/creatures/items and other aspects will be dependent upon the player's level, not absolutely everything. If anything has the biggest impact on game-play in Oblivion, it's the scaling, and I don't imagine Bethesda's going to repeat that to such an extent again. It really set IV apart from III, but, as fans have argued often, not entirely in a positive way. I mean, it didn't just go against so many of our great experiences in Morrowind, it really stunted any real sense of character growth for many players. Not the best thing in an RPG, and I'm sure Bethesda recognizes that, even if they may disagree with it.

Mainly I think that the next installment in this great series will be a mixture of the previous two, which I'm sure will make many of us fans very happy. Except for perhaps those who think Daggerfall is the greatest game ever made and that Bethesda has been going down the wrong path ever since. They'll probably hate it.

Answered "I don't know".

It seems like with each successive release since Arena, fans have been torn as to whether or not any improvements have been made. Sequels give, and sequels take. I'm convinced that TESV won't please the entire fanbase, for the same reason Oblivion didn't, or Morrowind didn't. It's probably best to just keep an open mind.

That was something they improved in F3. I remember most parts of the waste being deadly, until level eight, or so.

All the more reason to think TES V will be similar.

I really need to get around to playing Fallout 3, BTW...