66 replies to this topic

[Judas_Grace]

Better quests? That's definetly going to need some explaining.

Have you tried dark brotherhood! Missions you get from there are great, like when i got locked into house with 5 other person! That was fun

[hom dai]

Not necessarily quoting, disputing or agreeing with any of the views here - however being a VERY long time Morrowind player (beta tester for original)..on into the expansions..then...all the wonderful mods. I am now at this point in my Elder Scrolls journey.

Oblivion blows the socks off Morrowind - graphically - period - I think that's a given. The music (by Jeremy Soule) is outstanding. The horses are so much fun to ride, new architecture is nice - but unfortunately, I think THAT's where it ends.

Oblivion is simply overall too easy (in spite of difficulty slider). I run an xlnt creature spawn-increase mod to give me a challenge. The interface is horrible (improved thankfully with mods) - and I generally ignore the built-in "helps"although if (when) I get bored with the sameness, I will just hop over to "that little green arrow thingy there" get it done and move on.

I do not feel the... "ha ha dear ole Uncle Crassius" - everyone hates Fargoth? involvement. Where are the wonderful Great Houses and the "battles" for supremecy. Where are the suspicious wizards up there in their "own little plant world"? Where are the Temples not free, you will donate to get help from? Divine intervention? Almsivie? Mark/recall? - so many deleted wonderful MW spells.

Where is the underlying intrigue of the snooty Imperials controling most everything in whatever small form. "You already have nearly everything and yet you want more?" I don't theeenk so lol

Oblivion combat is leveled -
fine and dandy - walk into X cave and I never had to run for my very life (even at level 1) - not so in Morrowind. You better go level up "before". Once you've done a few ruins/caves - you pretty much KNOW the exact layout you're going to see in the next one. Morrowind architecture was quite a bit more varied.

Rewards for completing a quest are leveled -
fine, except if you do the quest at a low level - you get a low-level reward - worthless later (sometimes one you can NEVER dispose of out of your inventory either if it's marked "quest item" in CS - carry that worthess item forever) a "penalty"? for surviving and doing early? how nice!

Oblivion Gates
differing basically pretty much only in the number of towers - you just did 'that' already didn't you and 16 more just like it yesterday? Do I have to? The Great Gate and its "factors" was good tho..and I enjoyed trying to keep my selflessly loyal friends alive..virtual imposibility, but with enough smarts and determination, one CAN succeed here.

Quests/Characters
A few of the Obliv quests are notable..the painter, etc. - but overall - next? Finishing the MQ, I am now left with "OK now that I'm the head of X -Y-Z- (yawn) WHY should I continue to play?"

I have saved the world..uh huh BFD - make another character? I did that 4 times already..one being a rogue archer - NEVER again (although am old experienced ranged combat player - 35 arrows to bring down a Daedroth - at skill level 75+( with hi-end bow/arrows) doesn't quite cut it.

Morrowind (on the other hand) is a kind of a sepia-tone 'visit' to.. something not quite real - but yet, isn't it? Although I ran lots of mods..boiled all down to a single face replacement - since ALWAYS wore armor, never took clothes off - needed no body replacement and used a personal, (publically released) house mod. I also ran a private teleporting mod. which got me from point A to point B - did what supposed to - then I took off exploring on foot while I was there...as there IS quite positively something there you'd NEVER find if you don't go look..and not just boogie back and finish the quest - next?

I admit I tried many texture mods - although the work was mostly outstanding, ALWAYS deleted them - back to wonderful dreary Balmora? lol. Oh yes, Morrowind has some "graphics" problems - but then it did NOT have the technology available to Oblivion and one HAS to rely on the value of the underlying game itself to hold you.

WITHOUT the "icing". Oblivion doesn't have that underlying 'hold' on me unfortunately, that allows one to overlook "age" and just enjoy the game for itself, how it was written, what is there and what YOU can do with it.

After 4+ years playing MW I can STILL truthfully say I have NOT seen it all and I eventually wound up literally "running" coast-to-coast (including the expansions as well) I've been wall-to-wall in Obliv on foot and on horseback and we certainly do have lots of great empty areas of "graphics"... (of somewhat less than stellar construction? - I tend to notice such things)!

Morrowind "calls" me - go play it again..and yet again , make a new character - be evil - be good - be a werewolf, a vampire - be whatever your heart desires - as each character WILL play out differently with variations thereof depending on YOU personally. I simply don't feel that in Oblivion - in spite of its (conceded) "wonders".

The thousands of mods available for Morrowind (in many cases) simply took something good and made it better. Oblivion mods (currently) seem to be addressed mostly to 'fixing something broken" of which I have personally seen far too many instances of.

So is Oblivion bad - was I "cheated" (dollar wise)? of course not! but I HAD hoped for SOMETHING resembling MW - only better. Then I am saying Morrowind is perfect right? NO!! - not likely, lol - but certainly better in many important ways.

Just my 2-cent babbling - undoubtedly NOT shared by others - but thanks for reading one person's opinion.

Q

can't we just agree that it would be better if the next elder scrolls game is a combination of morrowind and oblivion?

One thing that I see in this post that people have overlook is that you HAVE to MODIFY Oblivion. In Morrowind it was entirely feasable to play the Vanilla game for 300+ hours. I beat everything under the stars in oblivion in under 60! Now I just have a character I keep taking to jail so I can level and continue scouring for those interesting leveled items that STILL ONLY GOTO LEVEL 20!

This game feels more like a patch to the problems seen by developers in Morrowind than an entirely new game! For example, they hated it how you could just run through a town and rob it blind and sell it to a shop owner in that same town in Morrowind. So they make fences, they hated it how if you had the money you could enchant things at the Mages Guild without being a memeber. They made it a huge waste of time to Enchant by having to run all over the map. I felt like I was playing Zelda freaking 64 in some instances. Run here run there, prove to me this prove to me that. There is no functioning ingame economy what so ever. Sure it's pretty, but I could get a crow to look at something shiny and it wouldn't know it's a crome desert eagle aimed at it. I agree with a lot said here, and the more I think about it the more P-oed I get.

As said before, where are the Mark, Recall, and Fly spells? On another note, where is poison damage? Where is lycanthropy (anyone ever read the lore behind werewolfs?) Where is all this stuff we came to know as things to do? They turned them all into quests, and sure highly involved quests. But still fast travel enabled one way quests!

The trade system in this game is a HATECRIME. It was excellent in Morrowind and Daggerfall, because if you were smart you could get every pennies' worth out of a sale. And so what if the shop owner's only had so much cash, this just meant you had to be smart. The option was there! Here it seems everything is illegal to sell but isn't. I carry skooma constantly, never get busted for it... I also steal constantly and get away with it. Because I'm the champion of cyrodill, and because I have 130 personality...

The rules for all the games prior were more complex, did you know there used to be a CLIMBING SKILL! Go figure!!!

I will say I like the size of the underground and indoor arenas in Oblivion. HUGE complexes scaling miles in length underground... That's pretty manly, but only for about 20 hours of gameplay. Then it's just a DRAG, because all of the dungeons are linear. They all go in one direction... Stupid...

Leveled Gestapo, I can't take this leveled nazi crap. I'm level 68 at the moment (no I'm not cheating I'm just a gama-a-holic who likes spending time in prison to get extra levels...) And everything has daedric armor, this seriously is the STUPIDEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN. I've seen random town npc's armed with Daedric weapons COMPLAINING about how horrible the oblivion gates were, and how manly I am. Are you kidding me... Here I am talking to a 80 YEAR OLD WOMAN with the SAME longsword that I have. The only difference is that my longsword is enchanted with fire, and her's is with something else. 80 years OLD! COME ON!

Not to mention the old lady was HOMELESS! I looked in the CS and discovered she has 100 in blade... Are you kidding me? HOW ARE YOU HOMELESS, go stab someone! GO EXPLORE! You've got the stats! Hey there in comparison I guess that makes me homeless to! YAY FOR BEING HOMELESS!

Oblivion gates are laughable as well, wanna know why? Because I never fought inside one. That's right, I ran through! I'd get inside the tower, engage adrenaline rush and run to the top, rip out the sigil and just wait for the cloud of daedra to come up and see me just as their lives flash before their eyes. Why fight? Oh what some skill points? Big deal, go hack at animals for a while... This was a problem for me, because you could literally beat the game if you stay objective based the entire time. Example? How about making a redguard warrior to beat the main quest in under 7 hours and under level 5? That's rediculous... You know what is worse? The fact that it was easier to beat at under level 5 that it was at level 5, and again at level 10 , 15, and 20... Because it's leveled!

So let me get this straight, you become a hard ass in the game.... And you are punished for it? Good going Bethesda! For the record if you look back to when Morrowind came out, people on forums were saying much the same about Morrowind! Graphically, gameplay wise... Morrowind wasn't Daggerfall's gameplay senior in many respects, but through tried and true playing of the game became a good game and it didn't disappoint. Oblivion on the otherhand, 80 hours into it and I've already removed the DVD from my drive... You know what's in there now... Morrowind...

In oblivion you have a leveled list problem... It's modded to be fixed and more realistic... In morrowind there was a leveled list problem, not as much, but it was modded to be fixed and more realistic... Do you see a trend here? A UNADDRESSED or ignored problem maybe? Someone isn't doing their job if the 4th in a series of a game are being modded to fix the same !@%!@# problem over and over.

I was really excited for this game to come out, and I have to say it looks like Bethesda is finally starting to sell out. Daggerfall and Morrowind are the last bastions of their creativity, I can't say I blame them. The money's good...

I also entirely agree with jzbaker, nothing against bethesda, this is beautiful work. But Mr. Howard, step back and look at what you've made here... Look at what you've made prior, and the only difference that makes Oblivion better is graphics. Take a hint, people are still playing their nintendos for a reason... The same reason I just made a Dark Elf named Lord Indoril Nerevar on morrowind. The same reason I still haven't been from one side of daggerfall to the other. The same reason I still stab fargoth, the same reason I horde skooma and moon sugar. The same reason why I visit the mud crab and the scamp... The same reason I kill someone only to take their house and use it as storage.... Oblivion has things Morrowind needed, but I wonder how far off we are until we see mod's for morrowind that have oblivion gameplay in them? Well the combat has already been fixed to be like morrowind, Combat enhanced, and blocking enhanced... How long? It's probably already happening....

Thanks for reading my little rant, and thank you jzbaker for putting this on a front burner for some people.

PS: I think some people are missing the point of this post. It doesn't say Modded Morrowind VS Oblivion, and if you haven't played Oblivion unmodded then I don't need to say anything else.

can you sum up what you are trying to say in a few sentences? i get tired of reading so much. on forehand thank you.

I tried vanilla Oblivion for a while, it got me so fed up. I go kill a rat at level 1, it almost kills me. Then I do it again at level 10, and it almost kills me. What the? Daedric rat teeth? I since installed mods to fix this problem.

Morrowind also had great appeal because there were so many factions vvying for power. The Imperials with great control, the Temple with it's influence on the Dunmer, the Great Houses almost constantly at war, the Ashlanders just trying to survive, and I probably leaving out several more great examples. All this was backed up with great stories and dialogue, even if it didn't have voice acting. I would take 20 or 30 minutes just sitting in a library in the Temple or Mage's Guild reading stories at a time, I STILL haven't read everything there is in Morrowind. I go looking for this backstory and detail in the factions, and there's none. Half the books are copied straight from Morrowind even.

Even though Oblivion is supposed to be separate storylinewise from Morrowind, you'd think the death of 2 (Maybe 3) self-made gods or the destruction of a war machine that would have steamrolled the Empire would be huge news. Nope. All I've heard of the Nerevarine is that he's gone to some far away land, and is missing.

Trading in Morrowind is also messed up - I'd agree that Morrowind's traders were a little too stupid, but a Master of Mercantile with a 80+ personality can't get full price or buy at less than full price? eh? Also, I REALLY hate the psychic merchants. I stole this piece of bread across the region, and you magically know it's stolen? Buying and selling for profit between merchants was a great way of making cash at low levels, now it's impossible at even high levels. Oh, and forget bulk deals. Alchemists would sometimes have largish stocks of ingredients to buy and mix, and then sell back at considerable gain. Now the super sweet alchemy shops in the capital of the great empire may have a couple servings of carrots. Ugh.

All said and done, Oblivion looks pretty and the combat is more interesting, but lacks story content of its predecessor, as well having a marketplace that doesn't make a lick of sense. And it is missing polearms.

I do not mean to be rude, but complain to betsheda, not us.

[Malchik]

hom dai's second post deleted. Please do not flame. This thread is designed for people to give their opinions on what they think of Oblivion compared to MW. Some are in favour, some against, some see pros and cons. As each of us has a view there will be some opinions we disagree with. That is anyone's prerogative but all you need to do with posts that disagree with your view is send in a defence of your view or smile and ignore the other. In future, if you want to comment do so according to the topic or don't say anything, thanks.

[Povuholo]

Better quality graphics, but less like MW's, which I liked. Trees still pop up sometimes, which is annoying.

Many quests are nice by using radiant A.I. and physics. Still, Morrowind had more factions, and I like faction quests more than misc quest.

The main quest? Well you finally know what's going on instead of collecting useless information from caius cosades his friends. It gave me a wrong impression though. If we don't find the heir fast, Tamriel will be destroyed. Still, you can become leader of all the factions before doing the main quest. Freedom is good of course, but don't say it has to be done fast...

The decrease in factions is a disapointment too. What excuse do they come up with? Factions are better. Okay, the quests were better (except the mages guild) but they were fewer!

And the "You can still go on with the faction after you've become the leader" is not that great either. The mages guild has something totally worthless at higher levels, the fighters guild could've been worse, the DB is just talk to this, talk to that, and get your cash. I haven't finished the TG so I can't talk about that. The arena had fights, but those got boring quickly too, because the monsters can be found in the wilderness as well.

What's up with the Fighter's guild? There are 3 guild halls in which you can get quests, the others are worthless, except for one showing goblin cave locations. Some weird stuff too. At a certain point in the quest line you are asked to help recover an item stolen in bruma. Nothing weird you would say? Well you get the order from the fighters guild in ANVIL. Anvil is the second most far away fighters guild there is. Plus, Bruma has a fighters guild themselves.

Radiant A.I. is an improvement, but that's nothing special as MW's was bad. It's still not that great.

The fighting system is better, easy to fight with magic and weapons at the same time. They did cut back on the amount of spells. We have scripted spells so we can make some special ones ourselves, thank god.

I say: Mods can fix any problem, so its just a matter of waiting (or modding)

I think that taking in consideration morrowind was released in 2002 and Oblivion in 2006 (and so could be made with better software) Morrowind was a better game. Some day i'm going back to Morrowind, I never finished the temple faction...

So hope TES V will be more like Morrowind, except for things like A.I. and graphics.

[Fitzey7139]

Not necessarily quoting, disputing or agreeing with any of the views here - however being a VERY long time Morrowind player (beta tester for original)..on into the expansions..then...all the wonderful mods. I am now at this point in my Elder Scrolls journey.

Oblivion blows the socks off Morrowind - graphically - period - I think that's a given. The music (by Jeremy Soule) is outstanding. The horses are so much fun to ride, new architecture is nice - but unfortunately, I think THAT's where it ends.

Oblivion is simply overall too easy (in spite of difficulty slider). I run an xlnt creature spawn-increase mod to give me a challenge. The interface is horrible (improved thankfully with mods) - and I generally ignore the built-in "helps"although if (when) I get bored with the sameness, I will just hop over to "that little green arrow thingy there" get it done and move on.

I do not feel the... "ha ha dear ole Uncle Crassius" - everyone hates Fargoth? involvement. Where are the wonderful Great Houses and the "battles" for supremecy. Where are the suspicious wizards up there in their "own little plant world"? Where are the Temples not free, you will donate to get help from? Divine intervention? Almsivie? Mark/recall? - so many deleted wonderful MW spells.

Where is the underlying intrigue of the snooty Imperials controling most everything in whatever small form. "You already have nearly everything and yet you want more?" I don't theeenk so lol

Oblivion combat is leveled -
fine and dandy - walk into X cave and I never had to run for my very life (even at level 1) - not so in Morrowind. You better go level up "before". Once you've done a few ruins/caves - you pretty much KNOW the exact layout you're going to see in the next one. Morrowind architecture was quite a bit more varied.

Rewards for completing a quest are leveled -
fine, except if you do the quest at a low level - you get a low-level reward - worthless later (sometimes one you can NEVER dispose of out of your inventory either if it's marked "quest item" in CS - carry that worthess item forever) a "penalty"? for surviving and doing early? how nice!

Oblivion Gates
differing basically pretty much only in the number of towers - you just did 'that' already didn't you and 16 more just like it yesterday? Do I have to? The Great Gate and its "factors" was good tho..and I enjoyed trying to keep my selflessly loyal friends alive..virtual imposibility, but with enough smarts and determination, one CAN succeed here.

Quests/Characters
A few of the Obliv quests are notable..the painter, etc. - but overall - next? Finishing the MQ, I am now left with "OK now that I'm the head of X -Y-Z- (yawn) WHY should I continue to play?"

I have saved the world..uh huh BFD - make another character? I did that 4 times already..one being a rogue archer - NEVER again (although am old experienced ranged combat player - 35 arrows to bring down a Daedroth - at skill level 75+( with hi-end bow/arrows) doesn't quite cut it.

Morrowind (on the other hand) is a kind of a sepia-tone 'visit' to.. something not quite real - but yet, isn't it? Although I ran lots of mods..boiled all down to a single face replacement - since ALWAYS wore armor, never took clothes off - needed no body replacement and used a personal, (publically released) house mod. I also ran a private teleporting mod. which got me from point A to point B - did what supposed to - then I took off exploring on foot while I was there...as there IS quite positively something there you'd NEVER find if you don't go look..and not just boogie back and finish the quest - next?

I admit I tried many texture mods - although the work was mostly outstanding, ALWAYS deleted them - back to wonderful dreary Balmora? lol. Oh yes, Morrowind has some "graphics" problems - but then it did NOT have the technology available to Oblivion and one HAS to rely on the value of the underlying game itself to hold you.

WITHOUT the "icing". Oblivion doesn't have that underlying 'hold' on me unfortunately, that allows one to overlook "age" and just enjoy the game for itself, how it was written, what is there and what YOU can do with it.

After 4+ years playing MW I can STILL truthfully say I have NOT seen it all and I eventually wound up literally "running" coast-to-coast (including the expansions as well) I've been wall-to-wall in Obliv on foot and on horseback and we certainly do have lots of great empty areas of "graphics"... (of somewhat less than stellar construction? - I tend to notice such things)!

Morrowind "calls" me - go play it again..and yet again , make a new character - be evil - be good - be a werewolf, a vampire - be whatever your heart desires - as each character WILL play out differently with variations thereof depending on YOU personally. I simply don't feel that in Oblivion - in spite of its (conceded) "wonders".

The thousands of mods available for Morrowind (in many cases) simply took something good and made it better. Oblivion mods (currently) seem to be addressed mostly to 'fixing something broken" of which I have personally seen far too many instances of.

So is Oblivion bad - was I "cheated" (dollar wise)? of course not! but I HAD hoped for SOMETHING resembling MW - only better. Then I am saying Morrowind is perfect right? NO!! - not likely, lol - but certainly better in many important ways.

Just my 2-cent babbling - undoubtedly NOT shared by others - but thanks for reading one person's opinion.

Q

So many words

*brain explodes in pinkish-grey mess*

[Malchik]

Dear SF, I am so sorry your brain (clearly something of no great size since others can read and understand the post) has exploded. Don't worry - refits come at no extra charge courtesy of 'Idiotbrains.com'. You have been requested several times not to post unless you have something useful to say. Another pointless waste of space like the last post will earn you a strike if not a ban. Maybe you don't care. The choice is yours.

[Ancalagon]

I know this contributes nothing to the topic at hand. But I suggest that anyone who takes the time to quote THAT much and then provide a sentence worth of sophmoric commentary DESERVES to be banned. In fact, I'd encourage you to make a rule supporting the auto ban (heh, Germans...) of anyone who posts in the manner as shown by these two.

And, for a non sequitur, I would bet even money that both posters are Xbox 360 owners given their short attention span, among other deficiencies. And I don't care if I get warned because of this. I see too many rude posts knocking others for being too long, so I figured it's time to speak out.

~A

[Peregrine]

can't we just agree that it would be better if the next elder scrolls game is a combination of morrowind and oblivion?

No. Not when Oblivion is a step backwards in many areas compared to Morrowind. Even its visual "improvements" need to be scrapped. Not only are they horribly ugly and way over-done, but they use an absurd amount of system resources and scale down extremely poorly. And just to make it even worse, they completely removed the imaginative architecture and design of Morrowind, replacing it with more generic fantasy images. The next Elder Scrolls game would be better off if Bethesda completely forgot Oblivion ever happened and started over from the beginning.

But please, tell me just what Oblivion did better than Morrowind? What is worth saving out of the entire disaster?

can you sum up what you are trying to say in a few sentences? i get tired of reading so much. on forehand thank you.

So many words

*brain explodes in pinkish-grey mess*

In other words, you have the attention span of a goldfish, and the reading level of a 5 year old. If short forum posts like those are too difficult for you to read, I think you have far greater problems to worry about than whether Oblivion or Morrowind is the better game.

And like Ancalagon, I would not be at all surprised to find out you're more members of the xbox-kid horde. This is of course not a membeship to be proud of.

[t4t3rs]

First of all, I disagree that Oblivion should be scraped. I really like the game and find it quite fun (and have done so for about 100 hrs).

Now, if I had a choice Morrowind vs Oblivion after I've played each through... I would have to skip on both, since I cannot make my mind up. I do believe Oblivion has some amazing potential which will be realized in due time, afterall MW community did not become what it is right away. Sure, some mods are made to fix the bad in Oblivion, but there will be others that will add new stuff (and there already are).

I don't think the graphics in Oblivion were overdone in any way, in fact I think they could be improved much more. I don't much care how long it would take me to acquire a machine that could run this game at full settings. Part of it is imo the fact that is was ported to XBox360... horrible idea indeed. While PCs could scale the graphics down and enjoy what they have, consoles do not have that flexibility and everything needs to be tailored to work right on them. Example, I really liked the original shadowing system shown at E3, the one in place right now is nothing like it, but they had to scrape the original one due to performance issues (slow, but as I said above - we can wait... MW didn't run great right away either). :\

One of the things that needs immediate attention imo is the Radiant AI. The most irritating thing is that there is no connection between events/things that would affect one's every day behavior. Basically, these people are DUMB!
1) I am trying to pickpocket a person. They turn around and tell me something along the lines of me being a pesky thief and how they are going to kick my arse. Imagine yourself in their place: you all of a sudden feel a hand. You are about to turn around and smack whoever is there. You do turn around and see a tall man in a full set of nasty looking armor (daedric) with a glowing blade. Not sure about you, I would run for my life at that point. They on the other hand, hehe... are asking for trouble (which they get).
2) Chain of events: I become the arch-mage. I join the Thief's guild. I talk to a girl who is about to give me a quest. She tells me to steal the Arch-mage's staff. ... Woah! Hold on. Did she just tell me to steal my own staff? Say what? I should have killed her at that point, but hey... not her fault she is dumb. Where is the connection between events? It's as if the change of a head of one of the main guilds in the game is not relevant news and concerns noone. In fact, it has so little impact that noone even cares about it. .. including the mages themselves. I can come up to one of the scholars and initiate a conversation, in turn they reply with a "Sorry, I'm sure whatever you have to say is very important, but I am busy right now." Any normal boss would fire (i.e. 120 fire damage ) their subordinate at that point, but I do not have that option, sadly. That definitely needs to be worked on ( ... soon, or I will whipe out the entire mages' guild).

Anyway, this is turning into a rant - thought I'd let some of my thoughts out, which most of you will probably agree with given enough consideration. In the end, I believe Oblivion is a very good game and has a lot of potential. And with the help of the community and (hopefully! don't let me down!) Bethesda it can become another masterpiece.

I think Bethesda should come up with another game and have a forum the entire development time in which people could vote on features to add/remove. That would be great!
(Or an Oblivion patch v1.2? Who cares that it's gonna be a gig, hehehe.)

P.S.: And PLEASE stop quoting entire posts - you only need to quote what you are responding to! If you think you want to respond to an entire post, then please, just say the name of the poster. I don't mind scrolling, but it's still annoying.

[oblivion234]

on morowind fighting is harder