I played Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim back to back

[nightinglae850]

I wanted to know more about the ES world so I played Morrowind and Oblivion for the first time

 

I really enjoyed Oblivion but sadly i didn't like Morrowind, I was sad that i found it boring and annoying at times especially the cliff racers

 

Its too bad as many consider Morrowind to be the best game, I guess to really appreciate it i should have played it years ago?

[AnkhAscendant]

Don't worry, you're not the first person to have found cliff racers annoying :P (The nice thing about Elder Scrolls though is that you can almost always safely says "there's a mod for that" ^^) You probably would enjoy it more if you had the nostalgia factor. Still, I stand by the alien environment and the voiceless dialogue. (The last may be more from a modding standpoint though...)

 

Oddly it's Oblivion I don't really care for that much. I don't dislike it in particular, but I have no attachment to it whatsoever.

[budcat]

I decided to install Morrowind again. Oblivion I have for my PS3. It's been nice to play Morrowind again with 16:9 resolution.

I'd say Morrowind still has the most fascinating game world. It showed true imagination and uniqueness. It felt in a weird way like Dungeons & Dragons meets Super Mario Bros. and I really dug that. I think most of the love for Morrowind is for its otherworldly setting and diverse character creation options.

Compared to Morrowind, Cyrodiil was a complete yawn, but for some reason it still had some intangible charm. I told my friend it feels somewhat like you're playing a character on a toy train set. The world was huge and fully realized yet still seemed small and self-contained. It occupied some uncanny valley I think which gave it an almost kitsch factor that I really enjoyed.

Skyrim is a mixed bag. Maybe it's because I'm probably one of a very small minority of masochists who actually played through Might and Magic IX, but a lot of elements of Skyrim feel like a retread of that game's setting to me. I guess I wasn't grabbed by Cyrodiil in comparison to Morrowind and going with another human province following Oblivion was just a let down.

I bought Skyrim originally on PS3 before biting the bullet and buying it for PC. Once I had modded Skyrim, the decision was easy, Oblivion has been collecting dust and I gave my PS3 copy of Skyrim away. That said, Oblivion for me stands out as the clear console winner. If I didn't have a PC, I'd probably still be playing Oblivion over Skyrim. Judged without mods as a factor, Oblivion wins for offering the most out of the box.

With all of the great mods for Skyrim we've made, on PC it's no hard decision. Skyrim wins. At the same time though, in all their efforts to trim the fat when it comes to Elder Scrolls, they've cut out some stuff they ought to bring back.

Edited May 29, 2013 by budcat

[Cardolan]

At the same time though, in all their efforts to trim the fat when it comes to Elder Scrolls, they've cut out some stuff they ought to bring back.

 

I'd love to hear what you miss the most tbh. What, in your opinion was cut that should have stayed (more than anything else that is)

[AnkhAscendant]

 

At the same time though, in all their efforts to trim the fat when it comes to Elder Scrolls, they've cut out some stuff they ought to bring back.

 

I'd love to hear what you miss the most tbh. What, in your opinion was cut that should have stayed (more than anything else that is)

 

I know you didn't ask me, me I'll add my fifty cents anyway: the persuasion minigame & varied levels of disposition, and skills like Athletics and Unarmed. That makes the game feel more shallow.

[budcat]

 

Cardolan, on 29 May 2013 - 07:07, said:

 

budcat, on 29 May 2013 - 04:18, said:

 

At the same time though, in all their efforts to trim the fat when it comes to Elder Scrolls, they've cut out some stuff they ought to bring back.

I'd love to hear what you miss the most tbh. What, in your opinion was cut that should have stayed (more than anything else that is)

I miss options. Unarmed, spears and halberds, short swords, medium armor, athletics and acrobatics were all skills I've used significantly in the past. Almost all my Oblivion characters used hand-to-hand or short swords.

 

I'm also an old-school RPGer, so character creation is my bread and butter. For me the custom class creation and birthsigns were a huge part of making a character. I can see why some people don't miss it, but I really do.

 

Definitely need to bring back spell-crafting.

 

Really I'd like to see Daggerfall's reputation/faction system resurrected but also tweaked so that helping one faction should offend that faction's enemies. For example, I would like the Thieves' Guild to be especially suspicious of you if you've spent your time ingratiating yourself with the local nobility; priests should not want to associate with a suspected unrepentant member of the Dark Brotherhood, and so on. That's not quite how Daggerfall's faction system worked but it was the closest and is still the most robust and complex.

 

I'd also second the disposition and speechcraft minigame. For everything that they did cut, they left in a fairly anemic speechcraft skill.

 

Anyway, that's what I'd like to see return.

Edited May 29, 2013 by budcat

[RatcatcherOfKvatch]

Morrowind just looks too dated. People clunk around like they've got broomsticks shoved up their ... aesthetics.

 

I hate to cast a style veto over substance but it was just too "off" for me to handle.

 

Oblivion had these beautiful rolling landscapes, colors exploding at you from all sides, and I really fell in love with the surreal beauty of the place. Oblivion gates cast this oppressive pall over that beauty and it was my job to clean it up. I took my job very seriously.

 

The people weren't quite there yet, but I did love the land.

 

The stunts you could pull with cleverly-designed spells made high-end gameplay a never-ending bag of fun tricks. One of my favorites was the Cracked-Out Dremora Lord. You summoned a Dremora Lord for 120 seconds then hit him with a massive dose of Fortify Speed and Shield. Hilarity ensues.

[Deleted1308005User]

I reinstalled Oblivion just couple of days ago, installed couple of (non visual mods) and went off to adventure.

I got to say, Oblivion felt now helluva better than back then.

When I last played it, I barely understood english.
I didn't listen to dialogue, I just slammed buttons to get quests and went off for adventures.

Now, I enjoyed every bit of dialogue I heard. Dialogue is in some sense better than in Skyrim.
Maybe it's because some NPC's sound different? and they have unique ways to speak.
Emperor's speeches were nice, when I heard blades actually yelling it sounded so good, much better than taunts in Skyrim.

Also, guard armors.

I fell in love with those.

 

There's some aspects that were done D*** well in Oblivion. Ranks, guilds.
Guilds felt different. You actually feel like raising in ranks and gaining fame.

[kleinstaff]

If i have to make a choice and if i can include mods it is skyrim

 

without mods.. neither 3 Bakdurs gate holds that top spot

 

i found morrowind the least of all 3 but that is because i m so used on todays graphic quality

 

gameplay wise well all 3 games have flaws

 

overall making games and making them so moddable as the last TES games is a double edged sword and i am not sure if this is a good thing for the game industry overall

 

don't get me wrong i love the idea that i can moddify my game in a way how i want it to play or look and i really am a fan of the modding community

but on the other hand it could encourage some game publisher to release games that are not finished or are seruously flawed

 

 

[RatcatcherOfKvatch]

Skyrim is more serious, more gritty, more realistic. Oblivion has more jokes and humor.

 

Oblivion has a lot of morally ambiguous Daedric Lord quests. Skyrim has a lot of pure evil ones.

 

Oblivion has a fantasy Thieves' Guild led by a very wise and powerful Fantasy Guild Leader. Skyrim's Thieves' Guild is a more realistic criminal gang of thugs led by the unseen hand of a ruthless Boss. Oblivion's is the one most players would rather join.

 

Oblivion was a utopia filled with a lot of urbane, laid-back cosmopolitans living the good life in the city. Skyrim is a dystopia filled with passionate people struggling to remake the world, find their place, or achieve their dreams. Sindarion is Oblivion; Avrusa Sarethi is Skyrim.

 

I love them both. If people in Oblivion had human-looking faces and maybe some "dirt of realism" smeared on for good measure they might've seemed more real. On the other hand it took me a lot longer to fall for Skyrim thanks to some really bad user interface design choices.

 

Oblivion filled me with wonder right from the start. If you don't leave the Imperial City it's actually really hard to make a living, so I was kind of a sewer rat struggling to make it that first time I played. I always stayed at the Merchant Inn to level up because they threw in a table full of food at no extra charge. Vilverin, I think there's a law that all new players must wander in there. Except it's huge, so a new player would probably never fully explore it. I never did until much later. If you get some loot, kill some guys, level up, it's time to leave.

 

Oblivion 2 (I Know What I'm Doing) revolves around getting into the Mage's Guild at the lowest possible level. No mention of Vilverin, but you'll visit every city in rapid succession, with Leyawiin before Bruma so you can dispel J'skar. To soundbite this an Oblivion expert would do things that a novice would find bewildering. In Skyrim novices and experts do a lot more of the same basic things.