Skyrim vs Oblivion vs Morrowind

[phantur]

I was sorely disappointed with how short and in-immersive the Dark Brotherhood quest line was... It was was amazing at first but left a bad taste in my mouth... "Oh hi, you're part of the dark brotherhood!" 10 seconds later. "Hi listener!"

 

What...

 

The Companion quests... a bit better, but still not immersive. I never felt a bond with any of them.

 

Now the Thieves guild quests are probably the best of the three so far (haven't tried much of the others yet) but I found that it whipped through everything too fast still.

 

I've never played Morrowind so I can't say anything for it... but I felt like the side-story-lines were much better for Oblivion whereas everything else (except the UI) is better for Skyrim.

[keastkannegaard]

had the guilds and questlines been better and a lot longer skyrim could have been as good as morrowind. sadly they are horrible written way to short and you don't really get to know the ppl in the guilds or feel part of the group.

 

but the side quests are some of the best across the 3 tes games, which makes a bit up for it.

 

morrowind are still "king" but skyrim come close.

[Vatras]

I liked Morrowind best, as the TES games become dumbed down with each iteration:

- Magic: the spellmaker was one of the highlights for me since Daggerfall, now it is completely gone, and we have a very limited set of spells without anything special in it (and I loved the fly spells...)

- Skills: they become fewer each time - medium armor and repair are gone for example, all the 1H weapons now use a single skill instead of each having it's own

- Stats: they allowed many effects, which are now gone completely...they determined mana, how much you could carry (fixed to 300 now :( ), your HP, and all kinds of stuff.

- Equipment slots: there used to be a few more than what we get now

 

Skyrim is a good game, but lacks much of the former variety of Morrowind for me.

Oblivion was the worst of the series and if there had not been the many mods for it, which made it enjoyable (thanks, btw, to Oscuro for a great mod :) ), I would probably have left Skyrim alone. The horrible idea of all having your level was at least not (wholly) repeated, as it made levels superfluous and you did better to finish the main quest at level 3 (which I did).

 

My main points of critique of Skyrim are 1) the horrible UI for the PC, 2) the dumbing down of the game mechanics, and 3) I would have liked better graphics (OK, I got used to Deus Ex and probably expect too much :) ).

[Handofbane]

To me morrowind was...meh...oblivion was much richer for me. Dont understand all the love for that game.

Well, in Morrowind, when you made choices it actually felt more like they meant something. What I mean is choosing to join certain factions would make other factions dislike you, so that choice actually did make a difference in your gameplay. You could not become the ultimate hero of every group everywhere, you would step on someone's toes somewhere (example: Thieves' and Fighters' guilds had directly opposing questlines that could deny you the ability to advance beyond a certain rank in one when you attempted to become leader of the other, not to mention the Great Houses).

 

Having clocked almost 45 hours now, I still stand by my previous ratings. Skyrim is turning out a bit better than I had expected, though even this far in the UI is a major pain in the ass. The quests do seem a bit short for the most part, and I have run into some other minor issues, but I have only had one CTD in all that time, which is incredible considering this is a BethSoft game.

[soot00]

I think the UI for skyrim is frikkin awesome. Of course I am running a N52TE game pad controller alongside a G15 keyboard. Also have a mouse with multiple buttons that are all configured for the hotkeys in Skyrim.

 

If you are the unfortunate type that is only using a standard 2 button mouse and single keyboard, I would probably hate the UI as well.

[Wyrdfire]

Personally, I detest Skyrim's new interface. Good for consoles maybe but PC is another story... I have faith that modders will save us in the end from it.

 

Anyway Oblivion was my favorite (feels more "familiar" and RPGish), while in Skyrim I love the graphics, the new dialogs, AI, etc. but IMO other things (combat/magic) are counterintuitive. I guess I have yet to play it enough to decide if I like it better or if it's just technically superior.

 

 

[Robynah]

Oblivion doesn't enter consideration. I literally dropped that game into the trash I was so disgusted and only repurchased the goty later to try shivering isles (which went a small way to redemption) + mods.

 

So the choice is between morrowind and skyrim. Currently I'm enjoying skyrim more than I recall with morrowind, but I have to withold judgement as I haven;t played enough skyrim yet.

[Shantih]

I loved Morrowind but I can't get it to run on my current PC. I thought my CDs were toast so I bought a new copy but no dice. :wallbash:

 

Morrowind has the exotic vibe and the fantasy setting and I have fond memories of playing it.

 

I never cared that much for Oblivion. Level scaling was crazy. The setting was too mundane. Shivering Isles was a treat though.

 

So far I'd have to go with Skyrim, I love the feel of the game (I keep thinking about Conan, Slaine, Beowulf or The Lord of the Rings). It has some of the fantasy of Morrowind with strong roots in sagas, Celtic and Nordic legends, I like this mix.

 

Besides it allows the player to roleplay a character without bothering about modifiers and mini games (like the speech wheel in Oblivion). As far as gameplay is concerned I'm used to playing with a gamepad so I have no problem with Skyrim. Even fully modded Oblivion isn't that much fun for me compared to vanilla Skyrim.

[Namorax]

At the moment I enjoy Skyrim, but its mainly because of the world itself, not the gameplay. It feels awesome to climb a mountain during a snowstorm find an old watchtower and have a view down to the valley. NO other game in the Elder Scrolls series has this "Wow"-Moment. But once I've seen enough that often enought the gameplay becomes more important. And in that aspect the whole series took a turn for the worse: They really did introduce lots of cool and very useful new features, but they also scrapped lots of great things.

 

Whereas I had to decide which House of Morrowind I want to join (if I want to at all), Skyrim is just "Run through the superbly rendered world, explore dungeons and do a few Quests that have no real consequences". I miss that my decisions had consequences. They could range from "NPCs attacking me on sight" to "NPC likes me 100%". I also loved the equipments and the magic-/Enchantment system. It allowed you to totally customise your outfit/weapons by selecting which parts to wear and how you want to enchant them. Creating your own spells was also a lot of fun since you could always tailor your spells to your own needs and abilities. And the UI was one of the best I've seen for an RPG, even today I found nothing better: Pressing a Hotkey opens whatever you want in a window, you were allowed to drag them where you want them to be, you could even change their size!

I admit, there were some flaws in it (I remember the list for magic spells being very crowded), but why the **** did they trash all that?!

Because it was not "console friendly"?

 

I dont doubt there will be an Elder Scrolls VI, and I really hope they stop for a moment, turn back and take everything that was great in the past games of the series to make the next one (Meaning they should reintroduce the Enchantment- and Spell-Makers of the past AND an UI that doesnt feel like it was primarily designed for consoles and the PC Players be damned to Oblivion).

Back then not everything was better: Skyrim and Oblivion introduced lots of stuff I never want to miss in future RPGs. But not for the price of throwing out other good features.

The idea is to keep the good parts and throw out or improve the bad ones...

 

 

For anyone interested here's a quick comparison:

 

In Morrowind, a full set of Ebony-Armor consisted of 8 Items (Helm, Pauldron l/r, Gauntlet l/r, Chest, Greaves, Boots). Your weapon could be an Axe or Sword (both available as 1- or 2-hander), a Dagger, a Mace, a Staff, your bare fists, a Bow, throwing weapons (knives and throwing stars) or a shortsword. And I didnt count the "samurai-weapons" Tanto, Katana and Dai-Katana since they're basically just better shortswords or swords. On top of that you could wear clothing under your armor: trousers, a belt, a shirt, a necklace, 2 rings and if you wanted to a Robe on top of everything.It was possible to wear 15 different Items (no weapon/shield) and you had the option to enchant every single Item! As long as you knew a spell who utilised a specific effect you were able to enchant your equipment with it. Or you created a new, stronger spell based on the stuff you learned.

 

Skyrims "full" Ebony-Armor are 4 Items (Helm, Gauntlet, Chest, Boots). You can NOT wear clothes under your armor or a robe on top, you're restricted to 1 necklace and 1 ring, and your weapons are classified as "One-Handed", "Two-Handed", Archery and Magic. Each category has a few basic weapons and thats it. Perks are used to add a little diversify. And you can NOT create new spells (you're forced to utilise Pre-Made Spellbooks) and your options of Enchanting are extremely restricted compared to the previous games.

 

 

I've read that Bethesda had their reasons to minimize everything, it was something along the lines of "A set of armor is easier to render if the armor has fewer parts, this allows us to render more NPCs at once[...]". Really? They can render a world like Skyrim but are unable to keep all the equipment of the past games? They are 'forced' to reduce our Equipment slots and available items/spells/enchantments because of performance reasons? Normally I have no reason to not believe them, but since the whole game has the feel of "We develop it for PC, but we are not allowed to add/change things that ruins the game for consoles" i'm very sceptic.

 

Whats the next step of this evolution? Elder scrolls with RL-Graphics but only 3 predetermined Characters (Customize the face, no changing of armor/weapons/magic)?

Edited November 17, 2011 by Namorax

[marharth]

The best non modded game for me is Skyrim.