The Elder Scrolls

[grandjackal]

So, I play Skyrim and I love it to bits (even if I do own the ill-fated PS3 version...). It's a bit addictive and I love just how many ways you can play the game.

That being said, I always wondered what the 2 other big name Elder Scrolls games were like, namely Morrowind and Oblivion. From what I understand, a lot of things about these gams are vastly different and a lot more involved. As someone who would like to play these games, what are your thoughts? From what I hear, Oblivion is a bit...meh. But I'm still interested.

[Gone2Ground]

You know how Skyrim just grabs your attention and goes "Dude, there's freaking dragons. Deal with this NOW?" Morrowind puts you on a boat, dumps you off, gives you a quest, and then the guy ACTUALLY SAYS TO YOU:

"Eh, not yet. Go do something else for a while"

Morrowind is probably the most open-ended one, thanks to how it's put out, but its also the least engaging.

The reason Oblivion is 'meh' is because it falls into the territory of "better than Morrowind in this respect but still worse than Skyrim/Better than Skyrim in this respect but worse than Morrowind was at this" sort of rut. I have a severe bias towards Morrowind, though, as it was literally the thing that took most of my original Xbox's time (Different save files added up to about 5% of the drive's capacity, a surprisingly large amount...) and Oblivion just disappointed me compared to it.

[Narga_Rocks]

Morrowind is awesome and you should play it before Oblivion.

[grandjackal]

You know how Skyrim just grabs your attention and goes "Dude, there's freaking dragons. Deal with this NOW?" Morrowind puts you on a boat, dumps you off, gives you a quest, and then the guy ACTUALLY SAYS TO YOU:

"Eh, not yet. Go do something else for a while"

Morrowind is probably the most open-ended one, thanks to how it's put out, but its also the least engaging.

The reason Oblivion is 'meh' is because it falls into the territory of "better than Morrowind in this respect but still worse than Skyrim/Better than Skyrim in this respect but worse than Morrowind was at this" sort of rut. I have a severe bias towards Morrowind, though, as it was literally the thing that took most of my original Xbox's time (Different save files added up to about 5% of the drive's capacity, a surprisingly large amount...) and Oblivion just disappointed me compared to it.

Well on the bright side, I don't have the bias of Morrowind. Unfortunately, I might have the Skyrim bias...But I have played more old school RPGs. I can be open minded towards different openings.

Issue with Morrowind now that I've done my research is that it's a last gen game, and I have no last gen systems...I don't think my piece of wood mac computer can play Morrowind either...

Morrowind is awesome and you should play it before Oblivion.

Naga, I didn't expect you to show up in this topic XD

Well unfortunately, I might have to go Oblivion first. I mean would love to play Morrowind, but my options are a tad limited in actually playing it.

[Narga_Rocks]

Naga, I didn't expect you to show up in this topic XD

Well, I tend to post in topics about games I've played and, well, according to steam I've played 243 hours of Morrowind and 178 hours of Oblivion, so, you could say I've played them.

[grandjackal]

Well, I tend to post in topics about games I've played and, well, according to steam I've played 243 hours of Morrowind and 178 hours of Oblivion, so, you could say I've played them.

The power of the elder scrolls is strong with this one...

Which case, since you seem well versed, what can you tell me about if sneaking is any different? I tend to play the role of a sneaky thieving backstabbing bastard (was rather fond of Kahiit in Skyrim), thus why I ask. Also, is magic more interesting in past games? Cause magic in Skyrim was...How would I put it...Underwhelmingly dull and unimaginative.

[Narga_Rocks]

I mostly went with "I chop skulls good" so I can't tell you too much about magic and stealth. I tried going more magic oriented in my unfinished second playthrough of Oblivion, but I chose the wrong sign for it. In Morrowind, the best sign by far is the Atronach, but it is kinda underwhelming in Oblivion. Reason being Oblivion has Magicka regeneration (except for Atronach) and Morrowind only has it for sleeping and "fast" travel. And it takes hours upon hours even then to get it all back, so you might as well just use potions or tricks in Morrowind anyway to get your Magicka back even if you don't use the Atronach. So its one disadvantage isn't relevant at all. But in Oblivion you can cast a fair number of spells during each foray into the unknown only because of regeneration.

Um, I can't compare magic since I haven't played Skyrim, but magic in Oblivion takes a while to get going to the point you can make your own spells, unless you have a certain DLC then it just takes money. And even then spells require massive amounts of Magicka in Oblivion to do anything. Magic is kinda underwhelming over all in Oblivion, I think. There are a few spells that are of reasonable cost, but unless you specifically go out to create magicka draining weapons that also take souls so you can recharge the weapons without paying an arm and a leg, well, you are looking at one massive spell followed by minutes of waiting for your magicka to come back, or you can just repeatedly cast baby spells. Personally, although I didn't use it much, I like the magic set-up in Morrowind better. You could do more fun stuff for cheap. And the items you can create in Morrowind are so much cooler.

As for stealth, Oblivion at least has a stealth lock button, though I heard the console versions of morrowind had that too. Stealth is definitely there, and I found it fun once in a while to play sniper at least for the first shot. And if I was in the right spot against the right enemy, seeing them run around randomly looking for me while I pelted them repeatedly was fun. But you said backstabbing, so, that works too. But, I don't like backstabbing NPCs since even if they are hostile it racks up my assault counter (though it's not a crime or anything so no bounty for it). It's a shame, though, because getting that free 5x first shot (or whatever the multiplier was) is awesome. But if you want to be a backstabbing bastard, I don't suppose you'd have a problem with that counter. So yeah, although Oblivion and Morrowind don't have as many "perks", stealth is pretty similar I'd wager. It's at least similar in Morrowind and Oblivion, aside from Oblivion having a statistics page that makes me feel like a bad guy.

[grandjackal]

I mostly went with "I chop skulls good" so I can't tell you too much about magic and stealth. I tried going more magic oriented in my unfinished second playthrough of Oblivion, but I chose the wrong sign for it. In Morrowind, the best sign by far is the Atronach, but it is kinda underwhelming in Oblivion. Reason being Oblivion has Magicka regeneration (except for Atronach) and Morrowind only has it for sleeping and "fast" travel. And it takes hours upon hours even then to get it all back, so you might as well just use potions or tricks in Morrowind anyway to get your Magicka back even if you don't use the Atronach. So its one disadvantage isn't relevant at all. But in Oblivion you can cast a fair number of spells during each foray into the unknown only because of regeneration.

Well I guess in Morrowind, that will make Alchemy more important since I'd actually NEED mana potions. I'm not a fan of that at all. If there's anything I hated about Skyrim, it was Alchemy. Builds slow, harvesting is busywork (as was mining), otherwise garbage was too expensive because fuck the Dragonborn apparently. Much as I get the idea of old school MP, I don't feel it would really work in games like Elder Scrolls, as it would break pace which is already slow...Thanks to Alchemy and such. Something tells me I'll be just fine with magic in Oblivion.

Um, I can't compare magic since I haven't played Skyrim, but magic in Oblivion takes a while to get going to the point you can make your own spells, unless you have a certain DLC then it just takes money. And even then spells require massive amounts of Magicka in Oblivion to do anything. Magic is kinda underwhelming over all in Oblivion, I think. There are a few spells that are of reasonable cost, but unless you specifically go out to create magicka draining weapons that also take souls so you can recharge the weapons without paying an arm and a leg, well, you are looking at one massive spell followed by minutes of waiting for your magicka to come back, or you can just repeatedly cast baby spells. Personally, although I didn't use it much, I like the magic set-up in Morrowind better. You could do more fun stuff for cheap. And the items you can create in Morrowind are so much cooler.

Well I guess that's one way for Oblivion to force mages to use Alchemy. Ah well. Making my own spells sounds awesome at least. Never was a fan of enchanting anyways. That, or Skyrim's enchanting package was straight up terrible.

As for stealth, Oblivion at least has a stealth lock button, though I heard the console versions of morrowind had that too. Stealth is definitely there, and I found it fun once in a while to play sniper at least for the first shot. And if I was in the right spot against the right enemy, seeing them run around randomly looking for me while I pelted them repeatedly was fun. But you said backstabbing, so, that works too. But, I don't like backstabbing NPCs since even if they are hostile it racks up my assault counter (though it's not a crime or anything so no bounty for it). It's a shame, though, because getting that free 5x first shot (or whatever the multiplier was) is awesome. But if you want to be a backstabbing bastard, I don't suppose you'd have a problem with that counter. So yeah, although Oblivion and Morrowind don't have as many "perks", stealth is pretty similar I'd wager. It's at least similar in Morrowind and Oblivion, aside from Oblivion having a statistics page that makes me feel like a bad guy.

Love me some pages with numbers. But hey, form the sounds of it, Stealth sounds pretty much ok at least. Just have to worry about a reputation it seems. As for perks...Yeah, that's one thing I'm gonna have to get used to. Lack of perks...Though at the same time, it might be a blessing. Won't feel like I'm constantly in need to refarm new shit after putting points into percentage improvement perks. I can just make merely what I need and move the fuck on.

[Esau of Isaac]

The power of the elder scrolls is strong with this one...

Which case, since you seem well versed, what can you tell me about if sneaking is any different? I tend to play the role of a sneaky thieving backstabbing bastard (was rather fond of Kahiit in Skyrim), thus why I ask. Also, is magic more interesting in past games? Cause magic in Skyrim was...How would I put it...Underwhelmingly dull and unimaginative.

Magic was much better in Oblivion. Let you actually make your own spells, and they actually scaled in damage.

Magic in Skyrim was pitiful. It looked nice when you started out but by the end of the game it was unusable. Was also no variety.

[Integrity]

Well, I tend to post in topics about games I've played and, well, according to steam I've played 243 hours of Morrowind and 178 hours of Oblivion, so, you could say I've played them.

I've got 400 of Oblivion. I did most of my Morrowinding before I was logging hours. :D

re: magics: I always found magic to be tremendously boringly slow to grow in Oblivion. It was pretty weighty once you finally got it somewhere, but until then you were churning through a whole bar of mana + change every fight. That and skill levels were based on how many casts you made (of any spell) so there was essentially no reason to cast big magic until you finally grew into the big magic man. The only good news is that Waiting for 1 hour (read: instantly) refills your everything to full, so if you can burn a fight down in one mana bar the waiting is essentially nothing.

I tried to play a mage in Morrowind (which b-t-w is amazing) and ended up hybridizing over into skullfuckery before I really got my magic ball rolling. Alchemy was rather fun in Morrowind, though - there was some good and some bad. The good was you weren't locked to properties on ingredients based on skill, so you could use all four from the moment your 10 Alchemy ass picked up a mushroom. The bad was that the properties were never (? spot me on this) revealed organically, leaving you to experiment (which was tedious) or memorize/make a cheat sheet/alt-tab to the wiki. On the other hand, ingredients were modestly cheap besides the super good ones, money was a bit easier to come by overall, and you could just join the Mage's Guild to get permission of EVERY MAGE'S GUILD ITEM and raid their massive stores. Or steal them, since Morrowind didn't really have a Stolen flag.

Also I took a Mage to [some high level] in Skyrim. YEAH SPAMMING DUALCAST LIGHTNING BOLT BECAUSE LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE GETS ME KILLED

but at least dualcast lightning bolt staggerlocks dragons, so there's that

re: sneaks: Sneaking in Oblivion was way less rewarding than in Skyrim, sort of because it wasn't overpowered as shit. I never really got a backstabber to work in that game, but Marksman-based Sneak was pretty cool and worked pretty well from the twenty-odd levels I played of it. Morrowind sneakery was super basic, but worked.

EDIT: god i want to play morrowind again

Edited January 1, 2013 by Integrity

[Narga_Rocks]

I tried to play a mage in Morrowind (which b-t-w is amazing) and ended up hybridizing over into skullfuckery before I really got my magic ball rolling. Alchemy was rather fun in Morrowind, though - there was some good and some bad. The good was you weren't locked to properties on ingredients based on skill, so you could use all four from the moment your 10 Alchemy ass picked up a mushroom. The bad was that the properties were never (? spot me on this) revealed organically, leaving you to experiment (which was tedious) or memorize/make a cheat sheet/alt-tab to the wiki. On the other hand, ingredients were modestly cheap besides the super good ones, money was a bit easier to come by overall, and you could just join the Mage's Guild to get permission of EVERY MAGE'S GUILD ITEM and raid their massive stores. Or steal them, since Morrowind didn't really have a Stolen flag.

All you need is 50 Alchemy (I think around that) to reveal all 4 properties to an ingredient. Maybe 60. Fortunately, with certain DLCs, there are +skill spells that you can then create your own 3 second +alchemy spell or casting item that allows you to see everything. Downside of using +intelligence or +alchemy before making potions is that your potions become absurdly powerful. Like, 20+ hit point regeneration for 2 minutes and crazy stuff like that.

Well I guess that's one way for Oblivion to force mages to use Alchemy. Ah well. Making my own spells sounds awesome at least. Never was a fan of enchanting anyways. That, or Skyrim's enchanting package was straight up terrible.

Yes, well, in Morrowind you can eventually create a +2 hp regen +4 stamina regen Bound item making constant effect ring. I used bound bow. It's awesome. Never need to repair your bow again because you just de-equip then re-equip the ring. And the bow is way more powerful than most bows you'll run into and tends to one or two hit stuff. No more after-battle healing needed, you can finally run without draining stamina (oh yeah, in Morrowind running drains your stamina), and you can take down lots of enemies in one or two shots.

Edited January 1, 2013 by Narga_Rocks

[Integrity]

All you need is 50 Alchemy (I think around that) to reveal all 4 properties to an ingredient. Maybe 60. Fortunately, with certain DLCs, there are +skill spells that you can then create your own 3 second +alchemy spell or casting item that allows you to see everything. Downside of using +intelligence or +alchemy before making potions is that your potions become absurdly powerful. Like, 20+ hit point regeneration for 2 minutes and crazy stuff like that.

Ah, so. I never got Alchemy very far, mostly because I got tired of experimenting with everything just to find new Restore Fatigue potions and my one big mage character sort of ...well, skullfuckery.

Man I love Restore Fatigue potions. Don't you?

[Narga_Rocks]

Ah, so. I never got Alchemy very far, mostly because I got tired of experimenting with everything just to find new Restore Fatigue potions and my one big mage character sort of ...well, skullfuckery.

Man I love Restore Fatigue potions. Don't you?

I got sick of making them. So many things had restore fatigue. Oh yeah, it's called fatigue not stamina. Too much dark souls.

[Integrity]

I got sick of making them. So many things had restore fatigue. Oh yeah, it's called fatigue not stamina. Too much dark souls.

I know you have fond memories of standing around in Oblivion and churning out literal hundreds of Restore Fatigue potions that sold for shit but - hey - the ingredients were cheap and they leveled the skill.

Out of curiosity, how much did you mod your Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim?

[Narga_Rocks]

I know you have fond memories of standing around in Oblivion and churning out literal hundreds of Restore Fatigue potions that sold for shit but - hey - the ingredients were cheap and they leveled the skill.

Out of curiosity, how much did you mod your Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim?

No modding at all. I'm too lazy/don't want to figure it out/like playing it the way it was made. In that order. And alchemy levels pretty fast in oblivion, but maybe that's because I'm dumb enough to make it a major skill (start with two ingredients yay). It was a pain, really, because when I wanted to make potions I had to make sure I didn't level if I wanted good stat boosts. Easier to deal with in morrowind. One spell + two items casting making over 300 alchemy for just enough time to load the menu and make a bunch of super potions. No need to make it major or minor so I didn't have to worry about leveling.

[Integrity]

No modding at all. I'm too lazy/don't want to figure it out/like playing it the way it was made. In that order. And alchemy levels pretty fast in oblivion, but maybe that's because I'm dumb enough to make it a major skill (start with two ingredients yay). It was a pain, really, because when I wanted to make potions I had to make sure I didn't level if I wanted good stat boosts.

That's actually exactly the point where I stopped playing vanilla Oblivion - I had this super Orc face smasher, went on an Alchemy binge around level 5, came out of it like level 13, and got absolutely demolished by the first thing I ran into outside of Cheydinhal.

I really hated the scaling in Oblivion. That was the only game I looked into and actually installed big overhaul mods for.

[BrightBow]

To be honest, I do consider Oblivion to be the second worst western RPG I've ever played.

One of the things hat makes those games fun, is the development of your character as you progress in levels but Oblivion doesn't have that. Sure, it has levels but it scales the enemies and their stats according to your level.

What particularly baffles me about this design decision, is the fact that the Elder Scrolls leveling engine is like the worst possible engine you could use for scaling enemies because your gains can easily vary a lot and your stats while eventually cap while the enemies will continue to grow at a steady pace.

Anyway, the problem is that it reduces the level system to a munchkin competition or else you risk that the enemies will overpower you.

The other thing is the exploration aspect and it's the exact same thing here: Everything is scaled. If you've seen a cave, you've seen them all.

Wherever you go, you will find the same enemies guarding the same generic loot. Because it all depends on your level.

Another thing is of course, the freedom and immersion. Well, there is a lot of ground to walk along but as I said, you won't find anything of interest here, because everything is scaled to your level.

As a result, freedom is essentially useless because every place is as good as anyone else.

They also completely separated the cities from it's environment. It's just like in Tribunal. I so hated that addon. After all the freedom in Morrowind, Gramveste felt just like a dungeon.

The scaling system also kills any immersion because it makes the game feel artificial. Because it's painfully obvious that everything that exist in this universe is based on you.

It doesn't feel like traveling through a world. It feels like the world gets created around you as you move.

I eventually ragequit the game. I think this was when I left the capital to the west and found two entirely identical tower ruins just a few rock throws apart from each other.

They both had the same goblin corpse hanging from the same ledge at the top of them. It looked so ridiculous. I've never played a game that felt so unreal as this one.

Edited January 1, 2013 by BrightBow

[Narga_Rocks]

That's part of the reason I liked Morrowind so much more than Oblivion. And probably why even though I have a ton of guilds and other stuff completely undone in Oblivion, I won't bother. It was fun to play through the story once and then experiment with a bit of things in a second playthrough, but if I go back to the elder scrolls it'll be morrowind.

[Gone2Ground]

I've got 400 of Oblivion. I did most of my Morrowinding before I was logging hours. :D

re: magics: I always found magic to be tremendously boringly slow to grow in Oblivion. It was pretty weighty once you finally got it somewhere, but until then you were churning through a whole bar of mana + change every fight. That and skill levels were based on how many casts you made (of any spell) so there was essentially no reason to cast big magic until you finally grew into the big magic man. The only good news is that Waiting for 1 hour (read: instantly) refills your everything to full, so if you can burn a fight down in one mana bar the waiting is essentially nothing.

I tried to play a mage in Morrowind (which b-t-w is amazing) and ended up hybridizing over into skullfuckery before I really got my magic ball rolling. Alchemy was rather fun in Morrowind, though - there was some good and some bad. The good was you weren't locked to properties on ingredients based on skill, so you could use all four from the moment your 10 Alchemy ass picked up a mushroom. The bad was that the properties were never (? spot me on this) revealed organically, leaving you to experiment (which was tedious) or memorize/make a cheat sheet/alt-tab to the wiki. On the other hand, ingredients were modestly cheap besides the super good ones, money was a bit easier to come by overall, and you could just join the Mage's Guild to get permission of EVERY MAGE'S GUILD ITEM and raid their massive stores. Or steal them, since Morrowind didn't really have a Stolen flag.

Also I took a Mage to [some high level] in Skyrim. YEAH SPAMMING DUALCAST LIGHTNING BOLT BECAUSE LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE GETS ME KILLED

but at least dualcast lightning bolt staggerlocks dragons, so there's that

re: sneaks: Sneaking in Oblivion was way less rewarding than in Skyrim, sort of because it wasn't overpowered as shit. I never really got a backstabber to work in that game, but Marksman-based Sneak was pretty cool and worked pretty well from the twenty-odd levels I played of it. Morrowind sneakery was super basic, but worked.

EDIT: god i want to play morrowind again

Morrowind magic is a bitch to play as. It does get rewarding towards the end, though, but the only combat spell you can reliably cast at the start does slightly less damage than just swinging the default iron dagger would.

Properties were revealed based on your Alchemy skill, which you level up by consuming ingrediants/making potions. You could still use the ones you weren't aware of though.

lolMorrowind Stealing

[Hawkeye]

Where there is talk of Oblivion, you will find me. I have no idea how many hours I have played on that game, but it's in the hundreds somewhere. It was the first game I completed 100% on the 360 and I read my cousin's Prima guide cover to cover more than once for fun. I own Morrowind and Skyrim too, but haven't played them as much.

Something you've probably noticed in Skyrim is that it's exceptionally easy to break the game. As a stealth character, you're probably 2-shotting giants and dragons by now if you've played a fair bit and are on normal difficulty. Basically, once your skills are high enough, it's insta-win for the rest of the game. You can get a similiar thing going on with magic thanks to dualcast stagger, but it's a bit harder. The same thing is possible in Morrowind; there's lots of crazy stuff you can do in that game to make you basically unstoppable. In Oblivion I find that there is better balancing and it's harder to get to that stage of overwhelming strength, but as people have mentioned, this balancing is really forced and artificial. When you start seeing bandits in armour sets worth thousands of Septims, it's going to feel weird. The difference between Skyrim and Morrowind in this regard is the earlygame. As a new player, Morrowind is going to kick your ass a few times until you get a feel for it. Difficulty basically goes Morrowind>Oblivion>Skyrim for new players, with Morrowind being a solid step up in difficulty from the other two. In late game, Oblivion would be the only one to still give you trouble due to the forced enemy scaling. However, in terms of actual playstyle, Oblivion is a lot closer to Skyrim. I don't know how much experience you have with the original Xbox and that generation of games, but Morrowind feels old. Basically I'd say you should definitely play Oblivion, and if you're willing to put the time and effort in, you'll enjoy Morrowind even more.

A few other differences: In Morrowind, your attacks can miss, so be ready. Enchanting is OP in Morrowind, necessary at high levels in Oblivion, and meh in Skyrim. In Oblivion, once you're wanted, guards will chase you to the end of the world and straight into hell, compared to Morrowind where they can't follow you into buildings. Skyrim has a nice middle ground in that regard. World size: Oblivion and Skyrim are pretty close to the same size, with Oblivion being a little bit smaller I believe. They both have similar forms of fast travel (but in Oblivion you can go to any city right away). Morrowind is much larger than the other two, and has limited methods of getting around quickly in comparison.

In short: this is the only series that tops Fire Emblem in my books, all the games are amazing and you can lose yourself in them for months or years if you like. Play them, love them, have fun.

[Rehab]

All of my characters ended up stealthy in Oblivion somehow, though I'm afraid I don't know the rest of the series compares. Vanilla-ish sword/board Nord, even with heavy armor never really felt as tanky as I would've hoped, and my brief forays into Redguard territory weren't much better, though I probably didn't spend as much time with that or really use the racial uniques very well, and I never tried Orcs, who're actually supposed to be the best ones at it. I think I could half-attribute that to the way the enemies leveled with me, as you guys mentioned; tons of enemies scaled more drastically than in any other game I've ever played, so while I'd get better things and better at things, it didn't really feel like I was getting stronger relative to what I faced, at least not without as much stealth use as I could manage. You can always just stop leveling by not sleeping, though, if you build for it feel like it. They called my Khajit Nighteye for many reasons

Oblivion is basically the game I got a 360 for, at the time I had never seen anything like it (or so I thought), babby's first etc. It sucked up... a lot of time for me when I first got it, but I do remember it suffering from some janky parts. There's admittedly sameness problems between the types of dungeons, but I remember many, if not all having at least something unique to them, even if it was as little as sorta unique gear or the odd note lying around. Shit could also be annoying to level, especially some of the things they got rid of for Skyrim like Athletics (*shudder*), but the upside is that if you made the right choices with race, class and birthsign, you could already be a Journeyman in some skills before you started the game. I've heard some people say they liked how, thanks to that, your character "already was somebody" in Oblivion, making it easier to roleplay them as having an established occupation there than it was starting from scratch and leveling everything at equal speeds in Skyrim, but I'm guessing the tradeoffs might have evened things out some.

One thing I've heard from close, if maybe less-than-professional sources, is that Skyrim actually has more fetch quests than any other game, Oblivion included. Another thing Oblivion might have in its favor is the guild quests; though I hear the fighters and Dark Brohood in Skyrim are none too shabby, supposedly the arc of the mage guild quest is more involved in Oblivion (necromancy scares etc), and some dudes said they greatly preferred what they basically described as the "have some fun, Robin Hood a little, plan a crazy bigass heist" Thieves Guild stuff in Oblivion to their being kind of gangland jerkasses in Skyrim, but I'd guess that one's mileage could easily vary there.

Having seen other people having dragon fights, I'm going to take a wild guess that they're more fun than excursions into Oblivion (as in Daedra sieges), Oblivion's (as in the game) overworld-shit-that-starts-popping-up-after-a-certain-point-in-the-plot and story focus. I probably found a lot of things more fun than that, though. God they took forever and pretty much every portal took you to the same damn place man don't you try and tell me it was different because of the different layouts and how you'd experience it at different levels man it was the same damn thing

Edited January 3, 2013 by Rehab

[Integrity]

One thing I've heard from close, if maybe less-than-professional sources, is that Skyrim actually has more fetch quests than any other game, Oblivion included. Another thing Oblivion might have in its favor is the guild quests; though I hear the fighters and Dark Brohood in Skyrim are none too shabby, supposedly the arc of the mage guild quest is more involved in Oblivion (necromancy scares etc), and some dudes said they greatly preferred what they basically described as the "have some fun, Robin Hood a little, plan a crazy bigass heist" Thieves Guild stuff in Oblivion to their being kind of gangland jerkasses in Skyrim, but I'd guess that one's mileage could easily vary there.

Thieves Guild and Morag Tong in Morrowind were the best. Especially Morag Tong - they gave you Jedi hand-wave writs. This was not a crime.

The Thieves Guild in Skyrim was just so ...thuggish. There was so much shit that wasn't thiefy, like roughing people up and, well, the entire overarching mystically avatars-of-Nocturne thing. I thought the quests were pretty good all the same, and restoring the Thieves Guild felt like an accomplishment, but the overall effect was running a gang.

On the other hand, I fucking loved that dude who handed you jobs and sounded like if Jason Statham were even more of a thug.

EDIT: also mage's guild in skyrim just sucked. in oblivion it wasn't great, but in skyrim it sucked. morrowind nailed that one hard.

Edited January 2, 2013 by Integrity

[peener weener]

bows are overpowered as fuck in oblivion

that's all i have to say really

i didn't find skyrim nearly as engaging as oblivion for some reason, it felt like i was playing a simplified version of the same game but with nicer graphics, a slightly smaller (?) map and a bunch of dragons. oblivion's overworld was just sort of. boring in comparison to all the pretty views and shit in skyrim.

i've never played morrowind but i've heard it's better than the ones that come next because of just how fucking open in like literally every aspect it is.

[Rehab]

Thieves Guild and Morag Tong in Morrowind were the best. Especially Morag Tong - they gave you Jedi hand-wave writs. This was not a crime.

The Thieves Guild in Skyrim was just so ...thuggish. There was so much shit that wasn't thiefy, like roughing people up and, well, the entire overarching mystically avatars-of-Nocturne thing. I thought the quests were pretty good all the same, and restoring the Thieves Guild felt like an accomplishment, but the overall effect was running a gang. On the other hand, I fucking loved that dude who handed you jobs and sounded like if Jason Statham were even more of a thug.

EDIT: also mage's guild in skyrim just sucked. in oblivion it wasn't great, but in skyrim it sucked. morrowind nailed that one hard.

bows are overpowered as fuck in oblivion

that's all i have to say really

i didn't find skyrim nearly as engaging as oblivion for some reason, it felt like i was playing a simplified version of the same game but with nicer graphics, a slightly smaller (?) map and a bunch of dragons. oblivion's overworld was just sort of. boring in comparison to all the pretty views and shit in skyrim.

i've never played morrowind but i've heard it's better than the ones that come next because of just how fucking open in like literally every aspect it is.

Arr yeah, most everything I hear about the flavor/presentation of Morrowind makes it sound awesome in that department. The closest thing I have to a real reason for hesitating to try it is that I hear there's a fucking prodigious number of awesome mods that may be too good to pass up, and I kinda forgot where my master resource for them was supposed to be.

[StrategistPockystix]

I've given the series 3 tries so far, and each time it's just disappointed me more and more.

Maybe the running through copy pasta dungeons, bare bones combat, silly AI (which can be a source of both frustration and comedic gold, on occasion) or the grind-y nature of the leveling systems just rubs me the wrong way. And don't get me started on the bugs. I have an ant problem at work, and I still think the infestation there is dwarfed by the sheer number of glitches and exploits found in even Morrowind. It boggles my mind how much worse it got in the PS3 port of Skyrim, and how it still got Game of the Year, despite being basically unplayable.

it's funny, I played Dragon's Dogma and Kingdoms of Amalur recently, and wondered; If CAPCOM could really tighten a few things up on Dark Arisen and DD2 (I say CAPCOM, since Amalur's developers are kind, well. . . dead) I could finally have a game series that satisfies my need for fast interesting combat, out-there stories (groundhog day meets Berserk? Count me in lol) and exploration through a world with different dungeons that aren't just "here's cave 009789", or "here's dwarven ruins 21432".

But that's just me, A lot of folks can get over the issues and enjoy the game for it's lore, which I can understand. I'm just gonna wait until Bethesda can make the Lore feel important, and impactful. Because everything and everyone in say; Skyrim, tells you that Alduin is the baddest motherf+cker in the world, yet you take him out in like what. . . ten attacks? It really only took me 7. . . Hell the Zombies put up a better fight, why aren't these guys bigger in the lore!?

Edited January 2, 2013 by StrategistPockystix