Unicorn Lynx (181775) on 5/31/2007 1:01 AM · Permalink · Report

[Q --start Drunken Irishman wrote--]So far as I can tell fans really hate the later games for small gimmicky reasons... like Oblivion is a bad game because it has a compass or whatever.[/Q --end Drunken Irishman wrote--] LOL, how typical!

I hate fans.

Daniel Saner (3503) on 6/10/2007 1:21 PM · Permalink · Report

I'm an Elder Scrolls fan, have played all the games, but none for longer than a few hours. Sounds incredibly stupid and probably is, but you'd have to know my weird ways to understand. (Another example: I have a collection of about 150 movies on DVD, about half of which I have never seen).

Personally, I consider Morrowind my favourite, then Daggerfall, Arena and Oblivion. Not meaning I don't like Oblivion, I still consider it one of my favourite games.

One of the reasons is the size. You probably won't understand this either, but everyone seems to like the fact that Oblivion had a smaller but more vivid, active, busy world. But the kind of epic vastness of the older games is something I actually quite liked. It might make you travel a lot, but it gives a better impression of a real world for you to explore, in contrast to just a big game level to wander around in. Remember the almost endless surface world of Arena?

Then again, my list of descending preference is about the same as the descending list of hours I played each game, so maybe I would change my mind if I actually played the things for once.

KazikluBey (181) on 7/17/2007 1:30 PM · Permalink · Report

[Q --start Drunken Irishman wrote--]So far as I can tell fans really hate the later games for small gimmicky reasons... like Oblivion is a bad game because it has a compass or whatever.[/Q --end Drunken Irishman wrote--] Uh, no. Let me put it down here for you: The Elder Scrolls: Arena was pretty much as a first-person rogue-like. I haven't really played it past the starting dungeon, so I can't say much about it.

With Daggerfall they expanded on Arena - there were huge randomized dungeons, randomized quests, randomized NPCs, a non-linear main-quest, you needed to actually work your way up in guild hierarchies since time had meaning (you lost standing if you didn't do quests for them), and quest objectives wouldn't stand there waiting for you for years. It had problems with bugs and loads of planned features didn't make it into the game.

With Morrowind, instead of building on and improving Daggerfall they threw all that stuff out the door, created a completely hand-made world, static and linear quests and questlines, made the passing of time meaningless, removed lots of skills, the gameworld was a tiny fraction of Daggerfall's, f the dungeons of Daggerfall were much too large and maze-like then the dungeons of Morrowind were much too small and railroaded, they removed the dialog system and replaced it with an encyclopedia, tried a new much worse combat system (probably to make it work with the Xbox control) and so on. On the positive side, they managed to make the gameworld quite believable, with politicking, power struggles, a bit of racism, a lot of new lore and such. Quest objectives were more varied, sometimes with their own little stories, and I would put their traveling system here. Instead of the "click on map"-system of previous and later installments you went either to a harbor, silt-strider or mage guild and paid for travel (or the mark and recall spells). Anyway, since they completely changed the core design I believe they lost quite a few of the old Elder Scrolls fans, but that didn't matter so much since they managed to create a whole new fanbase, partly on the Xbox.

With Oblivion they reduced the amount of skills even more, introduced full voice acting with too few voice actors, kept the same sort of dialog system as in Morrowind, but they only gave you a few topics, so you couldn't learn from NPCs about the gameworld. The gameworld itself was generic high fantasy, with almost no new lore and books (in fact, old lore says Cyrodiil should be tropical - its new role is that of farmland, yet the gameworld isn't even believably farmed). Full level scaling was introduced meaning you could do any and everything at level 1 which removed all feeling of progress, and all skill/attribute requirements were removed from factions, so you don't even need to be good at melee combat to rise in the fighters guild. Due to the level scaling, the hundreds of dungeons were all boring and pointless as well, since the equipment you find is also completely level scaled - in Morrowind you could find some really neat items simply by exploring. The gameworld is about as small as Morrowind, yet the Daggerfall kind of fast-travel was introduced, they don't even pretend to use the rivers for trade or transportation. The quest compass that reveals any and everything of interest in the vicinity destroyed any feeling of exploration (and no, disabling it with an interface mod is not an option, since you don't get a description of where to go from quest givers). Any last bit of choice and consequence existing in Morrowind (you could only join one of the great houses, for example) was also thrown out the window in Oblivion where nothing you do has any consequence - so it's is even more linear. You can't even say no to accepting quests! Oh, and a list of complaints wouldn't be complete without "Radiant AI" from the previews - guess what? The AI of the previews is not in the game, and all NPC routines are scripted like in so many other games, not "needs based". Among the good points is that combat has been improved over Morrowind's and the quests have even more "personality" and quirks. From what I understand, they lost quite a few Morrowind fans who were disappointed with Oblivion. I suppose I could be said to be one of them (Morrowind was my first TES game).

So to answer the OP's question, I prefer Morrowind to Oblivion's blandness.

St. Martyne (3648) on 7/19/2007 5:40 PM · Permalink · Report

[Q --start Drunken Irishman wrote--] I´d say FALL 2008 will see Duke Nukem 3D meets Fallout 2 New Reno, with Liam Neeson playing a fatherly guy. [/Q --end Drunken Irishman wrote--]

Glad, there's still Fallout in there, somewhere. :) Although, seriously, you're oversimplifying things a bit. From what I've read and heard I am pretty positive that Bethesda is trying to deliver a quality Fallout experience. Just not sure, if they're up to the task.

As for violence Fallouts were no kiddy games. You could actually see the ribs of your enemies crushing into dust during occasional critical shots. And that's from an isometric perspective! I ain't so certain they have the guts to recreate that in first-person.