[z e w b]

The last Elder Scrolls related thread sank, and I've been playing a lot of Morrowind lately, so let's discuss the games. First of all, I love these games because they are the few games where you can experience freedom. You can steal from anyone. You can kill anyone (except in Oblivion.) You can do nearly anything you want. You don't feel like doing the main quest? Don't do it. Want to keep playing after you finally beat the main quest? Go right ahead. Also the graphics in Oblivion are simply outstanding. I don't think I've seen grass and trees look better in any game.

Also, I'd like to talk about some of the annoyances in Oblivion and Morrowind. I really like them both, but there's things in them that bother me. First of all, in Morrowind, the combat is really bad. Basically you stand directly in front of your enemy and tap the attack button until one of you dies, and if your agility is low, except to hear an annoying WOOSH sound randomly which signifies that you missed, despite swinging a sword directly at your enemy who is standing perfectly still. They also took out the fast travel feature from Daggerfall, which normally wouldn't be so bad, except you slowly lose fatigue when you run, and eventually when it goes to zero, you run very slowly. The sneaking system was very bad too; people would see you for no reason. Also, a lot of the faces/hairstyles in the character creation part look stupid.

Thankfully, they fixed these problems in Oblivion, but they also decided to remove a lot of stuff. You can't levitate anymore. There's no crossbows, spears, or throwing weapons. You can't simply stroll in and out of towns anymore; you have to go through a gate and a loading screen. And there's lots of bugs. A lot of quests can become unbeatable because of certain bugs. Fortunately, some of the bugs are cool, especially the duplication glitch. One of my main problems with Oblivion is the dungeon you start in. It takes too damn long to go through it all. They should have given you an option to skip the whole tutorial part and get out there. Of course the worst part of Oblivion is the leveling system. At low levels you can only buy shitty armor and you can only fight weak creatures and you are limited to how many times you can train, so leveling up is a slow process. I don't like being forced to play the game at a certain pace; I want to level up as fast as I want. Also, despite having gorgeous graphics, the water looks kinda funky.

[SimeSublime]

Personally, I quite like the setting. For instance, there isn't any space. The planet is just wrapped in the darkness of Oblivion. Likewise, stars aren't balls of burning gas, but rather holes in Oblivion that the light of Aetherius shines through. And those galaxies and other phenomenon that you can see in the night sky? They're the distant realms of the various Daedric Princes.

[Spoon Poetic]

That's not the actual physics of the realm though, right? Isn't it folklore and mythology? But I haven't played much Oblivion so I might be way off, since I don't know that plot.

And I could have sworn that you could skip that dungeon at the beginning of Oblivion. The one time I played it, I pretty much just played through the dungeon and a tiny bit past that. I played through the dungeon because the person whose game I was borrowing said it was a good idea, because then you'll actually have some stuff in your inventory when you get to town. But this was like 2 years ago so again, I could be way off.

Morrowind, though, I played tons. Never managed to beat the main quest, though - it bored me. I loved to just explore. I loved the alchemy. How cool! It was like real alchemy, in that you can't just throw random crap together and get some kinda potion, like in some games. You actually have to know what things do. And you learn as your character learns, and you can bring that over to other characters that don't know alchemy, ha.

I liked the lack of fast travel. There was enough just with that giant bug thing, and the warping mages. Otherwise you were forced to rough the terrain :-P And I liked that feel.

Man, I wish I had time for this stuff. This summer I'm going to have to get Oblivion.

[ion eon]

Those games changed my life
all together i sware to god i've played them over 5,000 hours
yes spoon, you do need to get Oblivion

One thing i would like to add, is, despite the bugs, Oblivion is probably the greatest game I've played. The graphics, the realism, the scope, the characters. Aside from a few annoying limitations, its a truly great game.

[David-kyo]

I preferred Morrowind to Oblivion. First of all, you can download a lot of mods for Morrowind that enhance the graphics (Better Bodies and Better Heads are compulsory, but you might also want to go for the mod that enhances the clothes' textures, I forget its name), the skills are a lot more versatile, you're actually motivated to enhance them, and you can't create an Übermensch in a couple of days like in Oblivion (seriously, I maxed out my character's every major skill and some of its misc. skills in less than a week), so your character is a lot more believable. It's stupid that in Oblivion you're better off leaving the skills you use most among misc. because otherwise you'd level up too fast and get little bonus for doing so, and there's too much simplification. The main quest was also short, completely unoriginal and way too predictable. The characters all looked and sounded alike. People were praising the fully voiced dialogue system, but what does that entail? A lot less dialogue which is a lot more generic. The game's world is also a lot smaller than that of Morrowind which made me go WTF because Cyrodiil is supposed to be, I dunno, ten times as big as Vvardenfell? The fast travel option looks like a soft cheat to me, for lazy people they should have implemented some sort of taxi system, because this way players aren't really motivated to explore, which is a shame, since the world is really beautifully made. There isn't even a time limit (thank god), then why should you be able to fast travel to cities you've never been to? WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?! (to quote that annoying cunt from New Jersey)
Yeah, so my problem with Oblivion is that it was too much dumbed down, but the amazing graphics and the superior fighting redeemed it in my eyes somewhat. Speaking of fighting, I heard something about a Morrowind mod that would drastically change the game's battle system to something more enjoyable, maybe it's worth checking out.

Brain droppings over, enjoy the games.

This post has been edited by David-kyo: 18 April 2008 - 05:27 PM

[z e w b]

Yeah I never understood why you could fast travel to all the major cities you've never been to. Fast travel saves you a lot of time, but it kind of keeps you from actually exploring the world. I kind of liked how in Morrowind you start off with an empty map and you have no idea where anything is.

Also, on the subject of mods, If you have Oblivion for PC, search for a mod called Natural Environments. It makes the game look a lot better.

This post has been edited by z e w b: 18 April 2008 - 06:50 PM

[Slade]

Vanilla Oblivion also forces you to level up the skills you don't use very often before your major skills so that you can get better stat bonuses, which you will need because when you level up, every enemy in the entire game levels up with you, until you're getting ambushed by bandits in all glass armor.

Oblivion was pretty and had a nice engine and decent combat system, but the worlds, story, and gameplay of Morrowind and Daggerfall were infinitely better.

[SimeSublime]

That's not the actual physics of the realm though, right? Isn't it folklore and mythology?

Actually, that is the real physics. Another thing that I love about the games is that the deities (both Aedra and Daedra) are neither good nor evil. Sure, some seem better then others, but they all have morally good and bad sides.

The game's world is also a lot smaller than that of Morrowind which made me go WTF because Cyrodiil is supposed to be, I dunno, ten times as big as Vvardenfell?

It's not actually that much bigger than Vardenfall:
http://upload.wikime...lmap_center.gif
But it still is portrayed as far too small in Oblivion.
And I'd like to agree with the comments on the fast travel and leveling being much better done in Morrowind, but I don't really have anything orrigional to add to that.

[Spoon Poetic]

So as soon as school lets out I'm installing Oblivion. Are there any good patches you guys would recommend for it? Not silly ones like naked people or raining pies, I mean ones that actuall enhance gameplay or graphics or something.

[David-kyo]

I don't think you really need to enhance the graphics at all, they're pretty enough by default, although you might want to check out the gameplay-affecting mods on the official homepage. I really can't say which you should try, because most of them cater for particular groups of people who want to change a particular thing in the game they didn't like. Personally, I would prefer if they had modded the game to use the Morrowind skill system and insert new weapon types, but I didn't find one before I deleted it.

Yeah, I was exaggerating about the map sizes, but ok, Cyrodiil is 3 times as big as Vvardenfell then. Although it still doesn't invalidate my point. Guess there must have been technical reasons behind the smaller map.

[SimeSublime]

Yeah, too much shiny, not enough substance.

[Sina]

Bumping this thread because I'm a sucker for T.E.S. and ... well, that's basically it.

One of my main problems with Oblivion is the dungeon you start in. It takes too damn long to go through it all. They should have given you an option to skip the whole tutorial part and get out there.

If you want to skip it because you want more than one character and you don't wanna go through it again, or if you start a character and want other skills because you chose shit skills without realizing it (or whatever reason you'd have to wanna restart) - you know you can just save at the end of the dungeon where you chose everything, right? That way you can just load that and chose skills, race and blahblah all over again.
I don't think the dungeon is too long really, but I hate when the emperor gets killed. Ok, so I get that he's supposed to die and you're not supposed to save him and all that, but they did that in such a shitty way: you could kill the assassins prior to the emperor's death fairly easily, but when they pop out the secret door (and it's also too fucking obvious that's going to happen) he dies on the first plonk of the assassin's sword. I mean, wtf? And would the guards really leave the emperor alone with a prisoner? ...I'm just saying.

Regardless, Morrowind and Oblivion are my favorite games ever. I'd say I prefer Oblivion, because the world map is more impressive. I guess you could say everything is very repetitive and looks the same everywhere, whereas Morrowind has different terrain and climate depending on the region... but somehow I liked wandering around Cyrodiil more than Vvardenfell. Freelance quests are better in Oblivion, too. Most freelance things in Morrowind were "help, help - I need escort", "help, help, someone stole my something-or-other", "help, help - take this here and here"... But on the other hand, I like the factions a bit better in Morrowind. Especially the Dunmer houses and stuff... and the Mage's Guild was SHIT in Oblivion.
I hate how you can cheat the main quest in Morrowind too. Everything is there before you've activated anything. Like, the ring of moon and star - you can go get that the minute you get off the boat in Seyda Neen; I guess you could say it's somewhat "realistic" that the ring is there and all without activating the quest, but that lets you cheat, which is retarded. There's a video of some guy beating the main quest in like 15 minutes because he just mixed millions of potions to make himself awesome, and then levitated to get Keening and Sunder and... well, basically levitated past everything. I guess that's something most people WON'T do, but I still like that you can't in Oblivion.

I agree with what whoever said about the leveling system in Oblivion too. It also doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you put restoration, destruction and alchemy as major skills, and then just walk around healing yourself or throwing a fire ball (if you're not around other people, lol) where ever you go and pick every flower you see, sometimes stopping to mix a crap potion, your skills will go up without really doing anything - it wasn't that easy in Morrowind.


And as an end note, I think it's fucking awesome that Sean Bean has the voice of Martin in Oblivion.

[Spoon Poetic]

I like that it wasn't that easy to level up in Morrowind, and I also like that you could "cheat" if you wanted to. It was realistic that way and I prefer that. However I also am a staunch believer in not looking up details of the game until you've already beaten it, gotten bored with it, or get REALLY stuck - so for me, if I accidentally happened upon something before "normal," it would be like, this awesome realistic surprise - because I didn't know it was there and go looking for it, I just explored and found something. In Oblivion though, no amount of fun exploring ever amounts to anything until you are already in the higher levels, because everything levels with you.

[Sina]

I like that it wasn't that easy to level up in Morrowind, and I also like that you could "cheat" if you wanted to. It was realistic that way and I prefer that. However I also am a staunch believer in not looking up details of the game until you've already beaten it, gotten bored with it, or get REALLY stuck - so for me, if I accidentally happened upon something before "normal," it would be like, this awesome realistic surprise - because I didn't know it was there and go looking for it, I just explored and found something. In Oblivion though, no amount of fun exploring ever amounts to anything until you are already in the higher levels, because everything levels with you.

Well, I guess so, but there are some really nasty disadvantages to the whole stumbling-upon-things possibility. For example if you're (like me) not a fan of doing the main quest at the very beginning of the game, and you somewhere along the lines decide to loot the Dwemer ruin you're supposed to go to at the very beginning of the main quest... if you then happen to pick up that cube-thing (as a quick note, I had some serious issues finding that cube first time I did it) you need for that guy in the Fighter's Guild and drop it somewhere, sell it, throw it into Mount Doom or whatever you feel like doing with it, you're going to have some issues later on. If you kill someone relevant to the main quest storyline, you get a warning about it, but objects like that don't (as far as I know).

The only time I looked something up on the internet for a T.E.S. game was in the main quest of of the Tribunal expansion, when you have to go activate something underground for that... God, or whatever she is. I seriously couldn't figure anything out, and I was pissed off beyond belief.
Oh, and yeah - I had to read up on the puzzle in the last Oblivion gate, with the huge thing. :/

[Dr Lecter]

I've played Oblivion quite abit, and well... it gets very, very boring after the first... 60 hours... I've managed to stick it out to about 120hours... but I haven't been able to pick the game up since.

Morrowind however, I just haven't been able to get into enough to get that far, but... just don't get the feeling I'm going to get bored when I do get around to it. Normally my game will consist of just running around punching people until I get arrest, and then I'll play something else.