Skyrim - Todd Howard Interview @ EDGE

You're still not getting it. In this case (i.e. Morrowind) it IS the reason it sold less than Oblivion. Less demand, less supply. Not because it was less streamlined.

It hasn't occurred to either of you that perhaps both reasons are valid?

There was definitely a larger customer base for Oblivion, but it was also more mainstream without a doubt.

I think we're moving away from the original discussion; appeal. You believe Todd is clueless, i don't. I don't think Bioware is clueless either about their changes. I don't think there's a grand scheme behind it where they're conspiring "how do we make our games LESS appealing?" or that they're just getting more and more clueless the longer they work in this industry.

I'll still claim that there were larger sales for Oblivion moreso because of the size of the market demand. That's the same reason for Morrowind outselling Daggerfall.

And I think today's market is bigger than in Oblivions''s day. Of course, they'll claim "streamlined innovative gameplay" created better Skyrim sales.

The streamlining is BS mind control hype for reducing implementation costs… You can always have easy settings that reduce the complexity if need be… Of course, that would cost more money though...

JDR13 said:

In your opinion perhaps, but I think we've been through that already.

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Yeah, I don't want to rehash the whole thing. In any event, my opinion is that media quality is all opinion, relatively. I guess you could say certain aspects of one game are objectively better or worse.

Oblivion's writing is terrible for example. Anyone who disagrees is stupid! LOL.

More hardcore / less sales <--> less hardcore / more sales isn't the only vector in this. I appreciate you'll all deride this opinion but Morrowind had terrible combat, stiff characters and poor dungeons. It does many things wrong but Oblivion had better characters, better combat and far more creative quests. It's quite possible a few people preferred those changes, irrespective of the softcore/hardcore debate.

I also think it had much better graphics. And pretty graphics sell, especially to new players.

Dhruin said:

More hardcore / less sales <—> less hardcore / more sales isn't the only vector in this. I appreciate you'll all deride this opinion but Morrowind had terrible combat, stiff characters and poor dungeons. It does many things wrong but Oblivion had better characters, better combat and far more creative quests. It's quite possible a few people preferred those changes, irrespective of the softcore/hardcore debate.

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I agree, except for the part about more interesting quests and characters - neither game did those things very well so it's kind of a tie for mediocrity in my book . Let me also add that I love Morrowind (as you can probably tell by my rpgwatch name ) and it would be in my list of top 10 favorite RPGs; Oblivion would not be in this list. However, Oblivion did some things better than Morrowind (such as combat), and with just a few mods to take care of the "softcore" issues, is a better game overall. The one thing that Oblivion failed at for me personally when it comes to comparing it to Morrowind is the atmosphere of the gameworld and a few other more minor issues (that admittedly add up over time to prevent it from being anywhere near as memorable as Morrowind).

I don't think that Oblivion is a great game by any means, but in a lot of ways, neither is Morrowind - it's just that Morrowind was much more memorable for me and the flaws were much more forgivable than Oblivion's because the strengths outweighed the weaknesses to a larger degree. That and the fact that Morrowind's atmosphere/setting was so incredibly unique that it left a very strong lasting impression. But I still enjoyed Oblivion.

Dhruin said:

More hardcore / less sales <—> less hardcore / more sales isn't the only vector in this. I appreciate you'll all deride this opinion but Morrowind had terrible combat, stiff characters and poor dungeons. It does many things wrong but Oblivion had better characters, better combat and far more creative quests. It's quite possible a few people preferred those changes, irrespective of the softcore/hardcore debate.

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That's another reason nothing can be objectively bad in my opinion. It depends on your priorities. If your main priority is combat then Oblivion is a ten times better game than Morrowind.

Has anyone observed that Oblivion is actually a very exciting game for those that don't have a master's degree in RPG studies? I know a few people that would only rarely touch a computer but somehow got into Oblivion and when I see how much fun they have with it, it makes me think it's all worth it.

I must have missed all the gameplay options other than combat. Morrowind didn't do stealth better, it didn't do dialogue better, it didn't offer a diplomatic path (that I am aware of)…combat certainly isn't a priority for me but when I don't have other options, I might as well enjoy that. Actually, I played a stealth-based character in Oblivion and I found that moderately well done - certainly better than MW, so it wasn't all about combat by any means.

Some of the things Morrowind did better…

Level scaling that was far less obvious, more unique hand-placed artifacts, less generic fantasy world, more factions/guilds, main quest was a lot more interesting (imo), architecture was more varied from region to region…

I agree both with Dhruin and Nerevarines reply. Oblivion was better in many gameplay elements, including things that are not just about shiny and action - I think there was a lot of imaginative and fun writing in the sidequests, compared to Morrowind, e.g. It really came down to the gameworld not hooking me, and certain design elements (quest pointers and popups, no faction exclusivity) getting in the way of how I like to play. I'm not an Oblivion hater, I got my money's worth out of the game, but it left me unenthusiastic.

Seems I don't often agree with Dhruin, but I think he's pretty spot on here.

Morrowind just can't compete with Oblivion in terms of execution. Oblivion is definitely more casual, but it's also a much more consistently well done game.

Morrowind features one of the worst combat systems in any RPG - ever. Considering how much of it there is, that's a very bad thing.

I clearly recall several journalists bashing the combat as nothing but a click-fest during demonstrations, which didn't seem to go down well with Todd at all. I think he expected them to salivate at the beauty of the game. They did - but it should tell you something of how bad the combat really is.

Oblivion is a MUCH more exciting and visceral experience. Archery and stealth were both handled infinitely better as well. You can criticise Radiant AI all you want, but it's still FAR better than the cardboard roaming NPCs in Morrowind. I could go on.

I don't disagree that Morrowind is a better RPG from an enthusiast viewpoint - if we ignore how dreary it was as an experience - but it's not just a casual vs hardcore thing.

Hell must be freezing over - that's exactly where I'm coming from D'Artagnan. I can absolutely understand why many enthusiasts might prefer MW but I get rather tired of OB getting treated as like Barbie's Horsie Adventures in Tamriel. It's far from a great game in my opinion, but it's also a better game than MW and perhaps it sold better at least partially as a result.

For the record, I'm not much of a fan of any Bethsoft game. I got about 50 hours out of both of them - enough to feel satisfied with my purchase - but none of them are among my favourites.

@JDR, MW did many things better but none of those (save scaling, perhaps) are related to gameplay modes, which we were talking about.

For the record, I'm not much of a fan of any Bethsoft game. I got about 50 hours out of both of them - enough to feel satisfied with my purchase - but none of them are among my favourites.

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Have you tried any of the significant mods for Oblivion?

I had much the same experience as you did, before I found some of the great stuff done by the community.

Still not a game that compares to Gothic/Risen - but it's close enough to be worth it - to my mind.

I still plan to replay Oblivion with lots of mods and the shivering isles expansion. Not for the main quest though, I am not going through those Oblivion towers again (unless there is a great mod for those parts?). But I have so many other games waiting to be played that mustering the will to sort through the mods, and installing them, and making sure they work together has been a challenge. I started the process several times now, and always stopped short of actually playing. Which mods did you use, D'art?

Dhruin said:

@JDR, MW did many things better but none of those (save scaling, perhaps) are related to gameplay modes, which we were talking about.

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Understood, but neither are characters or dungeons, which were mentioned earlier. My point was only that both games do certain things better than the other.

I've never played very far into Oblivion. Who knows.. with the right mods, I might even enjoy it more than I did Morrowind. What I do know is that I found the vanilla game to be a poor experience for me, while I was able to enjoy Morrowind without ever using a single mod.

GhanBuriGhan said:

I still plan to replay Oblivion with lots of mods and the shivering isles expansion. Not for the main quest though, I am not going through those Oblivion towers again (unless there is a great mod for those parts?). But I have so many other games waiting to be played that mustering the will to sort through the mods, and installing them, and making sure they work together has been a challenge. I started the process several times now, and always stopped short of actually playing. Which mods did you use, D'art?

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Oh, I used way too many to list here.

But, in my opinion, the most important ones are the non-scaling mods and the leveling system mods. Beyond that - you should find some mods to complement your character build. I always go for a stealthy guy - and most often an archer.

I used Francesco's non-scaling mod - and "Oblivion XP", which turns Oblivion into a traditional RPG in terms of getting XP for defeating monsters, exploring, completing quests and so on - and you can assign points to skills manually. I MUCH prefer that to "Blade increased from 23 to 24."

I'm also a huge fan of the Deadly Combat mod - which adds a ton of different combat moves and powers, which are balanced quite reasonably. You can make visual critical hits with all kinds of weapons - and you can "assassinate" people with a knife and so on.

There's a mod called… hmm… "Stealth Overhaul" I believe - which changes a few vital things. It makes stealth more realistic and it makes archery more feasible as a stealth combat approach.

But there are MANY great mods out there. I probably used 30-40 for my playthrough about a year ago.

A few of the main weaknesses of "Oblivion without mods" remain, and they are the engine, the writing, and the NPCs. The engine, whilst much better than the one in Morrowind, is starting to show its age and it "streams content" VERY poorly compared with modern engines. You get tons of hugely distracting pop-ups, and it takes a while to adjust. The NPCs keep their awkward stiffness/look and the small amount of shared voices. The bad feel of NPCs also largely comes from actors performing out of context. It seems they're basically just reading lines without actually acting. That's a truly awful mistake - because you can't emotionally invest in a desperate/tense moment if the person you're talking to is acting like it's tuesday at work by the water-cooler.

Those few things keep a modded Oblivion from truly comparing with the best of the genre.

Incidentally, Fallout 3 (and NV) fixed much of that - and that's why a fully modded Fallout 3 is a pretty damn fantastic game.

Thrasher said:

Sales does not equal appeal.

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They do.

But many people make the mistake of equiating ppeal = quality.

We have a saying/proverb here in Germany : "Millions of Flies cannot be/go wrong".
What what do real-life flies usually like : Yes, that's it.

So much about quality …

(But on the other hand - this is what fits to flies - other animals might have difference expectations of "quality", Pandas, for example, eat only a very fine selection of bamboo plants, and Koalas also have a highl specialized diet.
Regarding Humans, this could mean : some prefer Rolex, hereas others are content with no-name products as long as they work. Or Burger King/McDonalds vs. the proverbial French Quisine.)