Originally Posted by crpgnut
One thing that Bethesda games have all missed, is the feeling of friendship. In all of their games, there isn't any NPC's you feel like you've truly developed a relationship with.

Dogmeat was one of the best friends I've ever had. I could accidentally shoot him in the ass while he was fighting a Super Mutant, and he still loved me.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
One thing that Bethesda games have all missed, is the feeling of friendship. In all of their games, there isn't any NPC's you feel like you've truly developed a relationship with..

That is such a good point! I think that's one of the things that makes their games feel "gamey". Everything revolves around you.

Anyway, Morrowind is one of my favorite games of all time, warts and all so it got my vote. Together with Tribunal and Bloodmoon, it just makes for a still impressive gameworld and experience.

However, I have to mention that I may be changing my opinion of Oblivion. I've hated it for a long time but recently picked it up for the 360 and am actually enjoying it. It's no Morrowind, not even close, but after deciding to ignore the voice acting, some of the dialogue, all the hand holding and the level scaling, I have to say the majority of quests (aside from the main quest) are pretty entertaining.

I guess I have certain expectations when I play a PC RPG and playing this on the 360 I just lowered my genre expectations and am thinking of it as an action/adventure with RPG elements instead of a hardcore RPG. It's a good couch game: playing it on my 42" LCD with the 5.1 sound cranked up, it can get immersive at times.

I still managed to get a little bored in between quests though, the world is nowhere as fascinating to explore as Morrowind but I have to say quests in general are improved greatlyfrom Morrowind and I just had to give it another chance to discover that aspect.

And from the short time I spent with Daggerfall, I would say Oblivion feels more like it than Morrowind.

I always thought that people undersell Oblivion. I am largely unable to pick a favorite between it and Morrowind, and strictly storylinewise Morrowind does win. But at the same time, Oblivion made huge advances in gameplay mechanics, both for the series and games in general. For example, archery in Morrowind was little more than an exercise in futility. One could expend quiver-fulls of arrows at a single target and hit only twice at low skill levels. Oblivion made it a useful and enjoyable tactic.

Rather than nitpick about what either game did wrong, I just want to see Skyrim include the best of both.

I'm afraid I have yet to play any others of the series, I have tried to play both Daggerfall and Arena, but neither would work properly for me.

Originally Posted by Heronblade
I always thought that people undersell Oblivion.

Considering it is one of the 'poster children' for a game that had review text listing nearly countless flaws with a 10/10 score slapped on it, it is hard to back that up.

But considering it is also considered somewhat of a joke amongst RPG fans for just how much IS broken or fundamentally flawed, and how quickly Bethesda used it as a whipping boy when describing just how awesome Fallout 3 would be … perhaps you have a point …

Originally Posted by txa1265
and how quickly Bethesda used it as a whipping boy when describing just how awesome Fallout 3 would be..

Isn't it funny how quickly companies will shit on a product that they previously hyped…for the sake of PR for their newest product? Maybe Bioware stole a page from Bethesda recently..

Originally Posted by JDR13
Isn't it funny how quickly companies will shit on a product that they previously hyped…for the sake of PR for their newest product? Maybe Bioware stole a page from Bethesda recently..

Personally - and perhaps I'm just not remembering correctly - I don't feel that Bethesda is among the worst offenders in this regard. Of course, there is always a very thin line between stating honest self-criticism (a good thing) and bashing a previous game in order to build up an upcoming project. Mike Laidlaw and co. sure did a good job of the latter recently…

Originally Posted by Relayer
However, I have to mention that I may be changing my opinion of Oblivion. I've hated it for a long time but recently picked it up for the 360 and am actually enjoying it. It's no Morrowind, not even close, but after deciding to ignore the voice acting, some of the dialogue, all the hand holding and the level scaling, I have to say the majority of quests (aside from the main quest) are pretty entertaining.

Yes, if one ignores all tis major faults, it is a nice game. Errr…

Regarding friendships. Humm. Ok on the Gothic level, but please no chatterboxes as in Biowares games. (Not that I dislike that, but they belong to those games, I'd rather not have that in a TES game.)

What's worse is discontinuing support for previous games, to pump up interest in the next. NWN 2 vs. NWN 1. Atari, I will never forgive you.

Morrowind was the most boring, repetitive game I have ever played. It really was a pile of crap. It was so bad I was too scarred to even think about playing Oblivion.

Originally Posted by Ryder
Morrowind was the most boring, repetitive game I have ever played. It really was a pile of crap. It was so bad I was too scarred to even think about playing Oblivion.

So your favourite was Redguard? All the others were even more repetitive than Morrowind.

Just loaded up Morrowwind on my Brand New core I7 rig and the vanilla game is still very very playable. Graphics of course are far behind the times, and the dialoge tree is somewhat monotonous, but I found myself playing for about 2 hours and having fun. I think I'll just use the in game exploits and see where that takes me. Flying Avatar, Here I come.

BTW, do I have to be a certain level to play Tribunal or Bloodmoon?

Originally Posted by Dajjer
BTW, do I have to be a certain level to play Tribunal or Bloodmoon?

No, but those areas will be more difficult for a low level character.

Originally Posted by JDR13
No, but those areas will be more difficult for a low level character.

In particular the boss fights at the end of their main quests. But you can always come back to those later when you are levelled up.

I remember starting a new game once and going straight to Solstheim without grabbing anything on the way. The only rules I set for myself was that I couldn't leave the island before I completed all the quests there. It was quite the challenge.

Oh and anyone playing the game now I wold strongly recommend graphics mods of which there are many, or better yet, get a pack the brings them all together in one place like this one: http://morrowindoverhaul.net

definately oblivion

haters gunna hate

Originally Posted by azarhal
I can't pick!

Oblivion had lots of improvements, but lacked "something".
Morrowind had the "something" in spade, but didn't "age" well.
Daggerfall had a better fast travel system, gear system and main quest "branching"…and lots of bugs and "random".

Similar here.

I prefer to refer to those games to assess the evolution of the genre. To see how the genre is progressing while technology adds more and more means.

Thinking of Daggerfall which must weight around 200Mo, the magnitude of its world and the wished complexity, the less numerous mod opportunities to today games weighting 4 to 7 Go.

Daggerfall's fast travel was the stub of an abstracted transportation system. Later games switched for teleportation mode.

Skyrim is supposed to introduce a transportation system. We'll see.

Originally Posted by Heronblade
I always thought that people undersell Oblivion. I am largely unable to pick a favorite between it and Morrowind, and strictly storylinewise Morrowind does win. But at the same time, Oblivion made huge advances in gameplay mechanics, both for the series and games in general. For example, archery in Morrowind was little more than an exercise in futility. One could expend quiver-fulls of arrows at a single target and hit only twice at low skill levels. Oblivion made it a useful and enjoyable tactic.

In the case of Archery in Morrowind, I agree. Morrowind had a very misled implementation of the "To Hit" mechanic, which was otherwise a 100% Roleplaying element by making its success depend almost entirely on character skill but failed in practice.

Oblivion on the other hand, is reduced to being a "shooter" game because there is no Roleplaying in there, your "character" is only a medium for your own skill as a player. Whether you hit or not depends on your manual dexterity, so there is only you, your weapon and your mouse. Absolutely no different than a shooter game.

So, ideally, both are equally bad in my opinion and what Oblivion did with archery is far from an improvement. It's merely a rehashing of a common shooter element. They don't even try to bring something new to the table to unite player and character skill in a meaningful way. Not to mention that Daggerfall already does it better.

So apart from that, I would like to know more about what I have failed to notice with this game. Please share with us the these huge advances in gameplay mechanics that Oblivion made.

Originally Posted by ChienAboyeur
…Skyrim is supposed to introduce a transportation system. We'll see.

You mean fast but physical transport? In fact Morrowind had that isn't it?

About Oblivion quests I could agree their story was in general quite good and above the usual standards. But I disagree they was that good, their mechanism had a tendency to not work well and be cursed by the follow the cursor thing. But few of the best was still probably overall better than those of Morrowind.

What killed me Oblivion are, the world that tend to be not be well filled, the world lack of mood, the empty dungeons, the main story I found very tedious and artificial, the awful repetition of hell gates, the fights not enough fun, the cursor making most quest boring. Even horses I found quite fun at first quickly bored me because of the hassle to take it, leave it, take it, leave it. It resulted in an awful mechanism making exploration even more boring. With all of that the few good or even great secondary quests don't weight much.

But from the commercial communication of Skyrim I switch between zero hope from Bethesda to a rising curiosity for Skyrim. At least for the world mood this problem seems targeted in Skyrim. I don't like much the use of dragons planed but I could survive that.

Originally Posted by Motoki
Oh and anyone playing the game now I wold strongly recommend graphics mods of which there are many, or better yet, get a pack the brings them all together in one place like this one: http://morrowindoverhaul.net

You know, I tried a couple times, but I never played Morrowind beyond an hour or two into the original campaign. The demo video for that mod pack makes it look enticing all over again - perhaps after The Witcher 2.

Originally Posted by Motoki
I remember starting a new game once and going straight to Solstheim without grabbing anything on the way. The only rules I set for myself was that I couldn't leave the island before I completed all the quests there. It was quite the challenge.

Oh and anyone playing the game now I wold strongly recommend graphics mods of which there are many, or better yet, get a pack the brings them all together in one place like this one: http://morrowindoverhaul.net

Is this directly some .exe file I simply have to install and not try to separately instal every single mod?