Do you prefer Oblivion or Morrowind?

Which of these two elder scrolls games do you prefer. For me this is a hard choice, Oblivion has its amazing gameplay and graphics engine, but Morrowind to me seems more detailed, theres more to do and the enviroments are varied, but the combat isnt as good.

So its a hard one for me.

What do you think?

Morrowind is the reason I decided to get an Xbox in the first place and I cant even count how many hours I had put in that game. It immediatly became one of my favorite games of all time.

I was so hyped for Oblivion when I heard it was being made and picked it up the day it came out and again began putting many hours into it.

Obviously Oblivions combat is much better, but at the same time I actually liked that in Morrowind how you had to get good at wahtever it was you were training with to actually be able to use it effectivley. I still prefer Oblivions though.

I also had quite a bit of small complaints about things changed in Oblivion but they have slowly grown on me and its hard to even remember what they are now. This is a very hard choice, because they are both great games, but I dont think anyone who starts off with Oblivoin would enjoy playing Morrowind afterwards.

Overall, anyone who played Morrowind before Oblivion knows how epic the game is. Morrowind is still my personal favorite just because the amount of depth in the game and it was the one that introduced me to the series in the first place.

I prefer Morrowind. Although both games are really very very good.

I always see Morrowind as a PC game which was ported to consoles. And I see Oblivion as the opposite.
Without going into every little detail, I feel that Morrowind is better - but I don't think they took a step backwards with Oblivion.
Its just my personal preference I suppose.

I think this subject has been beaten to death since Oblivion came out.

The only things that Oblivion has better than Morrowind is AI, Graphics, Combat and Accessibility

Morrowind has Better Environment, More Armor, Weapons, Spells, Skills, Better RPG Aspects, Better Creatures, Better Main Story, Argonian Females don't have breasts, More rewards for exploration...

I think this subject has been beaten to death since Oblivion came out.

The only things that Oblivion has better than Morrowind is AI, Graphics, Combat and Accessibility

Morrowind has Better Environment, More Armor, Weapons, Spells, Skills, Better RPG Aspects, Better Creatures, Better Main Story, Argonian Females don't have breasts, More rewards for exploration...

smerlus

Yup. And here are more reasons why Oblivion isn't that great.

Ugh, I still need to get Shivering Isles, but I can't find it at retail except for in the Oblivion pack.

Never played Morrowind but I have put almost 300h into Oblivion. Its a great game I can tell you that and probably the best PC-RPG in years.

Ok maybe its not as great as Morrowind but is that a reason to bash it?

[QUOTE="smerlus"] I think this subject has been beaten to death since Oblivion came out.

The only things that Oblivion has better than Morrowind is AI, Graphics, Combat and Accessibility

Morrowind has Better Environment, More Armor, Weapons, Spells, Skills, Better RPG Aspects, Better Creatures, Better Main Story, Argonian Females don't have breasts, More rewards for exploration...Angry_Beaver

Ugh, I still need to get Shivering Isles, but I can't find it at retail except for in the Oblivion pack.

I really have to try out Morrowind sometime...but given that the levelling system is still similar to Oblivion's (minus the levelled content), I'm not sure if I'd enjoy it any more at the end of the day.

Morrowind was far superior.

Even if we negate changes that I don't like but can see some validity to, the fact that Oblivion completely lacks internal logic ruins the game for me. It's a shame, because it's fun to run around the world and want to see more, but I just get bored by the lack of choices and the clear lack of cohesiveness in the world..

Theres a video somewhere of a guy completing morrowind in 19 minutes i think, to prove that fact the game was too short. He got blamed for cheating though, he was using potions :P.

Anyway, in my opinion, Oblivion by far, the graphics, story, gameplay, the different things you can do in it, the choices, the dark brotherhood :lol:. The weapons, spells, everything about it was mint, until you play it too much and it begins to get boring when u hit about lv 29 or something. But i've had a lot of fun on that game, i might go on it in a bit and start a new account so i don't get bored as fast.

Theres a video somewhere of a guy completing morrowind in 19 minutes i think, to prove that fact the game was too short. He got blamed for cheating though, he was using potions :P.

ZaroRansolo

Huh? That's an eternity compared to this play-through. :P

[QUOTE="Angry_Beaver"][QUOTE="smerlus"] I think this subject has been beaten to death since Oblivion came out.

The only things that Oblivion has better than Morrowind is AI, Graphics, Combat and Accessibility

Morrowind has Better Environment, More Armor, Weapons, Spells, Skills, Better RPG Aspects, Better Creatures, Better Main Story, Argonian Females don't have breasts, More rewards for exploration...Skylock00

Ugh, I still need to get Shivering Isles, but I can't find it at retail except for in the Oblivion pack.

I really have to try out Morrowind sometime...but given that the levelling system is still similar to Oblivion's (minus the levelled content), I'm not sure if I'd enjoy it any more at the end of the day.

I think you would, especially if you think it's anything at all like Oblivion. The leveling aspect of Morrowind doesn't bother me at all. The enemies' strength and HP don't change, as far as I know. I think it's just that new enemies, or ones of different kinds, appear when you've reached a certain level, and I never had a problem with this. If I'm not playing for the music, more realistic environments, or the graphics, Morrowind is definitely the better RPG by far. Trust me on this. ;)

h

I think you would, especially if you think it's anything at all like Oblivion. The leveling aspect of Morrowind doesn't bother me at all. The enemies' strength and HP don't change, as far as I know. I think it's just that new enemies, or ones of different kinds, appear when you've reached a certain level, and I never had a problem with this. If I'm not playing for the music, more realistic environments, or the graphics, Morrowind is definitely the better RPG by far. Trust me on this. ;)Angry_Beaver

I just don't like a game where in order to get strong benefits from character creation, you have to play against the character development system instead of just playing the game.

I've preemptively researched the levelling system of Morrowind, and from what I see, it's still basically the same in the sense that you gain a character level based on when you level your major skills up by a certain amount, with levels gained between skills affecting what stats you can boost, and the ultimate level cap being one derived from when your skills get maxed out... Is this accurate? Because that's where my main problem derives from when it came to Oblivion.

I just don't like a game where in order to get strong benefits from character creation, you have to play against the character development system instead of just playing the game.

Skylock00

No, that's basically it - the main difference between Morrowind and Oblivion is that you can use trainers as much as you want in Morrowind to boost your skills - so if have cash to burn and don't feel like leveling up, you could just pay to train 10 skills and go up a level. Which kind of feels like cheating, but hey.

The positive to unlimited training is that you can train enough of certain skills to benefit from the maximum stat boosts every level, where you had to grind in Oblivion to get the same effect.

But yeah, the leveling system isn't much less broken - but it's something you just sort of ignore as you play the game (or I do, anyway). Set major and minor skills according to how you want to play the game, and you'll level up reasonably fast even if you don't pay much attention to it.

If you play it on the PC, though, there are various mods that tweak the leveling system to remove some of the suck.

The positive to unlimited training is that you can train enough of certain skills to benefit from the maximum stat boosts every level, where you had to grind in Oblivion to get the same effect.DJ_Lae

It's a ridiculous, counterproductive design for an RPG, and I can't believe that these guys made this mistake twice in a row, made it worse as they went along, or how anyone can view it as a good system when you have to intentionally work against it in order to get good benefits from it in the long run.

I mean...if you want a strong, effective character in Oblivion, you basically have to determine what sort of character you want to have, then build a character who's essentially the opposite of what you want, and exploit the skill system through grinding thusly in order to get the max benefits between levels, and not be so far behind in skill that when you reach a high enough level, the enemies are more powerful than you can handle.

The only thing that Morrowind has to its benefit is not having levelled content, from what I can tell. When it comes to character development systems, DnD 3.0/3.5 seems to be a much stronger system still, in my book.

The only thing that Morrowind has to its benefit is not having levelled content, from what I can tell. When it comes to character development systems, DnD 3.0/3.5 seems to be a much stronger system still, in my book.Skylock00

They made the mistake of putting numerical values to the level boosts - they should really be constant according to your class, to remove all incentive to overtrain or the perception that you aren't getting the full benefit.

It's less of an issue in Morrowind, of course - I hate the leveling system, too, but it can be ignored and due to the way the game is laid out you'll never really be at a disadvantage if you're only getting +2 instead of +5 to your three top skills. Oblivion's scaling leaves less room for missing those level upgrades.

I don't know why they kept the same system, though. It really is busted.

When it comes to character development systems, DnD 3.0/3.5 seems to be a much stronger system still, in my book.Skylock00

Something ive noticed with Oblivion is when compared to morrowind, the enviroments in oblivion seem very repetative and its as if they have just copied and paste most of the world. In Morrowind, the enviroments seem so much more varied and detailed, the game may not be a large as Oblivion, but certainly more varied. In Oblivion, its like for example when you explore a fort ruin, and then explore another, they are pretty much identical.

As a previous poster said, if morrowind had Oblivons gameplay and graphics, it would the best game ever made.

I've played both extensively and I can easily say Oblivion is far and away the better RPG.

I find it interesting that so many people here carry such disdain for Oblivion. Sure there are some problems with the leveling system, but if you look at the entire game as a whole, it's hard not to respect and admire the amount of work and dedication that went into making this game.

Sure there are some problems with the leveling system, but if you look at the entire game as a whole, it's hard not to respect and admire the amount of work and dedication that went into making this game.Dutch_Mix

Granted, no game is perfect, but while Oblivion does have a lot of openness, freedom, and content...it just felt like that the game was unfinished in some key areas that kept it from being what it could have been.

Skylock, I'll say this: In Morrowind, I never felt the need to grind to overcome opponents--I just knew that at times I shouldn't enter a region because the creatures were too strong, so I'd go off somewhere else and do some other questing. On the other hand, in Oblivion, I was routinely overwhelmed by my opponents and felt hopeless because of it, which is a good incentive to level grind.

I was mainly talking about how everything dealing with combat scales. A rat that does X damage to a freshly-created character should not be able to do 5X damage to the same, but stronger, character later on. You won't find this idiocy in Morrowind, which is one reason I like it more.

[QUOTE="Dutch_Mix"] Sure there are some problems with the leveling system, but if you look at the entire game as a whole, it's hard not to respect and admire the amount of work and dedication that went into making this game.Skylock00

Granted, no game is perfect, but while Oblivion does have a lot of openness, freedom, and content...it just felt like that the game was unfinished in some key areas that kept it from being what it could have been.

I thought the lock-picking mini-game was quite good, and I'm not sure what you mean when you say it detracted from the actual character's skills.

Again, I'm looking at Oblivion as a whole. Certainly there are issues with the AI and voice acting, but how many games have you played where towns are actually living, breathing worlds? Where NPCs actually sleep, eat, work, talk, and interact with other NPCs? Not many I would assume.

I thought the lock-picking mini-game was quite good, and I'm not sure what you mean when you say it detracted from the actual character's skills.

Dutch_Mix

In regards to the rest of your post, yeah, people had rough schedules, but given how shallow conversations were, how pathfinding wasn't really well addressed, and how broken the AI would be at times, interfering with the world being 'living and breathing,' it quickly dissolved the illusion to me.

Furthermore, that sort of fluff can't cover up core design flaws that most people have problems with.

[QUOTE="Dutch_Mix"]

I thought the lock-picking mini-game was quite good, and I'm not sure what you mean when you say it detracted from the actual character's skills.

Skylock00

In regards to the rest of your post, yeah, people had rough schedules, but given how shallow conversations were, how pathfinding wasn't really well addressed, and how broken the AI would be at times, interfering with the world being 'living and breathing,' it quickly dissolved the illusion to me.

Furthermore, that sort of fluff can't cover up core design flaws that most people have problems with.

Meh, the conversation system was fine. Beyond asking about rumors, directions, or topics pertaining to certain quests, I really don't know what you were expecting. The Elder Scrolls games, from my knowledge, have never been dialogue heavy games.

Oblivion didn't have 'core design flaws'. If it was a broken game as you seem to be implying, it simply wouldn't have received the type of praise that it did. Now, your complaints with the game are certainly valid to an extent, but I think you're missing the point of the Elder Scrolls games... which have always been about letting the player do and become whatever they want. And in that context, Oblivion is an unequivocal success.

[QUOTE="DJ_Lae"]The positive to unlimited training is that you can train enough of certain skills to benefit from the maximum stat boosts every level, where you had to grind in Oblivion to get the same effect.Skylock00

It's a ridiculous, counterproductive design for an RPG, and I can't believe that these guys made this mistake twice in a row, made it worse as they went along, or how anyone can view it as a good system when you have to intentionally work against it in order to get good benefits from it in the long run.

I mean...if you want a strong, effective character in Oblivion, you basically have to determine what sort of character you want to have, then build a character who's essentially the opposite of what you want, and exploit the skill system through grinding thusly in order to get the max benefits between levels, and not be so far behind in skill that when you reach a high enough level, the enemies are more powerful than you can handle.

The only thing that Morrowind has to its benefit is not having levelled content, from what I can tell. When it comes to character development systems, DnD 3.0/3.5 seems to be a much stronger system still, in my book.

some people are kind of leading you astray with their information. In Oblivion, you only gain levels by raising your major skills (7). In Morrowind you raise both Major (5) and Minor (5) skills meaning that you have a little more variety and you can also have a higher level character.

You couple this with the fact that creatures don't level with you in Morrowind (you can get beatings from running into a creature far above your ability though) and the fact that loot doesn't level with you either. This gives Morrowind a better feeling of a balanced character.

There are also ways around this limit; If you get arrested for a crime, there's a chance that you will lose points in certain skills meaning you can then reraise those skill points and gain more levels that way.

Now, your complaints with the game are certainly valid to an extent, but I think you're missing the point of the Elder Scrolls games... which have always been about letting the player do and become whatever they want. And in that context, Oblivion is an unequivocal success.

Dutch_Mix

On that basis alone, I can't accept the game as being one where you become what /you/ want as a player overall, from the basis of looking at the character development system. In terms of being an open, free game that lets you go all over the place and engage with lots of areas and people, sure, it has that, but the development system is fundamentally flawed in its design. The praise it got in reviews, to me, was one moreso derived from the presentation and the scale of the game, and less on its abilities as an RPG when it came to building a character.

In a sense, I agree that it lets you do what you want, but I just don't think it really succeeds at allowing you to /be/ what you want.

And in terms of the dialog, I can accept restrictive dialog choices, but the level of recycled dialog was ridiculous in the game, and definitely killed the concept of how these were suppose to be all individuals in a city when they would say the exact same lines ver batem.

some people are kind of leading you astray with their information. In Oblivion, you only gain levels by raising your major skills (7). In Morrowind you raise both Major (5) and Minor (5) skills meaning that you have a little more variety and you can also have a higher level character.

You couple this with the fact that creatures don't level with you in Morrowind (you can get beatings from running into a creature far above your ability though) and the fact that loot doesn't level with you either. This gives Morrowind a better feeling of a balanced character.

There are also ways around this limit; If you get arrested for a crime, there's a chance that you will lose points in certain skills meaning you can then reraise those skill points and gain more levels that way.

smerlus

As I said, the levelling content might have not existed in Morrowind, but the core character leveling mechanic still feels broken to me from a design standpoint. I'm not saying that anyone here is wrong for liking it, or thinking it's a great system...I just have become more and more discontent with it the more I've tried working with it, and thought about it compared to what I'm looking for in an RPG.

Something ive noticed with Oblivion is when compared to morrowind, the enviroments in oblivion seem very repetative and its as if they have just copied and paste most of the world. In Morrowind, the enviroments seem so much more varied and detailed, the game may not be a large as Oblivion, but certainly more varied. In Oblivion, its like for example when you explore a fort ruin, and then explore another, they are pretty much identical.

As a previous poster said, if morrowind had Oblivons gameplay and graphics, it would the best game ever made.

Chris_53

The landscape was bland because terrains were painted on the landscape by types of trees and the computer randomly generates all the rest,

with the caves, ruins and everything. The devs only hand made a few of these things, made minor changes to some (such as the entrance location) and unfortunately they didn't make enough originals for the amount of doors. so if there's 20 cave entrances and only 12 cave types, you're going to see a couple over again just with different monsters and loot.

Morrowind was all hand made i believe and it actually feels like each part of the map had a personal touch to it.

[QUOTE="smerlus"]

some people are kind of leading you astray with their information. In Oblivion, you only gain levels by raising your major skills (7). In Morrowind you raise both Major (5) and Minor (5) skills meaning that you have a little more variety and you can also have a higher level character.

You couple this with the fact that creatures don't level with you in Morrowind (you can get beatings from running into a creature far above your ability though) and the fact that loot doesn't level with you either. This gives Morrowind a better feeling of a balanced character.

There are also ways around this limit; If you get arrested for a crime, there's a chance that you will lose points in certain skills meaning you can then reraise those skill points and gain more levels that way.

Skylock00

As I said, the levelling content might have not existed in Morrowind, but the core character leveling mechanic still feels broken to me from a design standpoint. I'm not saying that anyone here is wrong for liking it, or thinking it's a great system...I just have become more and more discontent with it the more I've tried working with it, and thought about it compared to what I'm looking for in an RPG.

I'm not saying it's a great system either but due to a few other design decisions coupled with it, it doesn't feel as bad as it did in Oblivion. In fact I never paid any attention to it in Morrowind, there were so many other things that I enjoyed that leveling took a back seat. Whil not great, it wasn't a detriment either.

In Oblivion I hated gaining a level especially when you start outleveling the stronger creatures and the game just spawns more of the high leveled creatures in the same area.

[QUOTE="smerlus"]

I think this subject has been beaten to death since Oblivion came out.

The only things that Oblivion has better than Morrowind is AI, Graphics, Combat and Accessibility

Morrowind has Better Environment, More Armor, Weapons, Spells, Skills, Better RPG Aspects, Better Creatures, Better Main Story, Argonian Females don't have breasts, More rewards for exploration...

Angry_Beaver

Yup. And here are more reasons why Oblivion isn't that great.

Ugh, I still need to get Shivering Isles, but I can't find it at retail except for in the Oblivion pack.

[QUOTE="Dutch_Mix"]

Now, your complaints with the game are certainly valid to an extent, but I think you're missing the point of the Elder Scrolls games... which have always been about letting the player do and become whatever they want. And in that context, Oblivion is an unequivocal success.

Skylock00

On that basis alone, I can't accept the game as being one where you become what /you/ want as a player overall, from the basis of looking at the character development system. In terms of being an open, free game that lets you go all over the place and engage with lots of areas and people, sure, it has that, but the development system is fundamentally flawed in its design. The praise it got in reviews, to me, was one moreso derived from the presentation and the scale of the game, and less on its abilities as an RPG when it came to building a character.

In a sense, I agree that it lets you do what you want, but I just don't think it really succeeds at allowing you to /be/ what you want.

And in terms of the dialog, I can accept restrictive dialog choices, but the level of recycled dialog was ridiculous in the game, and definitely killed the concept of how these were suppose to be all individuals in a city when they would say the exact same lines ver batem.

To each his own I guess. In this case, I think we've both made our minds up about the game and nothing I or you say will change our differing viewpoints.

To me, Oblivion has better combat, better pacing, and a better inventory system/quest log. While Morrowind had a much better, more varied world, a better leveling system, and imo more interesting stories.

Both great games, both have strengths and weaknesses.

I thought the lock-picking mini-game was quite good, and I'm not sure what you mean when you say it detracted from the actual character's skills.Dutch_Mix

[QUOTE="smerlus"]

I think this subject has been beaten to death since Oblivion came out.

The only things that Oblivion has better than Morrowind is AI, Graphics, Combat and Accessibility

Morrowind has Better Environment, More Armor, Weapons, Spells, Skills, Better RPG Aspects, Better Creatures, Better Main Story, Argonian Females don't have breasts, More rewards for exploration...

Angry_Beaver

Yup. And here are more reasons why Oblivion isn't that great.

Ugh, I still need to get Shivering Isles, but I can't find it at retail except for in the Oblivion pack.

1.Leveled content means less risk. No matter where you go, monsters and villains will always be at your characters level. Part of the fun in Morrowind was not knowing how strong or weak enemies would be.

Yeah... thats the thing i hate in Oblivion, usually you grind because you wanna be better than other NPC-s or kill them faster etc.

IMO, Oblivion IMPROVES Morrowind. As such, Oblivion is "better".

However, Morrowind was groundbreaking. If you just add a shading option on Morrowind, then the Morrowind + shading is better.

As such, Oblivion, is more positive than negative, it is by default better. That doesn't mean Oblivion brought much new stuff, Morrowind did that. Just like almost everyone would prefer either HoMM III or V, that doesn't mean that the first wasn't the one bringing the most.

See, Morrowind is like Chocolate. Oblivion is a product instead of raw chocolate, it doesn't add much, I really crave for the chocolate, but as long as it is an improvement, I would rather have it then raw chocolate. :)

Oblivion's failings hit me after one particular experience. I was level 20 something, had comleted the game, and left the fighters guild till last. I was on the quest to go bring some guy back for niterrogation.

His bodyguards were wearing deadric armour. Some cronies were wearing what was in Morrowind the moast difficult armour to get. And they were extremely dtrong. In Morrowind, when characters were a level, they stayed that level.

So the level scaling system for NPC's and items ruined Oblivion for me...

having played both with various characters i think on the whole i prefer oblivion, but having completed it three times now i am getting a little fed up with it, but one thing i did like over morrowind is the fact that when you find somewhere it appears on your map unlike morrowind where you had to try and remember where places were ie tombs caves etc

and before you say well try the expansion KOTN and SHIVERING ISLES i have them too, what i would have liked to see is the orrery as an expansion in the brown version just to give you something else to do

with the char i am using at the moment i have decided to find as many caves ruins etc and eradicate them of breathing things be it human or otherwise, as well as doing some of the guilds but this time i will not be doing the main quest

another thing i would have liked to see...(i'm on a roll now) is kvatch being repaired, but it remains a smoldering ruin, and the mages guild in bruma which sadly was one of the nicer guild halls, and how come after all you have been through ..YOU don't get to become emporer :(

Which of these two elder scrolls games do you prefer. For me this is a hard choice

Chris_53

take a guess :)

I really like Oblivion, and although I never finished Morrowind I think Oblivion is better. Although there are some things I would like changed in the next game.

1. Not FPS or at least have it where you can change between views like you can in Oblivion, but not look stupid.

2. After Morrowind, And Oblivion being set in a similar time I wouldn't mind a drastic change in timeline like maybe something futuristic or something.

3. I'd like good combat in the next game.

I really like Oblivion, and although I never finished Morrowind I think Oblivion is better. Although there are some things I would like changed in the next game.

1. Not FPS or at least have it where you can change between views like you can in Oblivion, but not look stupid.

2. After Morrowind, And Oblivion being set in a similar time I wouldn't mind a drastic change in timeline like maybe something futuristic or something.

3. I'd like good combat in the next game.

julianwelton

You havent heard of Fallout 3 have you???