I have some trouble with your opinion. Are you for real ....

( I have enjoyed TES since Daggerfall. I have never finished any TES game.)

for Daggerfall it s easy to understand
It was long, tedious, and in the end I gave up too
The random dungeons were just more fun

For morrowind, it s verry hard to understand. someone did it in one hour.
the arch enemy is beatable at level 15
most of the main quest is verry easy

or do you mean you have no interest in the main quest. you should be clearer

I was under the impression someone who never played any TES was faking a post or something

(I have never leveled above level 8 in any TES game.)

close to impossible in daggerfall
verry hard to achieve in morrowind

you see, I reached level 10 in under 5 hours in morrowind without even trying
so that makes your post sounds fishy or even trolling

or do you really mean you fire up a tes game and just move town to town to enjoy the scenery
I guess that would be understandable in morrowind and beyond
but hard to believe for daggerfall, verry hard to believe
unless you really just watched peoples wander down the streets, which could have been fun at the time
(daggerfall had 320x200 graphics, using billboards to boot, which means characters were really made up of giant pixels and barely 40x20 pixels)
(that was ... different than expected from advertisemant, I thought the preview were just preview.... that the real stuff would be larger)

needless to say daggerfall was way behind its time when it got released. 640x400 was standard. larger resolutions started to appear. quake had already moved to full 3D characters, althought blocky at the time, with girls looking like guys who basicaly looked like lego....
so I guess that was one good reason not to move to full 3D yet

battlespire did move to 640x400 and was less of an eyesore. if daggerfall had done it it would have been amazing
I came from the amiga community
so we had been used to lavish 640x400 graphics for 10 years already
and some games had better resolutions than that for some years
so at the time the pc was really a downgrade until diablo, warcraft and baldur gate started the pc game renaissance

Still I have a hard time someone can play daggerfall and stare at the scenery
and the only way to stay under level 8 is to .... well....
start the game, do the starting dungeon (1 hour)
by then you are level 5 or more
you clearly can t do a second dungeon
so maybe you enter a inn, cast a lot of candlelkight or something
get to level 8 in one hours and exit the game for good

I don t call this playing the game !!!

( I loved every single of those games and I love Skyrim too.)

hard to believe from what you said before
I m still trying to figure out that level 8 thingy, and the no main quest as well
what exactly did you do in those games to love them

myself I loved them, but I didn t stay under level 8, even thought I tried verry hard not to level up in morrowind
(because all bandits in the main vardenfell island are low level, and leveling up quickly ruins the ballance)

(People who will leave now TES and maybe never come back have all the right to do so. I will not miss them. Neither they will me.)
I dont understand a thing of what you say
I hope you are not claiming to be a dangerous sociopath and planning something like evil daedra worshiping

(yeah, I m just kidding you)
Still it s verry rude to say to otal strangers you will not miss them
who knows, your wife or kids may be secretly playing tes
or your coworkers or boss
you should be more carefull of what you say

(Mainstreaming is the rule nowadays and any exception to that rule is just that - an exception)

I dont think mainstreaming exist, or if it does it s a daedra
I think its just a lazy buzzword made by lazy journalists
they just dont want to get in the details of what type of game or movie it is ....
I never heard of mainstream cabbages, mainstream nail polish, mainstream egg sandwitch, not even mainstream trees

there is however things that exist.
greed
laziness
complacency

do succesfull franchises run the risk of facing thoses
probably

I think they should use that half billion to push skyrim beyond the original plan, create as much gameplay and variety as they can
not be affraid to do all of tamriel to create a grand epic if need be

I think the specific mainstream criticism was aimed at some specifically awkward comments

*most peoples use swords so we cut spears*
*peoples prefer bows over xbows, so xbows are out*

those may stand if bethesda was a rundown bankrupt company
but they just made a half billion $
so they really have the fun to finish , polish and expand skyrim

(production costs are estimated arround 50 million$, one tenth of the income)

other things they should do is a lot of motion capture and bringing back some loved old skills with attention to details and balance
acrobatics, mountain climbing, wall climbing, jumping, etc....

( And games just have to earn money for their developers.)

you must be kidding me
Bethesda is past earning money with skirim
I see it flowing through their ears in a never ending fountain
rumors has it the town where their hq is located is now paved with gold ingots
and everyone in the hq is dressed in daedric armor replicas

half a billion is a lot

they could start their own nasa if they wanted to


( And games just have to earn money for their developers.)

you are doubly kidding me
to their developers

are you autistic or something

its the owner who get the money, the investors
the developers only get salary (fixed) and bonus
they never saw that half million

that s why I keep spamming that I hope bethesda is giving major raises and bonus out there
because it s the developers who did the hard work

and why I also feel entitled to shout loud and clear
that in this specific case (skyrim)
they ought to the fans to fix and finish and polish and expand skyrim
because they got paid 10x what it cost to produce

and, sorry, but those investors didnt work on the product
and it would be unfair to just give themselves 450 million $ in dividend

there is no rule currently in our society governing such giant earning
and the digital age made it verry easy for rich peoples to get richer
because you no longer have to take any risk when publishing games, music or books
because they are all digital and you do not need to print an expensive inventory

but I believe in the future there may be some rules forthcoming insuring a more balanced distrubution of profit

if just because, looking back at the medieval era, we have proof that a more balanced world move faster
(I mean by that ... democracy, or rewarding those building society ... help avoid stagnation)

Anyway didnt meant to go phylosophical there

but in short money sitting still profit no one

sorry for going out of topic there

the other core principle I know is from marketing,
and it just say that meeting customer expectation is critical to a company future
even if it doesnt seem that way in the short term
usually not meeting it,.... means someone else will,... at wich time you fail

so meeting skyrim expectations ... benefit bethesda in the long run
and rewarding bethesda employees lavishly ... help avoid stagnation
both of wich help bethesda and society grow faster in the long run

now I must have the title dhovakin pope or something
I sound like a disgruntled old man preaching to the crowd

nice manuscript!

I also prefer Skyrim's UI to Oblivion, with a few minor exceptions.

As far as the Sold Out argument goes, "Sold Out" implies an intent on the part of Bethesda. Like they got in a board room and said "let's dump our long time fans can go for the FPS guys". I doubt that happened. I'm guessing they were just trying to make a good game.

As far as how it turned out, I like some of the decisions, and don't like others. I don't like that they dropped some things from Oblivion and Morrowind (like spell making, and armor that wears down). But they added some nice things too.

No they did not sell out. It is still available in stores everywhere and online too!

Short answer, no.

God yes Morrowind was mainstream, for it's time it had a huge budget and was a big game. It pulled in plenty of the people that obnoxious asses like to condescendingly refer to as 'casuals' through the Xbox version. I'm mystified that you guys thought you were playing some small indie masterpiece, talking about pointless romanticism. People calling you a nerd or not really has nothing to do with whether or not is was a large, successful game..it was.

It's funny because I play both PC and Console, big games, small games, indie games, whatever and I think it's hilarious that there are all these people trying to play The Cool Kid by acting like Morrowind was some elite club when it was actually a well known game. Wanna be a real nerd? Brag about playing Dominions 2 and 3 or something, not Morrowind lol.

Morrowind is an very good game, extremely good actually, however it has numerous weaknesses, mainly its to easy at high levels as it's an lack of high level enemies. Skills are also extremely unbalanced, magic is very weak as you has to sleep to regain mana, however you can easy make potions who give you millions in skills and attributes so you can spawn 10K damage spells.
Main strength of Morrowind compared to Oblivion was how the world made sense, and you had local factions who fit in, here Skyrim is much closer to Morrowind than Oblivion who felt bland in this area, yes you should not have to strong regional faction in the heart of the empire either.

If the Bethesda company catered to the needs of the the small amount of people that want RP elements and all that whatnot they wouldn't be able to sell enough games to survive.
Their choices were driven by money....
-What's different from other games
-What amount of 'fantasy' will sell to the mainstream crowd
-What can we get rid of to satisfy the average gamer

I think Skyrim is an awesome game, but lets face it, NO GAME EVER will have all the little things you want in it and none have even come close to getting that perfect amount.

The things that would make Skyrim even awesomer are things like more in-depth factions. That alone would add a whole new level to the game

Why would he be? Morrowind's story is based around much deeper lore than any of its descendants. This isn't debatable, it just is. Skyrim is an improvement on Oblivion, but that honestly wasn't hard for them to do.

No it isn't.

Taken out of context, and in what sense? Both of those statements are very broad.

So you're implying that sociologic studies are as trustworthy as any empirical proof based on them using something that vaguely resembles the scientific method while you bash a perfectly valid opinion to defend your own. /clap

All in all, is undeniable that nostalgia exists and plays an important role in our preferences.

Also, let me LOL at those saying that Morrowind had a metaphysical "grandure" (grandeur) that can't somehow be explained if your own opinions are not involved. See? That is a perfect example of nostalgia (did he like Vivec's sermons that much?).

Yes. Mainstream. Morrowind was on the cover of countless gaming magazines, a PC Gamer darling. It brought in a bunch of new gamers into the ES universe. Including me. It was still in the top 10 selling games on the Xbox a year after it's release.