What features from Morrowind, Oblivion or Skyrim do you feel worked well, and might like to see implemented in some form in Elder Scrolls Online?


For example, Morrowind had an enormous amount of variety when it came to weapon types and armor pieces. I think it would be nice to have that much variety in ESO by including weapons from that game such as spears, throwing knives, darts, melee staves, wakizashis, tantos, and dai-katanas.

It might also be nice to have more customization when it comes to armor pieces, such as having pauldrons, cuirass and greaves instead of just "armor."

I really loved the fact that Morrowind didn't give you any questmarkers. You just had to find everything yourself according to NPC advice and directions. Also you had to use your journal a lot, which made it actualy meaningful. And yes, the variation in weapons and armor was really nice. Also, I'd like to see restrictions and requirements when you want to join a guild/greathouse or advance in its ranks. This actually gives you the incentive to train and level up certain skills.

The lack of voice acting worked well in Morrowind in my opinion because it allowed Bethesda a great deal of leeway when it comes to dialogue. Too much writing now becomes expensive for them having to hire voice actors, and as an added bonus, it made it so the discrepancy between the base game and mods are not as massive as it seems now (the difference between voiced vanilla and generally non-voiced, or poorly voiced mods for the later games).
For all of them, the creation kit (or game specific equivalent) has made the elder scrolls what they are. I doubt they would be quite as popular if not for the incredible modding scene the series has.

What I liked most about Morrowind was how authentic the NPCs felt. They had loads of fleshed out text to say about a multitude of topics and while most didn't add to the history of the world or weren't relevant to any quest, that made the NPCs feel much more alive.

Today, with the obsession with photorealistic graphics and fully voiced dialog, that just isn't the case anymore. voiced dialog restricts the amount of dialog that can be put in a game too much and NPCs feel as if they've been placed into the world for a very specific purpose (their quest, certain pieces of information the devs want the player to know, etc) and no amount of realistic animation or high-polygon face models can distract from that.

In Oblivion, I loved the Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood quests. Non-violent stealing and creative assassinations instead of mindlessly slaughtering through hosepipe dungeons (yes Skyrim, I'm looking at you).

There's nothing in Skyrim I liked better than what Morrowind or Oblivion had.

The variety in towns in Oblivion, every town had a Cyrodiilic feel but yet were all vastly different.
Skyrim: combat, after fighting in Morrowind and Oblivion, Skyrim combat was a relief and the variety in dungeons, each having their own little lore I especially liked.
Morrowind: Multi-choice guilds, made joining the guild feel more valuable, variety in armour as said before and making the areas not just the towns(Oblivion) interesting to discover.


For voice-acting I say you're lucky as MMOs usually have too much dialogue for voice-acting except for maybe important people/events or cutscenes of course.

The fact that the people had dimension and depth. There was slavery, racism, drugs and alcohol. In Morrowind it used to annoy me when the guards would say "We're watching you...scum". The way they walk around and live their own little lives. The fact that you are safe in town but at any moment when you go outside your life could be in danger. The richness of the lore and how dark everything was. The TES games, especially Morrowind, have a special magic to them that I've never found in another game. I don't know if it's the freedom to either follow the main storyline or run off and do your own thing. Or if it's the fact that you start off as a nobody (many times in prison) and work your way up to become someone respected. And of course... there is always the wonder of exploration and the fear of what you might find in that cave or those ruins.

I really hope TESO is able to somehow capture that in their game.

Yes, the feeling you weren't in a story you're in a world.

That's also a very good point, Morrowind's guild system. In hindsight, I especially like the skill and attribute requirement to rise through the ranks and that the rise to guild master was actually a believable story, not just a "Oh, our former guild master seems to have died. Let this wandering adventurer become our new guild master, event hough he only joined a week ago and doesn't fit our guild in any way. He's the player character, after all" situation.


And that.
Morrowind: You're a random guy in a world
Oblivion and Skyrim: You are Mr Awesome and the world is built around you.