Then the Morrowind fanbase needs to stop saying that Morrowind was better and cite things that Morrowind -didn't- do better.

There are varying opinions because people play the games for different reasons.

As you change mechanics, art style, etc, you affect these reasons and how they play together.

Taking away spellmaking doesn't affect me. Taking it away, and removing most of the spells I used in Oblivion, and the fact that spells don't upgrade? Now it's cutting into my ability to feel like magic is magic.

Taking away the +5 system doesn't bother me. Replacing it with what we got? It's easily the most uninteresting system I've had in an RPG since... the Super Nintendo. Yeah, it hurt.

Now for the really fun part: someone posting on this forum will feel the exact opposite way, and be within their rights to.

Main Quest has the entire dilemma with Paarthurnax. That alone is more choice than the entire Morrowind main quest.

The quest with Saadia has different ways of going about it.

Escape From Chidna Mine has multiple options of completing. I even completed that quest in a way that's not explicitly stated as a choice. I made my own way.

I've done Imperial Legion quests that give you choices on how to complete them.

There's multiple pathways to Esbern.

And there is plenty of "guilt" or weight that comes from Skyrim quests. Did I make the right decision in turning over Saadia? Should I have fought off the Alik'r soldiers to protect her? Could my "lawful good" character justify the slaying of the Boethia priest at the command of Molag Bal?

Oh Willis yes I'll go first!

*Clears throat*

I [censored] hated the real-time dice-roll system, absolutely horrible, I tried getting better at shooting with my bow and I shot 50 arrows at an enemy and hit with 2.
I could see the arrows literally hitting the enemy but alas they did not register.
This thing was in magic as well, making everything feel unreliable.
Maybe it feels better at high levels, but the amount of time it takes to level up skill in an ES game along with the horrible dice-rolls in real-time made me quit it after 10 hours.

Oh and combat, graphically and AI-wise has gotten tons better, thye just need to drop the scaling.

It's just people. Most of the people who dislike it are predisposed to hate RPG's, love RPG's but feel as if their secret band "sold out" on them, or are having problems with their ported from 360 game.

Things are turned up a notch because we are dealing the Internet here, even if it's real life friends, they've seen what's being said on the Internet. It's kind of hard to have a neutral stance on the Internet. What's funny is on here sometimes I'll remember a threadstarter's name of a Rant and then see them on here 2 days later responding as if they were fine with the game.

Things are turned up a final notch because so many people have so much love for the game and all the reviews are extremely positive...that if in their personal opinion the game is an 8/10... it's probably easier to fit in with the hate side than the "blind love" side. How often do people feel neutral towards somebody, something, or some team in first place?

NOTHING can be successful if it's designed for EVERYONE. It can be a jack of all trades, but master of none. That means it will be forgotten with all of the rest of the fodder. I'm not talking about Skyrim. Just the entire concept.

To quote a very relevant movie, "The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." Yes, cater to the classical RPG fanbase, and your audience will not be as broad... but you will have a stranglehold on them. If you loosen your grip, you can attract a wider audience, but they will not be loyal, nor will you attain the quality that you once had.




Are you kidding??? You're comparing The Elder Scrolls series to obsolete hardware that came out in the mid-80's?

First of all, quality of game design is not based on technology. It is based on logic and imagination. Games in the 90's had better concepts and higher quality designs than those of today. They may have used blocks and giant pixels to represent the characters back then, but that hardly diminishes the quality of the design.

Secondly, Daggerfall's sheer scale and scope has not been challenged by any TES game since. Morrowind has been continually supported by its fanbase to this day. Both of those games are in the process of getting new engines made by their fans. They are hardly obsolete as the Amiga or Commodore 64.

When there is a game that can actually be called the "Windows 98/XP/Vista/7/etc."... THEN we can start making comparisons. We haven't even found a "Windows" to compare to "DOS" yet.




Let's start with how Morrowind REGRESSED from Daggerfall.

Climbing was removed
Languages were removed
Horses were removed
Wagons were removed
Ownable ships were removed
Game world was scaled down 1,000+ percent
Cities were scaled down
Dialogue demeanor was removed
Books were censored
Underwear was irremovable
Fatigue become a moment-to-moment issue instead of a day-to-day issue.
A piece of clothing could only be worn one way
Enchanted objects were always known
MANY factions were removed
Reputation system was downsized
Dungeon size was scaled down dramatically
Random generation of quests and dungeon layout were removed


Oh yes, Morrowind isn't perfect. It was my first TES game. Love it to death. But it simply can't compare to the greatness of Daggerfall. Oblivion regressed even more, and Skyrim has both progressed in some areas and regressed in others. Was Daggerfall perfect? Of course not! It was far from it! But it was much closer than the others we've gotten. Give Daggerfall the graphics, sounds, and controls of Skyrim, then you would have Game of the Decade... simple as that.

A game can never please everyone. Different people, different tastes.

There are plenty of other games on the market. You really need to pick something that suits you rather than expecting every game to fit your tastes perfectly. Its no different than shopping for music or clothes really.

Agreed.

However one of the reasons I love TES games and consider Oblivion one of my all time favorite games is that the base was decent and I had the ability to change it to suit my tastes pretty close to perfectly. I knew when buying Skyrim that it would be a good game, maybe a great one in it's bought form but more then likely there would be things that I didn't like or would think could be better (for me) if they were different. Didn't think twice about that because likely others would feel the same about a specific thing and 'there will be a mod for that'. And so far even with the limited mods available until the CK comes out there are ones that I've already used to tweak it more towards my tastes.

The openness that TES offers to change their Vanilla game is one of the main selling points of it in my books. It's like 'okay here's our vision/game. We know it won't suit everyone perfectly so have at it and here is what you need to do it."

So in my opinion TES's Skyrim is a good game but their are some things I don't like or prefer, whether they're changes from older games, art design decisions, gameplay, inv mgt or whatever. "Mine and TES's" Skyrim however will likely go from good to great to all time favorite. That's what I love most about this game series.

Of course none of this applies to console users which are pretty much stuck with what they get. You either like it or don't. I think that's too bad and wish that people playing it on other platforms had the same options.

Ok.
-Combat.
-NPC's have no schedule.

Thats it.

I'm inclined to agree with this. Whilst Skyrim's world and dungeons are amazing, and its melee system seems to be working excellently, I just can't get over the gimping of magic, the generally bland quests and the absence of player consequence.

Magic has always been central to TES, and to see it as limited as it is is upsetting. Quests, which have always seemed so original and colourful in TES, seem uninspired and bland this playthrough, generally resorting to fetching items or dungeon crawls (granted there are some good ones, but for example the Legion questline was extremely repetitive and unrewarding). Finally, most dialogue options have become so narrow-minded that dialogue options are limited to 'yes I'll do it' or 'no I won't', and if you say no the questgiver simply tells you to come back when you've changed your mind. There seems to be no more branching possibilities within quests, and there are now singular ways of completing them. You're forced to play a single method instead of choosing amongst multiple ones offered, and that doesn't sit well with me.

Obviously Skyrim is still an amazing game, and I love it, but I'm still wary about this significant flaws.

Umm...

I think Daggerfall already has made the 'game of the decade' mark, and then some.

That DOS 5 era 1996 game is=still= being played by a significant number of people....despite the technical issues that Windows tosses into the mix. There are still active tool writers making the hack tools to customize and activate features. Still active projects of engine writing that make modding look like level building in Doom. I don't care what some people think; the X associated titles have a -big- set of shoes to fill there......and none of them have come close. Like it or not, a 15 year old Dos 5 hybrid 2.5-3D game still has more options, more character control, and more flexibility as a roleplaying system, than any of its descendants. And the more they concentrate on visual development and prerecorded voices, the bigger those shoes become.

And don't forget that Bethesda was so strapped that they created and released Battlespire and Redguard between DF and MW. Now the whole gaming industry was taking a beating in that timeframe, but gamesas was still a huge success story; they were independant and stayed that way, when others were gobbled and destroyed by suits with no clue.

It is a priority thing. People were surely giving their opinions before Oblivion for change and improve ment.

Then suddenly we lost that few quest options, world consistency for level scaling and many other things which we thought would be improved....

We are now seem to be reduced to "complainers" who try to hold onto those aspects.

It is illogical to complain about Morrowind right now. Skyrim will get the heat as latest instalment.

I'm personally not happy about combat since Morrowind. Where is parry animations? That was the improvement needed for Morrowind, not always hitting.

I think Skyrim is amazing and improve on many aspects(levelling system and perks) but scaling, lack of choices, extreme handholding and content problems are still there from Oblivion.

Ah the old nostalgia card. It doesn't count if you still play Morrowind today (well actually yesterday).

Hell no, Skyrim ain't MJ. Skyrim is more like... Blake Griffin. He's really good. And new. Raw. Flashy. Way too early for Skyrim to be the GOAT. And way too early to label Blake as the best.

But overall, I see your point.

It's not really marmite to me. I think it's a great game, not the best I've played this year and there's certainly a lot of things that could have been done better for a game released in 2011, but I'm still enjoying myself a lot.

I think the amount of different views on it sort of shows what a great game and great rpg it is.

There's so.many ways you can play it.

A number of people have already chimed in, but if you think folks here don't have just as many issues with Morrowind then you haven't been paying attention. Still, my point is that Morrowind is ten years old. To say that a ten year old game must exceed the quality of one released today, even discounting the huge budget disparity between Morrowind and Skyrim's development, is crazy. Morrowind is better. Not because it's flawless---because it isn't---but because it matches or exceeds the quality of a modern day TES game.

Skyrim? We've been there and done that ten years ago. When's Beth going to make a serious move to expand on what they already have?

The hate on one game or the other comes largely from the change in the very nature of the games. Daggerfall was an almost completely character-focused RPG, Morrowind was a "dumbed down" RPG which still was very focused on character skills, and then Oblivion turned the series into a player-skill focused semi-RPG and more of an Action game. Skyrim continues that Oblivion trend, even further alienating the character-based RPG player fanbase.

I guess I am more casual player. While I agree with the critics of the technical side ....stats, tree balance, magic issue....etc etc, I found the story and supporting quests to be rather bland.

This was my first tes game. The story felt piece-milled together as I went on what felt like hundreds of cave dwelling, item fetching, talk to person x missions. The story did not engage nor compel me to even finish it. Maybe if I was a fan of an earlier tes game, I might would have had the patience and endurance to finish it.

Except for the fact that Skyrim has no depth at all, besides the stuff you simply imagine. You have magic that can't be used for things that magic evidently could be used for a few centuries ago, you have weapons that make no sense, you have armor that makes no sense, you have dragons that behave like suicidal bees, you have a civil war that makes very little sense, you have a MQ that changes exactly nothing in the game world, you have factions that change nothing, you have non-mages becoming arch-mages, you have an economy system that is beyond senseless. You have about as many guards as you have ordinary NPCs, you have a tiny, tiny Skyrim which still manages to have a lot of empty space.

You call the game deep, complex, and with loads of detail? Where? Where do you see it? Because I sure don't, even though I'd love to.

And no, I don't simply assume that everybody who likes Skyrim are "just" action game fans. That "just", with all the negativity it implies, is totally on your own accord and as it happens, I like Skyrim too, though not as a deep and complex RPG, because I honestly don't think it is deep or complex at all. I used the Clancy vs Tolkien as an example of how different people want different things. As it happens, I LIKE BOTH OF THEM. I stated so before as well, though it doesn't surprise me that you didn't notice. Actually reading what people write is so overrated, isn't it?

Finally, yes, Tolkien made up Elvish for LOTR and Skyrim has it's own dragon language. And gamesas has invented Daedric writing in the past as well. What's your point? That because I think it's deep for a single author to make up a language, including grammer, for a novel then any other made-up language means whatever those languages are used in must be deep as well? I certainly hope not because it's a terrible argument. Making comparisons without considering the context is always, always bad.

Anyways, let me give you an example of what really isn't "deep". And even though I've taken out most details, I'll spoiler tag it as well.

In summary, you do two quests and suddenly you're a bloody thane. That's not really all that deep, is it? A mere two days work to achieve thaneship?

There are people who believe that Skyrim is

Dumb
Awesome
Not Morrowind (Thank God)
Not an RPG
Is an RPG
Not Daggerfall
Not Oblivion (Haven't seen them yet besides the spellmaking stuff)
Doesn't have enough RPG elements (Ties into Not an RPG)
Just wants to complain because they have nothing better to do
Why the game isn't more like COD
An action game
The game is still broken and +1000 more responses.

Probably true. Still, overkill is underrated.

I played oblivion first and morrowinds combat just kept me from enjoying the game. i just couldn't get into it. Even oblivions combat seemed kind of dry to me, but skyrim is prime

the lack of a class and attribute numbers and all that "rpg" stuff makes it a better rpg in my opinion. its very simple and realistic. practice [censored] and you'll get better at it, couldn't be more realistic in my opinion. No point in assigning numbers to stuff like how strong or smart you are. i feel like it makes it a true role playing game rather than just trying to fit in the rpg genre.

The answer is the human condition.

You realize that previous Elder Scrolls games have the improve-through-use system and that allocating points to attributes at level up is functionally no different than allocating points to perks?