Morrowind , a much better RPG for me .

However from the action and exploration point of view , Skyrim is an improvement , in term of visuals too , but that is to be expected nearly 10 years later ..

Oblivion is comparable to Skyrim , although it had more features , was less streamlined (longer guilds , deeper magic for instance , larger cities ) , but overall Skyrim probably edges it because the dungeons are more unique , world better laid out , art design is better , the music is also better IMO and that counts a lot when you spend dozens of hours in it , also the crafting system offers more possibilities (with mods )

I hope the next TES will keep what makes Skyrim good (basically the action/adventure part ) , but will come back to its roots by deepening the RPG experience by adding a lot more items/objects , much longer and deeper guild quest as well as a more complex character development system and NPC interaction

Ditto. Just to be sure I loaded Oblivion and a selection of my preffered mods and started a new character. Didnt even play it to level 2, the game just didnt draw me in at all.

Music and scenery oblivion everything else skyrim

How could graphics not contribute to why you like a game? Sorry, that doesn't make alot of sense.

I like Skyrim more than Oblivion because:

It is gorgeous everywhere you turn. The environments are alive and believable. Also, a lot of mods for oblivion that I really enjoyed were incorporated into the game. I needed lots of mods to make Oblivion a super enjoyable game for me. I need very few for Skyrim. It probably comes down to alot of very minor changes to gameplay that made the difference.

Skyrim is many times better than Oblivion.

Skyrim! Skyrim! Skyrim!

I had more fun with Oblivion. Skyrim is great but the streamlining bums me out, so does the knowledge that it could have been much more epic if they put more thought into alot of aspects of the game. If they had another year of dev time it would have beat oblivion for me.

on the whole, skyrim. OB did some things better, magic and some of the guild quests for example. but taken as a whole game - skyrim.

I tried playing Oblivion today. didn't work. The combat animations are far to horrendous for me to even acknowledge they even made the game.

The only reason I said graphics shouldn't be a part of the discussion I'd because the games are years apart. If they were released at the same time then graphics would play a huge role. Graphics get better with time. Bethesda used what they could for each game.

What forced 3rd person?

Skyrim by far.

Morrowind. I love skyrim but morrowind seemed more immerse and richer and more dangerous. Like morrowind was unforgiving territory. I truelly felt like an explorer on good ole' Vvardenfell. Oblivion kinda took that sense of exploration out of it (Its in the heart of Tamriel, not much left to explore it seemed). After playing skyrim, I can honestly say that I hate Oblivion. Looking back it was a rushed game (It game out right after xbox 360 came out, so it was just another early game to show off marginal improvements of the system), not nearly as rich and provacative as morrowind. Sure the combat system was improved but if thats ll you care about then TES is not for you. If it was a toss up between just oblivion and skyrim then skyrim has my vote. It brought back that sense of exploration that morrowind did for me years ago. Morrowind will always be my favorite TES game, mostly just for the nostalgia. Skyrim is definatly a close second. And oblivion? I doubt ill be picking that game up ever again, its just too empty of a game. I could walk for miles and miles and miles and barely see any new caves or settlements on my compass. In skyrim I need only move a few feet and bam theres 3 or 4 things left on my compass to check out. Fresh, new dungeons and Im at level 31. So yes in a nutshell, Skyrim good oblivion terrible waste of time piece of crap. Morrowind best for nostalgia.

I would boot up Morrowind again for the memories, but who could ever stand the cliff racers? Worst enemy ever. Thank goodness for someone releasing a mod that removed them.

Oh they were part of the charm heh heh. Oh man the memories. Is it me or didnt morrowind have alot more variety of enemies to fight? And like every bandit in every cave actually had a name. I wish I still had morrowind.... Can you imagine what the telvanni towers would look like if they were in skyrim?

skyrim
but the quest lines in oblivion were much better, everyone would at least talk to you a little, and there was spellmaking-everything else in skyrim is improved

Oblivion, by far.

Much better character creation / development. Better questlines. And I prefer Cyrodiil as a setting.

Although, Oblivion has a bit of an unfair advantage... as I tend to take mods into consideration when looking back on the game (which fixed a lot of its flaws). Ask me again in a few years time once Skyrim's modding community has grown, and it'll probably be a lot closer to Oblivion.

Some towns were cool, but miles of fake-generated forest made me retired very soon.

To answer the OP, Skyrim. It has been handmade, much more landscape artists and all the stuff they anounced, and you can tell.

I'm praying someone, if not Bethesda, re-creates the Morrowind region to use in Skyrim.

this is a strange question; I'd prefer Skyrim to have the deep character and guild builds of Oblivion. Because of that. Oblivion is a more repeatable experience. But I've played Oblvion since it came out- I'm playing it now. That's a little tiring... I would rather have had a Skyrim that carried the virtues of the ES forward instead of leaving them behind. All the new scenery and quests; great. I've done it twice and have to put it down because there 's nothing else there.

Character developement is almost everything in a RPG. Without it, everything is just how many holes and castles have you explored.

I prefer different things from both
oblivion: quests, characters, setting,
I feel oblivion while a good game was kinda copy and pasted to much with dungeons and enviormentd
skyrim: dungeons, exploration,
skyrim I think has nice exploration lacks with quests and characters there's not that many quests and characters and quests are not really memorable at all

Over the whole TES series;

Skyrim > Daggerfall > Morrowind: Bloodmoon > Oblivion > Morrowind

Skyrim has the better character system. Sure, a lot of skills aren't there anymore, but I don't want to fight dragons unarmed anyway.
Skyrim has finally a good magic system. No spell making? At least I don't have to scroll down thousands of useless spells to find my game breaking apocalypse spell. I started as a conjurer in Morrowind and ended up with a sword fighter because, apart from levitation and the fast travelling ones, the spells always ended up beeing useless after a few levels. I don't want to recreate every damned spell because the standard ones are a big pile of cliff racer fecies.
Combat? Skyrim beats everything. As I always liked the Gothic series, well the first two anyways, I love player focused combat. But I like D&D based games too, so missing chance and stuff is fine with me. But when I SEE my Greatsword of big ouch coming down on an enemy skull, don't tell me I missed it.
I like nordic stuff, so I have to emrace Skyrim (and Bloodmoon). That's an easy one and is absolutely subjective.

Now for Oblivion. I liked the DB quests, way better than Skyrim. Every other faction? Longer but also more boring for me. The magic system was even worse than Morrowind's, the combat was better than TES3 but Skyrim beats it. The MQ became a pain in the bottox later on and the damned portals were more tedious than Skyrim's radiant bullsh*t can ever become.

Morrowind? Didn't like the setting, story and I absolutley hate dunmer, so no chance at all. But apart from that, I fought some small brown creatures in a brown mud world, a slightly less brown grass area and lastly the red-brown mountain area. Everything felt repetitive for me, and don't get me started on the ashlander part of the MQ. Oblivion's portals were more fun than the ashlabder stuff. Hell, even the radiant quests of Skyrim are more fun.

I played Daggerfall after Morrowind and it was afar better experience. Much more coplicated, even less user-friendly, but the world just felt right. And wereboars. Loooots of wereboars.
I did not pick up Arena yet and probably never will, so I don't consider it.

After all, Skyrim got less but better polished content, Oblivion was fun but fell in the pit of stupidness half way through and Morrowind was, apart from Bloodmoon, at least for me more painful than fun. Dagoth Ur has to be mentioned as the exception of all this because he's the only really intetesting character in the whole series. Well, not really, but he was fun.

And for the whole Steam issue: I am actually one of the dreaded CoD players, so yeah, got used to it since CS 1.6. I don't even buy non-Steam games anymore, I like the tool. But as I did not pick up BF3 because of Origin (and other reasons), I can see why people get upset about the whole steamy issue. Why make it mandatory? Probably because it's easier for Beth to handle the whole update process. But yeah, it's still stupid. Don't force folks to enjoy the Steam experience, they have to appreciate it on their own.

/e: I think I know why my CoD playing bum can enjoy Skyrim way more than Morrowind. It's not really the dumbing down, it's more my guideline for single player games that less but better paced, designed and more polished hours of content beat weeks of sometimes brilliant but also lots of boring content. I like the fast experience and can get immerses in a little rushed stories. If you can't it's not your fault, it's a different taste. And if Skyrim gets other people more excited than Morrowind did I'm ok with it.

(Evety typo in this post can be ignored because I'm A: not good at English and B: typing on my phone, which is about as enjoyable as the ashlander quests were.)

Oblivion. Skyrim is superior in many, many ways, but there was just something magical about Oblivion the first six months or so (and I played it daily). It was my first open-world RPG and as I played I kept discovering more and more mods to keep it entertaining. Plus the NPCs just inspired me to care more about them. The quests and guilds seemed more fleshed out and interesting as well. Plus magic was head and shoulders above Skyrim's. People griped about Oblivion's main quest being shallow and poorly written compared to Morrowind's, but its WAY better than either the Imperial/Stormcloak quest line or the whole Dragon thing. Plus even Oblivion's tutorial had a bigger "wow" moment. Going from the sewers into the game world made me laugh and pan the camera around to take it all in. The whole Helgen thing just had me wishing it was over so I could go on about my business.

I don't know yet, but chech back in a couple of years.

Skyrim, Oblivion really is my least favorite TES game.
Skyrim improved on Oblivion in dungeon crawling as it has a lot more designs. Also the graphics are better with more realistic color palettes and the races look really well this time around. I hated the puffy faces in Oblivion and bright colors, some gruesome scenes just didn't come across as scary because it was all tacky colors. I also expected at least some tropical forests in cyrodiil but oh well.

The oblivion gates got really repetitive and eventually I just cast invisibility and ran through them whereas dragon fights remain epic IMO.
That said though the writing for quests was a lot better than in Skyrim.

Combat is improved yet again but I don't like the new menu. It's nice to see 3D items but navigation really well...svcks.
I also dislike good things getting removed from every game and in particular the nerfing of magic and the way Speechcraft is now done. The oblivion mini game was weird but right now I just don't see how it can be still called a skill.

Characteristics I don't miss as much but what I do miss are the differences between races because of that plus classes and birth signs. These are minor now in Skyrim and though I can live without class I think no birth sign is just stupid.

Both games have pros and cons but overall I prefer Skyrim over Oblivion. Only played the latter through twice and that's saying something as I still play DF and MW.