I remember back in the days when we had to walk 3 Miles between every quest, In the Snow! of course it was black back then, and we called it ASH!

Damn kids with their fast travel and white snow

sorry OP, had to, totally agree though

QFTW

I can proudly say i played morrowind enjoyed the hell out of it so i do see were your coming from.. but I mean for Bethesda i woudlnt see Skyrim as nothing more than a win. what ever they did whether we liked it or not succeeded ... look at the sales, i have friends who only play call of duty (the holy grail of video games for some reason) playing skyrim....think about it

Yes and it turns my stomach we are dumbing things down to draw in mindless fans.
Now that they have they can add and add some more.
There is no more reason to axe anything else we need more for this series to survive.
I did not think the series could get more dumbed down than Oblivion boy was I wrong.

Wait, what? Oblivion isn't exactly dumbed down comparred to Morrowind, since they have an almost identical character development, stats etc. Other than the adding of quest markers and the mistake of not having an alternative to Fast Travel there is little difference.

The lack of skills.
The lack of weapon types.
Lack of spells.
Fast travel, hand holding pretty much began in Oblivion.
Not as many factions, you did not have to have a skill requirement to advance and so on.
The world was a copy pasted dumbed down joke.
The leveling systerm was terrible.

Its more dumbed down compared to Morrowind.

I played Morrowind for about 10 minutes and shut it off. The graphics were horrible the Cat Folk have kangaroo feet (seriously? WTF!)

Nostalgia is what keeps a gamer going, hell there are many DEVs that use "Oh I had this in a game as a kid, lets improve on it." Or hell DEVs will take something from a previous game and reuse it.

IMO I think Oblivion is way better then Skyrim (thus far, will see with DLC). Oh don't get me wrong, Skyrim is fun and a great game, but there are quite a few things I have issues with.

Seems all like a Roller Coaster Ride and Bethesda cannot seem to improve from one game to the next, its more of up, then down, then back up again. I just hope ETS six goes back to the "WoW Factor" Oblivion had and not this "Eh, who cares style of play."

If I were to give an example, Oblivion had meat and potatoes to the game, Skyrim is like, an appetizer.


P.S. Not everyone plays ETS on the computer, so saying "Mods will fix this" is an escape goat's way of an easy fix.

I do not agree with this graphics should never matter that much. Yes they did they wanted them to be more beastial in that game.

I do agree with this Skyrim lacks overall substance.

I can't really agree with much of the OP. Reading text is not playing a game, it is reading. Reading is not fun, playing a game is. Reading has nothing to do with role playing or story telling and has no place in an RPG except for the in game books. Any delivery of story content needs to be portrayed as realistic as possible, which means you see it with your eyes, or hear it told to you by an NPC or both. The only thing I can agree with is that Morrowind had a deeper back story but even that is a subjective opinion since that said delivery was one dimensional (text). At least in Oblivion and Skyrim the delivery of all story related content is delivered in real time with animated characters either doing the action in the story or telling you, like the real world. You can see it and hear it happen, not read it like your a mute person.

It's easy to sit back and write dialogue, since that is about all they could do back then. The game play was non existent (lame turn based combat, with horrid animations and sound effects) so all they could do was write. The characters were so unbelievable to look at and the world wasn't even remotely convincing. It was barely beyond the old zork text games that had no graphics. So since they didn't have the tools to make a decent game back then, they used what they had which was to write a bunch of text. Now they tell the story in real time with voice acting and animations and scripted events. Much better IMO.

The real problem with Skyrim is the lack of choices in the quest lines. You cannot role play at all since there isn't really a tree of dialogue, it's a branch that ends up in the same place no matter what you say with zero consequences. They made a lot of progress with Fallout 3 then threw it in the trash for some reason. Biggest flaw IMO.

Take the nostalgia goggles off - Morrowind really isn't as great as everyone makes it out to be. Also I hate this term "dumbed down". How is it catering to a dumber audience? It doesn't hold your hand any more than give you minor in game tutorials. Just because a game is easier to handle doesn't make it "dumbed down". That's like calling Mass Effect 2 "dumbed down" because it's approaching shooter elements more than RPG elements. Both Mass Effect 2 and Skyrim are broadening their horizons and are trying to make their games more accessible to wider audiences. There is no "console crowd" or "PC master race". People are people, and people will buy what they like.

They built a game that consumers would buy, and they did a spectacular job at it.
People dont want Morrowind anymore, and they wont make it again so I think we need to move on.

Lack of skills = lack of idetical skills with different names.
Lack of weapon types = Lack of weapons with same stats, but different visuals and names = less quantity
Lack of spells = Lack of gamebreaking spells = less quanity
Fast Travel = Agreed
Less Factions = You guessed it, less quantity. Skill requirement = Agreed.
The world was a copy pasted dumbed down joke = The caves were more distincive than MWs, but sadly had less unique loot, and the outside world had a more familiar fantasy feel.
The leveling system wasd terrible = The leveling system was identical, but there were enemies above level 20 and less "one-hit-dead-weapons"

Lack of quantity is not a good thing, but it should not be confused with lack of complexity.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Skills http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Skills
Overall lack of weapon types, thus less variety.
There is no justification on the butchering of the magic system as you controlled the entire system and you could delete spells. People have no self control so they scream overpowered, and that has killed the magic of the magic system, spell creation.
The caves was the same thing rehashed over and over, Morrowind dungeons was overall designed better in every way. Oblivion was the series low point in terms of the world.
Not everthing in Morrowind wanted to level up with you with thousands of hit points and magicka.

THIS!
Only mods at this point can fix Skyrim.

They have lost features, that makes them have less that = dumbed down.

I do agree with this second point of yours, people are people and a PC or console gamer is not better than the others those that think so need to get a grip and grow up.

hm......raggle fraggle post.........too many have made these threads.....but that said id be a fool to think theyd ever stop

So what part of "Paying attention to your Fan-base" = "new people wont come in and buy the game"

See this is what I don't like people thinking, that the Streamlining, lack of options, linear nature of the Quests, and simplified stats IS THE REASON PEOPLE ARE BUYING SKYRIM.


ITS NOT, They (Bethesda) are bigger, Badder, known by more Folks and got attention, NOTHING stops them from putting some thought in the system and providing Options,

The Stat system being simplified, the races being beautiful on the outside and exact copies on the inside is NOT what attracted new comers, its the publicity and exposer, THAT brings newbies in and massive amounts of cash to your pockets.

"hardcoe" fans don't stifling a darn thing, they are in fact the main source of "Hey I didn't like how this works, can we do this instead?" and ALTERNATIVES into helping progress a series, where the hell do you think alot of the lore came from (no not Skyrims Lore) people who gave a damn picked apart the lore, traded thoughts with the Devs and got some new stuff rolling.

Do you see that happening now? do you see the mass influx of new peeps contributing to the forward march of the series OTHER than financially? the Lore forums sadly is one of the most Bare places in Population I'm thankful of other folks who go there and get into interesting discussions, its sad the Devs aren't as active as far as I can tell as they once where but Catering to a "hardcoe Fan base" isn't going to stop newcomers from coming and picking up the Games.


Even more so I don't want Beth to Cater to anyone, Morrowind/Daggerfall wasn't the result of catering to anyone demographic, or "garnering a wider audience" it happened automatically because they Bethesda went out and said "we made Gold, now you lap it up" and now all of a sudden they keep going on about how they want to "garner a wider audience" and "make things easier to understand" Since the F when was TES ever difficult to get into? does no one not see the wtf in these statements? how do you tailor a game to acquire a new Audience that doesn't exist without screwing things up on what you have 0 clue on whats going on?

Thats my Issue.


and Half of you folks going on about how you don't like these threads would be singing a different tune if it was about "its a new game, stop whining" or whatever


Massive disclaimer that this is not intented to be an Inflammatory Post in any shape or form, So do not Flame me.

Well I think it has to do with my slip up. Oblivion came out and then I tried to go back to see what Morrowind was about and I just could not do it. Now of course since I am on the ETS train, I have no issues going back to Oblivion after Skyrim.

That might be the case, I would strongly suggest look past the games graphics and look at all the game offers.

Read threw http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Morrowind about Morrowind hopefully you change your mind.

As I said: Weapontypes equals quantity, not complexity. It's good to have, but without small changes to how they work it does not affect game-complexity. And since none of the weapon or armor skills played differently at all it only takes away from quantity.
There are exactly 11 spell effects in MW that don't exist in OB. 3 of them are not transferable with the new combat system(blind, sanctuary, sound), 3 of them are teleporting(mark, recal, intervention) 4 of them are simple means of transport(levitation, fast swim, slow fall, jump) and 1 that can majorily mess with the NPC AI(lock). The delete spell option was good though. Olivion introdused a few new effects: dominate, reflect damage and absorb magica.
All the dungeons in Morrowind looked and had almost identical layouts, but with more unique loot. You will likely find about equal amount of "odd" caves in OB of you actually takes some time exploring the more remote places. Example of MW reuse of design: The Dunmer "towers" commonly occupied by Telvani or other distrustful wizards: Small opening room with branching options for going to a small, insignificant room or continue further in. A few small rooms scattered about, with a prison cell. Next area: Large, round room with an open area reachable by a dual staircase, but the main path onwards are found by just following the path you arrived on from the last area. Color scheme of dungeontype: Medium biege. I think it is 15-25 caves almost just like this on the island of Vvardenfell.
The leveling in both MW and OB was horrible. MW got to easy fast, even if you ran around with steel armor and a silver longsword after lvl 20 almost nothing stands a chance. OB got to tedious since enemies got too high amounts of health and neither the player or NPCs could achieve very high damage without exploiting the weakness to magica stacking effect.

In short: Neither games are as complex their hard-core fans want it to be.

Oh yay, it's the "dumbed down" argument again.

Just a news flash, video games aren't, and never have been, some hugely complex medium. Yes, there are games that are more complex than others, but they are video games. Key word: games. They've never been incredibly complex, and this notion that somehow gamers are dumber now, thus games need to be dumber, is incredibly arrogant and rather naive.

I like to refer to it as more or less usefriendly.

If you roleplay having more is good quantity is a good thing. We need the old weapons back, so we can choose what we want for our characters. I do agree they should somehow be more unique.

The spells that got cut was good for roleplaying and added more options for us mages. Then with what we lost from Oblivion to Skyrim atrocious.

I think a lot of what made Morrowinds dungeons better is they was laid out better and the landscape was better done and more diverse. Oblivions dungeons was the same in every single one.

The leveling in Morrowind was better than Oblivions i my opinion. I think Skyrim has the best leveling overall it still needs work but that is a feature of Skyrim that is in the right direction.

Magic gave us options and we need them back, before we truly had options to play our mage how we seen fit.

My problem is when a game company starts to worry more about attracting new people to the game just to buy their third summer home in the Hampton's then anything else. A game company should worry more about what a thousand loyal fans have to say then a 1000 new people. Because while the new people can have a say does not mean there reasons make sense. A person who has played the series of games and been a loyal fan knows what works and what does not work with a game. Some new person who bought the game for 50 cents off Ebay either complains just to complain or there trying to pull "Well this game has it." Sorry WoW fan boy you want that feature go back there.

I think Beth has to stop trying to make the game easier and easier, honestly Oblivion was not that hard to play. Now Skyrim comes along and a blind monkey using his/her feet could play the game. The more Beth tries to dumb down a game for attracting new people the less challenging it becomes. Hell, I thought Oblivion was rather challenging but Skyrim plays out like a three year old bedtime story, complete with big words.

Beth should worry more about what loyal fans have to say because they will normally remain loyal. Where as a new person may buy it, play it for a week and give up. But they'll come to the forums and spew out their hatred for a series they have not followed and did not invest more of there time playing it.

I find the games fascinating, the lore is what draws me in, for a new person the only thing that draws them in is how many posts they can get from their words of venom.

And we have finally reached the stage of the discussion where I no longer need to prove a point

Quantity is a good thing. It's a very good thing for it allows diverse roleplaying.
The loss of magic from MW/OB to Skyrim is awefull. Most spells are now combat-usage only, much like D&D 3.5 wizard: I zap you. I zap you, and the guy next to you, I zap you with fire, lighting, I summon a monster to zap you for me, and so on.
I still think the dungeons of MW are very predictable and similar to each other. Their selling point, however, is that you are more likely to be rewarded with something cool.
That Skyrim have the best leveling system of the ES games can we both agree on.
I feel like an effective Skyrim mage is limited to summoning, illusion and restoration if playing for effectiveness. Destruction is useless at higher levels and the alteration spells aren't really that good comparred to the benefits of a summoned meat-shield and scrapper that are expendable and can endlessly be re-summoned.