WARNING! TEXT WALL AHEAD! DIVERT COURSE!

No really, if you don't like reading or writing a lot, then this isn't the thread for you. Sorry.

Alright, lets set the scene: I was a hardcoe Morrowind player (and on the forums for quite a bit, but lost my PW after a long break *fail*), and thought that Oblivion was an honest let-down. I could rant for many moons about why I thought Oblivion was simply.....bad, but that's not what this is about; I'm just giving you guys insight into my frame of mind. I've played through ~90% of Morrowinds content and about ~55% of Oblivions.

So here's the basic topic of discussion: Is/why Skyrim better than Oblivion or Morrowind? All responses welcome, even those who haven't played Morrowind, though I'll take you less seriously (just kidding).

To better explain what I'm getting at and really curious about, I'll list a few comparisons between Morrowind and Oblivion that caused quite a bit concern for me; so take each point I make (conviently numbered) and counter them with how they relate to Skyrim. To clarify though, this isn't about if I should get Skyrim or not (money isn't an issue), but if it's worth it in terms of time and expectations. For example, coming from Morrowind I thought Oblivion would be great, but it turned out to be a disappointment.

1) Dialogue: Morrowind had mountains of great dialogue that enriched the world you played in; Oblivion had "Rumors" as a topic and that was about it, ALL of which was "X has a great shop for buying Y"

2) Story: Morrowind was running around proving yourself, while Oblivion was running around running through randomly-generated gates for HOURS before anything happened.

3) World: Morrowind was a handcrafted world of beauty and diversity where there was a different feel for each zone you went into. Oblivion was a series of trees within a forest, that was surrounded by more trees. And MY GOD, were there ANY beta testers for Oblivion?! There were more gaps, floating objects, and terrain tears than you could shake a dead mudcrab at!

4) Leveling: Leveling in Morrowind was straight forward and you could feel your character getting stronger. Oblivion was straight forward (with less skills) and you could feel your character stagnating. Skyrim removed major/minor skills, yes?

5) Items: Morrowind had hand-placed objects, and finding Deadric weapons/armor and various other treasure really meant something; Oblivion had randomly-generated cloth and bread in EVERY SINGLE CONTAINER! Oblivion actually took AWAY the fun from exploring because you knew every container contained the same thing! RNG was HUGE in Oblivion, is it like that in Skyrim?

6) Voice-acting: Morrowind didn't really have it, but the VERY little that it did have sounded great, and all the races were distinct and added to immersion. Oblivion had.....2 maybe 3, voice actors (ok, that's not fair, I believe that actual number was 12, counting captain Picard). The lines were so poorly executed and the dialogue assignment was so...bad (holding back advlt language here) that it was painful. I'd much rather read a mountain of text than listen to voice-acting done by the amateur cast of "Death of a Salesman" from the local high school.

7) Skills: Oblivion removed many skills from Morrowind (shortblade, medium armor, etc), and made things like lock-picking pointless. Does Skyrim remove any more or make some useless? I head that speechcraft was now useless, but didn't hear why.

8) Quests: Compared to Oblivion/Morrowind, how are the quests? Main quest, side quests, faction quests, etc.

9) Hand-holding/casual play: In Morrowind, someone would tell you where something was by giving you directions. In Oblivion they wouldn't tell you anything, literally; it was just assumed you would look at your map for the cursor. How does Skyrim handle directions?

10) Money/stealing: Stealing things and becoming rich was stupid easy in Morrowind and removed any financial challenge. In Oblivion you at least had a challenge when trying to sell stolen items because of finding fences, being in the right guild, etc.

11) Difficulty: Sliding the difficulty bar in Oblivion simply meant making the healthpool of NPC's so large that it was a chore to kill them, while up'ing their damage to the point of Zeus. Thus making something that wasn't so much a challenge as it was just trying to find the right bug to beat something or turning something that should've lasted 10 seconds into something that lasts 10 minutes (aka fighting with bows).

12) Immersion: Morrowind, with it's various different areas, talkative NPCs, involved quests, static GREAT treasure locations, diverse skill system, and engaging story could svck you in and HOLD you for a LONG time. Oblivion.....well, it could hold those who were able to role-play their way out of EVERY fault the game had, and was such a challenge to stay immersed that the simple act of trying to stay immersed caused you to become unimmersed.

13) Dark Messiah of Might and Magic: Obscure point, but here you go: for those that have played Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, how does the combat compare? I'm not using Dark Messiah as a measuring stick, but it's combat was good enough to make it a great outside point.

Now for the part that you all are waiting for (for those who made it this far): I would imagine that most of you think this is pretty much an Oblivion bashing thread by a really Morrowind devoted fan that is hoping for the second coming through Skyrim, but it isn't. Here's why: (btw, no need to read this next part if you just want to answer my original question, this is just further explanation on my part) Oblivion was so far removed from Morrowind (in the wrong direction, IMO) that I honestly FEARED what Bethesda was going to do with Skyrim, so this thread really is important to me, because I'd really like to see what people think. Bethesda pretty much came out and said they screwed up on Oblivion because they were REALLY rushed, but they also said that they have more than 12 voice actors for Skyrim now, and put more effort into it. Maybe it shows, maybe it doesn't, but it still comes down to design choices, and those of Oblivion I majorly disagreed with. Also, for those who may be on the fence about Skyrim, how much modding did it take to be great to you? Oblivion took a few weeks of pure modding to become....passable, for me (again, this is just my opinion, not fact).

For the record, I'm actually playing a bit through Oblivion right now (modded, of course) because I wanted to give it another chance before playing Skyrim, and my take was this: the potential was there, they had some good ideas, but I have to try SO HARD to make this game playable, where as Morrowind was great out of the box. I have no problem if you LOVED Oblivion or you think Obilvion was better than Morrowind; that's great, more power to you, but this is how I feel. I also recognize that Bethesda is A) a business and B ) someone who pretty much has the market to themselves, and that affects A LOT.

Anyways, thanks to those who made it through my rant. I really just want to LOVE Skyrim, but after having my heart broken in Oblivion, I'm cautious and nervous. Thanks in advance for all your replies.

you do realize that something like this isnt based on fact. whether or not one game is better than another is based on someones opinion.

your asking if youd like it? idk if you didnt like what they took form morrowind going into oblivion then youll have issues with skyrim.
i guess try one play through. at least that way you can say you played it. i dont want to force an opinion on something you haven't played.

Honestly speaking i don't really know if Skyrim is a better game than Oblivion on whole, just look what's cut and not, compare Guilds, Attributes, useful skills that's removed, spellmaking, recommendations to join mages guild and npcs knowing what you have done arena, main quest etc yeah it's details but it's details that make the game more immersive and Skyrim level scaling is unbalanced too like running into 8 lvls higher enemies like ice mages and Charus Reapers underleveled.

I loved Morrowind and found Oblivion disappointing, for more or less the same the reasons you mentioned.

In several of those areas I think Skyrim is on a level with, or even worse than, Oblivion: difficulty, handholding, dialogue, skills, and above all quests (which are particularly lacking if you prefer to play as good). Voice acting is usually said to be better because there are more actors, but you still hear the same ones a lot, and there is obviously room for disagreement about quality.

But what Skyrim does extremely well is the world. And at least this Morrowind-lover has really enjoyed Skyrim, despite its shortcomings, simply because of that. I hope that quest mods will arrive to fill some of the gaps, but I can't say I haven't had my money's worth even if they don't.

Honestly I think all the Elder Scrolls games are fantastic in their own way. I've played Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim and I love them all. However not all in the exact same way.

Daggerfall- I thought Daggerfall was completely incredible, the depth and detail into every little thing was amazing. The way you could choose your own tone of voice and the vast open world that there was. My only gripe or two with Daggerfall was actually 2 things: 1. The people in the towns, though there were many and cities actually felt full sized and populated, were clones of eachother in almost every aspect. 2. Though the world felt full sized and huge, there was rarely any point to it.. Dungeons were spread out over incredible distances and they were hard as hell to find. Daggerfall was a very difficult game but that's what made it so much fun.

Morrowind- Morrowind is a great game hands down. Sure the animation is a bit goofy but who cares? The game was big, detailed and not over-simplified. Morrowind had interesting characters and memorable scenes that made the game all that more addicting. I didn't really have anything about Morrowind that I didn't like it seemed to be the ideal fantasy game, stepping up from Daggerfall's over-expanse world although stepping down from it's extreme detail which was still fine by me.

Oblivion- Ah Oblivion.. That game fascinated me... I was amazed by how much progress had been made between Morrowind and this game. Sure it was buggy as hell, there were like 5 voice actors and everyone's heads looked like balloons but after patches and some getting used to that didn't bother me at all. Oblivion had been simplified greatly, with quest markers telling you magically exactly where to go and what not, but I still remember getting lost in some dungeons. I spent long hours making spells and potions in my DLC wizard tower and the quest lines were fun. I think Oblivion is the game I put the most hours into.

Skyrim- I was sad that upon Skyrim's release a lot of people were complaining about it. Because I thought it was just fine. Having lived through Oblivion's bugs I found Skyrim to be just the same. It's kind of sad how so much of the little details like spellmaking and such were removed but Skyrim has a lot of things to make up for it. I don't really see why some people think this game is so bad.. Give it time for all the DLCs and patches to come out and it'll be just as good as Morrowind or Oblivion. Skyrim sure, has a LOT more hand-holding. But that's because like OP said, Bethesda is a business, meaning they get better the more money they make, meaning they NEED to make MORE money, meaning they NEED to market Elder Scrolls to a broader group, meaning more hand holding for the CoD players. Skyrim still has great quests, memorable characters and awesome loot and dungeons, and Skyrim can also be just as immersive as Morrowind if you play it right. Same can be said for any other ES game.

I don't really think Skyrim is any better or any worse than the other Elder Scrolls, it's just different. People constantly say how it's "Not true to Elder Scrolls" or "It breaks lore". It's Elder Scrolls. You can't argue that. Just because it's not a carbon copy of Morrowind with enhanced visuals doesn't mean it's not Elder Scrolls so get over it. As for breaking lore? Yeah Skyrim may have some loop holes but what story doesn't? I think the absolute worst insult towards Skyrim I've ever heard was "Wow.. Skyrim breaks lore so hard.. I mean, obviously the Dragonborn was a stupid freaking Argonian. Wow Bethesda you ruined the series". I heard that from one of my wannabe-hipster buddies and it made me stop and want to smack him. Skyrim has it's ups and downs and so does Daggerfall and Oblivion and Morrowind, I personally think the only reason Skyrim receives so much criticism is because of the much broader, non-Elder Scroll fans who now play it. The removal of Attributes and deeper dialogue svcks, but it's not game-ruining. I mean how many times during your playtime do you stop and think "Man I wish this game had Morrowind/Oblivion's Attributes" or "Man I would have rather said this instead" Maybe a couple times here and there but not enough to stop you from playing the game, am I right?

i never played morrowind , but i have yet to come across somebody who said something bad about it , it must of been one hell of a game.

i played OB , and i qiute simply - was starstruck! i was in this massive world , i could be or do whatever i want , from being the emperor to a beggar , it was like nothing i had ever played, it was so big and free and full of fat wads of facinaiting lore and stories .

then skyrim

well....after a long break from it im giving it another go , and you know what? it is OK , i guess maybe because i was just so bowled over by OB im not getting the same effect with skyrim . that makes me pretty sad since ya know i want to love skyrim just as much as OB

however , the game is not bad, it has some excellent quests , and thumbs up to the devs who made the COW , its manifestness rivals the arcane uni

so im giving the game another good crack and im enjoying it to a mild degree , i have enjoyed the MQ ( huge improvement since the ob days) and also the guild quiests .

so i guess id say OB was a little better than skyrim for me

Personally, Oblivion was a letdown for me. Skyrim was better than expected. I think this is partially because Morrowind caused me to start Oblivion with high expectations, while Oblivion caused me to start Skyrim with low expectations. But that's not all of it.

Skyrim's world feels more organic to me. Part of this may be the fact that I can't travel in straight lines, like I could in Oblivion, and like I also couldn't in Morrowind.

There's also the fact that there's more going on in the background than there was in Oblivion. The fact that there are two major conflict, the one between Empire and Stormcloaks, and Alduin's return, improves it over Oblivion. Thinking on it, there were big "world threats" in Oblivion other than the main quest... but the fact that they didn't exist unless the player made them exist, and that they had absolutely no relationship to each other, makes it feel like they're not actually there. Of course, Morrowind had FAR more going on in the background.

Finally, the gameplay is just plain better. I don't miss spellmaking, I love shouting (and killing dragons to activate them). Oblivion's advancement was not only a degenerated version of what gamesas had been doing since Daggerfall... advancement was also backwards, due to a poor leveling of NPCs; leveling was disadvantageous. Skyrim's "perks" system is a new thing, far better than Oblivion's system, and different enough to avoid comparison to Morrowind and Daggerfall. At any rate, it's fun to design characters according to perk goals.

In short, Skyrim is better than Oblivion on all counts. It is better than Morrowind in terms of the kinetic elements of gameplay, and comparable enough in terms of setting, character, and plot development (actually, probably better in terms of character development) to be "better" overall. At any rate, I play more Skyrim than Morrowind, and more of either than Oblivion. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if I end up playing more Daggerfall than Oblivion.