Arena was good for the times and I had fun though I never ended up beating it think I cleared like 4 main dungeons before the game got way too easy and boring. Daggerfall was an unplayable mess on my computer and I never could get it to run. Morrowind was the best game of its generation hands down and is one of my favorite games of all time. Oblivion was terrible and had to be modded beyond recognition before I would play the whole thing. Skyrim is freaking awesome and definitely brings back what I felt while playing Morrowind.

Or Siberia. Snow, trees, bears and Zangief.

I agree.

Oblivion was plastic looking hills in a generic looking fantasy setting with the only variation in landscape being the northern snowy bits and the "swamp" area around the south.

Skyrim is such a huge step forward in terms of world creation.

Too bad they (Todd?) like to change too much. They get rid of some great features in the process. They could just keep everything gameplay from the past games and only improve the technology. You don't have to reinvent the wheel everytime because you may achieve a square one...
That being said, I disagree with you OP, the landscapes and the cave designs are not better in Oblivion. And I'm talking strictly variety, cohesion and level of detail, not art style or favourite type of geography, those are very subjective impressions. But some other things are much better in Oblivion indeed.

For console it works, but I think they should have made it different for PC.

Are you high? elven ruins svcked lighting and atmosphere was much better in skyrim the art design was fantastic the borealis's and black reach where the icing on the cake.

I like oblivion more than skyrim but I disagree about the dungeon thing. I don't believe skyrim is a step backwards. more like a hop in place or step sideways. they give and take. Naturally people are going to prefer the new because of the improvements.

oblivion: I cant even look at the dungeons a second time. Everything seems to have declined in quality after morrowind. Skyrim brings the series back up a little, but never surpasses morrowind.

What in the world are you talking about? Keep it true to the elder scrolls? Let me guess. Oblivion was your first ES game, right? Do you realize that Bethesda didn't keep it true with Oblivion? That area was supposed to be a rain forest. Bethesda changed it because they wanted it to look like Lord of the Rings. And Bethesda is keeping it true with Skyrim. It's in the Lore. Why don't you read up on the lore before posting your nonsense.

If I have to read another bandwagoner saying the game is "dumbed down".....

There is a massive difference between streamlining the game of useless stats and skills that waste time, take away from immersion and simply bore a player. To making a game simple in terms a child could play it.

The dumbing down thing is a myth that I honestly believe started a whole bandwagon of players who like play on easy come to forums all over and talk about how all the missing skills kill the game. Its totally incorrect. Things like Athletics were removed because players pretty much always needed it, had to train it which took a while and which took away from the game experience and immersion. Spells were streamlined to make magic user friendly, having mages focus on a few tree's instead of heavily investing in destruction and creating (and over flowing) the power section with spells, instead mages are more versitile going into alteration, conjuration and destruction.

The game simply isnt dumbed down, its more user friendly, even to those of us who played past titles. Not only that but to new users, which expands the player base, creates more funds and gves us bigger and better future titles. The difficulty is still there, the depth of lore is greater, the narrative is deeper and characters are far more complex. Not to mention combat is leaps and bounds above past titles.

One more example. Take 1 hour of my play time now vs Morrowind. Skyrim I will get through a couple of dungeons, learn about some lore in the process, meet some characters, kill a bunch of enemies, gain loot/gold. Morrowind I would be likely busy trying to enchant, creat spells do one of the many over complex things if I even manage to get near a dungeon.

I think the OP needs to play Oblivion again, rather than let nostalgia and selective memories cloud the truth, that Skyrim's dungeon design and tilesets are the most varied and beautiful of all the series.

I agree with this able-minded rant

I get what the OP's saying in some ways.
But have you ever walked through the forests in the Rift? It's autumn colours.
The volcanic Tundras atmosphere is amazing..
The reach with its hills and mountains, you actually have to be careful where you step..

There's a big difference between the landscapes of Oblivion and Skyrim, but Skyrim has defiantly gotta have the most variety. In my opinion anyway

I agree with you on some of your points.

In my opinion, I actually DO agree with you in regards to the landscape. Yes, the mountains and cliffs are beautiful, and the Pine Forest near Falkreath is fantastic. But any farther north than riverwood, and no matter where you are, to a certain extent, it all looks the same. (The only exception in my eyes being the Morthal swamp, even though geologically speaking I have no idea how it formed there.) In Oblivion, I could always see the Capital City, but the landscape changed depending on where I was. Near Anvil and Skingrad it turned to rolling hills and grasslands, and near Leyawiin it was swampy since it was close to Black Marsh. Bruma had the Jerrals, and so on and so forth. Like I said, at a certain point the mountains just start to look the same.

NOTE: I am not saying that I dislike the landscape in Skyrim. It was beautifully done and it looks fantastic, I just wish that it had more variance, even though, being the northernmost nation, it makes perfect since to be how it is.

I agree with a lot of this. For me, skyrim only falls down in the length of some questlines, and the streamlining does have a drawback - characters feel a bit samey. Speed, or at least jumping ability would benefit from being able to be upgraded.

Other than that, completely agree with you. Game save bugs aside, skyrim is a fantastic game overall.

It's not a myth. It's perfectly objective to say that the game has been "dumbed down." Whether you prefer it or not is the question... but that's for another discussion.

I happen to think that quest-wise, neither holds the advantage. I think for the most part the ones that are seemingly hating on Oblivion don't actually hate Oblivion, they're just trying to slap some sense into the OP, figuratively. They simply disagree... saying that means they're "hating on" Oblivion means that you'll just have to accept that those agreeing with the OP are "hating on" Skyrim... thus, we arrive where we began... nowhere.

This is true. However, you can't deny that across the internet (and these forums) Oblivion, more than any other game in the series, has a pretty negative stigma associated with it.

Ugh... here we go again. I'm going to bail out of this thread before someone snatches this little bit of flamebait.

Haha, not flamebait at all. Things have been removed. This is a fact. That can associated with "dumbing down." Whether it's a positive or negative for you is entirely subjective.

I don't understand, how does skyrim look worse than oblivion?

People predicted this from the moment Skyrim was announced. The same people that said oblivion was complete crap, copy/paste, boring quests, ect. would all of the sudden praise it because its the older game. Skyrim, in almost every aspect, is just better. I don't see how this can be debated. Yes, the UI is pretty crappy, and the overused voices is still a problem, and some quests are a little shallow, but Skyrim is leaps and bounds ahead of oblivion. I think too many people are drowned in nostalgia and don't even realize it.

I didn't play Oblivion until this year.

From your statement earlier, you think oblivion, quest wise, destroys skyrim. I somewhat agree, however there are some quests in Skyrim that blow Oblivion out of the water, such as the main quest, the thieves guild. I understand this is all subjective, but I don't understand how anyone could think Oblivions main quest was better than Skyrim.

Also, the idea that Oblivion is the better RPG. I have to disagree with this statement. What is an RPG? A role playing game. You play the role of a character, which every single elder scrolls game does. The rest, to be completely honest, is just toppings. Attributes were nice to have, but when I sit and play skyrim, I don't even notice they are gone, or miss them at all.

'dumbing down' is the negative phrase. 'streamlining' is the positive. Both are the same - facets of the game have been removed. For some, they added enjoyable complexity, for others they were unnecessary clutter. It's all subjective.

I miss the old style of the final fantasy games. I bought 12, decided that it had lost that magic in some way, and simply left the series for pastures anew. Still occasionally replay 7 and 8, those two were my personal pinnacle. Still, loads of people like 13, and whilst it's not for me, it's simply because it changed in a way that doesn't do it for me. Whats the point of this diatribe? None really, just as there is no point arguing subjectivity RE streamlining/dumbing down.

/rant

Ultimately it is just a matter of opinion, personally I dont think that Skyrim is better or worse than Oblivion or Morrowind, just different. All 3 are equally good in their own ways.