How good is this game?

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As title.

That's all, really!

 

Well you might well want to specify which of the games you actually mean. I have only played Daggerfall and Morrowind since Oblivion would not run on my computer anyway. Daggerfall offers nothing these days so just skip that, Morrowind was nice for a while but for me the expirience resembled playing a MMORPG alone. The dialogue is just plain bad and the plot is highly uninteresting. There are tons of quests and dungeons to explore but to be honest they start repeating themselves rather quickly and safe for a few exception aren't more complicated than fetching item X or killing monster/person Y. It's not all bad though, wandering around the open world has its charm and there are tons of places to explore and variety of characters you can play. So potentially it has a huge replayability value unless you manage to become bored with the entire game before that, which is what pretty much happened to me. I know there's a lot of people around who greatly disagree with me so I'll conclude by saying that Morrowind is one of those games that has a lot of fans but also quite a lot of critics.

Now as for Oblivion, I've not played it so I can't really give any deeper analysis of the game but a few friends of mine own it and they seem to think that it's actually worse than Morrowind, but again I'm sure there will be a lot of people disagreeing with that assessment as well considering that Oblivion has recieved very good scores in reviews.

 

I've only played Morrowind and Oblivion, so I can't comment on the others.

Morrowind - Great game, I warmly recommend it.

Huge, and I mean really huge world, lots of freedom, hundreds of quests. Exploration is a major factor in this game, there are places and places to see, people to talk to (was it 3600 NPC? that number is in my head, but I could be wrong.)
Many quests are the fetch or kill variant, like Morgoroth suggests, but the game is fun... and you can achieve almost anything in it. It ate three months of my life and I don't regret a second of it.
The world feels real, it's detailed, some of the in game books are brilliant... Factions and Guilds have a lot of quests, you get to build a keep, or you can spend a month just wandering around.
I really love that game, and Redorans will always have a special place in my heart.
You can walk, swim/dive, fly, or magically teleport yourself in Morrowind.
Skills are increased by practicing, or training, up to a level.
Morrowind comes with a sweet little toolset, for adding your own unique items, NPCs or locations... useful.

There are two expansions for Morrowind: Bloody Moon (werewolf story in snow) and Tribunal.

Oblivion - I must say I like it less than Morrowind.

The good sides (imo) are the horses, nice graphics, more vegetation and some beautiful, really beautiful sky/dawn/sunset images. Multiple houses.
The bad sides:Oblivion gates are over repetitive and the worst part of the game (imo), less quests than in Morrowind, main quest feels short, to me at least.
It too has some interesting quests and characters, (become the Grey Fox for example, vampirism, Nirnroot), and some beautiful locations to visit (screenshots a plenty).
The world of Oblivion has more colors than Morrowind, but lacks the complexity of its older brother.
Not a bad game though, but I expected more from it.

Shivering Isles is the expansion for Oblivion. I haven't played it yet, though.

I must say I recommend both games, Morrowind a bit more. They are pretty time consuming, though.
You might find yourself doing five quests at the same time, annoyed for having to stroll into the middle of nowhere and back, or just tired of battling unimportant bandits and monsters. Fifteen minutes later, you'll be back, grumbling to yourself: "Just one more quest, one more cave, one more mission."

In short: Morrowind - great, Oblivion - very good.

 

I found that Morrowind was almost a little too big when I played it, and thus, I never really got into it atall. Oblivion, on the other hand, was great fun.

 

CJ knows the score. Why would I be playing Morrowind when Oblivion is out there? Superior game, and great fun!

I always feel my character isn't as good as it could be, though. I just use whatever armour I pick up, sometimes use a bow, sometimes a sword, sometimes spells, whatever. I can usually win hard fights, but it involves a lot of running circles around foes. I reckon I'm crap and making characters, but I have fun anyway, that's the main thing!

 

Morrowind was a game that is to big for its kind like bg2 was. Oblivion is a scaled down version to make it playable for more mainstream gamers. The freedom to roam about is so unique that it will never happen again.

Morrowind is a game taht gives you so much to do. My niece is no gamer but felt in love whit this game. she knows almost everthing about this game. The reason for her is the gameworld itself. she does not fight and hardly follow plots but explored every nook and cranny of it. The alchemy is difficult. You can get it real cheap so give it a go.

Oblivion is dumbed down and still had good graphics. Hardware sites sometimes still use it for a benchmark. My first run gave me 128 hours of gameplay, not counting reloading.

The community is large and has made tons of mods that are easy to install an deactivate. The free roaming is so good. every flask, stool, basket is moveable. NPC keep themself to a day an night cycle.

 

I've played Daggerfall and Morrowind, I am currently playing Oblivion.

Daggerfall is a novelty at this point. It was a fantastic game at the time. Buggy, but worth it.

Morrowind is (as others have said) huge. A classic game. Highly recommended.

Oblivion is like the other two, only a bit smaller. The writing is good, the Fighters Guild quest path is fun (I haven't played the other two guilds). Highly recommended.

Some of the things that make these games great:

True role playing. The skills you use cause you to get better at those skills. For example, if you want to get better at Blade, then use a sword. If you want to get better at Destruction (a school of magic), then use Destruction spells.

Open environment. You can stick to the main quest, or you can simply roam the hills, finding ruins and caves to explore and loot.

You can enchant magic weapons with the effects that you want.
You can make custom potions and items.

Most of all, the games are FUN. You will have moments where you are awed by a sunset, or jump because you didn't see a troll coming. There are lots of optional quests.

 

Well, I've played all four (although I started with Daggerfall).

Arena was quite good for its time - pretty much 'Wolf3D meets Rogue/NetHack' with a huge world map full of dungeons to crawl through.

Daggerfall? That game was really ambitious. Buggy beyond reason - so much so, I never finished the game - but it really stepped up the immersion; gfx engine was more like 'Duke3D meets Eye of the Beholder' but the people going around their daily schedules, the myriad weapons and armour and other items, being able to not only ride a horse outside, but hitch up a cart for all that dungeon-hack l00t. What really got me were the readable books within the game; after a while I just started shopping around to find all the chapters of 'Edward's Story' or whatever it was.

This was the point where Bethesda started showing their world-building chops; pity the technology wasn't quite ready...

Skip ahead a fair bit and you have Morrowind. This was almost like "an MMO without all the annoying other players" You could do almost anything - harvest ingredients for alchemy, burgle places, follow any number of different quest lines. And their character system - another masterpiece of flexiblity (if not ease-of-use ) - was kept intact and fleshed out.

And on the subject of fleshed out - anyone who complains about Morrowind being 'flat and boring' just couldn't be bothered to look for depth; where else would you have quests in your journal with titles like "Hentus Needs Pants"? And even though the voice acting might have been a little limited, what was there was QUITE GOOD - walk up to anyone without a stitch of clothing (or jewelry) on and see what they say; I loved the Imperial responses!

Yes, they ditched NPC day-cycles, but I think they deux-ex-machina'd it quite admirably.



And then we get to Oblivion, aka "The Elder Scrolls Lite" - which, considering what the designers and writers put in, isn't saying much. Yes, it's simplified, and streamlined, and yes there are things I miss that were solely dropped for console-compatibility (map annotation? I miss leaving "good alchemy harvest" or "cleared this dungeon" notes in appropriate locations on my world map)

But as for the trimmed back skill system? I kinda like it; it makes number-crunching and level-planning easier (I've almost got my current character in TES4 up to the point where I'd left off with my latest character in TES3...who's on hold since I picked up Oblivion :blush: )

I am a little annoyed with the 'security minigame' - I just don't have the reflexes to do this anymore, and have easily gone through a score of lockpicks for just one chest, and improving the skill doesn't seem to have much of an effect yet...I'm hunting around for the fabled Skeleton Key, though, so all isn't lost.

Another frequent complaint is 'everything levels with you'. Well, I'm not finding that too bad; it DID get to be late in Morrowind that random monsters were more of an inconvenience and distraction than a threat. At least roadside brigands still have a chance to hold me off for a couple of minutes. And seeing 'phat loot' on 'common brigands' isn't any different than any number of 'Monty Haul' P&P rpg campaigns that I'd experienced through the years - apart from having epic fighters as highwayman, the only way you can help them to stand up to the high-level PCs is to give them powerful gear...which eventually ends up in the PCs hands, who by now have gotten BETTER gear from plot rewards, so they sell off the twenty or thirty "Dagger +1"s they have in their "Bags of Holding" next time they get to town...

And finally, I heard a lot of complains of how this had become 'FPS'ish with the combat.
um...what? o_O There might be just such an element to it, but if so, I've become inured to that sort of thing; between Morrowind builds I was playing a little indie game called Mount & Blade, whose combat engine involves a fair bit of 'FPS'ish flailing and some pretty complex actions to attack, compared to Oblivion.

(Although, M&B is making me annoyed I have to dismount in order to do ANYTHING remotely combat-related in TES4... )

All in all, I'm having a barrel of fun from the latest offering from ZeniMax's subordinate company; nay-sayers can just go play something else...or they can go and MOD this game to the way they want.


(Oh, final thought - though Bethesda has gotten much better with code, Morrowind and Oblivion are STILL way more buggy than anything else I've seen...apart from Daggerfall. )

 

I played Morrowind and Oblivion although I did not play Morrowind as much as I would have liked. The problem with Morrowind was that as people have mentioned it was like a MMO without other people. Completely free which is a mixed blessing. I spent most of my time just flying around killing everything I saw looking for any kind of challenging fight.

Oblivion, the "sidequests" are awesome, the levelling is great, the crafting and alchemy can devour many many hours. The main story line in parts is ok but as Loreseeker said, the oblivion gates are mindnumbingly dull after the first two and sadly the same goes for pretty much all dungeons. They all feel the same. Doing the assassin's guild quest line is amongst the most fun I have ever had in a game though and the black outfit you get makes it worth playing the game alone. The scaling is also a bit iffy imo, it is very hard to level combat skills as it takes ages to level blade or bow skill and if you accidentely picked alchemy as a main skill you will have gained many many levels from just cooking up potions and then find yourself toe to toe with monsters on par with your alchemy skill, not your combat skills which can get hairy. After awhile the opposite happens though, the monsters and game stops scaling after a certain level and everything just gets extremely easy, I think the scaling stops at lvl20 and it is quite easy to level beyond that. Even so it is very hard to level skills where you only gain skill by attacking monsters (weapon skills and destruction magic mostly). I survived most fights by liberal use of potent poisons.

I have tried to reply Oblivion several times as there is plenty in the game I love but the extremely repetetive and boring dungeons have stopped me in my tracks. As a sidenote, did anyone actually level "normally"? Ie only level by the skillups you get when going about "normal" gaming and not take a two hour alchemy detour or cast spells constantly while running around? I rarely had much mana as I spent it all on casting spells constantly as soon as I had mana to get skill ups. Yes I am a powergamer, can't stop myself.

 

I am playing Morrowind currently and it is really addictive. I haven't made my mind up to decide whether that's a good or bad thing. Morrowind has some (quest related) bugs which are probably due to the way that quests are implemented (decentralized), but you can work out most of them by using the console.

Uhh, you do know that you have to trigger the 'thingies' until they go up slowly and then you can lock them without testing your reaction skills? It's really simple once you've learned this trick and then you can do entire dungeons with just one pick.

 

I guess I leveled normally, (no constant spell casting, that's sure ), mostly because I'm too lazy to try the technique described.

I liked alchemy, so I had detours in it for pure fun. ( I think that I spent more time hunting nirnroot than doing the main quest...).

Since I like to poke my nose in every location I come across and have more motivation to do the side quests than the main one, I leveled quickly too, I guess, but not intentionally.

I played a spellsword type of character whose philosophy was "fireball/longsword/enemy dead".
Add an occasional long bow, some security, hefty alchemy... and the jack-of-few-points-in-all-skills wannabe attitude... No room for powergaming.

 

Morrowind was definately what started me on the RPG game genre however I had more fun with Oblivion. Morrowind had some annoying bugs -_-

 

about the keys and such, when/if you get the mage stronghold you can just upgrade the spell "unlock very easy lock"(something like that) to "unlock hard lock"(or whatever the thing is called) doesnt cost much and it saves a lot of hassel

 

Morrowind is a realy awesome game, i have been playing it on and of since 2003 and i still think it is one of the best games i have. The game still goes icredibly strong even after six years, and the modding community for MW is stil very active. Many great mods are still being made. The official Bethesda forums are also incredibly active.

 

Oblivion vs. Morrowind

As other people said, both Oblivion and Morrowind are excellent in that they offer complete freedom to do whatever you want pretty much whenever you want. I spent at least two years playing nothing but Morrowind, leveling my character and restarting and perfecting and exploring all the awesome secrets hidden around the game. If your favorite thing to do in a game is explore castles and find secret doors and hidden treasure, Morrowind is definitely a game for you. If you like to dungeon-crawl most, you'll probably get bored. However, if you include the Bloodmoon and Tribunal, both of which lack most of the frustration-inducing monotony of Morrowind, it's definitely worth your time.


Oblivion is less based in fetch-and-carry quests than Morrowind, and I think that makes it a better game for me. They put a lot of thought into providing cool quests with interesting graphics and structures than they did in creating a massive game-playing experience, though Oblivion is *still* a massive game. The Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood quest lines were incredible and full of innovation, and worth the cost of the game alone for me. If you include Shivering Isles, the super-quirky expansion, you get even more variety in your quests and your settings.

In short, Oblivion is more interesting, but Morrowind is bigger and probably better thought out in terms of plot and the little secrets hidden throughout the game. Morrowind does look a little antiquated graphically, so if that's important to you I'd go with Oblivion.

 

The quests are so varied, it's awesome. Like that 'who-dunnit' quest in one of the houses. Where you walk around talking to folk and try and figure out who the bad guy is. Superb game.

 

I have played Morrowind and Oblivion.

Some have commented that Morrowind is too big. ??? If you mean the size of the map I believe it has been established that Morrowind map is smaller than the Oblivion Map. It seems larger because of the more realistic travel. That's what I've read. Don't know if this is including Bloodmoon and Tribunal but Oblivion has Shivering Isles.

Morrowind is what might be called a stand alone game. It doesn't need modding to play and enjoy. Oblivion IMO needs modding to make it a truly good game. There are some great mods out for Oblivion.Just watch out for conflicts between mods. This can be a tricky issue.

 

If Morrowind had Fast Travel, it would stomp Oblivion to death.

One point in favor of Ob... playing a sneak-based char is MUCH harder in Morrowind, thanks to the lack of invisibility potions and that stupid hit die. It's pretty damn frustrating when the sneak attack misses.

I play Ob on PS3, and yeah, it does lack the flavor mods bring. It's also almost ridiculous to see at which rate you can level up and earn tons of cash from selling potions (Restore Fatigue, anyone?) when selecting Alchemy as a major skill.

 

I must disagree with DotW regarding fast travel for Morrowind. Because of my eye problems I'm back playing Morrowind because it doesn't strain the eye. Yes, there are moments when I miss fast travel but I think that the more natural travel in Morrowind adds to the game and besides get your alteration skill up and you get levitation.

I really missed levitation in Oblivion although I understand why they took it out. Morrowind doesn't need fast travel but Oblivion does. One mod I have does have quests where you can't fast travel but you can stay on the major roads to do these quests. I like to explore and mainly use fast travel when I've gone somewhere on a quest and want to get back to the quest giver fast. No mark and recall in Oblibion either. Missed that.

There are mods which add levitation and mark and recall to Oblivioon with restrictions.

 

Sadly I have only played Daggerfall and Oblivion I really wanted to play Marrowind but couldn't afford it at the time. But I have played it before briefly but never coextensively. Oblivion in my opinion is freaking awesome, the world and what you can do is easaly the most extensive I have ever seen. The character creation system is so simple but at the same time it gets really down to the point. I like to RP in Oblivion (kinda like reading a book) and it really is a lot of fun. I have few problems with the game but they can all be fixed with the right Mods.

When I played Daggerfall all those years ago (I was like 8 or 9) I really got into the game graphics were crappy compared to now of cores but like Oblivion the extensive things that you can do in the game. I remember getting to level 10 or so and just running in the wild to see what I could find. But Oblivion easily surpasses Daggerfall, and the plugins for Oblivion are well worth the money. Especially my favorite Knights of the Nine.