Why is Morrowind more enjoyable than Oblivion?

[Perversion]

Something salamander said prompted this. To this day, I don't get it. Oblivion is clearly the superior game. Better graphics; smaller, more manageable game world; a LOT less buggy; scalable enemies (this MIGHT be part of the problem, actually); better dialogue sequences; more realistic access to quests; more realistic physics...the list goes on.


So why is it that I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Morrowind (on the original Xbox) to the tune of about 500 hours between 3 characters, and I wasn't even 1/3 through the main quest with any of them, and Oblivion just kinda left me cold? The time I did spend with it (which I'll grant was not all that much) I really just did not enjoy all that much. I felt like I was just going through the motions.


And I know I'm not alone in thinking like this. Here at the Pav and elsewhere, I've seen multiple people say basically the same thing. So really, why is this? Can anyone think of any TANGIBLE reason why Morrowind just seems more fun?

[Alzar]

Re: Why is Morrowind more enjoyable than Oblivion?

cos it was first

[marcus]

Re: Why is Morrowind more enjoyable than Oblivion?

Can anyone think of any TANGIBLE reason why Morrowind just seems more fun?

Because they made it easily accessible for casual gamers.

*cue marcus rant*

The larger the audience you try to reach, the more generic your product. Oblivion dropped everything that made The Elder Scrolls a table-top style RPG; no to-hit rolls, smaller world, all of the skills were combined or streamlined, bland and generic setting, half the equipment set, and they completely axed most of the lore.

The lore being a major contribution to why TES was so beloved. There was something like 1200 pages of original written material in Morrowind. Oblivion had like a 1/10 of that.

Oblivion is to TES as Final Fantasy Mystic Quest is to Final Fantasy. It's the EASY MODE of the series. It's the most accessible, which is why it had higher sales, but like I said the more you streamline something the more generic it becomes.

This is why I really hate this generation of games. Because production costs have skyrocketed, everyone is taking less risks to grab the largest market. Look at Prince of Persia; that game was homogenized to basically having no gameplay at all besides "hold forward to win."

I'm just glad digital distribution like Steam, PSN, Wiiware, and XBLA are paving the way for cheaper development so people can still experiment. When I see projects like Owlboy and A Boy and His Blob it makes me happy that there are games being catered for a specific audience and not the faceless masses. Handhelds are the same but once they start reaching current levels of technology in the next 5 or so years we'll be seeing the same decline.

[Perversion]

Re: Why is Morrowind more enjoyable than Oblivion?

When you say TES above, are you referring specifically to Morrowind, or to the entire Elder Scrolls series aside from Oblivion?

[marcus]

Re: Why is Morrowind more enjoyable than Oblivion?

When you say TES above, are you referring specifically to Morrowind, or to the entire Elder Scrolls series aside from Oblivion?

The entire series aside from Oblivion.

I don't know how many people here play D&D but Oblivion is the 4th edition of Elder Scrolls games.

And for those that don't understand that comparison, 4th edition is commonly compared to playing World of Warcraft with pen and paper.

[Biggie]

Re: Why is Morrowind more enjoyable than Oblivion?

My experience with Morrowind was running around with my ugly character, stealing crap. Occasionally running into enemies mashing the right trigger, only to see misses and 0's. I didn't care much for it.

[Valkysas]

Re: Why is Morrowind more enjoyable than Oblivion?

I hate the interface of morrowind. I also hate the walls of text you have to go through every time you talk to someone.

Morrowind has more unique environments, and the individual towns and cities have personality. there's more variety in the way you can play the game, too.

oblivion, everything mostly looks the same. the quests are very linear and short. rather boring too, aisde from the dark brotherhood and some of the later thieves guild stuff.

[marcus]

Re: Why is Morrowind more enjoyable than Oblivion?

I hate the interface of morrowind. I also hate the walls of text you have to go through every time you talk to someone.

Morrowind has more unique environments, and the individual towns and cities have personality. there's more variety in the way you can play the game, too.

oblivion, everything mostly looks the same. the quests are very linear and short. rather boring too, aisde from the dark brotherhood and some of the later thieves guild stuff.

I'm guessing you didn't play the PC version because you can resize and move the menus. I hated Oblivions interface because it was obviously designed for consoles. It got really annoying having to click on multiple icons and slide bars around when Morrowind was simply 4 windows that could be moved and all of the info was available at once. If I wanted to equip a weapon, find out what effects I was under, and select a spell in Morrowind it was available right there. In Oblivion you had to click on the weapon icon, click on a weapon, click on the spell icon, click on the spell, then click on the character icon and one of the four icons that popped up under that to find out your stats or skills.

[Valkysas]

Re: Why is Morrowind more enjoyable than Oblivion?

I'm guessing you didn't play the PC version because you can resize and move the menus.

Nope, I have only ever played the PC version. I know the menus can be resized and moved, but I prefer things to be tightly organized, so I prefer oblivion's menu system. the only thing I preferred about morrowind was how easy it was to drop items. shopping was easier too.

it's mostly the dialogue interface that I hate in morrowind. lots of topics to click, words that can be clicked, and they all lead to an overwhelming wall of text.

[John Mora]

Re: Why is Morrowind more enjoyable than Oblivion?

Yeah, why would I want to read 1200 pages of text in a game like that?

[marcus]

Re: Why is Morrowind more enjoyable than Oblivion?

Yeah, why would I want to read 1200 pages of text in a game like that?

Because the books in Morrowind were well written and interesting and a major attraction to PC RPG's is rich lore and massive worlds.

TES probably has the deepest lore out of any video game. Oblivion pretty much dropped everything established in the original games. Cyrodil was originally imagined as dense jungles populated by Romans. What happened here?

[Red Dragon]

Re: Why is Morrowind more enjoyable than Oblivion?

Personally, I like Oblivion and Morrowind the same. Each have thier charms. With some modding and some tweaks you can get them to be very similar to eachother.

Choice between the two I would go with Oblivion. Simply because of the voice acting, lack of walls of text, and it's not a pain to get around the world.

Most people complained about the easy-transportation. When I first played Oblivion I didn't understand what the tutorial said about clicking a place to go there. So I just ran everywhere. It got super annoying running place to place. Even with a horse. Soon enough, I thought I could zoom in or somthing, clicked on a place and got magically whisked away.

[Jamos]

Re: Why is Morrowind more enjoyable than Oblivion?

I didn't really like Morrowind. I thought it looked rather pretty and the like, but I hated having no idea where to go. Probably would have liked it more if I knew where I was going. I might try the game again in the future to try to see what is so great about it. It can't be this popular if the game was as bad as my experience with it. So I'll be fair and play the game at a later date. I'll probably use a guide to get around.

[marcus]

Re: Why is Morrowind more enjoyable than Oblivion?

I didn't really like Morrowind. I thought it looked rather pretty and the like, but I hated having no idea where to go. Probably would have liked it more if I knew where I was going. I might try the game again in the future to try to see what is so great about it. It can't be this popular if the game was as bad as my experience with it. So I'll be fair and play the game at a later date. I'll probably use a guide to get around.

It's a PC RPG which means it's derived from table top style experiences. In other words, it's your choice where your character goes. A lot of people don't like it which is perfectly understandable. If you've never played a tabletop RPG or you don't like the PC RPG style then you probably won't like it and shouldn't force yourself to do it.

For future reference, the game gives you a concise journal that tracks your quests and there's an in game map of the entire world. Just follow the main quest but understand that the difficulty progresses rapidly so you're practically forced to do side quests to gain power. The game doesn't even recommend you tackle the main quest until level 3 (the guy you report to gives you money and tells you to join a guild if you're below level 4).

edit: choose a default class, too. making your own class when you have no idea how will royally screw you.

[salamander]

Re: Why is Morrowind more enjoyable than Oblivion?

I have spent about two years with each game, and honestly, my favorite one depends on the mood I'm in, or the type of game I want to play.


-In Morrowind, creating your own character doesn't take two hours to make look good.
-Morrowind has unique environments and creative enemies. Oblivion's just feel either recycled or out of Lord of the Rings.
-A crapload of backstory on the backstory is in Morrowind. You feel like Dagoth Ur could pop out from behind that hill and murder you. I didn't feel like that when I saw oblivion gates in Oblivion, I just cursed loudly because they were so annoying, and made the pretty sky red.
-Music was top notch in Morrowind. I'd always find myself playing for hours upon hours just enjoying the act of adventuring around and finding more loot. With Oblivion, the focus usually became about your level and stats.

On the other hand...

-Oblivion always felt like a living, breathing world, and there was always people around who had something to say. Morrowind always felt kinda lonely, and no voiceovers kinda sucked too.
-The pretty, pretty graphics of Oblivion almost makes up for it's non-varied environments. Almost. How cool would it be to have deserts, grassy plains/fields, beaches, and cliffs in Oblivion!
-Oblivion is very harder to get rich in(unless you abuse a glitch), whereas Morrowind, all you had to do was raid a daedric shrine and bam, you have a few hundred K worth of weapons and armor (you can also just abuse the soultrap glitch, which killed the fun of many a file for me).
-Oblivion is way too easy since they included the difficulty slider in for casual gamers. It's even easier when you can select any town or place from the giant world map and be teleported there instantly. Oblivion was definately made with the casual gamer in mind.


Both games have their pros and cons. If you want a next gen looking action adventure LOTR style game, play Oblivion. If you want a decent looking magical adventure RPG that's a little less LOTR, play Morrowind.