Oblivion: Did anyone else find it to be a poor sequel ?

[Therumancer]

I like Morrowwind, though personally I think they dumbed Oblivion down too much, and I also missed having temples, noble houses, and other things to do quests for.

For some odd reason Bethesda seems fasinated by the idea of actually reducing the scope of The Elder Scrolls with each installment. Going back to like Arena or Daggerfall you had the entire globe to playwith, then in Morrowwind you had one province, and then with Oblivion you had one part of a province (the area around the Imperial city).

I think the complaint that there was less in Oblivion as far as quests and such isn't quite right, yes there were less quest chains and groups, but the ones they had were very well done. I also don't see where they were less creative, I mean this was a game where you had quests to do things like find practical joking wizard apprentices who were running around invisible.

The biggest complaint I had with Oblivion though was that they recycled so many resources from Morrowwind. The biggest example of this being the books themselves. See going back to like Daggerfall, one of the appeals to me was all of the short fiction and such they wrote and actually inserted into the game (of various qualities and amusement factors). While there was some new stuff, the majority of the writing in Oblivion was pretty much cut and pasted from Morrowwind, which sort of reduced on of the big draws of the game as far as I was concerned.

There was some disppointment with Oblivion, but overall it was okay.

Truthfully I think one of the bigest problems with Bethesda as a company which affects all their RPGs is that their bestiaries are too limited. They *REALLY* need to come up with more monsters and spend the time animating them and such.

Also this autoleveling scheme (enemies and such level up with you) was a huge mistake.

 

[Undeleted]

Oblivion is an abomination. Morrowind is a masterpiece. Why are games devolving over time. I don't understand somone please tell me!

Oh yeah, it`s because games are being dumbed down so the simpleminded console audience will be able to buy their game and not get upset because "how i find caius cosdaes, me need quest pointer! so slow 2 walk, world is tooo big... y i not hit nothing? uurughur so many skill 2 pick" thanks Bethesda.
e: ugh I know I sound like a dick but I;m just really mad that Oblivion turned out the way it did

 

[Cargando]

I like Oblivion because there's so much to do on it and even if you've done the all the quests, you can still go hunting for glitches.

 

[Crimsane]

Oblivion to me feels like a mid-development version that was released without putting on any finishing touches or polish. Requires heavy modding to make the game feel complete and worthwhile.

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

I like Oblivion just as much as I like Morrowind. Maybe I like oblivion a little more because its more... user friendly.

 

[Dagon89]

I've always felt that oblivion was just eye candy. the variety of everything was cut down from weapons to armor to landscapes to magic. ex: morrowind had chiton, wooden, iron, steel, obsidian, elvan, and dwemer bows in bothe the short and long variety, to say nothing of all the same in crossbows as well as a variety of throwing stars, knives, and darts. oblivion just has one type of ranged weapon: the bow, and only in iron steel obsidian elvish and dwemer. like to original poster i could go on forever. i mean thats just one weapon type to say nothing of oblivion looks better, magic armor etc. and even though oblivion looks better i was actually drawn in more by morrowinds feel, like how every city way more distinct than in oblivion. etc etc etc plus morrowind felt like a more full world to me, with all sorts of odd and interesting creatures, as opposed to oblivion which simply took real world animals, then added a few new beasts. plus morrowind had more variety in npc's. in oblivion after 10 hrs of gameplay everyone and his dog is walking around in deadric armor, which just destroyed the believability for me. and sure bolivion was fully voiced, but they had so little to say, i prefer text that makes the npc's seem like real people then voices that do nothing more than to move the story along.

 

[hippykiller]

i feel like a big idiot for asking this but Morrowind is for the original Xbox right? i love Oblivion but i have never played the one before it lol.

 

[high_castle]

I completely agree with the OP. Morrowind was vastly superior, and a game I still enjoy to this day. Sure, it was rather unintuitive at first. But it did what so few sandbox games actually allow us: it dropped us in the middle of a vast world and said, "Do whatever you want." You could complete the main story, or any of nearly a dozen equally long side-quest arcs. And the two expansion packs were absolutely varied and wonderfully realized. Oblivion's main story was nowhere near as interesting. Instead of putting the player in the position of the hero and chosen one, you're the side kick...alright. The horrible voice acting really cheapened a dialogue system that worked just fine as text.

But what really annoyed me about Oblivion was the broken leveling system. I'm sorry, but any game that works better if you pick only skills you don't want to use is seriously unbalanced. How many of us reached about level 10 and then realized that every monster in the world could eat us for snack cake? I liked that Morrowind was leveled at the start. That meant if you wandered into the wrong cave at level 5, you were going to be munched on. But if you went back at level 30, it was time for payback! That was great. I felt like I was getting stronger, I was still challenged, and I could have my vengeance on those daedra that tormented me when I was low-level.

I too racked up 300+ hours on Morrowind, possibly more. But I couldn't even finish Oblivion. I was bored, frustrated, and above all, disappointed. Not a good feeling in a game.

 

[EMFCRACKSHOT]

I loved Morrowind and it had far more to do than in oblivion. What really let it down was the fact it was so damn user unfriendly. It was almost impossible to find anything, it was buggy as hell. (I go trapped in a room because the door opened outwards and npcs' wouldnt stop running into it) The number of times i had to restart because of things like this was appalling. It was nigh on impossibe to find anywhare without having a map loaded directly into your brain and it was very hard to make money so you could buy better things early on.
The fact that you could kill anybody was both good and bad. It helped with immersion as they did not just fall unconcious for 10 seconds then get back up and attack you, but it did mean on losing out on some fun quests.
After reading the first page and noticing the large number of people complaining about the fast travel ability in Oblivion, i have news for you. YOU DON'T HAVE TO USE IT.
The stilt Striders would have been better if they were cheaper and went to more places, but i spent so much time just walking i got bored and turned the game off many many times.
Oblivion is better visually but could have used some of the variation that you got in the scenery in Morrowind. It got a little boring as the only variation was between green forest and snowy forest.
There should have been more and better things to find from random exploration in Oblivion but really there was very little incentive to go into many of the ruins and caves as all you found in most was a few potions, a book or two and a cheap sword.
The Spell Tomes dlc was supposed to at least help in this area, but the appearence of these magical books was so rare it was a waste of time and money.
Some of the other dlc was entertaining but lacked the length and depth of the expansions for morrowind.
And yes, i was just as annoyed as everyone else at the voice acting in oblivion. It was repetative and boring and in the end i just killed everybody.
The whole good vs evil thing was far too clear cut in oblivion though. I n Morrowind you had all the intrigue of the houses and guilds that resented the option for a much more grey path that many like to take. this is somethign that could have been done in oblivion but sadly was not.
I also found the leveling system in oblivion better. Morrowind had too many diferent skills to choose from. Yes it could have used a more gradual approach instead of the massive jumps every 25 levels but this is something that is really hard to do. It was also a little annoying having to sleep every time you wanted to level up.
The sum up, the main reason i like Oblivion more is because it is far more user friendly and nothing like as buggy. It still has an entertaining story and enought to do to keep you occupied for quite a long time. I know many will disagree with me for saying this, but i found the game far more immersive as it wasn't roken up with frequent reloads and restarts.

Well, i really was not expecting all that to come out of me. I am now very tired

 

[Nmil-ek]

I preferred Oblivion, I jsut could never get into Morrowind and im not a guy who values graphics over gameplay (like ever) but Morrowind looks absolutley horrid and in a free roaming game welll yeah kind of defeats the purpose for me, I cna forgive bad graphics when the story or characterisation makes up for it bethesda games dont do that. not to mention Oblivion is far more fun to mod/develop for and the community is quite possibly the largest out there.

 

[Captain Pancake]

Actually, i have to agree that morrowind was the better game. the atmosphere was much more mysterious, and it really felt like a fantasy world. In oblivion, it felt too civilised, everything was too charted. In morrowind, you had to find the towns, or pay for travel to them. In oblivion you had them handed to you on a silver platter.