Poll: Hay you all who play The Elder Scroll games.

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

I got into TES with Daggerfall, but of the whole series my favourite is Morrowind - by far.

Arena was a bit rough and ready, Daggerfall was good for it's day, but Morrowind was/is an exercise in true open-world freedom where your own actions can greatly alter the gameworld. Oblivion was far too nicey-nicey for my taste, and whilst the open-world freedom remained the whole cause/effect thing had been stripped back so that factions not longer fought each other (so one character could in theory command all the guilds at the same time) and quest related characters couldn't die so players could go on mass killing sprees without having to think of the consequences of their actions. More fun? Maybe. More immersive? Hell no.

 

[Ickorus]

Going by playability - Oblivion because the combat system wasn't quite as terrible as Morrowind's even if it was pretty bad, if it was based on storyline however i'd have voted for Morrowind.

 

[Trolldor]

Oblivion was a lot more accessible to me. I started playing Morrowind but it was far too easy to exploit the AI.

All I had to do was steal something, drop it. Pay the fine, then I could pick it up again and walk off with my new loot.

 

[mexicola]

I vote Morrowind, that game sucked out months of my life and I never regretted it, compared to Oblivion which was interesting for a week and then I couldn't even be bothered to finish the game because I was bored with it.

On a side note, I played Arena a long time ago out of curiosity. I got all the way to Jagar Tharn's palace but my play style up until then was so anti-mini-maxed that I got killed on each step in there. I sad screw it I'm not going back to farm and get stronger... never finished the game but I still think it was awesome for the time it came out.

 

[Trolldor]

As a side note: The reason sequels don't last as long as their previous incarnations is that they don't offer as much to discover, primarily because you discovered them in the preceeding game.

 

[DEAD34345]

I think it should be Daggerfall 1st, Morrowind 2cnd and Oblivion 3rd, but unfortunately for me it isn't.

Morrowind has serious glitches on my system that i can't seem to fix, and Daggerfall hates me with a passion, and refuses to let me play for 5 minutes without something horribly unfair and cruel killing me off (Corrupt guards making up false charges of criminal conspiracy, jailing me, and then throwing me out in the night to be killed by an angry ghost because i don't have a weapon that can hurt it sound like fun to anyone else?).

So yeah, i guess i have to vote Oblivion despite the leveling system, which i can only hope Skyrim will fix properly.

 

[blankedboy]

Morrowind, even though I've only played it for an hour.

I can't really judge Arena, though, because it lags like hell on my computer.

You must have an amazing gaming rig.

The problem lies in either the DOS-Windows transition or the game itself. I can run, say, Trackmania at native resolution with the graphics maxed and it'll only lag on one environment. :/

 

[Super Toast]

Oblivion. I hate Morrowind. So. Damn. MUCH.

Daggerfall is pretty fun, especially considering the fact that it's free. Which is always a plus.

 

[spartan231490]

I'm surprised oblivion is beating morrawind in the poll. I prefer it, because after playing oblivion, I couldn't wade through the choppier gameplay of morrawind long enough to get to the story, but I've very rarely had anyone agree with me. certainly not as often as I hear people who prefer morrawind.

 

[s0denone]

Oblivion beating Morrowind and Daggerfall in the poll?

Wow.

This is an immensely sad day for the Escapist.

I would personally say Morrowind, but Daggerfall certainly has its moments. One game, however, that does not measure up to the other games (except in terms of Graphics, in which category it was vastly superior) is Oblivion.
I would have hoped the Escapist wasn't so young and graphics-obsessed to vote that, in the poll. It is a sad, sad day.

 

[Trolldor]

It's no a matter of Graphics obsessed at all, actually.

I played Morrowind and it threw you in too far. There were a lot of unnecessary additions like having to buy left and right Pauldrons, gloves, boots etc. all seperately.
There was no guidance for quests bar obscure instructions which did realistically refer to several possible places on the map at a time. It took everywhere to get anywhere, and you had to keep stopping to let your fatigue regenerate in case you got ambushed by miscellaneous monster X. And you had no idea whether you were going in the right direction or not.
Morrowind actually left a bad impression on me.

So, believe it or not, some people have a valid objection to the game.

 

[Jezzascmezza]

Well, I've only played Oblivion.
But then again, it's probably just about my favourite game of all time.

 

[Trildor]

I've played all four, and enjoyed Morrowind the most. The detail and setting puts it above Daggerfall and Oblivion for me. I didn't like Arena.

 

[katsumoto03]

Oblivion. Morrowind is an overrated piece of shit.

Yeah, I said it.

 

[Hyper-space]

I've only played Oblivion and that game was boring at the best of times.

I've heard good things about Morrowind, saying that it was better than Oblivion, but I've also heard that Daggerfall was better than Morrowind.

So I'm convinced that determining the best Elder Scrolls game is very much a matter of personal taste.
That said, I voted Morrowind.

Morrowind is better in terms of lore and story, but Oblivion exceeds Morrowind when it comes to Combat, Controls, Animation, Quests, RPG mechanics and pretty much everything else. Morrowind, at launch, was nearly unplayable. The combat was completely broken, controls were dodgy, it crashed more times than i care to remember and the spell system was nearly useless (scrolls pretty much replaced all spells that you would ever need). Mind you that the surreal high-fantasy setting of Morrowind does not make it superior to the Low-fantasy of Oblivion, as these such matters are subjective in nature.

My vote goes to Oblivion, as i have yet to play Arena and Daggerfall. Oblivion fixed a lot of the stuff that people used to complain about Morrowind and from what i have heard Skyrim will fix everything that was wrong with Oblivion.