Why do people think Morrowind is so superior to Oblivion?

[Right Hook]

This is my first forum post on the Escapist, so let me know if I did something wrong. Anyway, I'm not trying to piss anyone off, I am genuinely curious.

I was introduced to the Elder Scrolls through Oblivion, I eventually came to love it, got all the achievements for it and in my eager anticipation for Skyrim I picked up a copy of Morrowind a few months ago. As far as I can tell it is quite a bit like Oblivion (obviously with worse graphics and animations but those can be forgiven if the gameplay and story are superior). I've had a lot of trouble getting into it, the quest are hard to do and using the journal to find out what you need to do is horrible, I have like 40 pages of random finished and unfinished quest, with no real way to discern where I need to go for a lot of them. The NPC's don't talk, sure there might be a lot of them but they all pretty much say have the same lines in each town. Personally, I think this might be a case of nostalgia, you like it more because you remember it more fondly and that colors your current opinion of the game.

I'll admit Oblivion wasn't perfect, especially having to shut those gates, ugh. But what they added just seems to go so above and beyond what Morrowind had. So, in your opinion which is better? Why do you feel that way?

Oh and I think Skyrim will be my new favorite, 5 days!!!

EDIT Okay, really good opinions so far, for the most part. I just wanted to add that I played Oblivion first (obviously) so I was used to the more simplistic system which made switching to Morrowind a bit of an annoyance. I liked that Oblivion streamlined the process of questing and was overwhelmed when I started Morrowind. If I had played them in the right order my opinion might be different but as it stands I like Oblivion more, not to say Morrowind is a bad game, I've played it at least five hours so far, which I would NEVER do with a game I didn't enjoy.

 

[Aeonknight]

Ok, prepared to get schooled I kid

More quests
More guilds
Better plot
Longer plot
Plot actually gives useful items
Varied areas not just forest and frosty hills
Cliff racers
The use of text means there is at least 4x the dialogue
Quest Arrow doesn't hold your hand throughout the entire game
More Spells eg flying
More items and type of items
You can't get the the top of each guild with 1 class (oblivion my swordsman became the leader of the mages guild, can't happen in TES III without proper skills)
You can fight and kill gods for the lulz
There are no unkillable characters
Loot isn't random and doesn't scale to your level
The whole world is alien and not 1/2 normal animals like TES IV

Maybe I'll add more later

EDIT Get the GOTY version for an oblivion style journal which is essential.

What this fellow said. Morrowind actually encourages exploration. In fact it almost makes it mandatory. Quest objectives don't have a shining beacon on top of their head, so you have to do things like take directions from people.

I remember at one point I was looking for a guy I was supposed to assassinate... had the hardest time finding him and got lost. But while I was lost I found like 2 or 3 dungeons with decent loot in them.

That is what an open world feels like. Oblivion is just a Point A -> Point B fetch quest/kill this guy extravaganza.

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

It is because of personal preference. Don't get me wrong I love Oblivion and played it first but Morrowind is just so much better.

 

[theonecookie]

Personally I don't know I never found morrowind that entertaining But it did have pole arms. pole arms are awesome That and you had more options which people like I guess

I could never get past the unfriendlyness of the start of the game I dont mind it being complex and having depth but can you not assume i'm some rpg god and at least tell me that the stupid strider can be used as a taxi before I run of and die in the wilderness trying to get to the first questmarker

 

[Maze1125]

The thing that annoyed me most about Oblivion compared to Morrowind, was the randomised dungeons.

Every single dungeon in Morrowind was hand crafted. If you found one by exploring you knew that it has bee tailor made with it's own ideas and so each had it's own character and items. In Morrowind I took the time to explore any dungeon I came across to find out what secrets it might hold.

In Oblivion, pretty much every dungeon was randomised, and so just felt like a pointless diversion. Why bother exploring a new found dungeon when you knew it was only going to give loot appropriate to your level, almost certainly worse than what you had, and would have no character of its own? No real point I could see, so after a few goes, I didn't bother any more.

Oblivion undoubtedly improves on Morrowind in many many ways, but that one loss was enough to taint the experience for me.

 

[Right Hook]

Ok, prepared to get schooled I kid

EDIT This isn't nostalgia, I played TES III after TES IV

More quests
More guilds
Better plot
Longer plot
Plot actually gives useful items
Varied areas not just forest and frosty hills
Cliff racers
The use of text means there is at least 4x the dialogue
Quest Arrow doesn't hold your hand throughout the entire game
More Spells eg flying
More items and type of items
You can't get the the top of each guild with 1 class (oblivion my swordsman became the leader of the mages guild, can't happen in TES III without proper skills)
You can fight and kill gods for the lulz
There are no unkillable characters
Loot isn't random and doesn't scale to your level
The whole world is alien and not 1/2 normal animals like TES IV
Better fast travel system
Good world politics

Maybe I'll add more later

EDIT Get the GOTY version for an oblivion style journal which is essential.

Cool! This is the type of answer I was looking for, honestly the journal was seriously the most annoying part of it for me, if I had known the GOTY edition contained a better one, I definitely would have gotten that version.

 

[adamus888]

Ok, prepared to get schooled I kid

You can't get the the top of each guild with 1 class (oblivion my swordsman became the leader of the mages guild, can't happen in TES III without proper skills)

Yeah, it was pretty ridiculous in Oblivion. You could become the Grey Fox (spoiler alert), the Archmage, the leader of the Fighters guild and the leader of the Dark brotherhood all at the same time! That's not exactly perfect. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that there were exclusive plot lines in Morrowind, as in if I'm the head of the Thieves guild I can't become the boss of the Fighters guild, etc.
I've never really gotten into Morrowind thoroughly. As with Shotgun Guy, I started out with Oblivion (GOTY edition), which I played through about 5 times. Then I got my hands on Morrowind. I can't say I didn't like it, but neither was I stunned by it's eminence (don't kill me). But from what I actually experienced, the plot actually intrigued me. I carefully followed the main quest for some time, until i had to fight some flying creatures which i couldn't kill at all. I died horribly and lost 2 hours of progress, as I forgot to autosave. I think I stopped playing then, as some other game came out. Maybe I'll try Morrowind again, if Skyrim turns out to be a failure. Let's hope that doesn't happen.

Oh and though Morrowind had little voice-acting, Oblivion had like 12 people doing the whole job, which meant that people were talking to themselves with alternating accents. So I think Morrowind's dialogue was a bit better, if boring for some gamers.

 

[hazabaza1]

While Oblivion certainly had its flaws, as someone who played Morrowind second I much prefer Oblivion.
The combat system in Morrowind was fairly shite, as was the journal thing. I never felt too invested in the main plot in either, so eh. One part where I'll admit Morrowind was far better was in the variation. Those towns were pretty damn unique. I mean, sure, Oblivion had unique looking styles, but Morrowind was like holy shit unique.

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

Better plot, better quests, better items, more armor, more enemies in the water, more interesting environments, more of a challenge...

 

[Aidinthel]

Lol at OP complaining that NPCs say the same thing in every town in Morrowind. At least you don't have to listen to them blather to each other. Anyway, what Matthew94 said, including the part about playing Oblivion first. Total playtime for Oblivion: ~10 hours. Playtime for Morrowind: ~110 hours.

at least tell me that the stupid strider can be used as a taxi before I run of and die in the wilderness trying to get to the first questmarker

It did. I distinctly remember the NPCs directing me to the strider.

 

[Right Hook]

Lol at OP complaining that NPCs say the same thing in every town in Morrowind. At least you don't have to listen to them blather to each other. Anyway, what Matthew94 said, including the part about playing Oblivion first. Total playtime for Oblivion: ~10 hours. Playtime for Morrowind: ~110 hours.

I'll admit the conversations in Oblivion could get a bit annoying and repetitive but people didn't have the exact same lines, from what I remember. Anyway, your playtime estimate is way off, there is definitely more than 10 hours of gameplay in Oblivion. That's like saying Morrowind only has a playtime of seven minutes just because some guy found a way to glitch his way to the end.

 

[Woodsey]

The big thing for people is the world. Morrowind felt strange, Oblivion - whilst there was plenty of weirdness beneath the surface - had a much more standard fantasy setting.

Personally, whilst I can see that, I preferred Oblivion. I dislike text-based dialogue, and a lot of the game's functionality was poorly designed (I seem to remember the map and journal being particularly shit). I can't abide by fully real-time combat being based on dice rolls either.

 

[ThePuzzldPirate]

Hipsters, pretty much.

I couldn't get into Morrowind, hated the interface and the whole thing just felt too clunky.

I can't tell if your joking but I do agree with you, much too clunky for me but it is the better game of the two just from content. There is just more to do across the board.