[SimeSublime]

I made a comment yesterday that I thought Morrowind was a better game then Oblivion. I figure that caused some confusion, so I decided to go into a bit more detail in the hopes of sparking off a bit of debate. I'm assuming if you're reading this post, you've played both games and thus I'm not going to hold back on spoilers.

So, it's obvious that Oblivion is more aesthetically pleasing then Morrowind. It would be stupid to try to argue that. The graphics are beautiful and the game is fully voice acted. No contest there. But as we all know (or should know), graphics don't make the game.

To me, the goal of Morrowind was to make a real world. It was the gaming equivilent of randomly taking you to Africa, dropping you off and saying "Here you go, have fun". You're given fairly straightforward directions, but there's nothing forcing you to follow them (well, at least once you're out of the cencus and excise tutorial section, anyway). You're told to take the Stilt Strider to Balmora, but you can walk if you like. Sure, there's a good chance you'll get killed by the local fauna, but that's realistic. If you decided to walk through the Savanah instead of catching a tour bus, you'd expect to put yourself in danger as well.

This brings me to one of my major complaints about Oblivion. Leveled enemies. I don't understand why they're needed. I assume they're to make the game more challengeing to high level characteres. But to that I say, what's the point of levelling up? In Morrowind, if you get into something over your head, you run away and come back when you're stronger. That's realistic. In Oblivion if you get into something that's over your head, you come back later and it's still over your head, no matter how much more powerful you now are. There is absolultly no reason to level up, unless you're one of those people who control their skill progression to maximise their attribute gain per level, and we don't like those type of people around here.

Personally, I'm wondering just what caused the giant economy boom that Cyrodill experienced? When the game started, I was being accosted by bandits in leather armour with rusty iron daggers, but these days they're all armed with either glass or daedric artifacts. What the hell is up with that? Where did this sudden infux of wealth come from? It just makes no sense. Now, I will concede that Morrowind used a leveled treasure system, but that was only in treasure chests in dungeons, not on every bloody character in the game.

It also makes it really annoying trying to get good equipment in the early game, and absolutely trivial in the later game. In Morrowind, if you wanted good stuff, you had to wait until you could afford it, or you were strong enough to kill somebody who had it. Buying things were fair, as rewards were pre-set, meaning that if a low level character managed to pull off a higher level quest, they got the full reward for it. Not so in Oblivion. Quest rewards are leveled, meaning that if you do a quest to early, you're going to get bugger all return on it. And due to the fact that higher quality weapons/armour won't appear *at all* until you reach a higher level, you can't even sell your loot for much. This lead my Oblivion character to be flat broke for the early game, and then at some point, it was like crossing a threshold. Suddenlly I had more money then I could possibly spend, and kept accrueing it at increasing rates. It made no sense.

I much prefered Morrowind's method of having the world pre-determined. Lets face it, the necromancer isn't going to say, Oh, here's a hero, but he looks to be quite weak, so I'll change into my cheaper robes today and only use weak spells to give him a chane. No. The necromancer would kill you with a single fireball and then go back to what he was doing. In Morrowind, I was doing some random exploring and happend to stumble across a powerful mage in a daedric shrine. After a few reloads due to being killed, I managed to defeat him and walked away with a full suit of ebony armour much earlier in the game then would usually be available. But that was a fair reward for the extra effort I went to in finding and killing somebody that powerful. If it had been Oblivion, the arcmage would have been leveled down to somebody who could barely conjure a skelleton and afforded me with 20 gold and a steel dagger for killing him.

Now, moving on from level matching to my other pet hate in Oblivion. The linerarity of factions. Oblivion afforded you no choice in how your faction played out. You can join four factions, mages guild, theives guild, fighters guild and dark brotherhood. Each of these factions has enemies and plotlines, but you never get to choose which side you take. In Morrowind, many of the factions were quite simplistic and didn't afford choices. But a couple did. For example, completing the codebook quest for the fighters guild would forever bar you from joining the theives guild. There was very good story based reasons for this, and what's even better is the player character won't be aware of them until later in the game. The fighters guild/theives guild/cammona tong politics had a great effect, making rifts in the fighters guild heirachy and allowing you to choose who to follow.

Oblivion alluded to political differences in the guilds, but never gave you a choice of which side to take. The most glaring example is that of the fighters guild/blacklake company. The two are in competition, and talking to people reveals that the blacklake company are hiring people at a massive rate. If that's the case, why can't you join? There's no recruiter. The game only lets you join them when the fighters guild asks you to infiltrate them. To my mind, you should be able to join either group at the start, then when you have a chance to find out what's going on, you should have the option of defecting to the other if you so choose (for example, a good character who joined the blacklake company may want to switch to the fighters guild when they find out what the hisp sap is doing, or a mercanary who joined the fighters guild may choose to join the blacklake company when they see a greater potential for profit). To my mind, this choice should be given to all the guilds. After getting admitance to the university, you should be able to cede to the necromancers if you so choose. At the end of the Dark Brotherhood quests, you should have the option to side with the traitor and kill the Night Mother. I haven't played through the theives guild so I have no comment with them.

I'm unsure if this could be extended to the main plotline. Giving you a choice to join the cult and bring Molag Bal into the world would make it difficult to explain away in the next game, but could just be given there as an alternate ending that didn't happen. But that's one of the things about the Elder Scrolls games, they try to make the villians morally ambiguous. Daggoth Ur really did believe that what he was doing was for the good of his people, and Mankor Camaron really did believe he was putting the world to right.

So, off the top of my head, those are my two major gripes with Oblivion that makes me think that Morrowind was the superior game. Let's throw the floor open to some rebuttal.

[Spoon Poetic]

Very good post - I've beaten neither game and have barely played Oblivion, and yet I already experienced those same frustrations.

[Dr Lecter]

Whatever, you can still fit: Oblivion, Morrowind, GTA:SA, and WoW into Just Cause, and still have room for alot. I reading them compare the measurements in PC Gamer.

[floppydisk]

Hmm, I haven't played Morrowind except for a little bit, and I've never played a free-roaming RPG that is leveled like Morrowind. I have it, but I don't really have the time anymore to throw myself into it. I did have fun for the little while I did play it though. I'd still like to try a game like Morrowind just to compare the two. You're right about the quest rewards being leveled though. The only reward I can think of that isn't leveled is the Finger of the Mountain quest, where you get the level 75 destruction spell.

This post has been edited by floppydisk: 24 December 2006 - 08:59 PM

[SimeSublime]

Actually FD, that quest is levelled. As I have no destruction skill, I had no lightning spells when I came across it. So I didn't get around to finishing it until much later (when I got sick of it being in my quest book still). I now have a spell that costs about 2,500 magika to cast. Bloody useless.

[floppydisk]

Actually FD, that quest is levelled. As I have no destruction skill, I had no lightning spells when I came across it. So I didn't get around to finishing it until much later (when I got sick of it being in my quest book still). I now have a spell that costs about 2,500 magika to cast. Bloody useless.

Really... I got a spell that I can't use even now, 15 levels later.

[Zewb]

Miss? MISS?! He's right the fuck in front of me! What is this shit, did I accidentally brush him with the dull part of my Stalhrim Claymore or something?! Screw this, I'm playing Zelda.

[David-kyo]

Aye, that is one of the reasons I preferred Oblivion to Morrowind. Leveling the weapon skills in Morrowind sucks balls. In Oblivion, by leveling your weapon skill, you get additional abilities, you become faster in handling that particular type of weapon, etc. A lot more lifelike, methinks.

This post has been edited by David-kyo: 26 December 2006 - 03:39 AM

[Cyzyk]

I disliked leveled everything and the fact they took out half the items. Remember medium armor? Spears? Axes not as blunt weapons? Lockpicks that lasted a little while? Traps on chests and door?

They also provide almost no quest options. Not only is there one way to finish most quests, but some of them (Dark Brotherhood) reward you for doing them EXACTLY a certain way. What the hey?

[SimeSublime]

I didn't think much of the weapon skills in Oblivion. The power attacks give you a 0.000001% chance of knocking somebody over, yet I was hit on my ass all the time? I prefered it when we just stood there and missed each other all day long.

[Cyzyk]

I liked it when my Breton put on the Cuirass of Savior's Hide and ran around with 110% magic resistance and 50% magic absortion, increased to 100% with magic items. I think that may have been the most overpowered character I ever made.

[David-kyo]

I remember my kickarse Redguard custom guy who had maxed out all weapon skills and alteration, he could kick anyone's arse, fly anywhere, pick any lock (Alteration FTW), and not get killed because of wearing heavy armour and the Robe of St Roris which gave constant fatigue and health regeneration.

They really nerfed down the alteration skill in Oblivion.

[SimeSublime]

Sounds like my old Redguard. Though once I patched the game and the Robe of St Roris became useless, I enchanted a daikatana with life steal and some equisit pants with regenerate fatigue to make up for it.

[Zewb]

Currently my favorite game is Morrowind since my computer could never handle Oblivion in a million years. I just wish the faces looked better. They all looked kinda goofy. My favorite race was always the Nords, but I had to find a nice big helmet to hide that big stupid face.

[SimeSublime]

There should be a few "better faces" mods out there, I don't seem to have the links anymore, sorry.