God, how I missed Oblivion

[Clockwork Knight]

it doesn't make sense that the Blades, an arcane order of warriors/bodyguards quite well accustomed with the metaphysical fabric of Tamriel, would let an escaped convict carry the cornerstone of the planes around, no matter what the emperor said in the five minutes of the tutorial. The whole "you are the one in my dreams!" would work better if it was tied more clearly to the Elder Scrolls as a prophecy and if the big twist came in the middle of the main quest, when the PC had the time to establish a reputation.

To be fair, the only surviving Blade by that point was the one who believed in the emperor's mystical visions, he says more if you talk to them on the way to the exit instead of just following. The other two were eager to kill the PC on the spot and were dismissive as Uriel babbled about stars (good thing they were conveniently killed ). The way that news of the assassination instantly spreads across the land is stupider, it's already old news by the time you get out of the sewer. Also, Baurus deciding that guarding the body and making sure you "aren't followed" was more important than simply helping you get to the monastery.

 

[McPlusle]

Is Oblivion that big of a drop from Morrowind? After thirteen years of trying, Morrowind has finally clicked with me. I found a custom class setup that I like, I've acclimated to the combat that really is nowhere near as bad as the kids say it is, and honestly, I don't think any game has filled me with this much of a sense of wonder just from walking around its world since I was a child. I was a stupid kid in 2004; this game is a masterpiece. I haven't played Oblivion or Skyrim in years, but if they fall as far from Morrowind as I'm hearing, I'm honestly worried about returning to them after finishing this.

 

[Alkarl]

Is Oblivion that big of a drop from Morrowind? After thirteen years of trying, Morrowind has finally clicked with me. I found a custom class setup that I like, I've acclimated to the combat that really is nowhere near as bad as the kids say it is, and honestly, I don't think any game has filled me with this much of a sense of wonder just from walking around its world since I was a child. I was a stupid kid in 2004; this game is a masterpiece. I haven't played Oblivion or Skyrim in years, but if they fall as far from Morrowind as I'm hearing, I'm honestly worried about returning to them after finishing this.

Oblivions Main issues: Generic Fantasy Landscape; Uncanny Valley; Level Scaling

Other than that, it is not too awfully bad. There are a lot of minor issues as well, such as the removal of spells like levitate etc. Imo, play Oblivion for Shivering Isles, a couple Oblivion Gates, and the entirety of the Dark Brotherhood quest line, and you'll have seen the best Oblivion has to offer.

Skyrim is apparently fun... Sigourn

 

[Wayward Son]

Imo, play Oblivion for Shivering Isles, a couple Oblivion Gates, and the entirety of the Dark Brotherhood quest line, and you'll have seen the best Oblivion has to offer.

Pretty much this. Oblivion is not good, but will always hold a special place in my heart for introducing me to the genre.

 

[Drax]

This, I wouldn't have known Morrowind or New Vegas if it wasn't for TES: Potatohead.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

I liked the game, sank at least 300-500 hours on it. It isn't too different from Morrowind, aside from a couple of spells and skills missing/merged it's exactly the same system. You'll feel right at home.

But come to think of it, p much the only reason Morrowind is in such high regard here on the Dex is the lore and the mysterious world with androgynous human gods and racist dark elves with raspy voices.

Oblivion is a bit generic in comparison, so to speak. However, it still has various cool Daedra (TES version of demons). And the quest design ain't half bad, especially Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild. And the landscapes can still look very gorgeous.

Not to mention that Shivering Isles expansion pack ups the weirdness level up to 11. Everyone should play it at least once.

Honestly, the biggest issue here is the level scaling. It can get so heavy handed it's crazy. Like when you just start the game, equipment better than steel doesn't exist anywhere in the game at all, you can't even steal it from some knight or w/e. And once you become level 15 even the highway bandits are donning the absolutely best Daedric gear, like suddenly the whole world is swimming in top of the shelf gear. But of course there are mods that change spawn tables, try a few. And get a UI mod, the original one was made for consoles, so it's a bit cramped. I've used this one.

 

[Drog Black Tooth]

Imo, play Oblivion for Shivering Isles, a couple Oblivion Gates, and the entirety of the Dark Brotherhood quest line, and you'll have seen the best Oblivion has to offer.

Pretty much this. Oblivion is not good, but will always hold a special place in my heart for introducing me to the genre.

This, I wouldn't have known Morrowind or New Vegas if it wasn't for TES: Potatohead.

Get off my lawn. The first time I played Morrowind was right after release. I still remember it lagging as fuck on my Geforce 4 MX 440, had to go out and buy a new video card just for this game. The water shaders looked stunning back in the day. Every developer started completing in water pixel shaders quality after Morrowind's release, p much.

 

[Sigourn]

Is Oblivion that big of a drop from Morrowind? After thirteen years of trying, Morrowind has finally clicked with me. I found a custom class setup that I like, I've acclimated to the combat that really is nowhere near as bad as the kids say it is, and honestly, I don't think any game has filled me with this much of a sense of wonder just from walking around its world since I was a child. I was a stupid kid in 2004; this game is a masterpiece. I haven't played Oblivion or Skyrim in years, but if they fall as far from Morrowind as I'm hearing, I'm honestly worried about returning to them after finishing this.

Oblivion is shit, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Play Skyrim, a much more fun game.

 

[Codexlurker]

Oblivion is one of the reasons why I question if there is a God lol. Good thing Gothic 2 and Warrior Kings sealed up the butthurt.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Is Oblivion that big of a drop from Morrowind?

Even leaving aside everything about the setting and lore, Oblivion has

• Comprehensive creature-leveling such that all monsters and NPCs are set at the same level as the PC, with weaker types of monsters disappearing after the character gains enough levels, and stronger types of monsters not appearing when the character is low-level.
  
• Comprehensive item-leveling whereby a high-level PC will not only encounter similarly high-level bandits but said bandits will have random pieces of extremely expensive armor and weapons, while a low-level PC will never find weapons/armor of such powerful material; or a weapon on display in a glass case in a castle will be a worthless replica if the PC is low-level but the real thing after the PC gains enough levels.
  
• A clunky interface, which was clearly designed for consoles, in sharp contrast to Morrowind's sleek menus.
  
• Reduction in the number of joinable guilds/factions offering many quests from 10 in Morrowind to 4 in Oblivion, keeping the more generic ones (Fighters/Mages/Thieves guilds).
• Full voice-acting for dialogue, which necessitated a drastic reduction in the amount of dialogue per NPC, most of whom have one comment about themselves or their city to offer and nothing else.
• Minigames for speechcraft and lockpicking.
• Elimination of certain kinds of items, such as thrown weapons, crossbows, and spears.
• Reduction in the number of skills to the point where axes are considered blunt weapons.
• Regenerating magicka, which effectively means that all health can be easily regained after each combat, thus removing much of the logistics that existed previously.
• Elimination of different physiques for Argonians and Khajiits.
• Both in-game and out-of-game world maps that offer far less information than their Morrowind equivalents.
• Automatic fast-travel to any location that's already been visited.
• A quest compass that points to your next destination, the use of which is made necessary by the combination of uninformative journal entries and an inability to ask directions.
• A lack of aesthetics, especially compared to Morrowind's brilliant art direction.
• A half-baked action-oriented combat system so that success in combat depends greatly on the player's physical skill, yet is boring and tedious.

The sum total of changes, was to drastically worsen exploration (especially overland exploration due to the quest compass, fast travel, and lack of directions), make combat even worse by adding a poorly-conceived action-bases system, reduce options for character customization, and offer a relatively uninteresting environment in terms of setting, lore, and aesthetics.

 

[Sigourn]

• A clunky interface, which was clearly designed for consoles, in sharp contrast to Morrowind's sleek menus.
  
• Full voice-acting for dialogue, which necessitated a drastic reduction in the amount of dialogue per NPC, most of whom have one comment about themselves or their city to offer and nothing else.
• Minigames for speechcraft and lockpicking.
• Reduction in the number of skills to the point where axes are considered blunt weapons.
• Regenerating magicka, which effectively means that all health can be easily regained after each combat, thus removing much of the logistics that existed previously.
• A quest compass that points to your next destination, the use of which is made necessary by the combination of uninformative journal entries and an inability to ask directions.
• A lack of aesthetics, especially compared to Morrowind's brilliant art direction.
• A half-baked action-oriented combat system so that success in combat depends greatly on the player's physical skill, yet is boring and tedious.

All these were especially noticeable to me after getting through the tutorial dungeon and going to the Imperial City. Needless to mention, I didn't bother to keep playing.

 

[buru5]

"A clunky interface, which was clearly designed for consoles, in sharp contrast to Morrowind's sleek menus. "

Yep. Morrowind has a better menu system, but both are superioer to Skyrim's.

"Full voice-acting for dialogue, which necessitated a drastic reduction in the amount of dialogue per NPC, most of whom have one comment about themselves or their city to offer and nothing else."

Er, Morrowind NPCs were wiki articles with very little unique dialouge outside of quest NPCs and important characters. This point is stupid. Oblivion has a shit ton of dialogue. Maybe you should have criticized the lack of varied voice acting instead.

"Minigames for speechcraft and lockpicking."

And? What's the problem here? You don't like this? Ok. Cool opinion.

"Reduction in the number of skills to the point where axes are considered blunt weapons."

Valid point, Skyrim is much worse though.

"Regenerating magicka, which effectively means that all health can be easily regained after each combat, thus removing much of the logistics that existed previously."

Yeah, and Morrowind allowed you to rest when no enemies were around. And if enemies were around you could simply run away and rest. They both have shit battle systems that can be exploited.

"A quest compass that points to your next destination, the use of which is made necessary by the combination of uninformative journal entries and an inability to ask directions."

Valid point, but ultimately it's a matter of preference. I prefer Morrowind's handling personally.

"A lack of aesthetics, especially compared to Morrowind's brilliant art direction."

I thought Oblivion looked aesthetically beautiful, even if it was a generic looking high-fantasy setting. It still looked good. I don't think aesthetic means what you think it means. Morrowind's brown landscapes and mushrooms were not especially unique, all of it had been done before, people need to stop pretending Morrowind's setting is some kind of godlike one of a kind wonderland. It has a few more varied locations than Oblivion, but it's still monotonous and dated, only saved with mods.

"A half-baked action-oriented combat system so that success in combat depends greatly on the player's physical skill, yet is boring and tedious."

Sounds like you're describing Morrowind here. At least a visual connect in Oblivion is a real connect.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

The minigames are objectively bad tho. They finish the job of throwing dirt on the grave of Security and Speechcraft that Alteration (unlock) and Illusion(charm) started to dig. At least in Oblivion they raised attributes, but there is no reason to invest in Skyrim's lockpicking tree at all. (if they're determined to keep the minigame, a solution would be making lockpicks rarer and being unable to even attempt the minigame if you don't have the minimum skill level)

 

[buru5]

The minigames are objectively bad tho. They finish the job of throwing dirt on the grave of Security and Speechcraft that Alteration (unlock) and Illusion(charm) started to dig. At least in Oblivion they raised attributes, but there is no reason to invest in Skyrim's lockpicking tree at all. (if they're determined to keep the minigame, a solution would be making lockpicks rarer and being unable to even attempt the minigame if you don't have the minimum skill level)

I don't know if I'd consider a game mechanic "objectively" bad unless it's broken in some way or bugged to the point where it's unusable. But I really don't want to open that can of worms (objective/subjective/etc).

Persuasion in Morrowind was shit, if you want to start a fight you drag your dialogue box to be in line with "intimidate" and you just endlessly click over and over, or if you want someone to like you you simply give them 100 gold twice and you're set. I will say that at least Morrowind let you piss off NPCs, Oblivion doesn't. So that's a point for Morrowind.

Oblivon's lockpicking was extremely difficult if you weren't intimately familiar with the mechanics and your skill was low, technically you could unlock everything with very low skill but this required a pretty deep understanding of how it works.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I don't know if I'd consider a game mechanic "objectively" bad unless it's broken in some way or bugged to the point where it's unusable. But I really don't want to open that can of worms (objective/subjective/etc). [...] Oblivon's lockpicking was extremely difficult if you weren't intimately familiar with the mechanics and your skill was low, technically you could unlock everything with very low skill but this required a pretty deep understanding of how it works.

Well, they're supposed to just make things more interesting than "click and roll a die to see if successful", but they have the side effect of making the respective skills irrelevant if you have some persistence. Things not working as intended qualify as broken for me, even if it's not a bug and just developer oversight, like bandits clad in glass armor late in the game.

Persuasion in Morrowind was shit, if you want to start a fight you drag your dialogue box to be in line with "intimidate" and you just endlessly click over and over, or if you want someone to like you you simply give them 100 gold twice and you're set. I will say that at least Morrowind let you piss off NPCs, Oblivion doesn't. So that's a point for Morrowind.

You can do that in Oblivion, just keep selecting the option that annoys that particular NPC. I don't think there's a good reason to, and even if you do you can just cast Frenzy as usual.

 

[buru5]

I don't know if I'd consider a game mechanic "objectively" bad unless it's broken in some way or bugged to the point where it's unusable. But I really don't want to open that can of worms (objective/subjective/etc). [...] Oblivon's lockpicking was extremely difficult if you weren't intimately familiar with the mechanics and your skill was low, technically you could unlock everything with very low skill but this required a pretty deep understanding of how it works.

Well, they're supposed to just make things more interesting than "click and roll a die to see if successful", but they have the side effect of making the respective skills irrelevant if you have some persistence. Things not working as intended qualify as broken for me, even if it's not a bug and just developer oversight, like bandits clad in glass armor late in the game.

Persuasion in Morrowind was shit, if you want to start a fight you drag your dialogue box to be in line with "intimidate" and you just endlessly click over and over, or if you want someone to like you you simply give them 100 gold twice and you're set. I will say that at least Morrowind let you piss off NPCs, Oblivion doesn't. So that's a point for Morrowind.

You can do that in Oblivion, just keep selecting the option that annoys that particular NPC. I don't think there's a good reason to, and even if you do you can just cast Frenzy as usual.

Speechcraft doesn't work like that in Oblivion. If your speechcraft is too low it will cap out the NPC's disposition at a certain number, making it impossible to raise any further without a charm spell or bribery. I'm fairly certain you can't enrage an NPC with the mini-game either, at least to the point where they'll attack you. Maybe you can though? I could be wrong.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

You're right about the NPC's disposition in the minigame being capped by your Speechcraft skill, but there's no risk in getting there so it's just a matter of how much time you're willing to spend with the persuasion wheel (and fight off the temptation to just get a charm spell). Pissing them off is possible but may also depend on their Aggression (cut off point at where their disposition won't keep them from attacking), most friendly NPCs have a low aggression and high disposition so you're unlikely to run into it by accident.

Speaking of that, there's a famous bug with a couple in Chorrol, the husband accidentally had his aggression set too high and will start attacking his dogs the instant you enter the house.

 

[Vorark]

Is Oblivion that big of a drop from Morrowind? After thirteen years of trying, Morrowind has finally clicked with me. I found a custom class setup that I like, I've acclimated to the combat that really is nowhere near as bad as the kids say it is, and honestly, I don't think any game has filled me with this much of a sense of wonder just from walking around its world since I was a child. I was a stupid kid in 2004; this game is a masterpiece. I haven't played Oblivion or Skyrim in years, but if they fall as far from Morrowind as I'm hearing, I'm honestly worried about returning to them after finishing this.

Skyrim was my first TES game; later I played Morrowind and enjoyed it so much I couldn't get into Skyrim when I tried it again a couple of months ago. Felt shallow, drab, uninspired.

 

[buru5]

You're right about the NPC's disposition in the minigame being capped by your Speechcraft skill, but there's no risk in getting there so it's just a matter of how much time you're willing to spend with the persuasion wheel (and fight off the temptation to just get a charm spell). Pissing them off is possible but may also depend on their Aggression (cut off point at where their disposition won't keep them from attacking), most friendly NPCs have a low aggression and high disposition so you're unlikely to run into it by accident.

Speaking of that, there's a famous bug with a couple in Chorrol, the husband accidentally had his aggression set too high and will start attacking his dogs the instant you enter the house.

Apparently there is only one npc that can be provoked that the way, quest related. Believe it's the daedra quest where you have to piss off the guy at his wife's gravestone. So yet another feature gutted from Morrowind.

Yeah, I believe there are a few bugs like that. Most patched out by the Unofficial Oblivion patches, but I remember some NPCs who would steal when hungry because their responsibility score was so low, they'd get murdered by guards in some cases, or cause a shit storm in the Imperial City.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Watching guards genociding already few, small and sparsely populated towns and fighting each other when grazed by arrows of their comrades in arms was fun to watch. And it was only fun thing to watch in Oblivion. Started with Dagger-fall when every smallest kingdom had a town the size of Imperial City and thought the Vanderfell was already bit on small size but this was the part of province of Morrowind and then came the biggest province of them all and they make it into forest with 7 small town and Imperial City the size of Balmora.

 

[octavius]

Watching guards genociding already few, small and sparsely populated towns and fighting each other when grazed by arrows of their comrades in arms was fun to watch.

Yeah, that was ridicilous. What happened to "Hey, I'm on your side!"? A Finnish modder name Sky Captain made a mod that (mostly) solved this issue.

 

[Sigourn]

"A clunky interface, which was clearly designed for consoles, in sharp contrast to Morrowind's sleek menus. "

Yep. Morrowind has a better menu system, but both are superioer to Skyrim's.

Skyrim's UI is much better than Oblivion's. And with mods, it's not even a contest.

"Full voice-acting for dialogue, which necessitated a drastic reduction in the amount of dialogue per NPC, most of whom have one comment about themselves or their city to offer and nothing else."

Er, Morrowind NPCs were wiki articles with very little unique dialouge outside of quest NPCs and important characters. This point is stupid. Oblivion has a shit ton of dialogue. Maybe you should have criticized the lack of varied voice acting instead.

It's true that Morrowind's NPCs sucked, but Oblivion's are worse: instead of making meaningfully unique NPCs, I ask a guard to tell me about the Emperor, and all he says is "he will be sorely missed". What the fuck, I wanted to know about the emperor, not how you feel about his death.

"Minigames for speechcraft and lockpicking."

And? What's the problem here? You don't like this? Ok. Cool opinion.

It takes away from the RPG aspect of the game when it's your player skill that makes the real difference.

"Regenerating magicka, which effectively means that all health can be easily regained after each combat, thus removing much of the logistics that existed previously."

Yeah, and Morrowind allowed you to rest when no enemies were around. And if enemies were around you could simply run away and rest. They both have shit battle systems that can be exploited.

You can choose not to exploit Morrowind's system. In Oblivion, there's no logical reason not to take advantage of it: Magicka simply regenerates and from an in-game point of view, it makes sense to keep healing yourself. In Morrowind, there's no logic to acting like a narcoleptic all the time.

"A lack of aesthetics, especially compared to Morrowind's brilliant art direction."

I thought Oblivion looked aesthetically beautiful, even if it was a generic looking high-fantasy setting. It still looked good. I don't think aesthetic means what you think it means. Morrowind's brown landscapes and mushrooms were not especially unique, all of it had been done before, people need to stop pretending Morrowind's setting is some kind of godlike one of a kind wonderland. It has a few more varied locations than Oblivion, but it's still monotonous and dated, only saved with mods.

I disagree. I'm not going to say Oblivion lacked art direction, but it seriously looks like it did. Compare it to The Witcher, for instance. The game had a clear art direction, everything felt cohesive and very atmospheric. In Oblivion, they went for generic high-fantasy in the most generic way possible. You can make generic look good, but Oblivion simply looks awful, it's greenery everywhere.

I really liked Vvardenfell, not only did it have different regions, but all felt distinctively unique. Some were naturally more boring that others: namely the Ascadian Isles, because it's the more "normal" area in the game, though the numerous beaches, rocks and trees make it possible to hide entrances to caves.

 

[buru5]

"Skyrim's UI is much better than Oblivion's. And with mods, it's not even a contest."

No, it's really not. Play it again. Skyrim's UI is more consolfied than Oblivion's. So much scrolling. Another huge annoyance is that all the prompts in the game have to be manually clicked "Really quit Alchemy? etc)", you can't simply hit enter or space to quickly leave menus (in Oblivion's case: tab). And yes, it can be fixed with mods. But I don't really consider that a valid point, anything can be fixed with mods. We should be focusing on the base game, because really both games are great with mods.

"It's true that Morrowind's NPCs sucked, but Oblivion's are worse: instead of making meaningfully unique NPCs, I ask a guard to tell me about the Emperor, and all he says is "he will be sorely missed". What the fuck, I wanted to know about the emperor, not how you feel about his death."

Maybe he's a dumbass that doesn't know much about the emperor? If you want to know more about the emperor ask someone who's in a position of power or close to the emperor (the blades?) or read a book. You can't expect all NPCS to have wiki-tier info on things like Morrowind because 1) ultimately it's unrealistic and 2) it's boring (and lazy game design) for the NPCs to say the same things over and over again. And yes, before you respond, Oblivion does have NPCs that say the exact same things, and maybe there is less actually text, but ultimately they were both done in a very lazy way (well, it's Bethesda so...). Morrowind just has more text (because it's so reused) so it seems like more effort was put into it than actually was. I think fully voiced NPCS was a step in the right direction for the type of game Elder Scrolls tries to be, it adds to the world's realism and adds an additional layer of immersion.

Oblivion's NPCs actually feel like residents of the world they're in as well. Most have complex schedules. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, daily activities, many even travel the whole map to chill with friends in another city. NPC shopkeepers have schedules too, and actually close up shop. They feel like they're actually living in the world, compared to Morrowind which literally has NPCs standing in the middle of town 24/7, shops never close, etc. Why does Morrowind even have beds? No one sleeps. Oblivion is much better in this regard, and it's better than even Skyrim's NPCs too I'd argue, which are almost as bad as Morrowind's, while some have minor schedules there's nothing in Skyrim that compares to Oblivion in the NPC department, it's a total downgrade.

So while Morrowind may have more text than Oblivion, quality is not always equal to quanity. And that's not the only factor deteriming the quality of the NPCS either.


"It takes away from the RPG aspect of the game when it's your player skill that makes the real difference."

No it doesn't.

Most RPGs actually rely on player skill for everything, you just think they don't because it's hidden behind stats and the like.

And your point only applies to lock-picking, which is still incredibly hard at low skill levels if you don't know what you're doing. Disposition caps out if your skill level is too low, so speechcraft is still dictated by your skill level. Like I mentioned earlier, in Morrowind you simply bribe people to raise disposition (and this does not have a cap) or just click intimidate over and over again. It's shit.

"You can choose not to exploit Morrowind's system. In Oblivion, there's no logical reason not to take advantage of it: Magicka simply regenerates and from an in-game point of view, it makes sense to keep healing yourself. In Morrowind, there's no logic to acting like a narcoleptic all the time."

I get your point, but you can choose in Oblivion too. Pick Atronach, lol. Or simply don't fuck around waiting for magicka to regen (the developers didn't intend for you to run in circles for 2 minutes waiting for your bar to regen in the same way they didn't intend for you to abuse the rest system or quicksave feature in either game). If you're using a freewill argument then I can too. This was a game mechanic choice by the developers, and it's not necessarily any better or worse than Morrowind's, ultimately it comes down to personal preference. The magic regen point, while I responded to it, is not really a huge problem. Go play Oblivion again and see how far waiting on magicka to regen gets you when you're surrendered by 3 ogres early on, and good luck. It only becomes "broken" when you're high level and your intelligence and wisdom scores are close to max (when it takes about 30 seconds to fully regen all your magicka despite your total magicka score). At that point in Morrowind you're already plowing through absolutely everything, even with the difficulty slider at max (I know this for a fact because I am currently replaying Morrowind and I'm heaving a very easy time at max difficulty). Morrowind is easy as fuck, much easier than Oblivion (especially if you're not min-maxing). Access to OP items early on, alchemy, enchanting, etc. Most of the mechanics in Morrowind actually end up breaking the game's challenge.

"In Oblivion, they went for generic high-fantasy in the most generic way possible. You can make generic look good, but Oblivion simply looks awful, it's greenery everywhere."

Generic? Yes, I addmited this. But you not liking it is an opinion. Morrowind is not 100% unique either, and like I mentioned before, people need to stop pretending that it is. Oblivion looked amazing when it came out. Morrowind, base game, is brown with fog everywhere. Technical limitations, I know, but vanilla Morrowind looks like utter shit compared to vanilla Oblivion. Concept art doesn't really matter when it's not accurately portrayed in the game.

"I really liked Vvardenfell"

Me too but I don't let that blind me to the problems of the game. That being said, Oblivion has major problems too. They're both imperfect.


I think one of the most legitimate points against Oblivion is the leveling problem, although you're probably not familiar with that since you admittedly played very little of the actual game.

 

[Haplo]

Eh, I loved Morrowind graphics (including colors) when it came out. I was rather dissapointed with Oblivion's graphics when it came out. Guess it's a matter of the elusive "art direction". Oh and potatoheads.

 

[abnaxus]

Daggerfall had the same retardo level scaling as Oblivion, but enemy sprites remained the same always. Above level 20 every half-naked thief or barbarian dropped Derpdric stuff.

But there were a couple of shops where Derpdric equipment could be stolen at level 1.