I feel the need to faff about a bit and put some of my thoughts somewhere. I figure this can be a sort of discussion on the topic too.
For me, Morrowind is one of the most important games of my gaming career. It along with Harvest Moon 64 taught me that not all games require the murder of everything that moves. They also taught me that side quests could be important and characters were more than things to turn to pulp. When I first played it I was immediately addicted to it. It single-handedly sold me an Xbox. It was a world that felt so alien and alive, full of opportunities and secrets. There were so many people there, each one possessing a name and seemingly a life of their own. Basically, Morrowind showed me that games could have depth. To this day I still measure all other RPGs to it.
Oblivion, like Morrowind before it, sold me an X-box system. It was one of three games I bought with my 360. I had spent five years of my life exploring every inch of Vvardenfel, Solstheim, and Mournhold. As I began to explore Cyrodiil I hoped for the same thing. A fantastic RPG experience to surpass Morrowind. I was late to the party. I bought my 360 along with Oblivion in '08, two years after it had come out, but I had heard nothing bad about it. It was touted by most of the sources I had at the time as a worthy successor to Morrowind.
As I started playing the game I was amazed. It was so pretty. The faces seemed off, but I was new to the system, I figured I just wasn't used to the new "next-gen" graphics. The first thing I did notice was something I didn't quite expect and for some reason I couldn't quite shake. I couldn't seem to escape the White-Gold Tower. It got to the point I would actively seek out areas where I couldn't see the Imperial City, and yet it was always there. Somewhere on the horizon. Maybe it was because of the fact that older games draw-distances were so short, but for some strange reason this bothered me. As I continued to play I also continued to notice things. Weird plot holes or inconsistencies in the lore and how everything was seemingly based off of the recent Lord of the Rings movies. The Ayleid architecture seemed to be reminiscent of Gondorian architecture. The Elven Armor seemed heavily influenced by Jackson's High-Elven armor. And on top of all this there seemed to be a complete lack of one of the things I loved in Morrowind: Reward for exploration. There wasn't anything hiding behind rocks, at the bottom of ponds, on ledges just barely within reach. Nothing.
The first real time I noticed anything truly lack-luster was the very end of the Mages Guild questline. The final battle with Mannimarco. This was a fight I was looking forward to since I started the game. I love necromancy. I absolutely love it. I find it's uses and the concept of undead fascinating and useful, so the thought of meeting the Father of Modern Necromancy and entertaining the possibility of either killing him and stealing his power or even joining him made me squee. Then the fight came. I anticipated hordes of special uber-zombies and undead horrors commanded by a legion of Necromancers lead by a terrifying Arch-Lich. What I got was yet another bland hole in the ground followed by a fight that lasted all of three seconds. I'm not even exaggerating. I had accidentally built a mage-slaughtering spellsword with layered magical defenses, the only hope of which you stood against him being throwing hordes of meaty monsters after him and that would only serve to slow him down. Such is the way Breton Vampires with enchanted armor, but I digress.
I killed "Mannimarco" in two hits. He didn't even get two spells off. The one he managed to cast was reflected back at him and then I flayed him. To this day I hold the truth that that Altmer in Echo Cave was an imposter. This is what I was expecting. This is what I got.
I then started to do the other factions' quests and they too seemed lackluster. Fighters guild was bland. Totally and utterly. The thieves guild was a combination between the guild stroking it's collective... coin-pouch, and me running around doing Gray Fox's footwork... The only one that really felt like there was any love in it was, you guessed it, The Dark Brotherhood missions. Who Dunnit was particularly entertaining. But in each of these I felt there was a theme: I was less the Eternal Champion and more the Perpetual Second-Fiddle.
In the Mages quest I was whipping boy in the epic battle between Mannimarco and Traven. In Fighters I was the vessel for the drama of Omayn, the Guildmaster, and her sons in their trials. Thieves Guild I was agent to the Gray Fox so that he could break his curse. Dark Brotherhood I was a pliable tool in a much larger game. Even in the main quest of the game I was nothing more than the friend of a man who turned out to be no less than Jesus. No ******** wonder I became ehT daM doG. Coincidentally:
SEGWAY!
The Knights of the Nine was... Bland. The armor I got was nice, but not worth the trouble. I didn't even get any interesting weapons or armor from the Aurorans or Umaril. Shivering Isles on the other hand was almost like being back on Vvardenfel. Almost. It was definitely a better realm of Oblivion to visit than the same towers over and over again. Rhunsey needs to hire a new interior decorator... And since I digressed into this topic, what the hell happened to the Dremora? In Morrowind they were Noble, albeit sarcastic, warriors and in Oblivion they were little Saurons- Never mind.
Skyrim feels like compromise. Skyrim feels like a couple of folks left their house for a while for a trip to DC one week and came back to find out that their irresponsible roommates are idiots and they immediately started to scramble to clean up the mess. They let the roommates continue to do the day to day stuff, which the roommates slacked off on, while they tried to fix some of the stuff. The end result is the house looks really pretty, they got some interesting new house-pets, and it's got a shiny new sound system, but for some reason the TV has less channels, the internet is slower, your race doesn't matter much and you don't have a class anymore.
For me, Morrowind is one of the most important games of my gaming career. It along with Harvest Moon 64 taught me that not all games require the murder of everything that moves. They also taught me that side quests could be important and characters were more than things to turn to pulp. When I first played it I was immediately addicted to it. It single-handedly sold me an Xbox. It was a world that felt so alien and alive, full of opportunities and secrets. There were so many people there, each one possessing a name and seemingly a life of their own. Basically, Morrowind showed me that games could have depth. To this day I still measure all other RPGs to it.
Oblivion, like Morrowind before it, sold me an X-box system. It was one of three games I bought with my 360. I had spent five years of my life exploring every inch of Vvardenfel, Solstheim, and Mournhold. As I began to explore Cyrodiil I hoped for the same thing. A fantastic RPG experience to surpass Morrowind. I was late to the party. I bought my 360 along with Oblivion in '08, two years after it had come out, but I had heard nothing bad about it. It was touted by most of the sources I had at the time as a worthy successor to Morrowind.
As I started playing the game I was amazed. It was so pretty. The faces seemed off, but I was new to the system, I figured I just wasn't used to the new "next-gen" graphics. The first thing I did notice was something I didn't quite expect and for some reason I couldn't quite shake. I couldn't seem to escape the White-Gold Tower. It got to the point I would actively seek out areas where I couldn't see the Imperial City, and yet it was always there. Somewhere on the horizon. Maybe it was because of the fact that older games draw-distances were so short, but for some strange reason this bothered me. As I continued to play I also continued to notice things. Weird plot holes or inconsistencies in the lore and how everything was seemingly based off of the recent Lord of the Rings movies. The Ayleid architecture seemed to be reminiscent of Gondorian architecture. The Elven Armor seemed heavily influenced by Jackson's High-Elven armor. And on top of all this there seemed to be a complete lack of one of the things I loved in Morrowind: Reward for exploration. There wasn't anything hiding behind rocks, at the bottom of ponds, on ledges just barely within reach. Nothing.
The first real time I noticed anything truly lack-luster was the very end of the Mages Guild questline. The final battle with Mannimarco. This was a fight I was looking forward to since I started the game. I love necromancy. I absolutely love it. I find it's uses and the concept of undead fascinating and useful, so the thought of meeting the Father of Modern Necromancy and entertaining the possibility of either killing him and stealing his power or even joining him made me squee. Then the fight came. I anticipated hordes of special uber-zombies and undead horrors commanded by a legion of Necromancers lead by a terrifying Arch-Lich. What I got was yet another bland hole in the ground followed by a fight that lasted all of three seconds. I'm not even exaggerating. I had accidentally built a mage-slaughtering spellsword with layered magical defenses, the only hope of which you stood against him being throwing hordes of meaty monsters after him and that would only serve to slow him down. Such is the way Breton Vampires with enchanted armor, but I digress.
I killed "Mannimarco" in two hits. He didn't even get two spells off. The one he managed to cast was reflected back at him and then I flayed him. To this day I hold the truth that that Altmer in Echo Cave was an imposter. This is what I was expecting. This is what I got.
I then started to do the other factions' quests and they too seemed lackluster. Fighters guild was bland. Totally and utterly. The thieves guild was a combination between the guild stroking it's collective... coin-pouch, and me running around doing Gray Fox's footwork... The only one that really felt like there was any love in it was, you guessed it, The Dark Brotherhood missions. Who Dunnit was particularly entertaining. But in each of these I felt there was a theme: I was less the Eternal Champion and more the Perpetual Second-Fiddle.
In the Mages quest I was whipping boy in the epic battle between Mannimarco and Traven. In Fighters I was the vessel for the drama of Omayn, the Guildmaster, and her sons in their trials. Thieves Guild I was agent to the Gray Fox so that he could break his curse. Dark Brotherhood I was a pliable tool in a much larger game. Even in the main quest of the game I was nothing more than the friend of a man who turned out to be no less than Jesus. No ******** wonder I became ehT daM doG. Coincidentally:
SEGWAY!
The Knights of the Nine was... Bland. The armor I got was nice, but not worth the trouble. I didn't even get any interesting weapons or armor from the Aurorans or Umaril. Shivering Isles on the other hand was almost like being back on Vvardenfel. Almost. It was definitely a better realm of Oblivion to visit than the same towers over and over again. Rhunsey needs to hire a new interior decorator... And since I digressed into this topic, what the hell happened to the Dremora? In Morrowind they were Noble, albeit sarcastic, warriors and in Oblivion they were little Saurons- Never mind.
Skyrim feels like compromise. Skyrim feels like a couple of folks left their house for a while for a trip to DC one week and came back to find out that their irresponsible roommates are idiots and they immediately started to scramble to clean up the mess. They let the roommates continue to do the day to day stuff, which the roommates slacked off on, while they tried to fix some of the stuff. The end result is the house looks really pretty, they got some interesting new house-pets, and it's got a shiny new sound system, but for some reason the TV has less channels, the internet is slower, your race doesn't matter much and you don't have a class anymore.
