I don't understand what's up with this OMG I NEED FAST TRAVEL shit you guys mentioned. In morrowind you can pretty much use the "public transport" if you want to go somewhere but walking around in a huge world like that and exploring is great fun. I was playing with morrowind for half year without even progressing in the main story. I was just collecting treasures from the new places I found and I had a great time with this. I had freedom in that game and I think that's what rpgs should be about. Oblivion is just another consoletard game and I was really dissappointed with it. It had some great parts(Kvatch) but you can finish the whole game in few hours, the combat isn't that impressive and the npcs are horrible. Except that joke-telling argonian, he is awesome.


I'm going to nominate a new challenger, gothic. Try that out if you can't decide.

I just learnt how huge and useful searching around Morrowind can be. I've saved slaves (twice) Nearly got killed by random people in a cave (Twice) and got myself some Boots of Blinding Speed.

My only strangety is that the Blinding bit doesn't actually blind you, it just makes things darker (I can still see perfectly fine). I find it fun that shop owners also wear stuff you sell them (Arril's got a Extravagent Robe and the armourer of Calderan has an Iron Helm on his head) I was sat going 'Heh, your wearing the freaky Imperial Steel Helm now, betch'

I'm just stuck on the fourth Fighter's Guild quest now, stupid Thieve's Guild member...

I found the story in morrowind much better than oblivion
The only thing I like about Oblivion thats better is the graphics, which is pretty much a given.
i got both of them so its all good, but i would say to start with morrowind.

You still have to explore to find the place. All prompting does is put a marker on your map. Without exploring.... you can't fast travel there.

Unless you count other towns... those are available from the start.

Horrorwind's soundtrack sounds like movie music... It put me too sleep with it's overall lack of focus on rhythm, percussion and melody, 3 things very important to videogame music.

Thats problem with videogame music now or days... it's beginning to sound more like movie scores. Videogame music is completely different from movie scores!

The music in Morrowind is... Ambient music, it is not suppose to be noticeable, it is basically there to stop your ears from getting bored. The game makes use of sound effects such as wild animals/people in towns, the weather and so on to build up an atmosphere, the music in the game is not used for this purpose.
"Video game" music as you call it is called incidental music, which is also used in movies and TV shows. It's purpose is the opposite of ambience music, it is designed to add to the atmosphere and overall feeling of a scene (go and watch a horror movie or play a horror game, it wont even be half as scary without the sound turned on, much the same, a sad scene in a film/movie wont do much without that music you hear in the background).


Anyway.

Morrowind:
CLIFF RACERS
"We're watching you scum!"
Jumping like a mother fucker on steroids
(seriously, a large, detailed world with a lot to explore and tons to do, even plain NPCs have tons to say, but the gameplay and graphics suck)

Oblivion
"I saw a mudcrab the other day!"
(serious answer, less depth to everything, a boring world not worth exploring but the gameplay and graphics are much better)

Both of them:
Filled with bugs
Horribly unbalanced. You might get 27 skills or whatever, but only 3 (4 in oblivion) are useful, long sword, heavy armor, marksman (and stealth in Oblivion, Stealth is way overpowered, even the stealth quests are. Do a Dark Brotherhood quest, get a god slayer sword +10, a cool immortal horse and an awesome looking robe and set of armor, do a mages guild quest, IF you get anything it is a plain robe with no effects at all, it doesn't even look good!).
Magic in both games is dull and basically useless, a single sword swing is more powerful by far with the right stats and an enchanted sword. Even debuffing abilities work best when enchanted on a weapon (you either cast 2 of these spells then run out of mana and have to hunt for rare potions to heal it, or enchant the exact same effect on a weapon, which will last for a good hundred of so hits and can easily be recharged... I know which one I would do!)

I personally prefer Morrowind. The gameplay might not be as good, and the character models are ugly as fuck, but it has so much more depth and things to do, I played it for over 100 hours and still had a ton of stuff to do, compared to Oblivion where I'd basically done everything in 40 hours.

The fast travel thing does sound a little lame, of course it's aribitrary to do so. Then again, It seems like it takes away from the exploration factor a little bit.

Not really. I've played Oblivion about a dozen times, never completing the main story and just having whatever character do his or her own thing, splunking, assassinating, casting, arena battling, or whatever--until I'm bored of the game. The first few times I spent most all of my time just wandering around the world map. It's a spectacular sight to see from atop the mountain ranges.
However, once I'd seen it all, the quick travel was apt for getting to where I know I want to be, and skipping the boredom of tramping across overly familiar terrain. Same with OD said, it's still fun to roam around and find things. My favourite adventure was the mass murdering of the Skingrad villagers. Mwahaha

BTW: I said I was going to play this game through again. I am. My first attempt (Gerald Ponson with a really big nose) died tragically inside an Oblivion gate by jumping into lava for no apparent reason. Then I loaded up another save (Keith Byren the EXP Knight) and he is going to save uh, whatever the region is called. I don't pay attention :P

i will never have 1/1000th of the fun with oblivion as i have had with morrowind. ever.

also fast travel is the worst shit ever talk about a game breaker! it totally removes all sense of connectivity with the world. at least with morrowind when you ride the giant roach busses there was a sense of ME GETTING HERE WILL GET ME THERE BUT I HAVE TO WALK HERE FIRST. in oblivion just like teleporting around felt disjointed and dumb

(yes i know i can just NOT USE IT or mod it but w/e w/e it just bugs me)

Can't they make one these explory thingies with some ballin' videogame music? I'm sure it can be done

because ambient music that smoothly flows into battle music sounds better than 3 minute tracks that play when you walk into a town/go into a dungeon/fight a boss/kick a halfling in the balls.  as you can see, your opinion is the minority here.

and i enjoyed morrowind because it was a fun rpg with a neat world and decent writing.  exploration or whatever wasn't a big sell factor for me.  rpg's take all the best elements of other games, strip them down, then combine them into one super game.  when you look at it in pieces as a combat oriented game or an adventure game or a spelunking game or whatever you're better off playing something else but put all the pieces together and it's a fun experience.

this is the best website for mods, btw.  there are mods that basically turn the game into a city building sim and a trading sim.

Which, was actually done very nicely. I just hated how sloooooooow you walk as soon as your run bar went down.

Creepy, I've done nothing based on my running, and my guy can still run perfectly fine with no fatigue left. And it isn't a 'run' bar of sorts, it's basically an armor bar for fighting people who try to punch you up, as hand-to-hand combat deals fatigue damage, and if you hit the enemy into minus fatigue you can hit them for HP damage until the reagain atleast 5 fatigue.

I learnt all that after getting reduced past half HP by a murderer in the first town. I ran into the house at 20 fatigue (I did get 500 septims for it so I'm happy =D!)

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And yeah, the Acrobatics skill was taking the piss most of the time, I hopped up and down the fighter's guild square before I modded it just to get it from the low 1x upto about 2x in no time at all. I'm tempted to modify my modified game file to lower it a little. And probably add a few more classes (I've definately got one in mind to put in, a Weapon Master of sorts. The game lacks someone who can walk into combat with any weapon).

Yeah those are cool, but heres a question for yah any mods that make the NPC's actually attack eachother (excluding Gaurds versus creatures/bandits/assasins). Like Bandits and Wolves not getting along kinda thing, heack even Bandits out right attacking eachother? I mean the whole wolrd is against you thing with all the NPC's never sat well with me.

This is a problem for both games actually, infact alot of RPGs seems to suffer from this concept of everything is against you but are buddies with eachother. This is most notable with MMOs.

Bandits and marauders (I think?) fight each other in Oblivion. For example, the fort just west of Imperial City has both of the factions. I'm not sure how common it is though...