Gothos, on 15 April 2010 - 11:22 AM, said:
That would surely score points with all god ever to exist, eh?
Oblivion was seriously dumbed down compared to Morrowind, that much is true. Morrowind was dumbed down compared to Daggerfall, but I'd say that came out good - Daggerfall was by far toooooo biiiiiiig for my tastes.
Just look at the amount of stuff going with the Tribunal Temple in Morrowind, the Great Houses (or whassthenameanyway), conflict between the Imperial establishment and the local movements (DB vs Morag Tong, Mages Guild vs Telvanni, etc). Plus, it actually had an interesting, involving storyline (which, to my eyes, just SCREAMS with Dune references insofar as the PC reminds me of Paul and Missionaria Protectiva). Tribunal was something of a letdown - new textures and environments seemed seriously rushed and lacking, for instance; Bloodmoon was absolutely great, if a bit short - still, pretty challanging.
I thought Shivering Isles took Oblivion a bit closer to Morrowind, I liked the expansion a lot. Something that felt distinctively original and fit well withing my image of the TES setting.
That distinctiveness is something Skyrim will need. The Great Houses idea could make a comeback in there I think, though I don't know if a magic-centered house could be sewn into the game lore... maybe different basis for division.
This.
Pretty much exactly my thoughts on the subject. Word for word. But look at Tribunal! It was the model on which the cities in Oblivion were based. And it wasn't as epic win. Hurm.
And Shivering Isles...ah...yes, it did bring the whole feel that much closer to Morrowind (and, tbh, I think that's what they were going for). If it wasn't so small and short, I'd have preferred the Shivering Isles to be the main game. :S
I think they could do a bit with Skyrim. Orcs invading from one side...Dunmer from t'other? Would make for some good faction interaction, too.
Garak, on 15 April 2010 - 12:11 PM, said:
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That distinctiveness is something Skyrim will need.
If it's set in that province, it could actually be cool
. Nord/Viking culture ftw. The thing is, I just hope they avoid the blandness of Oblivion. It wasn't the normal plains/forest setting that bugged me really. What got to me in Oblivion was that it felt to small and stale. Let me explain a bit further:
-small. Morrowind towns were also small but that wasn't mainland Morrowind and the place was pretty much on the edge of the Empire (if I recall the maps correctly) so that explains it all. But Cyrodil is in the center of the Empire, the capital should be frigging HUGE! Instead it was tiny. I mean the cities were the size of villages and the villages were random shacks in the wilderness. I can overlook some of that, really, but after a while it grated on my nerves way too much. balmora has a few guards and it's walls are pointless, ok I can overlook that ..... the "army" Martin assembles to fight off the daedra attack on Bruma, sorry I can't ignore that.
-stale. ask someone in morrowind about something and you get a ton of text with further possibilities for info but you barely get two sentences in oblivion. Morrowind had atmosphere and you could feel a tension in the air between the dunmer and everyone else (and then there was the Camona Tong for added tension). I spent a lot of time in morrowind freeing slaves and hunting down anyone who was part of the camona tong (no quest reason to do it, I just felt like taking down that organization and I wiped them out). In Oblivion there was barely any tension. sure, daedra attack imminent .... my god, what I would have done with that idea but instead of seeing the province in a state of preparation, instead of helping raise troops and make them ready and all the things that happen before an attack you're expecting (even with a day's bloody notice) what do we get? nothing. oh look, a gate outside each city, please close them, thank you for repelling the attack. right, sure, whatever.....why did I bother?
In Morrowind you saw dunmer culture, you saw Imperial culture trying to suplant the dunmer one.... here, you didn't even see Imperial culture. There were good ideas (I liked the look of the Legion armor ... stole one early in the game and never took it off.... same thing I did with the bonemold armor in morrowind) but they didn't take those ideas anywhere. At times, it felt like an MMO, which is sad. I mean, the daedra get turned back.... oh look no one noticed anything. Kvatch is still a smoking ruin and that dude is still standing in the throne room....which is still burning/smoking. Seriously?
And the Guards in Anvil knew I stole a horse in Bruma..... wait even better, the guards in bruma knew I stole a horse even though none of them were close by when I did it. There was no one in sight when I stole the frigging horse so unless the horse is telepathically yelling "I've been stolen!" it doesn't make any sense. Oh, and the annoying fan was just ............... I hated bosmer in morrowind but I get the feeling that even other bosmer hate the annoying fan.
What would be awesome in the next game, would be if they explore the consequences of what happened in Oblivion. No Emperor of a certain bloodline, no more amulet and no clear succession. Something relating to a civil war or an attempt to prevent one might be interesting. Personally, I'd like to go back to Morrowind - heard Vardenfel got hit hard when Vivec disapeared and that asteroid/prison crashed at the same speed it had before the god stopped it and then the Argonians took over most of the province. So yeah, I'd like to go to Morrowind and help rebuild and liberate it. Why not?
To be fair, Morrowind had the psychic guards too. It kinda makes sense (in a gameplay aspect, not in a realism one...but gameplay > realism 90% of the time), and either you did get seen thieving the horse, or your game glitched.
And I remember in Morrowind, one of the first quests you ever got. Collect the gold from...Faenor? A wood elf in Seyda Neen, in any case. And guess what...you had to wait, and watch...because he put the gold in the tree stump at a certain time! Morrowind was pretty impressive in being a game where time of day not only changed, but it mattered (albeit very infrequently, as generally the rest of the game it didn't matter). That's where the ball was dropped with things like Kvatch not being rebuilt (once again, there ARE mods that fix this).
As for the change in the amount of dialogue...it's understandable given they changed to voice acting. Certainly, it provides a dramatic bonus for cinematic moments (I'm not 100% that Lucien Lachance would have been quite as popular without the awesome VA work), but in day-to-day playing all it does is cut down on the depth of interactions.
Regarding the size of cities, I think the problem really arises with a direct comparison to Morrowind (Balmora is almost as large as the IC...Vivec is probably larger). It doesn't matter to me, because if they made the city a proper size all that would really happen would be 100 NPC's who have a brief, out-of-dialogue line "Leave me alone" or similar. It'd be neat, but it would also make the NPC's even more redundant than they were in Oblivion.
And in a game with lockpicking, I don't think you could justify houses that you can't enter. Otherwise no mansion would ever be accessible to you, as why don't the ridiculously rich have access to the awesome lock system these other places have?
And you're right, with your Cammona Tong thing. Morrowind was great for RP'ing. But that's because the world was there...and because killing things wasn't as easy as it is in Oblivion. There isn't any real motivation to RP in Oblivion...no untold stories to pursue, no factions to really get involved in, or work against. And that's the dumbing down thing.
Oh joy. We've hijacked the thread into a Morrowind/Oblivion/TES thread. VICTORY! (and I have, once again, spent a not unreasonable amount of time typing relatively long responses...mostly to people who agree with me. XD)
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In all seriousness, I don't care where it is, as long as they do it justice...Morrowind-style, that is.
