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[Jude]

Lorewise, the most brutal butchering Oblivion did was turning the Imperial City into a tiny little one-horse town, hell, it was smaller than Vivec, which by comparison is just supposed to be a provincial city. I mean, building the Imperial City up to the scale it's described in books would be impossible, I'll give em that. But they didn't even TRY.

Other than that...well, you have the turning of Daedra/Oblivion into generic demons/hell, (although they redeemed themselves with Shivering Isles), and...hell I can't even remember. It's more the lack of any new or interesting additions to the game universe, than contradicting what went before, that gets me. Oblivion is like a puddle to Morrowind's vast murky pool, for background and immersiveness.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

There's also the fact that they turned the entire imperial province from a vast jungle/mangrove swamp into generic medieval European fantasy land.  Look at the link in my previous post.  It explains it better than I could.

They also put so little effort into the design of the world that Leyawiin blocks off the entire mouth of the Niben, making it technically impossible for any of the ships in the imperial city to leave.  They even had some pretty cool concept art that they abandoned in favor of the final crappy design.  http://www.freakygaming.com/gallery/concept_art/elder_scrolls_iv:_oblivion/leyawiin

[Ubersoldat]

They also put so little effort into the design of the world that Leyawiin blocks off the entire mouth of the Niben, making it technically impossible for any of the ships in the imperial city to leave.  They even had some pretty cool concept art that they abandoned in favor of the final crappy design.  http://www.freakygaming.com/gallery/concept_art/elder_scrolls_iv:_oblivion/leyawiin

I always wondered about that. I suppose they just disassemble the ships on one side, then reassemble on the other side? Or maybe a system of pulleys and...

Anyhow, I'm seconding Oblivion hate. Among all the aforementioned reasons, there's also the fact that they decided to give everybody voices- Which would've been awesome, if they had more than 6 voice actors to do it with.

Also, that leveling system present in Oblivion needs to be put into sealed containers and dumped in the middle of Pacific, that we may never see its like again.

[Cthulhu]

Not only are there only a few actors, the actors they hired are awful.  Like Troll 2 awful.  Remember Kvatch?  There was a refugee there talking about how the Daedra killed her friends and destroyed her home, and she doesn't just sound unfeeling, she sounds bored, as if this kind of thing happened every day.  It actually became immersion-breaking, the acting was so bad.  The beggars had it worst.  In one conversation they would go from toothless old man to powerful warrior to Gollum with a head-cold.

[Jude]

Voiceovers were a horrible idea not just because the acting ended up bad and repetetive....but because it meant they had to have less text, meaning the long, informative dialogues from Morrowind were gone in favor of short ones that didn't tell you much - another reason for the complaints I have above.

Oblivion did improve some stuff like the magic system (spell costs decrease as you get better at the skill, regenerating magicka), stealth system, combat system, NPC scheduling - and they actually go to bed at night, unlike in Living Cities mod for MW, where they jsut stand awake in their room all night making it impossible to steal stuff - but overall....I have no idea if the same team that worked on MW was even present, because I can't see that many traces of it.

[Reasonableman]

Voiceovers were a horrible idea not just because the acting ended up bad and repetetive....but because it meant they had to have less text, meaning the long, informative dialogues from Morrowind were gone in favor of short ones that didn't tell you much - another reason for the complaints I have above.

THIS. The voice acting also removed, for me, at least, the sense that each person in the game world was an individual. When everybody had the exact same voice, it was hard to tell any difference between them.

[Makrond]

Eh, I don't mind Oblivion.

I like Morrowind so much better, but (IMO) if it wasn't for the fact that Oblivion had such a hard act to follow, it probably would be considered a decent game. As it is, it still won Game of the Year. From where, nobody knows, but they still got it.

In fact, sometimes, when I get sick of Morrowind's archery/combat, i fire up a quick session of Oblivion and fulfil my action-oriented urges.

[Idiom]

Many Oblivion fans thought the voice acting was an improvement, which I'll admit at first it was impressive with the facial animations, but yes it was boring.

I liked reading monologues in Morrowind. Rather than the limited voice acting, my mind would always give the speaker a unique voice and etc. It was fairly neat for those with some imagination left.

Yahtzee again:
The NPCs talking to themselves about the store they own (in Oblivion) because of the repetitive voice acting.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Eh, I don't mind Oblivion.

I like Morrowind so much better, but (IMO) if it wasn't for the fact that Oblivion had such a hard act to follow, it probably would be considered a decent game. As it is, it still won Game of the Year. From where, nobody knows, but they still got it.

In fact, sometimes, when I get sick of Morrowind's archery/combat, i fire up a quick session of Oblivion and fulfil my action-oriented urges.

You know I've heard Dark Messiah of Might and Magic has very good first person actiony fantasy combat.

[Makrond]

And I've heard the game overall is even worse than Oblivion. 

So it all kind of balances out in the end.

[Kagus]

Oy!  I liked Dark Messiah!  True, it didn't live up to a quarter of its potential, but it was fun!

The combat was nice, but took some getting used to.  For instance, judging the reach of your weapons...  But the ability to get an adrenaline rush and then shove your sword into somebody's innards made it all worthwhile. 

Especially if you happened to be using a sword of fire, in which case the enemy would be simultaneously impaled and ignited.

[Torak]

I'm playing through Dark Messiah right now, actually. I love it, the combat is solid, a tad repetitive, but only if you just sit there and utilize your 'flurry of blows' (which doesn't get you very far) the entire game.

[Kagus]

Word of advice then:  Don't use the sword of fire.  There's a wacky oversight (bug?) where the sword only causes fire damage.  Which means no physical damage.  Which means enemies don't flinch when you hit them.  Same goes for the staff, I believe.

Other word of advice:  You can slaughter two people with one untargeted adrenaline attack.  One on the downswing, one on the upswing.  And it's lots of fun to do.

Final word of advice:  Don't position yourself between an orc and a spike wall.  It only happened to me once, but that was one more time than I really needed.

[Torak]

Word of advice then:  Don't use the sword of fire.  There's a wacky oversight (bug?) where the sword only causes fire damage.  Which means no physical damage.  Which means enemies don't flinch when you hit them.  Same goes for the staff, I believe.

The earthfire sword does enough fire damage to kill anything that isnt resistant to fire without any 'real' damage. It's the second best melee weapon, right behind the dragonbone sword.


Also, am I the only one who thinks that staffs are horrible, even against groups? They have way too small an attack radius to be considered the perfect crowd controller that tip describes them as.

[Kagus]

Yes, but you have to admire the targeted adrenaline attack. 

*smack*
>grab!<
!!CRRACK!!


Actually, with a little work they can lay low a whole group of enemies just with the quick attacks.  After that, it's only a matter of hitting them while they're down.  But, still, swords are generally a better idea...

Oh, and fear the spiders.  Fear those gawddamn spiders.  Better yet, turn on the infinite mana cheat and torch the lot of them with a burnin' inferno.