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[Earthquake Damage]

It's Nerevar and the Nerevarine, not Neverar and Neveraine!  Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go wipe the foam off my lips.

[/rage]

[Cthulhu]

The nerevarine thing was cool, it also caught me by surprise.  Until I realized I was fulfilling the prophecies I thought the Nerevarine was going to be the antagonist.

[Aqizzar]

What I like about Morrowind is that, even though you're the PROPHECIED HERO and all that, it legitimately feels like the in-game organizations and characters handle it realistically, and you still start off as some random prisoner set free and forced to fill out census forms who has no idea what anybody wants with him. Even when the prophecy gets going, it's entirely justifiable to interpret it as the sort of "prophecy" that only comes true because someone makes it come true (to me it comes off as a massive scheme with Azura orchestrating it all). Basically, the game's story and characters have good interplay between the mundane elements (how people and cultures and organizations actually act) and the fantastical elements, as opposed to the generic "SAVE THE WORLD FOR OUR GLORIOUS KING" trash we normally have to put up with.

The one time that I actually bothered following the plot in Morrowind, this was kinda how I thought about it.  I took the Jake Sully method - find out what I can about the prophecy, then make a conscious effort to look like the guy who fulfills it, so I get to be big awesome hero and reap the rewards.  Especially since I did it as an Argonian, I was hoping the plot would recognize me putting a stick in the eye of all the conservative-dunmer jackasses you have to deal with.  Like, doods, check it out, escaped slave here fulfilling your demi-god prophecy!  Point being, the game made it sound like it was mostly boojum anyway, so I took that attitude to heart, of just being a mundane guy fulfilling prophecies for fun and prophet I mean profit.

Then after busting my ass with those stupid Dust-People and Indians and shit, I walked into the Cave of the Nerevarine and I was like, "I am in biiiiig trouble, mm hm."

[postal83]

Am I the only one here that really enjoyed vanilla Oblivion?

Anyways, being that they are using a new engine(with the help of iD), I hope they at least consider MP as a function...

[Cheese]

It's Nerevar and the Nerevarine, not Neverar and Neveraine!  Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go wipe the foam off my lips.

[/rage]

Crap. I must go and whip myself for such a mistake.

@Postal: I think half of the fanbase would commit suicide if they implemented MP. Bethesda haven't tried it before and I don't think they will.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

How come people are saying the storyline is so simple? What's simple about it?

In Oblivion?

To me, it felt like I was on rails.  The emperor guy shows up in your prison cell and you've got no choice but to follow them out...  And then he dies and trusts you with his amulet...  And you're told to go see the priest guy right off the bat...  And you're almost instantly on the path to saving the world.  There's no real build-up...  No wandering around before you find your destiny...  Nothing like that.  You roll up a new character and Hi there, want to save the world?

After that, there wasn't anything really interesting going on.  The plot was very straight-forward.  No mystery or anything like that.  No fumbling around to find your own way.  You just kept going back and talking to Martin/Geoffry/whoever and getting the next step in your quest.  That, plus the fast-travel to locations you've already visited; and the magic compass that pointed you in the right direction; and it really felt like I couldn't go wrong.  Like I was being guided very carefully down a very linear path.

Then there's the fact that a good chunk of the main storyline was just a bunch of gopher quests.  Go pick this up.  Go find that thing.  Go talk to this guy.  Precious few epic battles or feats of daring-do.

And, through it all, there was absolutely no sense of urgency.  I'm not a big fan of being timed...  Or not being able to do side-quests because the world will explode if you delay...  But there's got to be some kind of balance.  We're being told to hurry up, there's Oblivion portals opening everywhere, the world is falling apart, we need to get a Septim on the throne ASAP...  And yet you can spend literally months of in-game time just picking flowers.  You can completely and totally ignore the main storyline basically forever, and nothing bad ever happens.  Nor is there any real reason to complete the main storyline...  The ultimate reward is simply a suit of very mediocre armor.

Basically, absolutely everything else in the game is more engaging than the main storyline.  If it weren't for the rails guiding you straight along the main storyline, your average player would probably wander off and never even notice that there was a main storyline.

There's also the fact that the main plot is entirely based on ignoring their own previously established lore where there had been several non-Septim emperors over the course of history without any sort of apocalypse.  The entire plot of Oblivion would have been a lot better if it turned out it was actually a propaganda play created by the empire.

[Sensei]

Ooh! And that Uriel never died. Which, given that his death was faked, removes the irk that his death was railroaded (you get script-stunned while the assassin does his job, and he does it in one non-sneaking stab with a crappy knife too).

Actually that would be a great way for a mod to continue the main campaign.

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Ooh! And that Uriel never died. Which, given that his death was faked, removes the irk that his death was railroaded (you get script-stunned while the assassin does his job, and he does it in one non-sneaking stab with a crappy knife too).

Actually that would be a great way for a mod to continue the main campaign.

At least that knife was magic and he only killed one old man.  The end of the Dark Brotherhood questline has the same thing only the bad guy is standing right next to three high level NPC assassins, two of whom he kills with an iron short sword while you're stuck staring at it blankly.  Not only that but you already knew the traitor was still alive, and just inexplicably fail to correct them after they kill the wrong guy and think they're safe.

[Sowelu]

Am I the only one here that really enjoyed vanilla Oblivion?

No.  IT WAS SO PRETTY, and while it was kind of fluffy, who doesn't like marshmallows once in a while?

[Dakk]

I enjoyed vanilla too, it wasnt a super enjoyable EPIC OMG  thing, but it was def at least a bit entertaining.

[G-Flex]

The one time that I actually bothered following the plot in Morrowind, this was kinda how I thought about it.  I took the Jake Sully method - find out what I can about the prophecy, then make a conscious effort to look like the guy who fulfills it, so I get to be big awesome hero and reap the rewards.  Especially since I did it as an Argonian, I was hoping the plot would recognize me putting a stick in the eye of all the conservative-dunmer jackasses you have to deal with.  Like, doods, check it out, escaped slave here fulfilling your demi-god prophecy!  Point being, the game made it sound like it was mostly boojum anyway, so I took that attitude to heart, of just being a mundane guy fulfilling prophecies for fun and prophet I mean profit.

Then after busting my ass with those stupid Dust-People and Indians and shit, I walked into the Cave of the Nerevarine and I was like, "I am in biiiiig trouble, mm hm."

Yeah, that's what I like about it (and Morrowind in general): You can interpret it all basically as if you were actually there, instead of it feeling like some kind of Tolkeinesque/modern-fantasy author tract or folk story.

The cave of the failed Nerevarines is pretty hilarious and fits in well with the sort of viewpoint I have, because it's like Azura is flat-out saying "look, I've tried this before and it just didn't really work, so don't mess up this time".

The xenophobic dunmer culture was neat too, especially since even though they had issues (it's basically fantasy-world Mississippi), they're still not all that unsympathetic.

[nenjin]

N-WAA!

Yeah, I wouldn't have put 100+ hours into Oblivion if it didn't have some redeeming value. But I'm pretty sure I'll never, ever install that game again.

[Cthulhu]

I felt like it wasn't as much a prophecy where one person is destined to win, as just a set of requirements someone would eventually have to fulfill and beat Dagoth Ur.  I'm not sure how there's a difference there, but I felt a difference.

[Sensei]

The difference was that you weren't guaranteed to win, or fulfill the prophecy, or be a good person (even if you did save the world).

[nenjin]

The only thing that kept me from fully enjoying Morrowind were some of the visuals. I could never get over the feeling I was playing some sort of weird, medieval Star Wars RPG. Oblivion was the complete opposite. The visuals were really the only super compelling thing about that game.