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[Neonivek]

the landscape views in Oblivion are one of its very few redeeming traits

Oblivion has what I call "Selective beauty" which a lot of graphical games have. Rather they have a few areas that are stunning that are seemingly there just so they can create a screenshot of it.

If you want to see horrible landscapes in Oblivion just go north to the Mountains/Steephills/Bland or South to the Jungles/Swamps/Ugly

[de5me7]

imv oblivion had quite screen shot happy landscapes, especially with a few mods. The issue for me was the lack of wilderness. In that you were never more than 5mins horsey ride from a city. The landscape, interms of geomorphology was far more heterogenous in oblivion than morrowind. There were distinct biomes, swamps mountain etc. but the size and shape of the hills spacing of ravines, and the very few small streams and lakes didnt create individual characters for the differnt areas. In morrowind theres a big difference between the plains, the island archipegiallos, the bitter coast, the red mountain, and the area around genesis etc. In oblivion, if you took the vegetation away i dont think there would be much difference between the gold coast and the dark swamps.

to continue, they varied the architecture of each town, but they all contain pretty much the same set of shops and services, i didnt think there were enough small villages or different styles of cities. In morrowind the settlements could be very different. Balmoral was very different to Aldrun. Rather than just having one city per architecture/cultural area of the map, there were often two or three, this made the regions feel more real, than generic city with different colour roofs that you got in oblivion. The characters in morrowind were written to have feelings about the different geographical areas, in oblivion theres less of this, just abit of racisim.

Morrowind also had tones more mission content. In oblivion vanilla, theres what, a main storyline, 4 guilds, and misc quests (imo some of the misc quests where by far the best). In morrowind theres 3 houses (i felt the houses brough alot to the character of the game, gave it interesting politics etc). 4 guilds  (there could be more that i havnt done, ive heard rummours etc), two religious sects, and the legion, plus lots of misc quests. In oblivion you coulfd get about two characters through the game before you'd done verything. In morrowind, ive done about 8 characters and probs 100+ hours and still have never done the morrag tong, or telivani, or legion quests through to completion.

[Cheese]

Lovely 9 page rant on Oblivion here.

[TheDarkJay]

They didn't actually ignore their own lore with the "Septims preventing the Daedric Invasion" thing, they just didn't explain the whole tower thing. I can't remember if it was from the word of MK or if you read the right books you can piece it together, but the idea is that several "towers" are acting to prevent such an invasion. Throughout the history of Nirn those towers have been slowly destroyed. In fact, in Morrowind you destroy one of them:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The heart of Lokharn.

Without the Dragonfire tower, there weren't enough towers standing ergo Daedric Invasion.

But yeah that was never explained In-Game and is quite an obscure piece of ES Lore. Also it doesn't redeem Oblivion from being an FPS game with swords.

Personally I liked Morrowind's combat system. To me, Morrowind was a good RPG with FPS elements. To me, Oblivion is a bad FPS with RPG elements.

[Cheese]

Interesting, I've never even heard of towers. Do these towers always have to be from divine beings then? Does Direnni tower count as one? (Not sarcasm just FYI)

Tiber Septim was also the man-god Talos, so he was 'dragon-born'. So when the Septim line is all dead, the dragon-blood-bloodline is dead.

Edit: Some fourth era stuff. seems to be mostly gathered from The Infernal City, so it might not be officially implemented. It provides some interesting possibilities for the Empire falling apart though.

[Cthulhu]

The landscape, interms of geomorphology was far more heterogenous in oblivion than morrowind. There were distinct biomes, swamps mountain etc. but the size and shape of the hills spacing of ravines, and the very few small streams and lakes didnt create individual characters for the differnt areas. In morrowind theres a big difference between the plains, the island archipegiallos, the bitter coast, the red mountain, and the area around genesis etc. In oblivion, if you took the vegetation away i dont think there would be much difference between the gold coast and the dark swamps.

This was what killed Oblivion's terrain for me.  The terrain graphics themselves were beautiful, but there really wasn't any difference between the various biomes, to the point where when I first went to the Colovian Highlands it took me a few minutes to realize I wasn't in the forest anymore.

[scriver]

Interesting, I've never even heard of towers. Do these towers always have to be from divine beings then? Does Direnni tower count as one? (Not sarcasm just FYI)

It is. In fact, Direnni Tower is the first Tower.
And, no, they do not have to be from divine being per se, but most of them was created by such.

It is also believed (I don't remember how "proved" it actually was) that it was the destruction of their tower that caused the Redguard home-continent to collapse. They are, basically, the firmaments of Nirn's reality.

[Duke 2.0]

The landscape, interms of geomorphology was far more heterogenous in oblivion than morrowind. There were distinct biomes, swamps mountain etc. but the size and shape of the hills spacing of ravines, and the very few small streams and lakes didnt create individual characters for the differnt areas. In morrowind theres a big difference between the plains, the island archipegiallos, the bitter coast, the red mountain, and the area around genesis etc. In oblivion, if you took the vegetation away i dont think there would be much difference between the gold coast and the dark swamps.

This was what killed Oblivion's terrain for me.  The terrain graphics themselves were beautiful, but there really wasn't any difference between the various biomes, to the point where when I first went to the Colovian Highlands it took me a few minutes to realize I wasn't in the forest anymore.

The majority of the map being shaped in a bowl didn't help either. It did make the map look large and impressive, giving the players a sense of "See that peak? I can climb to the top of it." But all the terrain looks the same with that, no surprises. You already know 90% of the geology of the game from leaving the first town.

[GaelicVigil]

The majority of the map being shaped in a bowl didn't help either. It did make the map look large and impressive, giving the players a sense of "See that peak? I can climb to the top of it." But all the terrain looks the same with that, no surprises. You already know 90% of the geology of the game from leaving the first town.

Yeah, I think it is amazing that I have played Morrowind for hundreds and hundreds of hours, yet I still have only seen about 50% of the entire world map.  I still have not even been to Slotheim (or whatever it's called).  Bethesda needs to take a serious look at the world design in Morrowind and mimic it for Skyrim.

[Cecilff2]

It is also believed (I don't remember how "proved" it actually was) that it was the destruction of their tower that caused the Redguard home-continent to collapse. They are, basically, the firmaments of Nirn's reality.

I thought it was generally accepted that it sunk because the redguards cut the atomos with their swords(splitting atoms)

[Cheese]

Interesting, I've never even heard of towers. Do these towers always have to be from divine beings then? Does Direnni tower count as one? (Not sarcasm just FYI)

It is. In fact, Direnni Tower is the first Tower.
And, no, they do not have to be from divine being per se, but most of them was created by such.

It is also believed (I don't remember how "proved" it actually was) that it was the destruction of their tower that caused the Redguard home-continent to collapse. They are, basically, the firmaments of Nirn's reality.

Sounds like the Elhnofey.

As for Oblivions terrain and it's content, with mods, it can be pretty awesome. Wandering around some forests and stumbling upon some weird battle between imps and some bandits or a group of mythical wildlife is pretty awesome. I think this was with OOO or MMM, perhaps both.

[scriver]

I thought it was generally accepted that it sunk because the redguards cut the atomos with their swords(splitting atoms)

And by doing so, they destroyed their Tower. Whether it was the atomos-cutting or the Tower-raising that caused the destruction is up for debate and preference. Personally, I am of the opinion that "cutting the atomos" is used as meaning "doing the impossible" rather than referring to nuclear destruction, so I interpret the event according to that. After all, what it actually means is deliberately left unclear.

Sounds like the Elhnofey.

More or less, I guess. They're related, anyway.

[The Worst Gamer]

I suspect we're going to have fairly varied terrain for Skyrim. Have a look at how Wrath of the Lich King's terrain was and you get the idea.

Essentially, three types of terrain:-
- Utter glacier. No trees or plants grow here.
- Frozen tundra. Like a desert but with snow!
- Taiga. Massive amounts of trees and snow.
- Possibly snowy taiga, too.

I can't really see how you'd manage much more than that.

[de5me7]

Lovely 9 page rant on Oblivion here.

nice rant "the physics engine is pointless". Theres somethings i disagree with in this review, but this i definitly agree with, and the stuff about linear quests, and most of the rest of it. Well informed critique by the looks.

so the great question is.. which will suck more Deus X 3 or Skyrim?

p.s. the post one above is amazing

[Cheese]

I suspect we're going to have fairly varied terrain for Skyrim. Have a look at how Wrath of the Lich King's terrain was and you get the idea.

Essentially, three types of terrain:-
- Utter glacier. No trees or plants grow here.
- Frozen tundra. Like a desert but with snow!
- Taiga. Massive amounts of trees and snow.
- Possibly snowy taiga, too.

I can't really see how you'd manage much more than that.

Not necessarily. Scandinavia isn't snowy in summer, so it's likely that Skyrim isn't either. And I don't know if Tamriel is far north enough for glaciers. Also, Daggerfall was set in high rock and snow was only seen in the winter season, if I recall correctly. High rock is on the same latitude as Skyrim, so it may be colder, but will probably not be a barren arctic desert.