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[Rex_Nex]

I went ahead and played through Oblivion's early game for a while. Got a little bored with Skyrim and was wondering how far I could crank up Oblivion's settings before I started dropping my FPS.

It's kind of hard to see why Bethesda dropped so many good things. I don't want to orgasm over Oblivion here, I know it was a game with a lot of its own flaws, but...

1. The inventory. Oblivion's inventory is absolutely superb. It's responsive, simple, and informational. I love it.

2. Character generation. There's just so many more options to tweak your character. I admit that I'm ignoring the fact that faces in Oblivion look hideous (although I prefer Oblivion's Argonians, to be perfectly honest.), but you've got more options with just as nice of an interface as Skyrim's. Too lazy to go through all the settings but don't want to use a preset? There's a handy Randomize button! Just spam it and then tweak the result!

3. Intro. I don't know about you, but an epic movie intro voiced by Captain Picard is way more fun to watch than a lengthy cart ride where you listen to a horse thief and stormcloak whine about the headman's block.

4. Stats & Classes. I like stats. I think they add a lot to the game, honestly. This isn't a point that I go out and state exactly why I "must haz stats", but I feel like Skyrim really lost a lot in simplifying character development. I feel much less attached to my Skyrim characters. Unfortunately Oblivion's implementation of scaling really screwed it over, so both of my favorite TES games disappointed me here

5. Etc: I like Oblivion's ragdolls. I like how when I swing my sword at a specific area on a dead body, that specific area is hit. Do that on Skyrim and you'll hit the same spots on the body regardless of where you were aiming. I like the fact that I can pick up and move nearly everything in Oblivion. I like how the world is full of vibrant colors. Skyrim is desaturated and grey. I like the Arena, I like the quests, I like how caves, as generic as they are, will be filled with something other than Draugr. I like Oblivion's ghosts, zombies, and undead more. I like the Shivering Isles more than I like the Dawnguard areas and questline. I could go on.

Of course I'm just picking out things Oblivion does better. There's heaps I enjoy more about Skyrim; I like Skyrim's combat, controls, perks, scaling, spellcasting, etc. It's just a little disheartening to see how many times they took a step backwards. There's a lot missing in Skyrim and I don't know if mods will ever fill that void.

I guess this is what people who grew up on Morrowind feel like when they see Oblivion or Skyrim.

/endrant

[WillowLuman]

Yep

I agree, Oblivion menus were waaay better, though I do like how each dungeon in Skyrim has something visually unique in it. I'm sorry, I did get sick of the endless aylied ruins filled with undead

I think Shivering Isles is indisputably the best thing about Oblivion, and once I go in there I never come out with that character. Far too much fun

Character creation? I do miss the randomizer and creating that perfect nose, but on the other hand, beards. Tough choice. I'm disappointed that, despite the CS having the option for individual characters instead of just race-wide, they still don't let you tweak your height in Skyrim.

Ragdolls? Yeah, I miss specific reactions, but I don't miss how lighter-than-air dead bodies felt. They fell far slower than anything else with physics for some reason.

[fqllve]

3. Intro. I don't know about you, but an epic movie intro voiced by Captain Picard is way more fun to watch than a lengthy cart ride where you listen to a horse thief and stormcloak whine about the headman's block.

Man, the Skyrim intro is possibly the worst thing about the game, and the absolute worst part about that is that the Char Gen autosave is only like halfway through it. I am so glad for mods because I don't think I could stand to play through that another time.

4. Stats & Classes. I like stats. I think they add a lot to the game, honestly. This isn't a point that I go out and state exactly why I "must haz stats", but I feel like Skyrim really lost a lot in simplifying character development. I feel much less attached to my Skyrim characters. Unfortunately Oblivion's implementation of scaling really screwed it over, so both of my favorite TES games disappointed me here

I like stats but man the TES system is simultaneously brilliant and horribly flawed. I think Skyrim went too far in that they didn't need to get rid of the attributes, just come up with a way to build them that didn't involve (a) destroying roleplaying and immersion by making it desirable to choose skills you wouldn't use (b) force you to draw up a leveling schedule to have any degree of optimization.

I guess this is what people who grew up on Morrowind feel like when they see Oblivion or Skyrim.

I think that's the case for a lot of people, but honestly I like Skyrim. It's hard to actually compare the two and for most of the big differences I think both games did it well. The only thing I really miss from Morrowind is the nonlinear dungeons, and even then Skyrim did linearity well.

And actually, I never really felt like that about Oblivion until Skyrim came out.

The menus were infinitely better though. Even SkyUI isn't as nice as Oblivion's. I remember people complaining about them not being windowed and resizable, but the Morrowind menus could be a huge pain and I pretty much always preferred the Oblivion ones.

And yeah, Shivering Isles is possibly the best expansion ever created. I wish the Skyrim DLC even approached that level of awesomeness.

[da_nang]

I prefer Morrowind's menus... 

[Ultimuh]

I miss medium armor, spears and thrown weapons.. 

[Dutchling]

I miss crossbows, spears, and cave homes 

[Ultimuh]

I miss crossbows, spears, and cave homes 

Crossbows exists in Dawnguard. 

[WillowLuman]

Well, Dawnguard did have some of the best boss fights in TES, ever. Finally Bethesda figures out how to do bosses XD

[Seriyu]

To be fair to the skyrim intro it is pretty amazing and awesome the first time you do it, it just quickly overstays it's welcome if you play the game more then once. It's definitely a case of it just taking too long (like say, get rid of the entire cave segment at the end and you'd be well on your way to making it far more tolerable), rather then it being bad, persay.

In any case I feel it blows the oblivion intro out of the water in almost every way except maybe length, and even then the oblivion intro with the sewers and all isn't much shorter.

Menus are horrible, no question, I didn't mind stats missing, and it was infinitely better then the skill leveling monstrosity in oblivion. That really just destroyed oblivion entirely for me.

[Gamerlord]

Save a character just as you get off the cart, before you set race and you can skip the cart ride whenever.

[The Darkling Wolf]

The game autosaves at the start of chargen, but that still leaves Helgen to run through 500 times.

I thought Bethesda learned after Fallout 3 that people generally dislike being forced into long-ass intro sections.

[Rex_Nex]

Luckily with Fallout 3 or Oblivion you could make a save right before leaving the sewers/vault and never have to deal with the tutorial or intro ever again, but you shouldn't need to do that, yea.

In any case I feel it blows the oblivion intro out of the water in almost every way except maybe length, and even then the oblivion intro with the sewers and all isn't much shorter.

I meant more the "introduction before you start" (Which would just be the cart ride in skyrim's case) than the tutorial area, but yea. I agree that the Helgen start is better than the sewers.

[WillowLuman]

Oblivion start, shorter than Skyrim? Pha! Intro is my least favorite part about Oblivion, it's good the first time but entirely too long after. Skyrim, more of that, but considerably shorter. There's something Morrowind did right; you just talk to 3 people who are in the same building, steal some things if you want, then you're done.

All in all, if you skip the cart ride, Helgen isn't that long. Still, takes a good 10-15 minutes. Thing about me, I don't notice as much since I tend to play 1 character for a long while.

[Sordid]

Guys, guys... both of those intro sequences are just peanuts to Assassin's Creed 3. The first three sequences you don't even play the main character, and the three sequences after that are one long tutorial. The game has twelve sequences in total. Basically, the entire first half of the game is an overly drawn out intro and tutorial. I used to hate the intro sequences in Oblivion and Skyrim but after that I'm perfectly fine with them.

[Felius]

Guys, guys... both of those intro sequences are just peanuts to Assassin's Creed 3. The first three sequences you don't even play the main character, and the three sequences after that are one long tutorial. The game has twelve sequences in total. Basically, the entire first half of the game is an overly drawn out intro and tutorial. I used to hate the intro sequences in Oblivion and Skyrim but after that I'm perfectly fine with them.

That's like saying you are fine with being punched in the face because it's better than a kick to the groin.