TES IV: Oblivion Appreciation Thread

[DishonoredElderSouls]

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This doesn't follow at all... Skyrim has a lot more unique art direction going for it, from the Forsworn redoubts in the absolutely beautiful, bright green Reach and all its craggy, mountainous and canyony glory (So many paths and so much greenery!), the murky swamps of Morthal, the hot springs and fens of Eastmarch, the supervolcano caldera of the Rift, the incredible mountain passes, the forests of Falkreath and Lake Ilmata, and the frozen wastes of Eastmarch, and the shore's expanse... and the grassy tundra of Whiterun. Can't forget that!

Fallout 3 always had the least environmental distinction as far as I could tell.

The guilds in Oblivion are much better than Skyrim's, but the Fighter's guild is plagued with "Provincial Ping-Pong" - Go from the Soutwest corner to the Northeast, then back, then to the Northwest corner, then southeast... then keep bouncing between all four corners one after another. It was... exhausting, and strained credibility (Especially since I didn't like fast travelling).

When I say art style, I mainly mean the cartoonish appearance of Oblivion as opposed to the more realistic approach of Skyrim. Despite the geographic diversity of Skyrim, I felt I couldn't appreciate it as much as anything I found in Oblivion because the visual appearance already looked too familiar to things I'm used to in real life. Whereas because of how abstract the appearance in Oblivion was, everything felt alien and thus more unique and beautiful.

Fallout 3 definitely lacked natural variety, but by geographic distinction I was pertaining to the man-made locations, such as Tenpenny Tower, Evergreen Mills, the Citadel, the Mall, and so forth. Because the Elder Scrolls focuses much more on the natural world than man-made creations, exploring Morrowind, Oblivion, or Skyrim tends to bring forth fewer reactions of "Oh wow, would you look at that" as opposed to Fallout 3 or New Vegas, where you encounter so little in the way of natural beauty, but then stumble upon a new town or dungeon and just think "Holy shit, well that's something I haven't seen before."

 

[Blitsie]

Oblivion was my first foray into the Elder Scrolls series so it has quite a special place in my heart. One of the very few games I ended up putting 200+ hours into as well, I remember spending whole weekends just tinkering with all kinds of mods.

My fondest memory of the game was actually long after I finished the main quest, I decided to roleplay as an archaeologist and made my house in Chorrol my main base of operations. On in-game weekends I would read and collect books (hoping to find clues to secret places, haha) and enjoy time off in the town while on weekdays I would explore every cave and dungeon I could find and collect those blue crystal things which I had a special spot for. After a while my house had such immense personality, with stacks of reading material lying around the study desk (and bed) and artifacts just placed for show everywhere. Truly the most fun I've had playing that game.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Oblivion was one of the first open world games that allowed me to really be a jerk if I wanted. Morrowind was always so damn complicated at times (before I could get mods) I just couldn't really go psychopath on a vendor for charging me too damn much or not paying me enough. Then Oblivion hit and I found myself taking on the Imperial Legion for what seemed like months because I decided after my career as a gladiator was over I should take up stalking murder. Telepathic guard bug + imperial stalking/killing = chase through the streets by a massive army of guards, culminating in a fight down by the docks (I didn't know about surrendering after the fact) that some of the population got in on (not sure why but thanks random NPC's who I don't know for dying for me). I caused chaos and havoc from the City to Kvatch and Anvil before settling on my home base of a wasteland-ish Kvatch (killed everyone and everything there after Martin left).
Built shrines of corpses and armor I gathered from my rampage. Also had maxed out bow, Light armor, blade and almost sneak. I don't have a clue how I survived playing on hard either...
I love Oblivion now too, on PC with mods. Its fitting I can go back to it any time and not feel the slightest bit of irony or boredom.

 

[JET1971]

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Augh nothing like shooting a guard in the face when he says his lines to you and running off to see just how many you can get to chase you. Fun thing with Oblivion was they would chase you outside the cities unlike Skyrim guards who cannot figure out how a door works. Always fun to create pandemonium inside a city in a Bethesda game.

 

[OpticalJunction]

The cities in oblivion were much more impressive than those in skyrim.

 

[Lil_Rimmy]

Personally, I found they all failed and yet all succeeded in certain points:

Morrowind - Greatest damn RPG, amazing world, exploration, great custom gear, quests and guilds were MASSIVE and beautiful, combat (especially early level) sucked like hell, the directions, while cool, were often very confusing and useless, leaving you lost and wandering for ages - finding nothing because making a lot of random travelling NPC's was a bit tough for this old game, voice acting was none-existent and of course, NPC's were basically just glued to the ground.

Oblivion - SHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLESSHIVERING ISLE

Ahem.

Oblivion - Shivering Isles, the greatest bag of cats in the world, great environment and people travelling around the world, AMAZING QUESTS, great guilds, floaty but ok combat, level scaling that was a bit shite, but some really nice NPCs and NPC AI. Always fun.

Skyrim - Samey dungeons, dragons which were cool at first, but a bit boring, better AI, but cities were small and shitty - towns were pointless. Combat was a lot better but stealth was broken. Glad they finally introduced mounted combat. Guilds were shit, and quests really lacked. Most fun came from the better overall framework. Environments were either ok, or pretty (with the best being the plains of Whiterun, simply because if you stood high you could see Solitude.)

In the end, I play all of them for different reasons - but oblivion always will hold a special part of my heart for being the one I played the most. Seriously, just living in a town like Anvil was awesome, especially with some Life or RP mods added. Not to mention the DLC for that game was REALLY nice.