Why do people think Morrowind is so superior to Oblivion?

[Right Hook]

This is my first forum post on the Escapist, so let me know if I did something wrong. Anyway, I'm not trying to piss anyone off, I am genuinely curious.

I was introduced to the Elder Scrolls through Oblivion, I eventually came to love it, got all the achievements for it and in my eager anticipation for Skyrim I picked up a copy of Morrowind a few months ago. As far as I can tell it is quite a bit like Oblivion (obviously with worse graphics and animations but those can be forgiven if the gameplay and story are superior). I've had a lot of trouble getting into it, the quest are hard to do and using the journal to find out what you need to do is horrible, I have like 40 pages of random finished and unfinished quest, with no real way to discern where I need to go for a lot of them. The NPC's don't talk, sure there might be a lot of them but they all pretty much say have the same lines in each town. Personally, I think this might be a case of nostalgia, you like it more because you remember it more fondly and that colors your current opinion of the game.

I'll admit Oblivion wasn't perfect, especially having to shut those gates, ugh. But what they added just seems to go so above and beyond what Morrowind had. So, in your opinion which is better? Why do you feel that way?

Oh and I think Skyrim will be my new favorite, 5 days!!!

EDIT Okay, really good opinions so far, for the most part. I just wanted to add that I played Oblivion first (obviously) so I was used to the more simplistic system which made switching to Morrowind a bit of an annoyance. I liked that Oblivion streamlined the process of questing and was overwhelmed when I started Morrowind. If I had played them in the right order my opinion might be different but as it stands I like Oblivion more, not to say Morrowind is a bad game, I've played it at least five hours so far, which I would NEVER do with a game I didn't enjoy.

 

[Aeonknight]

Ok, prepared to get schooled I kid

More quests
More guilds
Better plot
Longer plot
Plot actually gives useful items
Varied areas not just forest and frosty hills
Cliff racers
The use of text means there is at least 4x the dialogue
Quest Arrow doesn't hold your hand throughout the entire game
More Spells eg flying
More items and type of items
You can't get the the top of each guild with 1 class (oblivion my swordsman became the leader of the mages guild, can't happen in TES III without proper skills)
You can fight and kill gods for the lulz
There are no unkillable characters
Loot isn't random and doesn't scale to your level
The whole world is alien and not 1/2 normal animals like TES IV

Maybe I'll add more later

EDIT Get the GOTY version for an oblivion style journal which is essential.

What this fellow said. Morrowind actually encourages exploration. In fact it almost makes it mandatory. Quest objectives don't have a shining beacon on top of their head, so you have to do things like take directions from people.

I remember at one point I was looking for a guy I was supposed to assassinate... had the hardest time finding him and got lost. But while I was lost I found like 2 or 3 dungeons with decent loot in them.

That is what an open world feels like. Oblivion is just a Point A -> Point B fetch quest/kill this guy extravaganza.

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

It is because of personal preference. Don't get me wrong I love Oblivion and played it first but Morrowind is just so much better.

 

[theonecookie]

Personally I don't know I never found morrowind that entertaining But it did have pole arms. pole arms are awesome That and you had more options which people like I guess

I could never get past the unfriendlyness of the start of the game I dont mind it being complex and having depth but can you not assume i'm some rpg god and at least tell me that the stupid strider can be used as a taxi before I run of and die in the wilderness trying to get to the first questmarker

 

[Maze1125]

The thing that annoyed me most about Oblivion compared to Morrowind, was the randomised dungeons.

Every single dungeon in Morrowind was hand crafted. If you found one by exploring you knew that it has bee tailor made with it's own ideas and so each had it's own character and items. In Morrowind I took the time to explore any dungeon I came across to find out what secrets it might hold.

In Oblivion, pretty much every dungeon was randomised, and so just felt like a pointless diversion. Why bother exploring a new found dungeon when you knew it was only going to give loot appropriate to your level, almost certainly worse than what you had, and would have no character of its own? No real point I could see, so after a few goes, I didn't bother any more.

Oblivion undoubtedly improves on Morrowind in many many ways, but that one loss was enough to taint the experience for me.

 

[Right Hook]

Ok, prepared to get schooled I kid

EDIT This isn't nostalgia, I played TES III after TES IV

More quests
More guilds
Better plot
Longer plot
Plot actually gives useful items
Varied areas not just forest and frosty hills
Cliff racers
The use of text means there is at least 4x the dialogue
Quest Arrow doesn't hold your hand throughout the entire game
More Spells eg flying
More items and type of items
You can't get the the top of each guild with 1 class (oblivion my swordsman became the leader of the mages guild, can't happen in TES III without proper skills)
You can fight and kill gods for the lulz
There are no unkillable characters
Loot isn't random and doesn't scale to your level
The whole world is alien and not 1/2 normal animals like TES IV
Better fast travel system
Good world politics

Maybe I'll add more later

EDIT Get the GOTY version for an oblivion style journal which is essential.

Cool! This is the type of answer I was looking for, honestly the journal was seriously the most annoying part of it for me, if I had known the GOTY edition contained a better one, I definitely would have gotten that version.

 

[adamus888]

Ok, prepared to get schooled I kid

You can't get the the top of each guild with 1 class (oblivion my swordsman became the leader of the mages guild, can't happen in TES III without proper skills)

Yeah, it was pretty ridiculous in Oblivion. You could become the Grey Fox (spoiler alert), the Archmage, the leader of the Fighters guild and the leader of the Dark brotherhood all at the same time! That's not exactly perfect. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that there were exclusive plot lines in Morrowind, as in if I'm the head of the Thieves guild I can't become the boss of the Fighters guild, etc.
I've never really gotten into Morrowind thoroughly. As with Shotgun Guy, I started out with Oblivion (GOTY edition), which I played through about 5 times. Then I got my hands on Morrowind. I can't say I didn't like it, but neither was I stunned by it's eminence (don't kill me). But from what I actually experienced, the plot actually intrigued me. I carefully followed the main quest for some time, until i had to fight some flying creatures which i couldn't kill at all. I died horribly and lost 2 hours of progress, as I forgot to autosave. I think I stopped playing then, as some other game came out. Maybe I'll try Morrowind again, if Skyrim turns out to be a failure. Let's hope that doesn't happen.

Oh and though Morrowind had little voice-acting, Oblivion had like 12 people doing the whole job, which meant that people were talking to themselves with alternating accents. So I think Morrowind's dialogue was a bit better, if boring for some gamers.

 

[hazabaza1]

While Oblivion certainly had its flaws, as someone who played Morrowind second I much prefer Oblivion.
The combat system in Morrowind was fairly shite, as was the journal thing. I never felt too invested in the main plot in either, so eh. One part where I'll admit Morrowind was far better was in the variation. Those towns were pretty damn unique. I mean, sure, Oblivion had unique looking styles, but Morrowind was like holy shit unique.

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

Better plot, better quests, better items, more armor, more enemies in the water, more interesting environments, more of a challenge...

 

[Aidinthel]

Lol at OP complaining that NPCs say the same thing in every town in Morrowind. At least you don't have to listen to them blather to each other. Anyway, what Matthew94 said, including the part about playing Oblivion first. Total playtime for Oblivion: ~10 hours. Playtime for Morrowind: ~110 hours.

at least tell me that the stupid strider can be used as a taxi before I run of and die in the wilderness trying to get to the first questmarker

It did. I distinctly remember the NPCs directing me to the strider.

 

[Right Hook]

Lol at OP complaining that NPCs say the same thing in every town in Morrowind. At least you don't have to listen to them blather to each other. Anyway, what Matthew94 said, including the part about playing Oblivion first. Total playtime for Oblivion: ~10 hours. Playtime for Morrowind: ~110 hours.

I'll admit the conversations in Oblivion could get a bit annoying and repetitive but people didn't have the exact same lines, from what I remember. Anyway, your playtime estimate is way off, there is definitely more than 10 hours of gameplay in Oblivion. That's like saying Morrowind only has a playtime of seven minutes just because some guy found a way to glitch his way to the end.

 

[Woodsey]

The big thing for people is the world. Morrowind felt strange, Oblivion - whilst there was plenty of weirdness beneath the surface - had a much more standard fantasy setting.

Personally, whilst I can see that, I preferred Oblivion. I dislike text-based dialogue, and a lot of the game's functionality was poorly designed (I seem to remember the map and journal being particularly shit). I can't abide by fully real-time combat being based on dice rolls either.

 

[ThePuzzldPirate]

Hipsters, pretty much.

I couldn't get into Morrowind, hated the interface and the whole thing just felt too clunky.

I can't tell if your joking but I do agree with you, much too clunky for me but it is the better game of the two just from content. There is just more to do across the board.

 

[BiggyShackleton]

For me it probably is a matter of nostalgia, Morrowind was just the first ES I played properly (I dabbled with Daggerfall but that game is a fucker) and Oblivion just didn't feel the same.

In terms of specifics I liked having Medium Armor, Short Blade etc, even though I can see why they were merged. I liked the level of unique armour and weapons in the game, something I felt was missing from Oblivion as well. I must admit though that Oblivion did combat better and the DB questline was the most fun I've had in either game.

 

[ultrachicken]

I gotta say, I prefer Oblivion for two main reasons: Morrowind's entire world is brown, and the combat is terrible. Morrowind is superior in a great many departments, but those massive complaints really kept me from enjoying it fully. I might give it another go as I wait for Skyrim, though.

 

[rdaleric]

For one thing, Morrowind had a far better main quest, that actually made sense. In Oblivion, you are told by characters to get a move on, but you can ignore the main quest until you feel like doing it. In morrowind, the main quest is much more of a slow burner (and encourages you to join a guild as a "cover story"). Also the environments were much more other-worldly (City inside the hollowed out shell of a giant crab anyone?)

 

[Spectrum_Prez]

So, in your opinion which is better? Why do you feel that way?

Ok, it's this thread again. But I think it's worth it to get into the discussion again, just because Morrowind is the greatest game of all time, at least for me (opinions, blah blah).

1. The setting. This can be broken down into several aspects:
a. The general themes: Colonialism, religious rivalry, Great House rivalry, factional rivalry, etc. Oblivion lacked a lot of these and therefore seemed 'unrealistic' because the political universe was just too empty of tension. I get the feeling Bethesda meant to put in more factions in Oblivion but ran out of time. There are some factions you can get titles in, but without any quests, they seem to be appendages that got lopped off as deadline approached.
b. The art design: Much more interesting variation in regions, much more interesting colours instead of the generic fantasy palette that Oblivion used, different architectural designs for the main houses, the dwemer ruins, the Imperials, etc.
c. Lore: I'm not a long-time fan of the Elder Scrolls back to Arena, so I might be uninformed/biased here. But I thought Vvardenfell benefited a great deal from having very different flora/fauna/cultural touchstones from our reality, whereas Cyrodil did not. There were a lot fewer generic fantasy creatures, replaced with things like Guar, Alit, Netches, Drugh, etc. There was also a totally alien Dark Elf cultural background, manifested in things like the Ordinators, the Temple, the Ashlanders, the Telvanni buildings. Oblivion was too high medieval and thus lacked originality in a certain sense.
d. In technical terms, at release Oblivion had much bigger problems with issues like pop-in of textures, which sort of ruined the fact that it had much better visuals than Morrowind. If you compare Morrowind against its competitors at release, versus Oblivion versus its competitors at release, I think Morrowind comes out ahead.

2. The side-quests: This links in closely with 1a. The fact that you had competing factions with overlapping spheres of gameplay (a guild and a great house specializing in magic, for example) meant that there was greater potential for conflict and rivalry. In a non-linear game, side-quests are the real heart of the story-telling, not the main quest. I think Oblivion lost sight of that truth and didn't put enough effort into making the side-quests an integral part of the lore, the pacing, the development of the main character, etc.

3. Better fast travel system/quest location system: Mark/Recall + Interventions + boats/silt striders/mages guild teleportation/fortress teleportation all meant that you had to think about how you were going to get somewhere, how you were going to get out with your loot, and what risks it all involved. God forbid a game actually making you think about those things nowadays. Important main quest dungeons were actually off the beaten quest and needed effort to reach. Many side quests led you to dungeons that were difficult to find. That meant you had to engage yourself in planning out how to get around the world, which goes on total autopilot in the latter Bethesda games (including FO3 and FNV).

Those were the main ones for me. Then, there were stupid little things like the Oblivion NPC-leveling system, which they acknowledged as wrong and fixed in FO3, right away.

Edit:

Spoiler: Also, relevant to this thread.

 

[Char-Nobyl]

I was introduced to the Elder Scrolls through Oblivion, I eventually came to love it, got all the achievements for it and in my eager anticipation for Skyrim I picked up a copy of Morrowind a few months ago. As far as I can tell it is quite a bit like Oblivion (obviously with worse graphics and animations but those can be forgiven if the gameplay and story are superior). I've had a lot of trouble getting into it, the quest are hard to do and using the journal to find out what you need to do is horrible, I have like 40 pages of random finished and unfinished quest, with no real way to discern where I need to go for a lot of them. The NPC's don't talk, sure there might be a lot of them but they all pretty much say have the same lines in each town.

Alright, here's the thing: fully-voiced dialogue, improved gameplay/interface, and graphics/animations? Those are things that happened because Oblivion was a sequel on a next-gen console quite some time after its predecessor. And those aren't areas were people consider Morrowind to be superior to Oblivion.

Personally, I think this might be a case of nostalgia, you like it more because you remember it more fondly and that colors your current opinion of the game.

Here's the thing: you judge a game by how much fun you have playing it. A fair number of people had more fun with Morrowind than they did with Oblivion. They didn't play Oblivion and then go back and play Morrowind. They played the latter when it was first released, and then the former when it was released.

I'll admit Oblivion wasn't perfect, especially having to shut those gates, ugh. But what they added just seems to go so above and beyond what Morrowind had. So, in your opinion which is better? Why do you feel that way?

Watch the Zero Punctuation of 'Deus Ex: Human Revolution.' It'll help a good deal. Because, quite simply, it relates a lot to this subject.

If you released Morrowind and Oblivion side-by-side, never having released either before, Oblivion would curbstomp it, because it makes Morrowind look like a piece of shit. That's what a game using the latest technology of 2006 will do to a game built on the latest technology of 2002. Criticizing it on those grounds is like criticizing Casablanca because they filmed it using "inferior" black-and-white cameras instead of modern HD cameras.

And to be frank, you'll never really understand why many people liked Morrowind more than Oblivion. Because you weren't one of those people: it would've required you to be playing Morrowind back in 2002, and then picking up Oblivion in 2006. It has nothing to do with your condescending remark about nostalgia: it's a matter of knowing that standards don't change retroactively for past achievements.

 

[michiehoward]

I don't, I could barely get though afew hours of playing before it felt like razors slicing my eyes. There was so much wrong in that game that for me I could never pick it up again, and I can't ever watch others play it.

 

[theonecookie]

Lol at OP complaining that NPCs say the same thing in every town in Morrowind. At least you don't have to listen to them blather to each other. Anyway, what Matthew94 said, including the part about playing Oblivion first. Total playtime for Oblivion: ~10 hours. Playtime for Morrowind: ~110 hours.

at least tell me that the stupid strider can be used as a taxi before I run of and die in the wilderness trying to get to the first questmarker

It did. I distinctly remember the NPCs directing me to the strider.

So it does. Still doesn't change the fact its extremely unfriendly in the beginning