Oblivion vs. Morrowind

The Terrain in Morrowind was very harsh.... hilly, rocky, set around a massive mountain, and there was a heap of lava everywhere. With Morrowind, you had to THINK where you had to go to get there, by talking to people, listening to what people said... or by reading... books for example.


Travelling to all the places without using fast travel quickly becomes boring in Oblivion. There's nothing to be found (Except piss weak enemies that magically get glass armour when you're level 15). In Morrowind you could really explore and find awsome things.

Problem with way Morrowind was, was all the console noobs. - most couldn't get past the first mission because they didn't THINK. Even less people could get past the second mission simply because they didn't know where to go.

After two years I can still renember where to go:
head south out of Balmora, cross the bridge, follow the path till you find a turnoff that goes up a hill.



[edit on 27/2/2008 by C0bzz]

Well i for one enjoyed Oblivion much more than Morrowind, just personal taste I guess, maybe it was Morrowind's drab boring surroundings, I am a bit of a whore for jaw droppingly gorgeous graphics.

The combat system was far better than Morrowind's clunky fighting system where if you attack something, chances are you are actually going hit your target instead of stumbling off in the opposite direction somewhere.

Then there's the environment. The NPCs actually go about their daily lives (Shopkeepers interact with their customers, guards patrol cities they are stationed in and even relieve each other at the end of their shift, citizens within each city wander the streets and return to their houses to eat/sleep, (the list goes on) instead of just standing around doing nothing in particular. And what's more you can actually talk directly to the NPC's.

Both very good games, but I do prefer Oblivion. I think we are all pretty spoiled by its gorgeous graphics and immense area, and to me it's not boring at all. Especially if you compare it to games we were playing just a decade ago!

All I can say is Morrowind is best game ever (aside from Falcon 4)
I've been playing since it came out and with all the addons and mods out there I'll never get bored playing it. The only annoying thing at the start were those incessant Cliff Racers.

I'll let you know about how I feel about Oblivion in about 10 more years.

Originally posted by The Utopian Penguin
All I can say is Morrowind is best game ever (aside from Falcon 4)
I've been playing since it came out and with all the addons and mods out there I'll never get bored playing it. The only annoying thing at the start were those incessant Cliff Racers.

I'll let you know about how I feel about Oblivion in about 10 more years.

I've never had a chance to play oblivion myself but I've played Morrowind a lot. I love the open endedness of the character generation and how you play the game. I'll admit that one of the things I love about it is it modularity. There are plenty of mod packs for the PC version availiable. I have my own personal list of "Must haves". I agree about those cliff racers but one of the first things that I do is use the editor and make them all non hostile until I attack them. Then I simply hunt them for the plumes.

reply to post by iCEdTenG


The weird thing about this is that I've seen this same argument in 10 other forums. Coincidence? Maybe....

Both are great games, but I liked Oblivion better.
As for fast travel...here's an option...don't use it!

At first, I never did...I wanted to explore. I rode all over the place on my first horse (the one from the Priory)..and when it rode off and died, I bought a nice black one...before finally getting the one from Lucien.

I used fast travel later, but still only from town to town. Anytime after that, I went out on foot (as I was now pretty fast, so didn't need a horse)...

I played a LOT of hours on that game. Can't remember what level, but high 20's... I'd done almost every quest, ruled all guilds, etc. Haven't done the expansions yet, though I have them. Might be fun.

My guy used to be a vamp, but I cured myself. He's an assassin pretty much, uses a blade and arrows, still wears the darksuit from the assassin's guild. His only spells are healing ones...but he's a master at poisons and potions, and stealth, including a master archer.... Usually my foes are hit by 2 arrows from the shadows before they even think about getting close enough to then die by my blade, hehe... (and if they're tough, they're usually hit with silence and paralysis poisoned arrows first)....muhahaha!!!!

reply to post by The Parallelogram


What ever happened to Looting every damn chest in town just because of the chance that you were gonna get some awesome weapons. in morrowind gold actually means something there isn't duplication tricks and cheats. all you find in crates in oblivion is yarn and shoes everything is bullcrap. when playing morrowind beating a quest was a challenge. running around the country you could actually find interesting places that don't all look the same. There were so many ragtag towns to loot and rape. morrowind is the best game ever.-- long live the ashyams and scuttle and scrib jelly...but most of all long life the
plethera of secret morrowind offered.

I'll agree that the monster levelling is lame. I get it for quests, but wilderness encounters should be random, and if you see something nasty coming for you, you better run away!!! (instead of being reasonably sure you can kill anything you encounter one on one).

I prefer Oblivion myself, but that said, the version I play is heavily modded. Everything from removing that ridiculous leveling system to adding more monsters and places for them to dwell.

I think it's down to personal preference.

I've been hearing recently that Elder Scrolls V might be released in 2010.

To me it is simple.

People who played Morrowind before Oblivion seem to like MW better.

People who only started the series at Oblivion generally like it better and can't get into MW.

I'm in that 2nd group.

I started on Oblivion. It had me hooked for nearly a year. It was, at the time, the best game I'd ever played.

And when mods came out to increase the graphics, join the cities into the landscape without loading times and make monsters set levels it made the game even better.

Not to mention the Necromancer guild and Mythic Dawn guild mods. They are both awesome.

Knights of the Nine was great too, for a good player.

I haven't played the expansion yet, but I will some day.


When I tried to get into Morrowind after Oblivion, it just didn't feel right.

The controls felt clunky, there was huge periods where I was going around in circles because I had no idea what I had to do or where I had to go. To me the game was TOO big, if that is possible. MW made me feel lost and confused. It didn't excite me to try and explore the world. In my opinion, the world looked like 100 shades of boring brown.

So think of that before you debate Oblivion vs Morrowind with someone.

Which game did you, and they, play first.

[edit on 11-2-2009 by fooffstarr]

I can't believe nobody has stated the obvious difference between the two yet... Oblivion didn't crash or corrupt the save file everytime you turned around like Morrowind did. Morrowind was the more ambitious, more immersive of the two games, but my God how many times can a gamer be expected to deal with the game hanging and having to be restarted before just saying "screw it" and moving on?

From a personal aspect, Oblivion holds a special place in my heart. My wife was pregnant with our first child when I was playing that game. Second and third trimesters, Southern Arizona, summertime. Need I say more? The heat basically made her want to spend evenings just relaxing with the AC blasting and gave me a chance to play the hell out of that game. Last I played I had a save file up to over 400 hours plus a few secondary character save files.

I will say, however, that Morrowind is high on my list of "I sure hope they tweak this for the 360 and re-release it sans glitches" list. Also on that list is the "real" innovator of open world combat RPGs, the King's Field series. I bought the first two for my Playstation in high school at a video rental place that was going out of business. I tried like hell to get into them and found that the rechardging attack meter killed the game for me. Then I stumbled across an Action Pro Replay device and found the codes to give you an infinite attack meter. With that cheat activated the game suddenly was alive and possibly the greatest action RPG I have ever played (including all the Zelda and Elder Scrolls games.) I'd love to see that whole series released on the 360, but I'm not holding my breath.

I enjoyed both of these games.

Morrowind was far more atmospheric though and leaned more to imaginative fantasy far more than oblivion, although was a tad 'clunky' at times.
I loved the almost alien terrain in morrowind, the strange shell-like cities and dark, brooding atmosphere.

Oblivion seems to be more of an imperial setting, castles and hills and rivers, and some of the enemies seem a bit 'misplaced'.... Although i've played two characters to fairly high level (Argonian shadow rogue , Kajit battle mage)... I did enjoy the shivering isles addon, as again it seemed to contain more artistic merit in the design and writing.

Who's with me on asking for an elder scrolls online game?

Either a MMORPG like UO or WOW, or at least have some form of online trading system like an auction house, which could encourage more creativity on the crafting system (such as enchanting, blacksmithing, mining, fishing, tailoring, leather working, candle making, armour smith, cooper, alchemist, bowyer and fletcher)..... (take note game developers)

Other suggestions:

* - Far more variety in magical items, with a random item generator or something (such as the spell book addon on a bigger scale - imagine a mace that freezes demons, but will restore health to frost creatures and will cast an aura of cold around the wielder?)

* - Far more variety in monsters. Once you've seen one minatour you've seen them all.... why not have a sea dwelling tribe of minotaur, or plate clad minotaurs that rule a mountain fortress, using human slaves for example?)

* - More emphasis on alignment. Surely people would cower and run from a grey skinned, argonian necromancer? Wouldn't people be flocking and giving gifts to the fair haired barbarian lady who slayed the terrible wereworlf rogue that had terrorised their lands?

* - Random adventure generator (even if is just go to X and retrieve this treasure after killing Z), and possibly a random dungeon (Barnaby's chamber of illusions?) whereby magic could dictate that this dungeon would have an almost infinite number of events and themes?
This would again ensure replay.

Anyway i love both these games, and only wish they had a more long-lasting feel.

My favourite memory of Morrowind:

Was when my argonian rogue discovered a dagger that allowed him to levitate. I soon discovered treasure beyond my expectations when i finally figured out that i could now enter those wizards towers through the celing.

A few hours later, i had slain five or six wizards and gathered up dozens of magical items

Priceless.....

I played Morrowind for awhile, but couldnt take the time to create multiple characters. I was excited for Oblivion, and it is a great game, I just lost interest and havent even completed it in many aspects.
Fallout 3 is alot like Oblivion, as you might here from others. i have already sortof lost interest in that too.

Like Morrowind, In Oblivion you get so far and you can one shot everything. I quickly lost interest in exploring after that. I was disapointed about the boundaries. If you could explore morrowind and see everything how it was from Oblivion it would have been one of the best games i ever played.

Fallout 3.
Fallout 3!

I haven't played MW so I can't really say. But, I can say that coming from back in the day when we took great pains to get just right set of dice and painting our own minitures...Oblivion rocked!

Admittingly, the caves and forts, and even the gates became very routine.

So, a lot of talk about Fallout 3 - do you think a traditional rpger would like it?

reply to post by Whisper67


It's awesome! I recommend to anyone!
I would be playing it right now but my computer is mean to me.

Honestly, in my opinion and probably many others, Morrowind was the way to go.

Sure, Oblivion has better physics, and graphics, better combat systems and AIs, but Morrowind...

I agree with Voxel, One thing I REALLY loved about Morrowind was when I tried to kill Lord Vivec, jumping around with all those awesomely insane levitation and my doing all these cool matrix-esque things to dodge all the fire blasts and stuff that he threw at me... It was really fun...

But it always pissed me off when I died because my leviation failed when falling down cliffs and recall screwing up and throwing me into void...

But apart from the annoying combat systems, Morrowind is a world apart.

I mean, Morrowind is waaay bigger than Oblivion, I can't remember the exact distances, but it was something rediculous like 10 sq. miles bigger...

And the depth of the Journals and the people you met... Simply blows Oblivion away.

You might not agree with me, but hey, personal opinion.

I agree...

The interaction and history seemed richer in Morrowind. The music seemed eerier too. Unique, whereas Oblivion seems a tad generic, although it probably reflects the nature of the area.

I've been sick and stuck on the couch so I started a new character in Oblivion.

I am leveling a lot faster then I can train. Everytime I level, it's indicated I'm already to level again so, I've been holding off trying to run around and train before leveling again.

Question - does it really matter? Should I just go ahead and level w/o training five times?