Rumor: Bethesda has been in turmoil since the death of their CEO

[Lambach]

A list of Oblivion's failings relative to Morrowind:

• Reduction in the number of joinable guilds/factions offering many quests from 10 in Morrowind to 4 in Oblivion, keeping the more generic ones (Fighters/Mages/Thieves guilds)

Bruh, Morrowind's Guilds were virtually just dispensers for Quests that were, for the most part, so generic and plain they might as well have been procedurally generated.

Oblivion's Guilds had a lot of dumb shit too (e.g. you can become the Archmage without knowing how to cast a single Spell), but Morrowind's were just garbage. I honestly don't remember a single distinct moment or an interesting Quest from any of them.

 

[oblivionenjoyer]

Those aren't radical changes, each one is a pretty minor adjustment to the Morrowind formula. And all of them are changes made in response to what many gamers were struggling with in Morrowind.

The "wider audience" gamers were already playing Morrowind, which is why Bethesda made Oblivion to build further on that success.

A list of Oblivion's failings relative to Morrowind:

• Comprehensive creature-leveling such that all monsters and NPCs are set at the same level as the PC, with weaker types of monsters disappearing after the character gains enough levels, and stronger types of monsters not appearing when the character is low-level
• Comprehensive item-leveling whereby a high-level PC will not only encounter similarly high-level bandits but said bandits will have random pieces of extremely expensive armor and weapons, while a low-level PC will never find weapons/armor of such powerful material; or a weapon on display in a glass case in a castle will be a worthless replica if the PC is low-level but the real thing after the PC gains enough levels

This is personal taste. It feels dumb thematically, but it's not necessarily any dumber than Morrowind where guards and monsters of the same type are inexplicably weaker or stronger depending on location. The introduction of endgame gear in the, you know, endgame creates some variety and novelty too.

• A clunky interface, which was clearly designed for consoles, in sharp contrast to Morrowind's sleek menus

Having to mouse over every blurry jpeg thumbnail to see wtf it actually is, and having to drag everything all over your inventory, is good UI to you? Either you're a masochist or just shilling. At least in Oblivion you can instantly see what an item is, and you can scroll through a list to find things quickly.

• Reduction in the number of joinable guilds/factions offering many quests from 10 in Morrowind to 4 in Oblivion, keeping the more generic ones (Fighters/Mages/Thieves guilds)
• Factions now centered around quest lines, with 2 of the 4 (Fighters Guild and Mages Guild) being poorly written and boring

You're literally complaining that Oblivion's guilds actually had stories rather than the endless streams of pointless fetch quests that Morrowind had. Morrowind guilds were literally just doing Skyrim radiant quests over and over, except eventually you hit a limit. There was no comparison to saving a rat infestation, to stealing an Elder Scroll, to being tricked into slaughtering a village while drugged up, to exterminating your whole fucking guild by accident because of treachery. Those were interesting plot-points. Morrowind's guilds had nothing like that.

• Full voice-acting for dialogue, which necessitated a drastic reduction in the amount of dialogue per NPC, most of whom have one comment about themselves or their city to offer and nothing else
• Poor writing in general, with dialogue and books less interesting than in Morrowind
• Minigames for speechcraft and lockpicking

As opposed to the Morrowind system of lockpicking, which was fiddling around in menus for 30 seconds to "ready your lockpick" before a dull RNG skill-check. Scintillating gameplay.

• A lack of aesthetics, especially compared to Morrowind's brilliant art direction

The mushrooms were cool and all but absolutely no one with any grip on reality thought Vvardenfell was a more aesthetic world than Cyrodiil.

• A half-baked action-oriented combat system so that success in combat depends greatly on the player's physical skill, yet is boring and tedious

Right, because Morrowind gets glowing reviews for its "enjoy hitting the air and spending 90% of your time in inventories" combat system.

 

[Butter]

The merit of Morrowind's guild system was that they weren't linear. You could go to a different guild hall in a different city and get more jobs. Oblivion forces you to do things in a very strict order, which feels pointless in the Mages Guild and Fighters Guild when half the jobs are "go clear this Ayleid ruin/troll cave".

 

[Lambach]

Don't see how that's much of an advantage. A generic fetch/kill Quest is still a generic fetch/kill Quest no matter where you pick it up.

 

[dreughjiggers]

People, can i ask one thing? Why do you even care about any big gaming studios (making crpgs) at this point?
Let them burn. Or make more shit for casuals. Look for good games elsewhere, they are there. I know, there aren't as many great ones being made as we would like to have. However waiting for all the Bethesdas of the industry - companies selling to (tens) of millions - to make good games is an exercise in futility. Or rather stupidity.
I'm wasting my time. Gamers, gamers never change...

Elden Ring is a well-deserved GOTY, so you're full of shit, but do I think Bethesda can approach the quality of Elden Ring? Maybe. Then again, I'm stupid so what do you care lol

 

[ItsChon]

If it's not isometric, go fuck your mother. The only third person RPG I enjoyed was KotOR I, and even then I consider that an anomaly. First person RPGs? KC:D is the only I enjoyed, and even then I got bored and stopped playing. It's a 6/10 at best. Bethesda was always shit and will always be shit, and all the FO:NV, ToW and Morrowind sympathizers need to be shot.

 

[dreughjiggers]

If it's not isometric, go fuck your mother. The only third person RPG I enjoyed was KotOR I, and even then I consider that an anomaly. First person RPGs? KC:D is the only I enjoyed, and even then I got bored and stopped playing. It's a 6/10 at best. Bethesda was always shit and will always be shit, and all the FO:NV, ToW and Morrowind sympathizers need to be shot.

I don't care what you enjoyed, you sound like a worthless piece of shit.

 

[KateMicucci]

• Poor writing in general, with dialogue and books less interesting than in Morrowind
• Factions now centered around quest lines, with 2 of the 4 (Fighters Guild and Mages Guild) being poorly written and boring

Disagree, the writing in itself was probably the best in TES series, but it was often let down by poor performances (overstretched VA's) and presentation (potato faces). Quests were often pretty clever: the mage's guild quest to retrieve the heavy ring from the well. The fighter's guild quest to solve the "rat problem" (mountain lions killing pet rats). In morrowind the fighter's guild rat quest was just... killing rats. If Oblivion ever gets a remake with better voice acting and better faces/emoting, I think people will reevaluate just how good the writing actually was.

 

[oblivionenjoyer]

• Poor writing in general, with dialogue and books less interesting than in Morrowind
• Factions now centered around quest lines, with 2 of the 4 (Fighters Guild and Mages Guild) being poorly written and boring

Disagree, the writing in itself was probably the best in TES series, but it was often let down by poor performances (overstretched VA's) and presentation (potato faces). Quests were often pretty clever: the mage's guild quest to retrieve the heavy ring from the well. The fighter's guild quest to solve the "rat problem" (mountain lions killing pet rats). In morrowind the fighter's guild rat quest was just... killing rats. If Oblivion ever gets a remake with better voice acting and better faces/emoting, I think people will reevaluate just how good the writing actually was.

Guy's shitting on the game where you steal an Elder Scroll and accidentally slaughter a village of innocents while high on crack because it's "centered around quest lines" and not mindless fetch quests. You can't parody that shit.

 

[KateMicucci]

• Poor writing in general, with dialogue and books less interesting than in Morrowind
• Factions now centered around quest lines, with 2 of the 4 (Fighters Guild and Mages Guild) being poorly written and boring

Disagree, the writing in itself was probably the best in TES series, but it was often let down by poor performances (overstretched VA's) and presentation (potato faces). Quests were often pretty clever: the mage's guild quest to retrieve the heavy ring from the well. The fighter's guild quest to solve the "rat problem" (mountain lions killing pet rats). In morrowind the fighter's guild rat quest was just... killing rats. If Oblivion ever gets a remake with better voice acting and better faces/emoting, I think people will reevaluate just how good the writing actually was.

Guy's shitting on the game where you steal an Elder Scroll and accidentally slaughter a village of innocents while high on crack because it's "centered around quest lines" and not mindless fetch quests. You can't parody that shit.

wb rusty

 

[oblivionenjoyer]

• Poor writing in general, with dialogue and books less interesting than in Morrowind
• Factions now centered around quest lines, with 2 of the 4 (Fighters Guild and Mages Guild) being poorly written and boring

Disagree, the writing in itself was probably the best in TES series, but it was often let down by poor performances (overstretched VA's) and presentation (potato faces). Quests were often pretty clever: the mage's guild quest to retrieve the heavy ring from the well. The fighter's guild quest to solve the "rat problem" (mountain lions killing pet rats). In morrowind the fighter's guild rat quest was just... killing rats. If Oblivion ever gets a remake with better voice acting and better faces/emoting, I think people will reevaluate just how good the writing actually was.

Guy's shitting on the game where you steal an Elder Scroll and accidentally slaughter a village of innocents while high on crack because it's "centered around quest lines" and not mindless fetch quests. You can't parody that shit.

wb rusty

Do Morrowmods often ban Oblivionenjoyers or?

 

[ItsChon]

If it's not isometric, go fuck your mother. The only third person RPG I enjoyed was KotOR I, and even then I consider that an anomaly. First person RPGs? KC:D is the only I enjoyed, and even then I got bored and stopped playing. It's a 6/10 at best. Bethesda was always shit and will always be shit, and all the FO:NV, ToW and Morrowind sympathizers need to be shot.

I don't care what you enjoyed, you sound like a worthless piece of shit.

Go shove Elden Ring and all the other Jap action action games up your ass. Don't get mad at me because you weren't around when Nanjing happened. I know that's what all you FromSoftware fags are constantly upset about.

 

[PrK]

People, can i ask one thing? Why do you even care about any big gaming studios (making crpgs) at this point?
Let them burn. Or make more shit for casuals. Look for good games elsewhere, they are there. I know, there aren't as many great ones being made as we would like to have. However waiting for all the Bethesdas of the industry - companies selling to (tens) of millions - to make good games is an exercise in futility. Or rather stupidity.
I'm wasting my time. Gamers, gamers never change...

An exercise in futility to be sure.
On the other hand, AAA studios have the inherent capability of making a game that instead of just catering to the lowest common denominator, it actually shapes its taste and expectations. By making a good, challenging game with deep mechanics that doesn't hold you hand, a studio like Bethesda can actually bring to wider acceptance qualities of RPG's past that are currently considered too niche or antiquated.
We all know that it's not gonna happen, but it means that there is a reason to keep an eye on big gaming studios (making crpgs), even if it is a fabulously optimistic one.

 

[dreughjiggers]

If it's not isometric, go fuck your mother. The only third person RPG I enjoyed was KotOR I, and even then I consider that an anomaly. First person RPGs? KC:D is the only I enjoyed, and even then I got bored and stopped playing. It's a 6/10 at best. Bethesda was always shit and will always be shit, and all the FO:NV, ToW and Morrowind sympathizers need to be shot.

I don't care what you enjoyed, you sound like a worthless piece of shit.

Go shove Elden Ring and all the other Jap action action games up your ass. Don't get mad at me because you weren't around when Nanjing happened. I know that's what all you FromSoftware fags are constantly upset about.

Don't bring moms into it and justify your insults with an irrelevant story. You're just a miserable clown piece of shit. Own it.

 

[ItsChon]

If it's not isometric, go fuck your mother. The only third person RPG I enjoyed was KotOR I, and even then I consider that an anomaly. First person RPGs? KC:D is the only I enjoyed, and even then I got bored and stopped playing. It's a 6/10 at best. Bethesda was always shit and will always be shit, and all the FO:NV, ToW and Morrowind sympathizers need to be shot.

I don't care what you enjoyed, you sound like a worthless piece of shit.

Go shove Elden Ring and all the other Jap action action games up your ass. Don't get mad at me because you weren't around when Nanjing happened. I know that's what all you FromSoftware fags are constantly upset about.

Don't bring moms into it and justify your insults with an irrelevant story. You're just a miserable clown piece of shit. Own it.

Who's talking about your mother? I don't need to bring that stupid bitch into the conversation to put you into your place. The only clown here is you, for having god awful taste in RPGs. As I said before, you should have been around when the Japs went through Nanjing. It's clear that you were created so that you could end up bent over in your own filth, getting sodomized and gang raped by your beloved Japanese overlords. Sadly you were born too late to fulfill your cosmic destiny, so you fill the Japanese cock sized holes in your ass and soul with their shitty video games.

 

[Frank Capicoli]

You read enough Itszoomer posts and you start to see this obsession with cocks and sodomy and desire to dominate men. Hopefully we can pray the gay away, I fear though that we can't cut through the uber gay powers of living in California. If only our resident expert in gay conversion therapy Humanity Has Risen was here...

 

[laclongquan]

If I became king of Microsoft tomorrow, I'd have Bethesda ditch the high fantasy altogether and buy them Funcom as a Christmas present. Then Todd A. Howard could finish what Robert E. Howard started.

You mean racism?

While making a game where each species act as different species and species don't intermix would be nice. They would have to prove theirs skills by making a totally xenophobic TES VI. Otherwise they would create a mild boring stuff similar to most games that were inspired by Howard that were released last few years.

You mean black-hating, not racism.

In this day and age, black hating and yellow hating is just killing most of major audience group. Because white is a minority these days. Catering to white only is a different way of woke, and be woke is a good way to go broke.

 

[Higher Animal]

If it's not isometric, go fuck your mother. The only third person RPG I enjoyed was KotOR I, and even then I consider that an anomaly. First person RPGs? KC:D is the only I enjoyed, and even then I got bored and stopped playing. It's a 6/10 at best. Bethesda was always shit and will always be shit, and all the FO:NV, ToW and Morrowind sympathizers need to be shot.

Tell my mother that I love her and will meet her again in infinity.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Add one more to the pile of posters skeptical of Roguey's thesis here. I remember multiple friends that I had no idea were into gaming coming up to me in the year following Morrowind's release and telling me how awesome it was... and then finding out they had played it on XBox and didn't even really know that computer gaming was a thing (also they all uniformly played straight fighters and found the magic and stealth systems unintelligible). If I had to guess, I would posit that Roguey is suffering from some regional bias, and lived in an area that, for whatever reason, Morrowind flew under the radar while Oblivion's release caught fire. This sort of phenomenon was not all that uncommon in the pre-extremely-online-era, especially in more rural communities; I never played a Wizardy title prior to high-school, despite growing up playing Might and Magic, Bard's Tale, and Dungeon Master.

But overall I really don't think the XBox has any peer when it comes to the effect it had on expanding the gaming population of America (and obviously this was not a positive thing for anyone who enjoyed games prior to its release). There are edge cases like the separate advents of mice and 3D chips, or isolated incidences like Myst and The Sims, but none of them had nearly as long-standing an impact. The XBox really fucked things up for everyone who had been in on the ground floor.

 

[Harthwain]

I've never seen a more disgusting palette in my life honestly. If you want to suggest that Morrowind world design was a strategic mix of puke and diarrhoea, be my guest

First of all - learn to read. Morrowind is green where it's appropriate. It also makes sense for a lot of areas to be brown/ashen. People living there aren't called "Ashlanders" for nothing.

but I wouldn't call it singing praise for the game.

It was just the statement of fact. Then again, I guess you could call it "singing a praise" that the game world manages to make sense internally, a feat that a lot of games nowadays can't seem to pull off. But ultimately it doesn't matter what you call it - an obvious troll is obvious.

 

[oblivionenjoyer]

I've never seen a more disgusting palette in my life honestly. If you want to suggest that Morrowind world design was a strategic mix of puke and diarrhoea, be my guest

First of all - learn to read. Morrowind is green where it's appropriate. It also makes sense for a lot of areas to be brown/ashen. People living there aren't called "Ashlanders" for nothing.

but I wouldn't call it singing praise for the game.

It was just the statement of fact. Then again, I guess you could call it "singing a praise" that the game world manages to make sense internally, a feat that a lot of games nowadays can't seem to pull off. But ultimately it doesn't matter what you call it - an obvious troll is obvious.

Ash is grey.

Add one more to the pile of posters skeptical of Roguey's thesis here. I remember multiple friends that I had no idea were into gaming coming up to me in the year following Morrowind's release and telling me how awesome it was... and then finding out they had played it on XBox and didn't even really know that computer gaming was a thing (also they all uniformly played straight fighters and found the magic and stealth systems unintelligible). If I had to guess, I would posit that Roguey is suffering from some regional bias, and lived in an area that, for whatever reason, Morrowind flew under the radar while Oblivion's release caught fire. This sort of phenomenon was not all that uncommon in the pre-extremely-online-era, especially in more rural communities; I never played a Wizardy title prior to high-school, despite growing up playing Might and Magic, Bard's Tale, and Dungeon Master.

But overall I really don't think the XBox has any peer when it comes to the effect it had on expanding the gaming population of America (and obviously this was not a positive thing for anyone who enjoyed games prior to its release). There are edge cases like the separate advents of mice and 3D chips, or isolated incidences like Myst and The Sims, but none of them had nearly as long-standing an impact. The XBox really fucked things up for everyone who had been in on the ground floor.

The Xbox 360*

The Xbox was always dwarfed in market-share by the PS2, but the 360 trashed the PS3 for the first few years of that generation.

 

[dreughjiggers]

I don't know, I could remember Morrowind from a spot on Troonami, getting stoked about it, but I sold my soul for a PS2 instead. I couldn't have run it on my abacus, anyway. Eventually got around to it, after Oblivion.

 

[Roguey]

Add one more to the pile of posters skeptical of Roguey's thesis here. I remember multiple friends that I had no idea were into gaming coming up to me in the year following Morrowind's release and telling me how awesome it was... and then finding out they had played it on XBox and didn't even really know that computer gaming was a thing (also they all uniformly played straight fighters and found the magic and stealth systems unintelligible). If I had to guess, I would posit that Roguey is suffering from some regional bias, and lived in an area that, for whatever reason, Morrowind flew under the radar while Oblivion's release caught fire. This sort of phenomenon was not all that uncommon in the pre-extremely-online-era, especially in more rural communities; I never played a Wizardy title prior to high-school, despite growing up playing Might and Magic, Bard's Tale, and Dungeon Master.

But overall I really don't think the XBox has any peer when it comes to the effect it had on expanding the gaming population of America (and obviously this was not a positive thing for anyone who enjoyed games prior to its release). There are edge cases like the separate advents of mice and 3D chips, or isolated incidences like Myst and The Sims, but none of them had nearly as long-standing an impact. The XBox really fucked things up for everyone who had been in on the ground floor.

Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_in_video_games#Best-selling_video_games Morrowind doesn't make any list. Those were the games normies/casuals knew and were talking about back then. No one talked about Morrowind in my online circles either.

 

[oblivionenjoyer]

Add one more to the pile of posters skeptical of Roguey's thesis here. I remember multiple friends that I had no idea were into gaming coming up to me in the year following Morrowind's release and telling me how awesome it was... and then finding out they had played it on XBox and didn't even really know that computer gaming was a thing (also they all uniformly played straight fighters and found the magic and stealth systems unintelligible). If I had to guess, I would posit that Roguey is suffering from some regional bias, and lived in an area that, for whatever reason, Morrowind flew under the radar while Oblivion's release caught fire. This sort of phenomenon was not all that uncommon in the pre-extremely-online-era, especially in more rural communities; I never played a Wizardy title prior to high-school, despite growing up playing Might and Magic, Bard's Tale, and Dungeon Master.

But overall I really don't think the XBox has any peer when it comes to the effect it had on expanding the gaming population of America (and obviously this was not a positive thing for anyone who enjoyed games prior to its release). There are edge cases like the separate advents of mice and 3D chips, or isolated incidences like Myst and The Sims, but none of them had nearly as long-standing an impact. The XBox really fucked things up for everyone who had been in on the ground floor.

Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_in_video_games#Best-selling_video_games Morrowind doesn't make any list. Those were the games normies/casuals knew and were talking about back then. No one talked about Morrowind in my online circles either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_in_video_games#Best-selling_video_games

tbf you can say the exact same for Oblivion.

These lists are too short to reflect the growth of the series. TES only got truly mainstream with Skyrim, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a clear ramp-up from Daggerfall to Oblivion.

 

[Roguey]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_in_video_games#Best-selling_video_games

tbf you can say the exact same for Oblivion.

These lists are too short to reflect the growth of the series. TES only got truly mainstream with Skyrim, but that doesn't mean there wasn't a clear ramp-up from Daggerfall to Oblivion.

From 2006 https://web.archive.org/web/2012101...com/features/top-100-pc-games-21st-century/4/

Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Developer: Bethesda Softworks
Released: Apr ’02
Estimated Sales: 300,000

That's PC and US only, the rule of thumb is to double that to get international sales, with xbox you can maybe double or (very optimistically) triple that number? 1-2 million after four years was pretty good, but that makes them on par with 00s-era Bioware (who could get those numbers with PC sales alone) and Oblivion went on to sell 3 million within a year.