Fans don't matter

[Dreadnought]

Something better then a sandwich.

Lies.

[Killzig]

Was Morrowind that bad?

Yes.

I got the impression all the things the disappointed Morrowind fans didn't like about Oblivion lined up with what I thought was weak about it but I hadn't played an Elder Scrolls game since Daggerfall.

that's surprising since they both employ shitty combat systems. I guess Morrowind's fantasy setting was less generic than Oblivion's. Also the interface for PC users wasn't broken.

I'll say this for the reviewers though. For the first 20 hours of Oblivion or so, I thought it was every bit as good as folks were saying

It took you 20 hours to be dulled by fetch quests and shit combat? It's kind of amusing to watch the somewhat negative reviews of Bioshock roll in on forums like Qtt3 when people are complaining about the fetch quests in the 2nd half of the game. Most people are calling that stuff "padding" and "lazy design" ... That's a pretty apt description of most of Oblivion's quests.

it was until I realized how few actual choices of consequence the game actually gave you

You can do the next fighter's guild quest or you can do the next mage's guild quest. Both would entail you finding a dungeon, crawling, and bringing back some sort of item. Do this about 20 more times and you'll be the GRAND GOPHER OF THE ______'s GUILD! YAY! That nets you the ability to rent-a-companion-npc-with-god-awful-ai-who-will-die-the-minute-you-step-foot-into-combat, here's some gold too. Completely worthless by this point probably though, "ha, so sorry!"

It's a pretty stark contrast to games like Arcanum/Fallout/Bloodlines where you get the feelings that the actions your character takes have some sort of resonance in the game world. In comparison, Oblivion is an overblown Diablo. Except it has terrible loot, all scaled to your level thus taking all the rewards one would normally have from dungeon crawling. A terrible skill system made worse by the same scaling applied to monsters. What's the point of level grinding if you're never going to gain an advantage over the enemy? These are very fundamental gameplay mechanics that reward the player for spending time in the game. Somehow BethSoft thought this was good design. But graphics are king and anyone that says otherwise is lying through their yellowed cracking teeth.

not to mention how poorly thought out and broken the totalitarian level-scaling was. I'd like to believe that if I'd still been reviewing games I would have taken the time to really hit it for a full weekend, but 20 hours is a big chunk of time out of a week when you have a lot of other material to cover.

about 3 of those hours were probably spent looking at loading screens. Gah. They really beat the horse about immersion but when you're spending 2-3 minutes looking at a loading screen just exiting a building/going up the stairs it really does nothing for said 'immersion' does it? I had one instance where a load was taking way too long so I switch inputs on my tv and started watching something on the military channel. 2 hours later I completely forgot I had been playing Oblivion. THAT'S IMMERSION!
[

My assumption was that they simply got too focused on what they could do graphically and also with the new physics system that they forgot that it actually takes some writing and game design to make a great RPG but if Morrowind was that weak too, I can empathize a bit more with all the negativity.

Morrowind certainly had more meat to it than Oblivion but it's a far cry from the style of RPG most of us here enjoy. You'll also find that most of Oblivion/Morrowind's staunchest defenders will not play either game unless it's heavily modded. Why do you think that is?

Regardless, I still think a lot of people are going way off the deep end. I think there's enough encouraging info on the game to warrant a wait-and-see approach rather than being absolutely steadfast about it sucking before screenshots were even available.

I think most people are pretty wait and see but when we're constantly being called out as anachronistic and resistant to change it's hard not to fire back. I'm fine with a third person OTS camera. I'm fine with real time. I don't really care much for the implementation the way it sounds so far but I'm willing to give it a shot. I was ALL for a shift to the west coast and hopefully a clean start for the franchise. Instead they're just rehashing the same groups, the same conflicts, they're not evolving the world. WHY?

[Dreadnought]

WHY?

Because they're doing it wrong.

[Killzig]

oh yeah.

[Goretheglowingone]

the only good thing about morrofart was the rampant ability to jack shit... i just stole and stole..
then i quit the game and put it on the back shelf to rot.

[VasikkA]

the only good thing about morrofart was the rampant ability to jack shit... i just stole and stole..
then i quit the game and put it on the back shelf to rot.

The moment you click the 'submit' button, satan strikes a smile.

[PiP]

asshat Goretheglowingone!

[popscythe]

asshat Goretheglowingone!

For shitty altered beast rise from your grave on ancient threads if nothing else.