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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion is turning 10 years old today.

Ka-pi96 said:
yo_john117 said:

What made it so good, if I may ask? My honest opinion (although based off of very little playtime) is that it was a worse version of Skyrim.

I remember playing the game, getting out of the jail in the beginning, and roaming around not knowing what to do until a rogue wolf chased me into a pit of sorts whereupon I died. By that time I was so bored/frustrated with it that I never played it again.

Does that mean you played it after playing Skyrim?

IMO it has aged horribly so maybe that's why you couldn't get in to it?

No I played it shortly after I got a 360 in 2007



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yo_john117 said:
Wright said:

Best Elder Scrolls and one of the best games ever made. Even with the repetitive dungeon layout at times, and the "impactless" combat, it was amazing.

What made it so good, if I may ask? My honest opinion (although based off of very little playtime) is that it was a worse version of Skyrim.

I remember playing the game, getting out of the jail in the beginning, and roaming around not knowing what to do until a rogue wolf chased me into a pit of sorts whereupon I died. By that time I was so bored/frustrated with it that I never played it again.

Can't speak for Wright, but as someone who holds a similar opinion, I have to say the quest lines in Oblivion felt so much more complete. I literally had a playthrougsh where I avoided all questlines but the Mages Guild/Thieves Guild/Dark Brotherhood (delete as appropriate) and it still felt as epic as ever. Each guild had a whole games' worth of quests with their own story twists and turns. More importantly, those quests seemed to have a decent amount of thought put into them. The Skyrim equivalents paled in comparison even though most other aspects were superior. 



Great game! Played loads of it years ago.



I remember having that for PS3 when it had no games. Absolutely awful piece if trash that put me off Western RPGS for life.



yo_john117 said:

What made it so good, if I may ask? My honest opinion (although based off of very little playtime) is that it was a worse version of Skyrim.

I remember playing the game, getting out of the jail in the beginning, and roaming around not knowing what to do until a rogue wolf chased me into a pit of sorts whereupon I died. By that time I was so bored/frustrated with it that I never played it again.

 

Quests were much better. They had their amount of twists and things, and you could find them in the most unexpected places. Like having a rest on the harbour inn at the Imperial City (Like I missed that one during two walkthroughs, and the quest itself is interesting and has different outcomes depending on what you do). Faction Guilds were miles better than its Skyrim counterpart. The game has a decent closure, something Skyrim lacked. And the classic epic-fantasy setting was much more to my liking than the nordic winter-ish thing of Skyrim.

And it was a harder, yet more satisfying experience than Skyrim and Morrowind. At least for me.



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Thanks for explaining that guys. I did feel as if the questing in Skyrim wasn't great for the most part. Bet I would have gotten into the game if I would have given it more of a chance since I do love those type of games.



Wright said:
yo_john117 said:

What made it so good, if I may ask? My honest opinion (although based off of very little playtime) is that it was a worse version of Skyrim.

I remember playing the game, getting out of the jail in the beginning, and roaming around not knowing what to do until a rogue wolf chased me into a pit of sorts whereupon I died. By that time I was so bored/frustrated with it that I never played it again.

 

Quests were much better. They had their amount of twists and things, and you could find them in the most unexpected places. Like having a rest on the harbour inn at the Imperial City (Like I missed that one during two walkthroughs, and the quest itself is interesting and has different outcomes depending on what you do). Faction Guilds were miles better than its Skyrim counterpart. The game has a decent closure, something Skyrim lacked. And the classic epic-fantasy setting was much more to my liking than the nordic winter-ish thing of Skyrim.

And it was a harder, yet more satisfying experience than Skyrim and Morrowind. At least for me.

I would challenge you on that guild part.  I would say I much preferred a lot of the writing and characters in Skyrim's guilds.  They ultimately felt more woven into the world of Tamriel while Oblivion's Fighter's Guild and Mage's Guild felt very generic and fought generic rivals.  The big flaw in Skyrim's guilds was just length for the College of Winterhold and The Companions.  Wasn't an issue in the Thieve's Guild and Dark Brotherhood though.  As for quests, I set them on pretty even levels.  Skyrim had its unexpected adventures and little hidden quests you would find by talking to a random insane person or blundering into a long running conflict between the spirits that haunt some ancient ruin.  I will agree I liked the epicness of the Oblivion closing, it really punctuated the ending of the story (and it's something Skyrim could have done easily enough so it's unfortunate they didn't).  But as with the other quests, I liked how Skyrim's wove itself into the fabric of Tamriel's lore.  Not to say Oblivion's didn't, but Oblivion's just felt more "typical." 

But then that is the charm of Oblivion, it's a grand realization of the classic fantasy RPG adventure.  I enjoyed it immensely for that.  But I feel Skyrim has a lot to recommend it above Oblivion (but then again it is a sequel so that would be the hope at least :P )



Nuvendil said:

I would challenge you on that guild part.  I would say I much preferred a lot of the writing and characters in Skyrim's guilds.  They ultimately felt more woven into the world of Tamriel while Oblivion's Fighter's Guild and Mage's Guild felt very generic and fought generic rivals.  The big flaw in Skyrim's guilds was just length for the College of Winterhold and The Companions.  Wasn't an issue in the Thieve's Guild and Dark Brotherhood though.  As for quests, I set them on pretty even levels.  Skyrim had its unexpected adventures and little hidden quests you would find by talking to a random insane person or blundering into a long running conflict between the spirits that haunt some ancient ruin.  I will agree I liked the epicness of the Oblivion closing, it really punctuated the ending of the story (and it's something Skyrim could have done easily enough so it's unfortunate they didn't).  But as with the other quests, I liked how Skyrim's wove itself into the fabric of Tamriel's lore.  Not to say Oblivion's didn't, but Oblivion's just felt more "typical." 

But then that is the charm of Oblivion, it's a grand realization of the classic fantasy RPG adventure.  I enjoyed it immensely for that.  But I feel Skyrim has a lot to recommend it above Oblivion (but then again it is a sequel so that would be the hope at least :P )

 

I guess it's a matter of perspective, because if you prefer the way Skyrim handled its quests and the impact on The Elder Scrolls lore, then I can hardly argue against that. xP I'm not saying Skyrim quests were bad, as Oblivion has its shares of bland, forgettable missions (that dude who wants some scales outside Imperial City, for example, even if the reward is nice), and some missteps along the main plot. But then again, I can't help but feel that Oblivion took care of the sum of its parts much better than Skyrim did. Maybe it was the hard work of updating the Morrowind system into the HD era, whereas Skyrim had little to prove (though it was satisfying, nonetheless).

Or maybe it's the way they took care of it. I prefer New Vegas to Fallout 3 because it's an update of Fallout 3 and almost everything is superior in such update (NV is often referred as 3.5). Yet Fallout 4 was a reinvention of their previous work. Same case with Skyrim. I think I were expecting an update, something like Oblivion 3.5, but the end result (skyrim) has personality of its own, which was probably what I wasn't expecting.



It's time for a Vita version.



Well met!