Why is The Elder Scrolls series so popular?

I have only played Morrowind and Oblivion. Morrowind I loved. I did feel the story was interesting and integrated into the whole game. Optional quests made sense and some where fun. You did need to make decisions and chose guilds and houses. None of this join everything in sight, have it all syndrome which I dislike. Pathing was poor, trying to free slaves and get them to a safe house drove me crazy. As far as I was concerned it needed very little modding.

Oblivion was another story or rather lack of story. I loved the main quest, I loved Martin. I got bored with closing Oblivion gates. I found many loose ends, Kvatch being one of them. I considered the FG quests a joke, Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild were much better. The Mage Guild quests were fine but become the Arch Mage and who cared? Oblivion was a modders dream though, it needed mods so badly that everyone and his sister made them, good bad and indifferent.. Some really great mods were made.

So why is Oblivion so popular? Mods? There was an addictive quality even to the vanilla game. I think it was the ope world, let's go exploring feel. With mods added you could do all sorts of things. Gardening, farming, Make things, sell things, just wander to your hearts content like a real adventurer.

Graphics were good although people kept trying to change them. The only thing I didn't like was the water but maybe those bloody Oblivion gates caused the murky water, the crazy animals. Barking wolves, hate them. Almost everything in Oblivion needed to be improved so what made it such a popular game?

Any ideas?

Why I love Morrowind/Ob? For me, it's the ability to skip the FedEx quests and just explore. Caverns, crypts, forests... kill monsters, pick up loot, build your PC without going through the horrible FedEx quests the guilds are so fond of. To quote Bishop... I'm getting tired of those orders.

I think you are right. It is the freedom to feel like you are your own person, that you are in control and not some sadistic developer or over kindly one who thinks you are an idiot and needs to be taken y the hand and led around. I ended up installin a mod in Oblivion that got rid of all those quest pop ups "You have arrived at Bleak Cave and now must enter and kiss the ass of the great god zakominum." I hated those with a passion.

The question now is Skyrim going to be open ended or not. Lore has been improved but are you still free to be an adventurer or are you to be a lackey of some mystical destiny?

We'll probably have to deal with a silly main quest about the protagonist PC being a saviour of mankind (elves and orcs and the rest).

What I expect is better looking environment and the same freedom to explore.

I hated level scaling and the fact that any character could do everything and go through every guild quests -don't get me started on the dialogue wheel and the topics.

What I really enjoyed was Shivering Isles because the story was more compelling. After playing Morrowind I've always found Oblivion to be too mundane in comparison. Shivering Isles with Mania, Dementia and the Laughing God was just perfect.

I loved Shivering Isles. I insist that it is the sanest game in this crazy world. I never even modded it. I think I added a patch but that was it.

I guess I'm not the best person to comment on the reason for Oblivion's popularity. Even with the game modded to the gills, I wasn't able to maintain an interest in it for more than a few hours. However, judging by what Elder Scrolls fans talk about, I think the main reason for the popularity of TES is the sandbox aspect. No other RPG series does the "go anywhere and be anybody" thing better than Elder Scrolls.

When I browse the official Bethesda forums, I see that free-form open-world exploration is really stressed at the thing players love most, with "immersion" being another big selling point. They want to be able to go anywhere, pick up any object, and kill everything that moves. In some ways, Bethesda's games are more comparable to Rockstar's than other RPG developers. They've got open worlds, lots of minigames, and the constant temptation to cause complete mayhem.

The one Elder Scrolls game I liked was Morrowind, which was actually my first PC RPG. Ironically, it was the story of Morrowind which most drew me in (it is ironic because the series isn't known for having strong stories). I saw in Morrowind the potential for an entirely new kind of narrative structure, with in-game books describing multiple versions of events that could be discovered at the viewer's leisure. Bethesda took the "unreliable narrator" device and applied it to an open-world sandbox game. I thought, and still think, it was brilliant. And I found that brilliance to be completely lacking in Oblivion (mind you, I've never played Shivering Isles).

I liked Morrowind best. I did very little modding of the game. Built a house to put my rescued slaves until I could get them to a safe house. Tried a few mods but didn't care for them. Towards the end of my playing Morrowind I did install a mod I liked. Morrowind alive or something. Can't think of its correct name.

I like the open world of both Morrowind and Oblivion but feel that Oblivion was too much on the do everything, be everything . I like tension and choices that mean something in a game. I like a main quest to be just that a main quest not just another of a bunch of quests. Becoming ArchMage meant nothing in the end. Same with any of the others. Quest over so you are the Grey Fox, so what?

Skyrim does claim to offer choices and make what you do important so that each game is different or so they claim. I am getting it and I'll find out if they lie.

my brothers GF has a cool add on for morriwind. they added fish and other water life to the game. you can fish and collect shells and even ride dolphins. so amazing. i would play it myself but i can not seem to find our copy of it.

as for oblivion i will only play it if i have my Slof mods. if i don't have them i will not play it. <3
i am just not that interested unless i have the mods. ( her mods)

Oblivion the game I once loved to hate. Haven't played it for a while but am helping to test a mod for someone. I actually find myself greeting some of that repetitious rehtoric as if it was an old friend. Something comfortable about. Of course the new mod helps because it is different. A mystery to be solved, new people, a new city, cities actually.