Open world vs. level-walled.
For example Dragon Age: Origins: you may go for that Circle Tower with the mages first or last, the levels of the enemy will be adjusted. Same applies for Mass Effect: you decide where you'll head next. Even more so for TES games where you simply can't predict, where the player wants to go next.
With set levels for certain areas, you're more or less forced down a strict path and it may even put you on rails. Try playing Fallout 1 with not heading towards Shady Sands as your first stop, but tackle 2-3 of the others (Brotherhood / Glow / Cathedral) first - see how far you can come. Applies also for the Gothic / Risen series, though to a lesser degree - you'll just grind lvls on lower enemies / quest before proceeding past certain points.

Yes and no. Solely from a mechanical standpoint yes, that can happen. However, level scaling works both ways. No matter where you go, it will be worth it. If you're lvl 25 and see a small cave, you're bound to still find something valuable inside. But you eliminated the possibility of facing enemies that disintegrate when you as much as look in their direction.

How you'd guess that working out in Skyrim with 300+ locations, while balancing play through for players with lvl 30 vs. lvl 70 chars? And please do it without grinding....

Here's the key point - you have the mainquest, Dark Brotherhood / Thieves / Companions / College questlines with zero indication at which point the player may take on them (if at all). Add the 2 long Dragonborn / Dawnguard questlines to that. Don't forget that you have a rather dynamic world, with dragon attacks happening at lvl 10 as well as on lvl 80. Where do you set these specific exceptions?

Oh, so there's no way for me to make that boring "open door, kill same enemy five times, heal, open next door" slog any shorter and less annoying? Crap, there goes my motivation for any further attempts to beat that game.

You wouldn't need scaling if the quests and the gameplay in TES (and most CRPGs) were not built entirely around "go there, kill shit". If there were a good public transport system, tours, tagging along with people. And bodyguard hire for some long journeys into the uncharted. And some ways of making good money in towns besides selling loot and giblets. You know, if those games actually asked "who do you want to be?" instead of "please, underline, which weapon/magic of the following list you want to use most for regular murder".

Who brings the same old refuted BS now, huh? How many times do I have to explain to you that level walls are no problem? Just look at MM6-8 on how to solve this. Or look at grvipers post, this is no problem at all, just something in your mind.
And no, in Fallout 1 and 2 I always went where the hell I felt like, not a big fan of main quests.

Level walls are the prime reason why I have stopped playing Gothic games. Give me well done level-scaling any day.

Also, it's not 'refuted bullshit', it's just you not accepting that reasoning. Stop being Crosmando.

Regardless, TES games are just about closest to that from all the RPGs I have ever played.

Begin Rant

Every game good or bad doesn't matter except for one question, do you find entertainment in it? Morrowind, Yes. Oblivion, Yes. Skyrim, Yes. In order of how I like them, Morrowind Most, Skyrim Second, Oblivion Last. Daggerfall I never got past the starting dungeon.

How can that be? BLASPHEMY!!! OFF WITH HIS HEAD!!!!

I'll explain it then: Morrowind wasn't the greatest technically. Yes, most fights consist of being chased around with a sword or an axe or a guy standing around flinging spell and arrow at you. Yes the graphics are a polygonal mess of a bygone era of programming. Yes, fighting is broken when random chance dictates if you hit, dodge or critical chance. But I enjoyed it. It's a massive, open, diverse world with much to explore. Nearly every character in the game lives with some kind of purpose, be it to kill, take missions from, buy from, learn from, or give character to the world. It's inventive, explorative, diverse, there's a lot to see, a lot to love, and it builds on your persistence, rewarding you with caves to find, secrets in every corner, a story from every single creature that exists on the map, and I love every minute of it.

Skyrim, yes, I ranked it lower than Morrowind. It's a very deep game. It's a very fleshed out game. I love the re-tooling of magic, the narrowed focus of skill branch, ability, combat, so forth. But the world is very large, it requires a lot of patience. I didn't get my first horse in the game for 20 hours or so when I stole it as part of a mission. Unlike Morrowind, this game pits you into a world that hasn't a focus hanging over it. You aren't given a sense of direction minus the knowledge of a civil war, and with how much I played I still don't know if I became a part of the main quest or not. Is my quest to end the civil war? Is it to hunt down the dragons zipping across the skies? Is it to follow and fight with the last remaining Blades? Morrowind tells you something and holds something over your head from the beginning, that you're a selected prisoner born to uncertain parents on a certain day. Terrible dreams haunt you, and the world speaks of the possibility of a Niravine, the re-incarnation of a dark elf hero of tribal society. In this game, nope, you're a man who can kill and eat dragon souls, you know this from the near-start. Good! Now what do I do with this power? Along with that, while the creatures in the world, and the society is unique in many ways, the cities, the towns, the people, the lifestyle, so forth, the map itself isn't that special. There's open fields, a lot of mountains, forests in the west, snow in the North and East and Borders. It's an open world, but it doesn't hold the same surprise and mystery of stepping into a world where mushrooms grow like trees, a single mountain spews toxic ashes across the world and lava spins like rivers. Don't get me wrong, it's a good game, a very well structured game, but I didn't get pulled in like I did in Morrowind.

Oblivion, I will not call bad. It was experimental, a tweak of what was done with Morrowind. It refined combat, reduced the options between weaponry. It gives you a story and a mystery like Morrowind does, you are the sole witness to the death of a king. The main story is easy to find, and in fact is encouraged for you to find straight away. But it's too much too quickly. As a hearty, practiced level 10, killing vampires and throwing lighting bolts with a talent of archery that can shoot someone's testicles off at 100 yards, collect the same arrow, and do the same to another guy coming from over the hill like the magical STD fairy, and Listener for the Black Hand, I go in, I go to find Juaffe, I go to find the kid in a destroyed city, and they just wipe the damn floor with me! The difficulty ramps up a little quickly in terms of the main story, and part of this is of course that the enemies actually are adjusting and changing based on your level. Your character's ability should be at the point to reflect it, but without any change to the difficulty settings they pressure a little too hard when you have to take down 5 Clanfears in an open area with just your sword, and a dremora warrior chasing right behind them. The portals are the same way, areas that will wipe the floor with you unless you run yourself up to high levels, high spell proficiencies and talents in archery, magics and melee. The main story just isn't fun. The fun of the game comes from all the optional stuff in the game, from being the lord of thieves while running the warrior's guild to running the black hand. Help the farmer and his sons to take back their land, run back to the bar to get your reward, then when both sons are outside, shoot them in the head, get a visit from the black hand and use that as an excuse to become a talented assassin. Find yourself south, kidnapped to play a game of cat and mouse for your life in an unfamiliar place. Find the secret of a magical book, that offers you a spell that will try to kill you the first time you summon it. Find yourself in a town populated entirely by cat folk, then help a dremora god convince them that the end of the world is coming, first by attracting an army of mice, plus a couple other things, and then the god himself will fuck up the entire world around them for fun. And your reward is a staff, that turns ANYTHING into ANYTHING else! Point it at a rat, suddenly you have a horse. Point it at your horse, now you have a demon. Point it at a demon, get a bigger demon! Point it at a human, he's a mud crab! Find yourself in a world created purely inside a canvas, made by an artist who was left a tool that let him ENTER his painting and create the world by hand from the inside. The fun comes from finding it for yourself, not by giving it to the story. And while it's a more proficient game than Morrowind, it's weaker than Skyrim in terms of design. And it does the worst in trying to draw you in, the world somewhat plain all over, except for the several billion crypts and dungeons that will stick themselves up on your map.

In short, the game, good or bad, doesn't matter, it matters what enjoyment you gather from it, and in this case I found enjoyment to be had with all of the titles. I'll say Morrowind gave me the most fun, but none of them are really bad games regardless.

Nice rundown. More or less agree, but there's one funny thing about Oblivion that I like more than Skyrim for a single reason: The CITIES. Oblivion has so beautifuly designed, big and distinct cities, it incredibly helps my immersion when I come back from whatever I was doing and enter something that actually looks like a place where all the people who are there could live in.

Skyrim was such a disappointement in that department. Also, Nerevarine.

Hm I noticed none of that in Gothic and never saw anyone else complain about it either. But then you were the guy who also loves QTEs and DRM, so maybe you are just full of it. Stop being Fenixp.

Let me just ignore you putting words into my mouth and cut to the chase:
You mean you have not noticed level walls in Gothic? As for you not noticing anyone else complaining about it... Well, that's pretty irrelevant, isn't it?

Spelling is a little hard to do when you're away from the game for a while. Didn't help that my saves got deleted somehow too (Fuckity fuck fuck, 30 hours and very careful and deliberate skill building wasted)

But yeah, Oblivion, did have lovely cities. My favorite would actually be the one in the center of the map. The place resembles a great big open fortress, a place meant to hold off war and invasion. The place where you meat The Brotherhood is also well constructed, and all the cities are quite diverse. Your first couple missions take you to a place to assassinate a man with a deer head (Whee!!!) and it's so far north it takes inspiration of Skyrim, with heavy wooden log buildings, where brick and motor are commonplace further south. I did get disappointed however with many of the small towns save one (See flaming apocalypse cat town) since there wasn't much to do. Morrowind meanwhile had what amounted to towns and settlements, with but 3 major Cities. (Vivec, Balmora, and one I can't recall). Still it was unique, you had cities of poor, made with straw and twig in the eastern swamplands. Mushroom forests housed the few heavily populated settlements of Altmer. Mud houses and stone fortresses help in defense of their own local cities. There were buildings owned by the wealthier commonplace houses, then you get a place like Vivec where all the poor and working live in small single room quarters at the bottom of pyramid-like structures, shop owners had their own homes further up attached to the store, guilds and wealthier class citizens at the top along with several commonplace stores. Then you learn that one of the very gods of the world, Vivec himself, actually resides past in the furthest tower beyond the halls of justice and knowledge.

No, and I did not put anything into your mouth.

Quote Fenixp:

"I love QTEs when done properly. I love level scaling when done properly. I love good gameplay elements when done properly, as shocking as it might be.

For that matter, I even love DRM when done properly."

Yup. When done properly being the important part here. I kind of tend to like stuff when done well, as surprising as that might be.

I do have to wonder tho, why are you doing this? Why are you attacking everybody who happens to disagree with you?

I was simply refuting your accusation of putting words into your mouth.

On a more positive note that does not involved criticism of the series, I am looking forward to this collection. Yes it is expensive and somewhat pointless considering Arena and Daggerfall are freeware, but it is still cool to have physical versions of those games that have a price tag that is actually understandable. (79.99 for 5 Elder Scrolls games compared to 79.99+ for just Daggerfall on its own for example)

If there is one thing I will criticize about the collection, it is that there is some uncertainty on whether Morrowind and Oblivion require Steam or not. That would kill the collection in my eyes since I can get those games on their own without Steam for a decent price.

Yes, there aren't many RPGs without that as the main goal apart from Planescape Torment.

Fast travel, carriage carts, horses, boats... dragon riding... don't know what other options you'd possibly need in Skyrim to consider it good. :p
Tagging along with people? People on the road fighting creatures, guards aiding you when being assaulted was already done in Oblivion, even more so in Skyrim.
Bodyguard to hire? [url=http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Followers#Permanent_Followers]Permanent followers in Skyrim[/url] either by quests / guild advancement or [url=http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim:Followers#Hirelings]mercenaries for gold[/url]. Plus a pet. All in vanilla, without mods.

I can play as a farmer (Skyrim Rags to riches video series) or a goods peddler with hired mercenaries, completely ignoring / not triggering the mainquest, getting to lvl80 without ever seeing a dragon after the intro.
I can play as a dedicated healer relying on my companions to do the dirty work.
A reckless warrior staying away from anything magical which includes healing spells, relying on self-made potions.
A easily distractible hunter who eats 3 times a day what he hunted himself, sells / works the pelts and can't pass on any cave he stumbles upon....
I can join any guild in TES games, but don't have to. I simply can pick the one fitting for my current role and be done with the rest.

All possible in Skyrim, again all vanilla, even more so with mods. I simply can't do that in other games at all or nowhere near to that degree as in Skyrim. Or do you know of RPGs coming closer to the above "be what you want to be"? If so, consider me being interested.

It may not be for you and your play style with a "run or die" approach to get shiny loot. Wanting to follow a specific guilds questline in Skyrim and having to resort to grinding, because the next part is in an environment 20 lvls above you, is a potential problem - no matter how many times you declare it irrelevant or simply ignore it.