KiNgBrAdLeY7: Morrowind needs you to stomach older graphics, though.

kingpiccolo: I don't think it's fair to just dismiss it as nostalgia. Many people (including myself) consider it their favorite TES game despite experiencing Oblivion and/or Skyrim first.

The way I see it, TES games are all surprisingly different to each other and do a better job at appealing to different audiences:

- Daggerfall does the best job of appealing to traditional RPG fans. Its character creation system alone is far better than anything found in the other TES games.

- Morrowind does the best job as an open world experience. Aside from having the most unique setting by far, the game doesn't hold your hand the way Oblivion and Skyrim do. You actually feel like a stranger lost in a fantasy world, not some player following markers from A to B in a game.

- Oblivion is sort of the middle-ground between Morrowind and Skyrim. It's probably the least liked of the series because it doesn't really excel in any area.

- Skyrim does a better job than the previous titles when it comes to offering a more mainstream action-adventure experience. It's ideal for people who just want to teleport around the gameworld killing monsters without worrying about their character stats or figuring out where to go.

So going by this, it's easy to understand why a lot of Daggerfall fans hate Morrowind for the perceived dumbing down of RPG mechanics, or why a lot of Morrowind fans hated Oblivion and Skyrim for the increased hand-holding. It's also easy to understand why someone who loves Skyrim for the action may end up hating Morrowind if they go back to play it.

StingingVelvet: Yeah, dark brotherhood in that game probably has some of the best quest design in the series. It's a shame that the thieves guild and dark brotherhood in Skyrim are mostly dungeon diving.

I wouldn't say Oblivion has the best quest design overall though.

KiNgBrAdLeY7: Morrowind IS the best of the series, but only for the retro people and the "old-school" lovers. You want graphics? Go for Skyrim. You want more gameplay features, like item durability, spell-making system, less clunky bugs, go for Morrowind.

Morrowind needs you to stomach older graphics, though. Me, as a retromaniac, i love them, as a natural fetish. But i bet that very few people would actually do the same thing.

Skyrim isn't bad. But has its problems. Anyway, you can get all series. There is a retail bundle, that now its price has dropped seriously low. Avoid steam, if you can, unless you are already its customer, or even worse, a die-hard fan.

Morrowind... Such a fine game. So much resistant to time passing. A real gem...

awalterj: When my best friend and I talk about Daggerfall, we don't talk about the game that was but the game that could have been. Daggerfall is the single most ambitious game I ever played, there was so much unrealized potential and even though there was a lot of content it was stretched out too thinly, making the game look vast but empty.
After spending a sizable amount of time on Daggerfall between 1996-2000, I came to the conclusion that this type of game can't be made to my satisfaction and likely never will even in the future. I'm familiar with all the TES sequals and mods but never felt any need to play them as I can see from 10 miles that none of them can live up to the unrealistic expectations I have. Abstract games like Tetris are immune to aging and are easier to pull off, a fully realized singeplayer sandbox RPG on the other hand is a beautiful pipe dream. I keep watching out for new developments but haven't seen any game that is even remotely close to what I wanted Daggerfall to be. There are very fine games out there like KOTOR, Mass Effect etc but they fill a different niche and aren't what I'm talking about here.
I still try imagine that some day someone will make a game like Daggerfall but in a way Daggerfall was intended to be. It's just a dream though.

Crispy78: Very much how I feel about Midwinter

Fenixp: No longer you don't :-P

darthspudius: Believe THAT is nostalgia lad.

KiNgBrAdLeY7: Yay! :D How nice!

KiNgBrAdLeY7: Never said it isn't. And no one said nostalgia is bad.

Emob78: Some of the reasons why I always preferred Morrowind to the others...

Spell/potion crafting was more interesting. You could mix jump potions that would let you leap 200 feet in the air. Levitation spells/potions also gave the game a much better alternative to Silt Striders. Oblivion and Skyrim seemed to limit spells and potions into very basic categories with not much imagination.

darthspudius: Well it is really, your nostalgia is painting this game to be absolutely amazing and it really is not as good as people like to think it is. It is like a Duran Duran album, great for the time but urgh.

It's best to describe it without the nostalgia. For example it has excellent lore, great story and set designs. But the combat is horrific, the animations are very very ugly and it just doesn't control very well by today's standards.

KiNgBrAdLeY7: You played oblivion, and you calling morrowind's combat horrific?!? I cannot even comment on this, nostalgia or no nostalgia in the picture... I am confused.

Also everyone forgets (or does not even delve into) the wonderfull spellmaking system. You can make your own spells, choosing parameters like area, range, damage, effect. And you can even exploit it to make things like infinite underwater breathing, summons that won't disappear unless killed, etc.

darthspudius: The only thing horrific about it at the time was the enemies levelling with you. The actual combat was fine, it was a damn sight more playable than the fucking horrific combat system in Morrowind. At least in Oblivion you could actually hit things, I remember fine that combat was shit at the beginning and didn't get any better for most of the game.