I think that for most people, a requirement for having a lot of fun with Oblivion is putting so many (or few but ridiculously large) mods on it it's not even funny. Wait, that doesn't make sense.

I don't understand it. When Oblivion came out it was one of the most superoverhyped games in the history. Everybody played it and loved it. The hate was few months after.

The same I observe for Skyrim. It's virtually the same game (only "bigger and better" but with bigger I understand more content, not a bigger world). Superoverhyped mediocre game with a nice living world.

And where's the hate for Skyrim, I ask? :P

Skyrim is a lot better than Oblivion actually.
Good or bad (to 'real gamers') they really made you feel like a hero in it.
The world feels incredibly alive, there are things happening in the world.. you walk in on conversations, even just idle ones.. people chat.. you run in to random NPCs whilst walking, brigands move back in to camps you've cleared... of, and dual wielding! ;)

Overhyped? yes.
Mediocre? YMMV.
Nice living world? Most assuredly so.

Also, unlike Oblivion, Skyrim isn't being flooded with useless stupid DLCs. So far there's been 1 expansion (Dawnguard, supposed to be awesome) and 1 DLC (Hearthfire, which is conceptually interesting).

Over all, I do not believe there will be much hate coming for Skyrim, unless they open the floodgates of idiotic DLCs.
Based off Steam statistics (and since Skyrim is Steamworks, it's a pretty good indicator):
85% have killed their first dragon
60% have reached level 25
50% have explored 100 location
20% have reached level 50

This tells me that probably at least 50% of Skyrim players have clocked more than 50 hours on 1 character (I'm level 21 and have clocked 39 hours)

I think you are expecting too much OR RPGs just aren't your thing.

Over here!

Same could be said for Oblivion, and the world there actually felt more alive to me than in Skyrim. First of all, only a few events in Oblivion were launched upon your entry into an area, Skyrim's got tons. The game is revolving around you, the player - it feels like you're the centre of the universe. So yes, they've managed to make you a hero, but I don't think they've managed to create a good elder scrolls game, since that's about possibilities. The moment they start streamlining you into any single stereotype, it's harder to be anything else. Ans Skyrim makes it blatantly obvious that it wants you to be dragonborn, saviour of everything everywhere.

Furthermore, Oblivion's actually had a really robust AI behind it, just not as polished as in Skyrim. Sad part is that it did have people wandering on roads and doing daily activities as well, the system just broke from time to time and that's why people ridicule it instead of praising it for all the good it did. And don't even get me started on the joke that Skyrim cities are: cities in Oblivion were big. Actually big. They've had ton of civilian buildings that served no purpose but atmospheric ones. In Skyrim, there's always a civilian building that serves as a bloody dormitory so NPCs have a place to sleep at - and Bethseda didn't even configure daily routines properly for all NPCs!

The problem with Oblivion, for me at least.. had nothing to do with the world (the world was good), had nothing to do with the AI (The AI was good).. it was the story.

Now first, I have to admit I HATE the TES trope of starting as a prisoner. Every. Fucking. Time you start as a fucking prisoner. Either the authorities are a bunch of fucktards, or you're always playing a criminal. -yes, Skyrim has it too, I know. To be fair though it kinda makes sense in the environment Skyrim is in, because it could be assumed to be 'wrong place t the wrong time'. .. enough about that rant though..

So in Oblivion you're this ex-con, busted out of prison by the king (Patrick Mothafuckin' Stewart, points for Oblivion there!) simply because someone fucked up and put you in the wrong cell- but then the king has a vision about you being the chosen one or having some destiny and shit... I'm a fucking ex-con, what the fuck Destiny do I have that somehow your entire fucking ARMY can't beat?

Anyhow, in this highly illogical breakout by the king.. the king gets attacked by some super elite assassins.. who kill him and a bunch of his bodyguards (Blades, IIRC).. but remarkably don't manage to kill the fockin' barely-armed prisoner.

So, you get out of the underground tunnels and are thrown in to the world.. and are somehow expected to, as a random focking ex-con decide to follow your "destiny" and go jump in to portals and kill demon thingys. Why? Because Patrick Stewart told you to.

THAT is why Oblivion never got my interest until after IU modded the hell out of it, at which point I just ignored the damned plot and stole a shop. >.>

At least in Skyrim, there's several concrete REASONS to go be the Big Damn Hero.
If nothing else, the Imperials tried to have you executed for no apparent reason so you might want to pursue power just so you can fuck them up..

Actually, you're not, that's the point. If you decide to ignore the main storyline, it's just going to stay out of the way and the game doesn't remind you that you should be a hero at all. Uriel Septim's visions were wrong. Done. Skyrim on the other hand keeps pounding your head with "help us! help me! we've got a problem! oh you're a random outsider, help me!" It's horrible, you're a hero even if you're playing a non-fighting alchemist.
*spoiler*
Besides, even when you finish the main storyline of Oblivion, Martin is the hero, not you. He's the one who ends the invasion, not you. If it weren't for you, some sort of replacement or another solution would probably turn up, you're not the one who is essential for finishing the storyline.

I agree. The story in Oblivion was just plain fucking horrible. But I see exactly the same for every other Elder Scrolls game or Fallout game made by Bethesda (and DLCs).

This is why I stopped playing Oblivion after several hours. Wandering around and exploring dungeons and caves was awesome, but got it the combat is so repetitive and boring both in Oblivion and Skyrim and Fallout 3/NV I couldn't get into those games.

Oblivion for me was crouch, bow for double damage, dead, repeat.

Fallout 3/NV: Headshot, repeat for eternity.

I can't imagine how people can spend over 20 hours in those games. Bad stories (well, NV has a good one as far as I can tell), and totally boring gameplay.

And Skyrim has everything that Oblivion had, only more polished...

I need to play more Morrowind and expansions, though. The ultimate Elder Scrolls games.

But that's the point.

Oblivion received so much hate after a couple of months because it essentially fell apart as soon as you managed to look behind the curtain. It looked like a great game at first, but then you noticed that developing your character made no sense (because everything was scaled to your level anyway), that exploration made no sense (because the dungeons were uninspired and repetitive and only contained generic loot scaled to your level), that consistency of the gameworld totally broke down (bandits wearing glass armor), that the environment (while beautiful) was trivial, unimaginative, and felt small, that the famed AI consisted of idiots who needed cheats to survive, and that the much-hyped full voice acting had created a never-ending stream of people droning about having seen a mudcrab the other day. Ugly little critters, btw.

Skyrim has the usual amount of disappointment that always settles in with games of such type - they always promise more in the beginning than they can fulfill in the end. But in no way does Skyrim crash down so spectacularly as Oblivion did. Bethesda pretty much avoided all the problems from above except perhaps the one about the landscape. It's still no comparison to Morrowind (imho), but it's in no way as botched up as Oblivion was.

Exactly. :) GamersGate currently has Morrowind for 2.78€ in Germany. I actually bought it although it's a Steamworks game (something I haven't done for Skyrim), just to have another backup copy of this game.

I think of it too, despite I have them on a CD. EDIT: oh, no... It's 8 EUR in here on GG :-/
By the way, it's kinda sad that Bethesda made such an old game a steamworks title... It shows how big are the chances to see any Bethesda game on GOG anytime soon.

By the way, I had one fascinating moment in Oblivion. When I saw a bowman hunting for deer in a forest. This was the first time I saw something like that (and it wasn't scripted, it was AI...) in any game ever.

Finally, someone mentions the gameplay. I could live with the story, because there is so much else to do and sidequests were often a lot better (of course, having a great main storyline would still be much better). But the balancing and level-scaling was just horrible, and the leveling system always led me to powergaming (yes, partially my fault, but still). Using big overhaul mods that took care of these "problems", it felt like a completely different (and vastly superior) game to me. On top of that, there are mods that add great new adventures...

Anyway, back to topic: Um... I'm sure there are great mods for these games as well. Maybe.

Oblivion level up system made sense on paper. You get better in things you do often. But in games it leads to a fun-breaking moments when you jump around like a crazy rabbit to improve your athletics skill.

I couldn't understand the problem with monster scaling in Oblivion too. Ok, I played only on normal difficulty, but no matter on what level I was, all enemies died from one to two arrows in their ass, so I didn't notice the problem with 15 lvl rats.

Well, in that case it's not the fault of the leveling system if players break their own immersion by trying to game the system (which would then, btw, bite them in their behinds due to the effect I'll mention further below). The obvious solution is to simply play the game as a roleplaying game (i.e. you, the player, playing a role), not like some sort of challenge to build artificial player attributes up quickly.

There are four problems with this. One, it totally breaks down immersion when you see animals and enemies in all areas level up with you without any in-game explanation for such an effect. Two, it robs the player of any sense of accomplishment when journeying through areas that were once difficult, but shouldn't be after the player has honed his skills. Three, it makes it impossible to play risky and seek out challenging battles, because all challenges are scaled to your level. Four, it makes the game very easy for combat-oriented characters (who will always meet enemies scaled to be on par with an average player who only trained _some_ combat skills), and very hard for those that don't train combat skills (for the same reason vice versa).

True that. The only acomplishment I did in Oblivion was looting. Everything else was irrelevant.

Doesn't Morrowind have the exact same thing?

In fact, I've wanted to ask someone, and here a bunch of you are. I want to try Morrowind, but [url=http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Level]this stuff[/url] sounds absolutely intollerable. Can I just play the game, and put points into the stats I want when I level up, and still succeed. Or is the kind of min-maxing described in that link ("Take good notes. Unfortunately, the Stats menu does not actually show you how many specific skill increases you have achieved since your last level up, so you will have to keep track of them yourself. After each level up, write down your proficiency in each skill." No! I refuse!) actually necessary to do well in the game.