Whats your favorite elder scrolls game?

[Mandres]

Morrowind was great for how advanced it was for its time, and for the amount of freedom you had. Eventually you became powerful enough to scream through the air at mach 1 raining down city-destroying spells all willy-nilly. That was a blast! The world was hand-built and full of secrets that rewarded exploration and discovery.

Oblivion lost almost everything that was good about Morrowind's world. It was all procedurally generated, auto-leveled, and absolutely generic.

Skyrim did a better job with the world, but it still felt like a watered down experience in a lot of ways.

 

[KIAman]

Daggerfall.

It's the only reason why I even bothered playing Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim and I liked them all but Daggerfall takes it.

 

[NoSoup4You]

Oblivion, and it's not close. Oblivion was my first TES game and more importantly my first open world RPG. The graphics, at the time, were absolutely incredible. I probably played 200 hours of it before I even installed my first mod, and after that I probably dumped another 300 hours into OOO. Modding that game was just an awesome experience, especially so considering how poorly conceived the vanilla game was and in-turn how much of an impact you could therefore make by changing it.

Skyrim is a good game and if it had been my first TES game then I'd likely feel differently about it. But ultimately while I enjoyed the first 100 hours... it quickly dawned on me that I had grown incredibly bored with it and so I dropped it cold turkey and never played it again.

I've tried playing Morrowind, and even with the graphics overhaul... which is quite beautiful by the way... the game mechanics are just so antiquated at this point that I can't be bothered. For vets, I'm sure it's a nice touch of nostalgia to go back and play it again, but for someone like me without that experience to draw from it's more of a, "Holy hell why did I even play video games back when they were all like this...??" sort of feeling.

 

[Via]

Yup, the answer to this question is almost always "the first one I played".

 

[Mandres]

Yup, the answer to this question is almost always "the first one I played".

Hehe, you're absolutely right.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Skyrim was my favorite, and one of the few recent games that did not disappoint me. Oblivion might have been except for the crazy levelling system. Guess I am in the minority here in that I tried to get into Morrowind twice, and never could get interested at all. Just seemed to be wandering around with no idea what to do. I still plan to give it one more shot though.

 

[Possessed Freak]

Arena. There is no question, I absolutely loved this game. Granted, it has been a few years since I played it, so I am sure it has not aged well.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Skyrim, and it's not even close. But that's only because I never played any of the others...

 

[Ricochet]

My favorite sex simulator is Oblivion (ref Loverslab). I'm sure in a few years Skyrim will be the new king of sex sim.

 

[adreamer]

If you have not played Daggerfall you can download and play it for free from Bethesda.

http://www.elderscrolls.com/daggerfall/

You will need a dos emulator to play. I loved it although when it came out I remember always having to make sure to save often. Entering a dungeon would sometimes crash the game...at least on my PC.

 

[Bateluer]

Its a tie between Morrowind and Skyrim for me. Morrowind remains the only ES game I've actually beaten though, because I was in USAF tech school without access to the Internet, no car, and stationed at Sheppard AFB.

I only played Daggerfall briefly, but it was after Morrowind so its world just felt empty because the content density was so low. Morrowind was smaller, but much denser. It felt like there was always some place to go, some dungeon to explore, some quest to do. Skyrim has that same feel, but the world is larger and even more content dense. Plenty to do. Morrowind could have used a better journal and quest tracking system though, the default one was useless. Player would end up with hundreds of quests in their journal that they had to rifle through like a book to find any updates or what the heck they were supposed to do.

Oblivion suffered from a broken leveling system and severe consolitis at release. Modding it was required from Day One if you were on a PC. I eventually did make some headway in it, but it just felt . . . overly simple and generic after Morrowind. Plus they spent their entire voice acting budget to get Patrick Stewart for a whopping 10 minutes of dialog. The other 3 people voiced every other character in the game. It felt awkward and cheap.

 

[Tattoedsailor]

I liked Skyrim, but only with mods to make a little more challenging.

 

[StinkyPinky]

PRobably Morrowind, although Skyrim is a close second. Oblivion was the weakest of the three IMHO, although the Dark Brotherhood quests were superior to Skyrim's.

 

[hans030390]

I haven't played any TES games before Morrowind. To me, Morrowind really pulled me into the world and filled me with a sense of wonder and a longing to explore. I loved how unique and strange the world could be. I never even touched the main quest. Morrowind also had the best music. I feel like Jeremy Soule's work hit a peak there and became stagnant and potentially even worse with later games.

Oblivion became pretty stagnant and boring after a while. The world did not feel like it was nearly as hand-crafted. Morrowind felt like it had more heart and soul put into it. Shivering Isles really helped, though, and pulled me in for a while. The scaling system took out a lot of danger present in Morrowind. I liked that there were places I couldn't go in Morrowind because I would get my ass handed to me. I could go anywhere in Oblivion without caring much.

I found Skyrim to be better than Oblivion. The world wasn't quite as boring, but still quite boring compared to Morrowind. Level scaling wasn't as bad, but is still bad. The story was more interesting. I thought the overall gameplay and design felt better and more streamlined (in good ways) compared to Oblivion, yet both games felt pretty simplified compared to Morrowind, really.

I had to play the main story quests in Oblivion and Skyrim to stay entertained. With Morrowind, I didn't need to. And, in the end, Skyrim really just felt like more of the same I experience in Oblivion with maybe some new things and some extra polishing in place. Even then, I played Oblivion way more than Skyrim.

Unfortunately, Morrowind's gameplay is very outdated. I wish it shared the same combat system as Skyrim but without the rest of the simplification that came with the newest TES games.

Since Fallout 3 was close enough to a TES game, I found it much better than Oblivion or Skyrim. Again, the world was weird and unique. The main quest was interesting. I had a strong desire to explore the world, and the world felt dangerous even later in the game (less level scaling than Oblivion or Skyrim). Somehow Bethesda was completely unable to capture the magic of Fallout 3 for the same generation TES games. Weird...

 

[pathos]

Clearly Battlespire was the best TES ever.... Seriously though daggerfall due to it being piece of childhood.

Oh, Battlespire, how I love to loathe you.

On pure nostalgia, then Daggerfall.

Overall though, I'd have to grade Morrowind the best. I like Oblivion and Skyrim fine, but I still like Morrowinds combat/level up systems better.

 

[Bateluer]

Unfortunately, Morrowind's gameplay is very outdated. I wish it shared the same combat system as Skyrim but without the rest of the simplification that came with the newest TES games.

There's project called OpenMW that aims to redo Morrowind using more modern and adaptable engines since its original Gamebryo engine is so archaic now.

Morrowind's graphics were top notch when it was released, easily among the best available at the time.

 

[motsm]

Morrowind, easily.

Daggerfall may be huge, but at least 90% of it is repetitive filler. Oblivion has more in common with Daggerfall, so that puts it below Morrowind as well. As for Skyrim, I have yet to play it because I have little interest in Bethesda games, since Morrowind is their only game that isn't completely copy pasta filler, or dumbed down to ridiculous levels.

 

[WaitingForNehalem]

I played Oblivion first and it is my favorite. The Dark Brotherhood was so cool.

 

[tidy]

.

 

[Soundmanred]

Morrowind

 

[hans030390]

There's project called OpenMW that aims to redo Morrowind using more modern and adaptable engines since its original Gamebryo engine is so archaic now.

Morrowind's graphics were top notch when it was released, easily among the best available at the time.

I was under the impression OpenMW wasn't going to mess with the actual gameplay. Though, I suppose their engine could allow for that possibility. There's also SkyWind, the Morrowind to Skyrim engine port. I only played a tiny, tiny bit of Morroblivion, but it was pretty cool!

 

[Pr0d1gy]

Morrowind was great for how advanced it was for its time, and for the amount of freedom you had. Eventually you became powerful enough to scream through the air at mach 1 raining down city-destroying spells all willy-nilly. That was a blast! The world was hand-built and full of secrets that rewarded exploration and discovery.

Oblivion lost almost everything that was good about Morrowind's world. It was all procedurally generated, auto-leveled, and absolutely generic.

Skyrim did a better job with the world, but it still felt like a watered down experience in a lot of ways.

Totally agreed. Morrowind was so many years ahead of it's time and the sequels, while improving on certain aspects, continually lost the freedom and reward of exploration that made Morrowind such a revelation.

 

[tosaytheleast]

I'll have to say Skyrim because it's the better choice compared to the only other TES game I played which is Oblivion. Yup I only played 2 games from TES and I enjoyed Skyrim more and the memories of the game is still fresh because I just finished it earlier this month.

 

[Geosurface]

Daggerfall since it was my first TES game and my first RPG

 

[NickelPlate]

Having played Morrowind, Oblivion and a bit of Skyrim I have to say Oblivion for sure. The game was just so much more colorful and alive than Skyrim's washed out gray and earth toned world even though Skyrim's graphics are more detailed. Also I have issues with Skyrim's maps fog of war returning after I've previously explored and mapped out an area which is incredibly annoying because I can't tell where I've been.