OK, spent the afternoon playing Morrowind in Oblivion.
Kinda weird not hearing voice out of everybody. For those who recall the original, when you spoke to people you got a huge menu with all the chat topics and could click through quickly and unlock all the discussions and consequently the quests and markers for locations.
With Oblivions speech menu you move much slower through subjects of conversation, but thats because in Oblivion people have fewer things to say.
All lockpicks have been replaced with one generic lockpick (no master, novice, etc). Items which grant spells dont allow you to cast them, but instead have a constant effect. This ranges from unbalancing (constant restore fatigue 20) to silly. The graphics are improved to the point where even my GTX460 can occasionally crawl along in areas with lots of shiny junk.
Oh, all those dull bottles and weapons and armor decorating Morrowind? They are now shiny, and quite annoying.
Lanterns and candlesticks work just as in original ES3, and the improved quality lighting effects make them quite nice. As before, be careful not to scoop up all the lights sitting around or you could leave a room in darkness.
You can play in both worlds and switch between them at will, bouncing back and forth as you see fit. Theres a transport captain in Seyda Neen who offers to take you to Cyrodil for 1000 gold. Quests all mash into your quest menu and I suspect if you started a bunch in each world things would get confusing after a while.
The world map looks gorgeous, and fast travel is enabled. The only time you need the stilt strider or mages teleporter is when discovering new areas. Vivec looks great, as do all the other towns. Water is even more beautiful, as is the sky. Monsters are slightly improved and where there was overlap (mudcrabs) I suspect they just straight imported the Oblivion creature. All the Morrowind armor and weapons look original, but just slightly better. Spells and spell effects are the same, and there is no Levitation. Whenever you use a Levitation potion, the game tells you to type in TCL until the effect wears off. Serious game breaker right there. But I guess writing a script for flying was too difficult.
Music is sparse. You get the Morrowind theme frequently and in between they just use Oblivions music, which feels weird.
You can pick up and toss items with the Z key as in Oblivion, but when running around banging into stuff I notice junk doesnt go flying like it used to. Suspect they had to program the physics for items from scratch (lanterns and candles were non-movable in Oblivion) and they went with more subdued settings)
Actually considering playing the original Morrowind with the big graphics overhaul, but I gotta admit that fast travel is just too convenient to pass up. Oh, and they did include Mark/Recall and Alumsivi Intervention. But I'd rather be able to go anywhere, not just a handful of picked places.
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