[buttercraft]

I probably have on rose-tinted glasses, too, but I still remember the sense of exploration on discovery in Morrowind. The vast, ash-blown landscape was fun.

Oblivion felt like a slog because of the auto-scaling, but I finished it.

Skyrim felt exactly like Oblivion but with more rails and even fewer voice actors, even though there might have actually been more voice actors. I have only made it a few hours each time I try to get into it. The voice acting alone ruins the immersion. Everyone looks and sounds the same!

[DubiousPusher]

It's not rose colored glasses. That would be if you were claiming the combat was good... But they definitely made design choices in the subsequent games that made them feel less enchantin. Mostly by taking any real work out of the game. Which is ok. They are just seeking a different audience.

[buttercraft]

Yes, a different audience... and that is fine! They obviously found a recipe that works for a lot of people. I am still waiting for the next Morrowind, though.

[DubiousPusher]

Yeah, same. I really enjoyed it above any of their other games. The obscurity of the setting was wonderful too. Skyrim and Obliviom we're impressively realized worlds but a little too rote fantasy.

[Cthulhu_]

+1 on the rose tinted glasses. In retrospect, I'm still quite bitter about Skyrim. In many ways it's the best TES game so far, definitely in terms of environment etc. But even at the time, it fell short; voice acting is one, bad animations is another. I think it's the engine and core technology, which at the base is still the same as Morrowind's.

I mean I get it, they have a staff that is experienced in that engine and a heap of modders. But it's past its prime, and I hope (but doubt) that for TES VI they make big changes.

[bitwize]

I know, it's like how many adventuring careers can be ruined by arrows to the knee? The sheer density of forced retirement by knee-arrow in such a small land area is highly unlikely.

[mbg721]

It's not just the number of actors, it's that there are a couple of very distinctive voices, and they're associated with characters you interact with frequently. It's distracting when roughly one out of every eight NPCs is Tigger.

[account42]

> Oblivion felt like a slog because of the auto-scaling, but I finished it.

Agreed. Thankfully, there are mods that replace the level-based scaling ith location-based scaling.