Will Skyrim be Oblivion or Morrowind

I cannot wait for this one!  I know, me and millions of others.  I'm hoping my girlfriend has pre-ordered this already because it is going to sell out on day 1.  Then the stores will get more copies and those will sell out in a single day as well.

If you've played previous Elder Scrolls titles then you already know this game is going to be huge.  If you haven't played before or don't know much about Skyrim, you can read all about this latest installment and all the previous games over at the Unofficial Elder Scroll Pages.  They keep track of all things Elder Scrolls including reviews, guides, interviews, images, etc.  It is an all around excellent fan page.

I first got into the Elder Scrolls series with Morrowind.  I was looking for something epic and also something older that my PC would run at the time.  I certainly had  found what I was looking for.  Later I played Oblivion on Xbox 360.  Between the two, I think Morrowind is definitely the better game.  Sure, there are things Oblivion did better but overall Morrowind was the better experience.

There are definitely some things I did not like about Oblivion that I'm hoping do not make a return in Skyrim.  I really didn't like how the game allowed you to join every guild and complete those quest lines all with one character.  Bethesda can give the game a lot of replayability by making the guilds exclusive.  They did this in Morrowind with the noble Houses.  Those were directly exclusive.  If you joined one house you could not join either of the other two.  Likewise you could not join both religious factions.  The guilds, while you could join all 3, you could not complete the quest lines in all 3 because the quests required you to kill key members of the other guilds.  This really forces you to make choices and if you want to experience all the different quest lines you would have to have 3 separate playthroughs.

The next disappointment I had with Oblivion was quest markers.  Almost all games nowadays have some kind of quest helper whether it be an arrow pointing you which way to go or a bread-crumb trail to follow.  I really can't stand this hand-holding!  I feel the Elder Scrolls world is one which is made to be entirely immersive.  The nice thing about these worlds  Bethesda creates is getting lost trying to find your destination often leads to discovery of other towns, dungeons, and treasures that you may have never explored if you hadn't taken that wrong turn!  By adding these quest guides pointing you in the right direction, they really diminished the fun of accidental discovery.

Clairvoyance in action.

The Skyrim demo shows a new spell however called Clairvoyance.  This spell will give you a trail showing you the way to your next objective.  From what I've seen, I'm really liking this idea.  It is much more immersive than trying to force an arrow.  I'm hoping this spell completely replaces the quest markers from Oblivion.  It just makes sense. It fits in well unlike a map marker or another type of artificial quest helper walking you through the world.

Oblivion had dozens of dungeons.  Nearly 200 different locations if memory serves correctly.  The problem though is they were all the same.  Sure some looked different and they had different types of inhabitants.  A few were even truly unique and had a unique story to what the purpose of the location was once upon a time before the fort, ruin, mine became decrepitated.  But all of these dungeons lacked what I love best in games like these, loot!  Sure there were swords and maces and — Ebony Armor of Dispel!  Maybe it was the random generation of things, I don't know but the loot never seemed worth it.  Things I could craft from the enchanting altars always seemed to be far superior than the random loot found in dungeons.  All the unique items I found were through quests, usually as quest rewards.  After exploring enough dungeons I realized that exploring dungeons was pointless.  Which is sad.  Why design all these places but give the player no reason to explore them.  Todd Howard, Executive Producer at Bethesda Game Studios, has said the world will not scale like Oblivion but more like Fallout 3.  He also said if you go somewhere too hard and survive, you will be rewarded with improved loot.  So hopefully this means less random generated loot and more unique treasures.

I know however Bethesda chooses to handle these items, the game will be fantastic.  Despite the flaws, I loved Morrowind and Oblivion.  The scope of these games draw me in like no others.  I'm looking forward to hearing more about this fifth installment of the Elder Scrolls and I'm sure I'll write more on Skyrim as more and more information is released.