Oblivion vrs Morrowind Landscapes

jdougan1 · Post by **jdougan1** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 11:44 am

I am curious what others think about this.....

The graphics are just stunning in Oblivion - very very realistic.... so realiztic, in fact that tyhey really resemble places I have visited in my life....

Which is a bit of a problem?

The Morrowind landscape was very otherworldly, fantastical, imaginary. We had strange flora and fauna, people living in mushrooms, wild moonscape scenes in the ashlands....

By comparison, Oblivion seems so mundane. Beautifully rendered, indeed - but it all looks like someplace in Montana. Instead of fighting guars and alits and cliff racers, I am fighting wolves, bears, and mountain lions. We ride horses and not silt striders. It just seems so much like "home" that I lose the sense that it is a fantasy world.

This really does not detract from the game, but it feels so odd.

fable · Post by **fable** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 1:24 pm

Very true. The only major landscape difference will be in Oblivion, itself. It was felt that maintaining a single, consistent environment was more realistic than trying to include several, as in MW.

Frodo1 · Post by **Frodo1** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 2:10 pm

This is a very good observation. I agree with you that the mundaneness of Cyrodil detracts from my ability as a gamer to feel like I'm visiting a world of fantasy, a world of swords and sorcery.

I have been tracking the plants of Oblivion and the use of mundane species is far more pervasive than it is with the worlds fauna. I was thrown off by this in the beginning, but it is what it is, so I'm just enjoying the quality of the representations of Tiger Lilies, columbines, and whatnot.

It is this fabulous rendering and attention to detail that overrode my concerns and made it easy for me to adjust to this aspect of the game. A wonderful world is a wonderful world after all.

Denethorn · Post by **Denethorn** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 2:24 pm

Oblivion isn't as dense as Morrowind in terms of how jam packed the landscape is. Some might see this as 'dumbing down', but I prefer it. The vast forests before me has a definate beauty about it, and its only now that you mention it that I've noticed the lack of variety.

Some of the more wild fantastic elements of Morrowind are gone (e.g. mushrooms) yes, but its a small shortfall in an otherwise big improvement

RUFFINATOR · Post by **RUFFINATOR** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 2:34 am

very true observation....however comma, morrowind is a different area(or continent) of the elder scrolls universe...so u would expect it to differ, much the same as Iraq differs from the US...or how washington and texas are very different...i like this iteration because it feels more like im at home with fantastic creatures and events happening and living around me....if i still played D+D my imagination of the world would be almost the same as oblivion portrays it....i guess its all your own opinion and perception of what a RPG should be...but i love this game!...did i say that already?

Masa · Post by **Masa** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 11:40 am

I was pleased about the nature(maybe It's because I've always liked nature)and bright colours of the landscape, the only downside is that there's too much grass or it's too high. They should have reduced the grass a bit or make the height vary a bit more. But I think it resembles the real thing.
Otherwise it's fantastic, I had grown tired of the dreary landscape in morrowind, brown, dark red, different shades of black, it depressed me.
IMHO those mushrooms were horrible.

But hey that's only my opinion

jdougan1 · Post by **jdougan1** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 11:49 am

[QUOTE=Masa]I was pleased about the nature(maybe It's because I've always liked nature)and bright colours of the landscape, the only downside is that there's too much grass or it's too high. They should have reduced the grass a bit or make the height vary a bit more. But I think it resembles the real thing.
Otherwise it's fantastic, I had grown tired of the dreary landscape in morrowind, brown, dark red, different shades of black, it depressed me.
IMHO those mushrooms were horrible.

But hey that's only my opinion

[/QUOTE]

Don't get me wrong - I love the way Oblivion looks. It is just odd that it looks so much like THIS world - there isn't really a sense of "otherworldness". This is compounded by the animals and plants being largely earth creatures.

Morrowind was otherworldly, to say the least...

BTW - is it just me, or does the Oblivion world see to be much smaller than Morrowind? Perhaps it is just the graphics.....when you can see the Impereal City in the distance from, say, Choral - it makes the whole world seem smaller.

ik911 · Post by **ik911** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 1:55 pm

[QUOTE=jdougan1]BTW - is it just me, or does the Oblivion world see to be much smaller than Morrowind? Perhaps it is just the graphics.....when you can see the Impereal City in the distance from, say, Choral - it makes the whole world seem smaller.[/QUOTE]
I thought the same, but I think there's a number of reasons.
1. Memory distortion. Morrowind wasn't comparable to any game in size back then.
2. Map-structure. There was a big obstruction in the Morrowind map, which you had to go around. (Remember that big wall surrounding the mountains?)
3. Fast-travel system. In Morrowind you could only hop from one neighbouring city to another, where in Cyrodiil you can go to any mark on the map.
4. Landscape. There were crooked valley-paths in Morrowind, while Cyrodiil is more like a big meadow. If you want to go from one place to another, you can almost go in a straight line.

In numbers, Cyrodiil should be a much larger area.