A lot of people here are praising Oblivion but even as a child back then I distinctly remember being very disappointed. The dynamic living NPCs, whatever buzz word they used for it I forget, 'radiant AI'? Was one of my first exposures to being had by marketing. We know there was nothing alive or dynamic about these pre-scripted NPC routines, they weren't believable at all. I liked Star Trek back then so hearing Patrick Stewart voice the emperor was pretty cool! For the entire 15 minutes he's on screen, never to speak again. As a result? Everything is voice acted, no modder can even begin to approach the standards set in that department, silent voice lines feel off and disjointed. Lastly the conversation system is butchered, you can't have more than a small handful of topics to discuss with an NPC and due to file size of voice clips and naturally having to pay voice actors, the lines are short, to the point, no fluff, and repetitive. Lots, and lots of the same voice lines over, and over. The modding scene ultimately couldn't hold a candle to Morrowinds', perhaps because of the lower barrier of entry to make decent, matching content.
I was admittedly super excited to see working physics in an open world RPG, especially after Half Life 2, but the novelty wore off quickly as the jank started to show through. But it wasn't even about the additions, it hurt a lot more to see what was subtracted to achieve these things. No longer was the world seamless except for interiors of course, now the cities themselves were segregated into their own instance. It's why the player's mobility was hamstrung; no flying, no levitating, no vertically challenging Telvani towers, no scroll of Icarian flight. The cities themselves? The Imperial City is like six buildings, a coliseum, and a largely pointless central tower.. Vivec in comparison was a massive sprawl with above ground, interiors, and sewers to get lost in, and lost I was. It was great, despite itself, the world to me felt more alive due to its sheer size.
Back then I wasn't sure what was going on, but I knew that I didn't like it. It was also the time of brown and bloom and the birth of dirty words like 'optimization' meant your game has just lost a massive amount of content and capability 'cause it now needs to run on consoles too. So, I have a hard time really comprehending the people who are praising the remaster to high heavens. Me, I lament what was lost in transition.
I would be a lot less pessimistic and a downer if there was at least more games like Morrowind, if not by Bethesda then by someone else. I don't know of any.
