Quote Originally Posted by frogbeastegg View Post
The forts in Morrowind felt practical. They were designed to hold off an assault, and featured most things you would expect to see: living areas, towers, armouries, a courtyard, etc.

The forts in Oblivion never felt like that. The surface areas were a bunch of ruins which didn't look like they would convert into a fort if you rebuilt all of the walls, and the areas below ground were just another set of tunnel dungeons complete with traps and mazes. They weren't forts; they were a combination of a crazy warehouse and a cave.

Don't forget the patrols keeping the roads clear for travellers. A mighty 1 guy on a horse at maybe 3 points in the entire road network.
To be fair, the fine men of the Imperial Legion are basically demigods in unmodded Oblivion outside of that emberassing little episode at Kvatch and whenever they're scripted to be on your side :P

But it's like I said in the OP. In Morrowind, buildings were designed to be lived in. In Oblivion, everything but houses is basically a dungeon. The forts and ruins are both nothing but tombs, which is a nice excuse to fill them with zombies and all, but Morrowind pulled that off nicely with buildings that actually were tombs.

Quote Originally Posted by TinCow View Post
Actually, Oblivion's was smaller. I don't remember the figure I was told, but it's something like 20% smaller. That wasn't what made it seem smaller though. Fallout 3 is in turn about 50% of the size of Oblivion, but seems a lot larger than Oblivion because there are so many unique locations and places to explore. Oblivion's problem was that nearly every dungeon was generic and forgettable. While this was true for much of Morrowind as well, at least Morrowind had those unique dungeons scattered about with unique treasure and non-scaled monsters. The varied terrain had a great impact as well, with the swamps in the west, desert in the north, fertile land in the south, mountains in the center, not to mention all the different architecture. Oblivions simply seemed the same everywhere you went, with very minor exceptions. This is one of the reasons I think the Unique Landscapes mod series is one of the best improvements for Oblivion. It gives an actual sense of size to the game that wasn't present OOB.
I understand it works like this:
Morrowind's overall map size is larger, HOWEVER, Oblivion has more actual land, as Morrowind's map is like, %30 water (and, as I recall, basically goes on forever).

Either way, Morrowind FELT bigger. As you said, variety of terrain and culture made Morrowind great, whereas in Oblivion it's basically all the same. Yeah, the towns change architecture, but it either feels same-y or forced, like Bravil.
An entire town of slums? Why would ANYBODY choose to live there when there are nicer towns a few hours walk away? With good roads, no less.
At least Morrowind had the good sense to isolate it's shanty towns, or make them ports.