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No game is better than the other. Every game has a different feel, content, style of play. Comparing oblivon to morrowind is like comparing apples to oranges. Why waste your breath saying "MURRWIND IZ BETTEUR!!!1!!!1!111"

Morrowind wins in:
Graphics - If I were role playing a permanently invisible tourist (not recommended btw), I'd prefer to do it in Morrowind (especially with MGE installed!)
Story - Morrowind's story is so much better than Oblivion's. It's more interesting, more complex, more original and more believable.
History/setting - I know a lot about Vvardenfell. I know what drives its economy. I know what's going on politically for each guild/faction. I know what motivates certain people and guilds. I know only a little about Cyrodiil.
Other stuff:
- No quest markers
- Potion stacking
- Skills and attributes can be fortified past 100
- Less "even" weapons - weight doesn't always correlate with damage like it does in Oblivion
- Text worked better than voice acting
- I enjoyed the faction and side quests quite a bit more (same reasons as "story")
- Less (insignificant amount, almost) levelled stuff
- More interesting characters
- Shops open 24/7
- I like the bartering system more
- Best weapons and armor were rarer
- Levitation
- You can wear clothes and armor

Oblivion wins in:
Combat system - Seriously, what's with Morrowind's auto block?
Magic system - Cost of spells is far more balanced then in Morrowind. I also like that you don't have to put away your weapon to cast.
Stealth system - Stilly flawed, but far less so. At least they took light into consideration.
Other stuff:
- All creatures souls can completely fill a soul gem
- You can buy houses

Tie:
Music - I like Morrowind's slower title theme better, but Oblivion has some better in-game music.

Overall, Morrowind wins by far.

Edit: aded more stuff...

Morrowind

Pros:
-Great sense of exploration with a good travel system that makes getting around more realistic, that asks you to prepare your travels accordingly.
-More or less realistic journal, and getting indications to quest rather than being directly told where something is.
-A good number of factions with diverging interests which affects how you are seen by other factions. A good number of quests to satisfy you even if you stick to only one or two factions.
-Exotic and alien culture and geography.
-Cool China-esque prophecy story.
-A good selections of artifacts and different types of dungeons with really interesting ones.
-Less campy characters and mood, great atmosphere, almost gritty at times. More interesting quests.
-Low level scaling, making several areas more accessible or dangerous than others. The Red Mountain and surrounding areas being quite well done.
-More skills.
-Better designed province with more distinct areas.
-Text based dialog with occasional voice acting provides more conversation options.
-More freedom, more immersion.

Cons:
-Combat system could've been a bit better.
-Quests can be hard to track at times.
-Irritating bugs (although relatively rare).


Oblivion

Pros:
-A bit more appropriate combat.
-More detailed quests (although not necessarily better or more appealing).

Cons:
-Game breaking level scaling. (seriously, I'm playing - and stopped countless of times due to being highly frustrating - an assassin character with skills ranging from sneak, archery, short swords to alchemy and acrobatics, and after doing most factions and side quests I wanted to do, I diminished greatly the difficulty and still am having an hard time getting through Kvatch, throwing countless arrows (even while sneaking) to kill enemies. I'll have to lower the difficulty to the minimum, but I'm afraid I'll have some problems before the end of the game or during the Shivering Isles. It's a wonder they didn't found the level scaling to be so problematic on a fundamental level. Even my barbarian had to take potions after a fight with a single bear, with the best armor and weapons.
-Leveling and level locked items.
-Significantly stronger enemies appearing in places they weren't before, sometimes killing characters on the roads.
-The province doesn't feel alive, a couple of major cities, ridiculously small villages and empty wilderness, most of it is there only for the adventurer, featuring similar forts and caves which get old fast. Lack of variety in dungeons too.
-Lack of real artifacts.
-Campy characters, too many of them feel like being from the Cyrodil Theatre Troupe, particularly the Dark Brotherhood.
-Lack of quests for those who keeps themselves to only one faction. Side quests are relatively limited too, and most of them being more detailed, they are more irritating to do over and over again, and you get over them all fast.
-A GPS in a fantasy game? Where's all the work to do quests and exploration?
-Journal made too much in the completed/uncompleted fashion. Ie. your quests have a state, they don't truly end when you desire and encourages you to complete them or do as much as possible of them. Plus, it's not quite realistic.
-Fast traveling and the lack of travel systems. Too easy to get around (should at least be more like in Daggerfall, which requires a bit more preparation and is more immersive/realistic.
-Oblivion gates get old fast.
-Lacks a bit skills.
-Less weapon types.


I probably forgot some in every aspect.

Oblivion

Pros: "Flyyyin'... flyyin' in the skyyyy.... cliff racer flys so high.... flyinnn'..."

Cons: No PS3 Modding.

TES 4: OblivionTES 3: MorrowindAs you can see, it's a complete turn-around. Morrowind has very dated graphics but great storyline and depth of gameplay, with real sense of difficulty, danger and hard-won accomplishments as rewards. Oblivion has great modern graphics but falls down on the lame storyline and mediocre gameplay, too "dumbed down", too easy, and no real sense of danger or accomplishment.

You have to remember that Morrowind was released in 2002, back when PC's were slower, had less memory, and the first SM1.1 shader-based 64Mb video cards were JUST beginning to hit the market. As such, Morrowind had ONE SM1.1 shader thrown in at the last minute, for the water.

In contrast, Oblivion was released 3 years later in 2005, when PC's were MUCH faster, had MORE memory, and video cards were mainly 128Mb or 256Mb, with SM2.0 (and SM3.0 had recently hit the market). As such, Oblivion made extensive use of shaders and looked far better for it.

My biggest bugbear, though, is the "dumbing down" of Oblivion's difficulty and quest complexity compared to Morrowind. Oblivion is obviously firmly aimed at younger console players with short attention spans. To me, Oblivion might be far better graphics-wise, but Morrowind is still the better RPG gameplay-wise, with a far greater depth of storyline, quest complexity and experience to be had.

If ONLY they'd re-release Morrowind with the Oblivion graphics engine under the hood, I'd rush out and buy it!

Har har!

Actually, the quality of my posts stems from experience (9 years in Morrowind, 6 years in Oblivion), knowledge and research (UESP Wiki and loads of other ES-related websites), and the willingness to spend/waste HOURS editing ONE "lengthy article" post until it's spot-on. I joke with myself that I suffer from Borderline Obsessive Perfectionism (BOP). It's my biggest failing, but if I can turn it to good use to "BOP" a post out that helps/teaches others, what the heck.

In some schools of thought, the Universe has spent 13.7 billion years evolving intelligent collections of subatomic particles (i.e. life, US) with an insatiable thirst to "know it" so it can finally "know itself". It's given US the ability to expand our minds to infinity at the creative speed of thought. I for one don't intend to disappoint my beautiful "Parent". Yeah. DEEP, isn't it?

We can even imagine, i.e. "create", universes at will. Morrowind and Oblivion are two such examples of "created universes". Indeed, ALL imaginary inventions, music, stories, games, movies, even in a sense our own individual life experiences, both real and virtual, are "created universes".

Knowledge and the intelligence to seek and use it are the greatest treasures of all. Let's SHARE the wealth!

Hahaha. As soon as I read H8Ball's post, I knew a link to that was coming.

@H8Ball:
I love reading your posts. I don't know how much time you spend on them, but don't think it's not appreciated. When I see your name on a post, I'm more excited about reading it than reading replies to my own posts. I still remember one you wrote about the economy in Oblivion. Something about leaving "a quarter-million" worth of loot around in the streets while the beggars ask for a single coin. Can't remember exactly, but I had a good laugh.

On topic now: What do you think of Morrowind's graphics subjectively? Obviously Oblivion's graphics technology is far superior, but...

@Moeboid: <bows deeply> Nice to know the time I spend on 'em is well-appreciated! Morrowind's graphics are now very dated and the game engine is highly "CPU-bound". What do I mean by that? No matter HOW powerful your video card is, the game still has to do a lot of work via the CPU to prepare each frame, so CPU speed is the most important factor in determining framerates.

When I upgraded from 64Mb Geforce 3 (SM1.1) to 128Mb GeforceFX 5900XT (SM2.0), the card was about 10x more powerful, but I only went from average 8fps to 9fps. I then upgraded my CPU from 1.4GHz to 3.2GHz and saw a massive leap to average 20fps! I've since upgraded to 512Mb Geforce 7900GS (SM3.0 and about 6x more powerful in terms of shaders) and I've only gone from average 20fps to 22fps.

Oblivion is still pretty CPU-bound, but it relies FAR more on shaders, so video card horsepower makes a big difference too. In fact, the REASON I upgraded from GeforceFX 5900XT to Geforce 7900GS was to get rid of the FX's notoriously slow SM2.0 shaders and replace them with fast SM2.0 and SM3.0 shaders! Result? Oblivion has gone from running like a 1-legged hamster with its tail superglued to its wheel at average 7fps in 640x480 with most details disabled to running like a 3-legged horse at average 20fps in 1360x768 widescreen with almost every detail maxed out!

It's acceptable for a slow-paced RPG, but I've had to extensively tweak and optimise to get it to look good. The reality now is that I'm back to being CPU-bound again. It's my older 32-bit single-core CPU that's now holding Oblivion back. Once I (eventually) upgrade to a 64-bit multi-core PC, Oblivion should be running at 70fps+ like a Cheetah chasing my car with the dead dog AND the horse tied to it! <whistles> Here kitty!

And Morrowind will get a huge framerate boost from the faster CPU as well, so I win twice!

Yeah. The Beggars asking for 1 Gold coin while Daedric armour carpets the street around their feet. One of these days, I'm gonna bury a Beggar under my entire loot collection as he/she sleeps, then watch as the pile wakes up. Another one is the Highwayman demanding 100 Gold while wearing about 100x that! Oi! Just hock yer armour and leave me alone! You want 5000 Gold's worth of Daedric Warhammer? BAM! There you go! The metal traces from the dent in your head should be worth more than 100 Gold. You've got a Glass War Axe. Go scalp yourself behind that bush! Here. You can use my shiny metal butt as a mirror.

Okay, it seems as though pretty much all ground has been covered, but the one pro of morrowind (some would see it as a con)
that made the RPing experience more enjoyable for me was the absence of physics in items. I really enjoyed decorating
my home with all the neat things I found on my travels; filling my shelves with my favourite items and having them stay the way I left them. In Oblivion I found it to be very time consuming to pick things up and move it over to the shelf and make sure it sits
the way I want it to, then after a lengthy period of arranging my house to look like a home; only to have it ruined by accidentally bumping a desk and have the items fly off and scatter across the ground, this really bugged me.

Morrowind - You get your own fortress depending on which House you join, and a quest for building it too, including all the minions like guards to go with it.

Oblivion - A meagre selection of overpriced houses.

Morrowind - 191 in game books.

Oblivion - 127 in game books. Most of which are copy pasted from Morrowind.

Just thought I'd point these out.

Morrowind: HORRIBLE combat system

Oblivion: Still bad but better..



Morrowind: I really love the inventory system more than oblivion

Oblivion: boring inventory, not customizable.