Sure is a lot of rose-tinted glasses in here. I, for one, was scared away from Morrowind exactly because it was, as 4zb41 mentioned, a complex shitstorm of number crunching to determine variables beyond your actual control, and because i absolutely hate having a miss chance on a real-time game. If a sword courses through that guys head, i don't want it to miss because some bloody statistic says so, because that's just ridiculous. I can somewhat accept miss chances in turn-based games, but having your strike miss when you clearly saw it hit in real time is just taunting. Think you just scored a good hit? LET'S ROLL A DICE, NOW, SHALL WE? Oh no, it would appear that your hit did, in fact, suck ass and miss by a mile. Too bad.
That said though, it definitely had some things going, especially those crazy-ass acrobatics and athletics. No upper limits provide amusement. I was only like 10 years old at the time, which probably hampered the experience a bit, but i was still disheartened enough to not try again later. The memory of a complete lack of direction (and miss chances rargh) has burned into my poor hippocampus. And honestly? I don't think i'd enjoy playing it today either.
Oblivion held me better (all the way to the end, as a matter of fact), though i was still bummed by the lack of explanation regarding all those magicks and buffs and what not. Hence why i melee'd everything; didn't have to bother with them spells. The addition of a compass was a HUGE help in keeping me captivated, because my biggest beef with Morrowind was that you're basically dropped in the middle of nowhere with a toothbrush. I can see the appeal if you're into having to find things out yourself, but i don't want to concern myself with trivial things such as going in the right direction, especially with a world as huge as that of Morrowind (which could also count as a plus, because damn there was some exploring to be done).
And now we're at Skyrim. Quite frankly, i like it more than any of its predecessors. I'm a bit annoyed by the significantly slower swing speed of melee combat, but it's nothing game breaking. The not-class-based system works well for me, and likewise with the levelling that did its part against dud levels (except non-combat skills, which could feasibly be a problem, but since my version of speech is "hello there axe", that didn't become an issue). Plus, the whole game is just so much prettier. Sounds shallow? I'm an artist for a hobby, i care about pretty things. Not gonna spend more time praising it though, you know the rest.
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Commence flaming for the dislikage of Morrowind. That said though, that acrobatics scroll was A+.