Morrowind playthrough rant

[PorkyThePaladin]

So I've been trash talking Morrowind for years now, but that was based on several failed attempts to play it, beginning with when it first came out in 2002 and years later. Each time I would play it for a few hours, get bored/tired of it, and uninstall. But rejoice, for I have now completed the game, and have a much better body of evidence to base my trash talking on. Just finished the main quest, and boy, do I hate it more than ever.

The Good:

- Size and quantity of content: Morrowind is insanely huge. I've played it for a long time on this run, and while I have traveled through most regions, there are still tons of unexplored patches on the world map. It is a rare RPG which is so huge, you instantly give up even trying to talk to every NPC, visit every dungeon, and do everything, and just focus on your goals/more interesting stuff.

- Background lore of the world: The game has a rich collection of lore, with everything from mythology, religion, world creation stories, to the present day factions and main quest backdrop, all backed up by tons of in-game books, and occasionally other stuff. This definitely adds to the atmosphere and enjoyment.

The Bad:

- Combat: Obvious one, but needs to be re-emphasized. Clearly the melee combat is shit, as standing there and clicking the attack button over and over is boring as all hell. That's why I went the magic route, but that is just as bad. The enchanting and alchemy paths are completely broken, and besides that, totally uncool. So I tried to be a real spellcaster. Instantly the game begin to fuck me over. Even though I chose a race and sign conducive to extra magicka, I still ended up with a pretty small magicka pool, especially when trying to cast custom spells. You run out after a few casts, and then you have to rest, and of course every place is swarming with monsters, especially those annoying as fuck cliff racers, so resting becomes a real chore.

On top of that, to fuck the pure spell caster over even more, these geniuses introduced the spell reflect mechanic, where many enemies will automatically reflect your spells back onto you. Who thought this would be an enjoyable mechanic? There is spell reflect in D&D games like BG, but there it's a legit mechanic, which you can counter with a breach spell or what not, here it's just an inherent fuck you from the developers. Even if you have resistance to that type of damage and don't hurt yourself too much, you are still wasting valuable magicka, if it's a powerful spell.

But that wasn't enough. As the next step in fucking the spell caster over (to convince them to give in and just use the retarded enchanted machine gun rings), half the enemies and their mother knock you down with their attacks, disrupting your spell casting and and making you lose the magicka again.

The final coup-DE-tat is that apparently projectiles collide with your spells in the air and cancel them out. So if two casters slings spells at each other, the spells will harmlessly explode between them. Same thing with arrows. So your 200 magicka costing uber custom spell will get blocked by a 4 magicka spell fire fart and/or some bandit's arrow. What kind of a retarded system is this? This caused me to switch to touch spells (along with their cheaper cost), but then I had to chase after every asshole in the game who tried to kite me.

Also enemies sometimes resist spells, spells will get blocked by invisible walls at times, and other fun stuff along these lines that will make you pull your hair out. What a clusterfuck...

- Exploration: a lot of people site this as a strongpoint of Morrowind, but I just don't see it that way, for a couple of reasons. I get it, the world is huge, and there is a ton of dungeons, caves, tombs, etc to explore. But to me, enjoyable exploration has to have two things, an incentive to explore, and variety. Morrowind has neither. Most magic items found in its multitude of tombs/caves/dungeons are either completely shit, useless to most builds except the "load up on on-cast enchantments" lore-less powerbuild, or just same stuff that you find in other 20,000 tombs. In my run, as I mentioned, I was playing a pure caster. I must've visited over a hundred side-places of interest (tombs, mines, abandoned fortresses, etc), and found exactly 2 (TWO!) things that were actually useful to my build: Mentor's Ring (+intelligence/willpower) and ring of wind (+ speed). That is an extremely low hit rate, and because of this, I very quickly got bored of going through these dungeons. Likewise, there is no point in doing them for the sake of story, because the vast majority of them have no story associated with them, and the few that do, have just a tiny bit of background lore, as opposed to lets say a deep and interesting story, such as some of the optional vaults in New Vegas. So there is really no incentive for the player to explore most of this crap after you've done a few. There is also no variety at all, as most of these places (in an early inspiration for Oblivion) are very much alike. Most ancestral tombs are alike, with slightly different layouts and featuring the same stock of monsters and furnishings. Most abandoned fortresses are alike, most mines are alike, most 6th house cult caverns are alike, and so on. After you've seen one or two, you've seen them all.

- Writing: I've actually had some hopes for this, as at some points, the main story seems to be really good, but ultimately, it goes nowhere. The whole angle of what exactly happened at Red Mountain all those ages ago between Nerevar, Dagoth ur, and the Tribunal is left hanging in the air, without any kind of a decent explanation, where basically you are just given several different accounts and some clues in the rest of the game, but this was the most interesting thing in the game by far, and they leave it completely unfinished. Without that angle, the main quest is in the end just another cliche destroy the evil villain story. Outside of the main quest, writing for quests is absolutely boring. I've completed the Mage's Guild questline and the Telvanni questline, and they were both dull and pointless, as were all the side quests I did. The best writing was actually in the books in the game, which is kinda ironic. WOuldn't it have been a better use of resources to spend that time writing quality quests instead of in-game books?

- Character development: absolutely retarded system that could've only been designed by Bethesda. While there is nothing wrong with raising your skills by usage, the way they tied that to stats arbitrarily is just inane.

- Aesthetics: hideously ugly NPCs with the worst animations I've ever seen, and badly aged graphics without mods.

- Enemies/AI: Boring selection of enemies (how many cliff racers are there?), terrible AI. They constantly keep getting stuck on the terrain to the point where I have to run to them, to give them a chance. NPC AI is also terrible, as they just keep pacing back and forth a year after Gothic did wonders with it. The cities look empty and dead.

So I am sorry guys, but I have no idea how this game made it to the top 10. The sheer size and scope are impressive, and the lore and writing have their moments, but it's such a broken thing that you can't even call it a flawed gem. It's a flawed turd.

 

[abnaxus]

'k

 

[Mustawd]

So I am sorry guys, but I have no idea how this game made it to the top 10. The sheer size and scope are impressive, and the lore and writing have their moments, but it's such a broken thing that you can't even call it a flawed gem. It's a flawed turd.

Most codexers who consider this a great game were young when they played it and nostalgia is a hell of a thing. See the same people who think the IE games were the epitome of classic RPGs.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Decent post, but the part when you mentioned New Vegas to give an example of a game with good dungeons that are worth exploring kinda ruined it. You have to be careful with details like these.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Most codexers who consider this a great game were young when they played it and nostalgia is a hell of a thing. See the same people who think the IE games were the epitome of classic RPGs.

Well, to me it's different. Like all cRPGs, the Baldur's Gate games for example have their flaws, but they are still quality games all around, which is something I cannot say for Morrowind.

Decent post, but the part when you mentioned New Vegas to give an example of a game with good dungeons that are worth exploring kinda ruined it. You have to be careful with details like these.

That's not what I said exactly, although New Vegas "dungeons" ARE way better than Morrowind's. What I said was when you came to some of the optional vaults in NV, you could find notes and computer records that outlined some really cool stories of what happened in that vault, which gave the player an incentive to explore them, to unravel the entire story. Morrowind is pretty much devoid of that type of stuff, with only a few dungeons having any kind of story angle, and those being very shallow.

 

[Mastermind]

Playing a proper mage in Morrowind requires the player to be genuinely intelligent. Dumbfucks will end up wasting their magicka on expensive spells that do nothing (IE: OP).

On top of that, to fuck the pure spell caster over even more, these geniuses introduced the spell reflect mechanic, where many enemies will automatically reflect your spells back onto you. Who thought this would be an enjoyable mechanic? There is spell reflect in D&D games like BG, but there it's a legit mechanic, which you can counter with a breach spell or what not, here it's just an inherent fuck you from the developers. Even if you have resistance to that type of damage and don't hurt yourself too much, you are still wasting valuable magicka, if it's a powerful spell.

If only there were things a mage could do besides swinging fireballs at people...

But that wasn't enough. As the next step in fucking the spell caster over (to convince them to give in and just use the retarded enchanted machine gun rings), half the enemies and their mother knock you down with their attacks, disrupting your spell casting and and making you lose the magicka again.

Yes, if you let enemies close in on you and try to fight a sword with a fireball you will get exactly what you deserve.

The final coup-DE-tat is that apparently projectiles collide with your spells in the air and cancel them out. So if two casters slings spells at each other, the spells will harmlessly explode between them. Same thing with arrows. So your 200 magicka costing uber custom spell will get blocked by a 4 magicka spell fire fart and/or some bandit's arrow. What kind of a retarded system is this? This caused me to switch to touch spells (along with their cheaper cost), but then I had to chase after every asshole in the game who tried to kite me.

Sounds like a great feature to me.

Anyway, if you just want to swing fireballs with little to no thought put into your spell selection then just use enchanted items.

 

[Zibniyat]

The Bad:

- Combat: Obvious one, but needs to be re-emphasized. Clearly the melee combat is shit, as standing there and clicking the attack button over and over is boring as all hell. That's why I went the magic route, but that is just as bad. The enchanting and alchemy paths are completely broken, and besides that, totally uncool. So I tried to be a real spellcaster. Instantly the game begin to fuck me over. Even though I chose a race and sign conducive to extra magicka, I still ended up with a pretty small magicka pool, especially when trying to cast custom spells. You run out after a few casts, and then you have to rest, and of course every place is swarming with monsters, [1] especially those annoying as fuck cliff racers, so resting becomes a real chore.

On top of that, [2] to fuck the pure spell caster over even more, these geniuses introduced the spell reflect mechanic, where many enemies will automatically reflect your spells back onto you. Who thought this would be an enjoyable mechanic? There is spell reflect in D&D games like BG, but there it's a legit mechanic, which you can counter with a breach spell or what not, here it's just an inherent fuck you from the developers. Even if you have resistance to that type of damage and don't hurt yourself too much, you are still wasting valuable magicka, if it's a powerful spell.

But that wasn't enough. As the next step in fucking the spell caster over (to convince them to give in and just use the retarded enchanted machine gun rings), [3] half the enemies and their mother knock you down with their attacks, disrupting your spell casting and and making you lose the magicka again.

The final coup-DE-tat is that apparently projectiles collide with your spells in the air and cancel them out. [4] So if two casters slings spells at each other, the spells will harmlessly explode between them. Same thing with arrows. So your 200 magicka costing uber custom spell will get blocked by a 4 magicka spell fire fart and/or some bandit's arrow. What kind of a retarded system is this? This caused me to switch to touch spells (along with their cheaper cost), but then I had to chase after every asshole in the game who tried to kite me.

[2] Also enemies sometimes resist spells, spells will get blocked by invisible walls at times, and other fun stuff along these lines that will make you pull your hair out. What a clusterfuck...

[1] Cliff racers are wonderful. Also, too bad you could not abuse the game's systems by resting in between every insignificant fight. You should have used potions.

[2] Who said that Morrowind had to copy another game's mechanic? Because you like it more and think it better? Well, I personally have nothing against neither all-magic-resistance nor all-magic-reflection spells, even if there are no counters to it.

[3] And this is a bad thing? Hmmm....

[4] You must be trolling. Otherwise these complaints would be sad indeed.

 

[Zibniyat]

So I've been trash talking Morrowind for years now, but that was based on several failed attempts to play it, beginning with when it first came out in 2002 and years later. Each time I would play it for a few hours, get bored/tired of it, and uninstall. But rejoice, for I have now completed the game, and have a much better body of evidence to base my trash talking on. Just finished the main quest, and boy, do I hate it more than ever.

Now, this part is really interesting. You have been "trash talking" Morrowind based on your *several* attempts of playing it and each time playing it for no more than a few hours? A few hours to make an opinion of an entire game? And people complain when "journos" do it...

 

[Genma:TheDestroyer]

Most codexers who consider this a great game were young when they played it and nostalgia is a hell of a thing. See the same people who think the IE games were the epitome of classic RPGs.

"Look, we know you miss the greater variety in spell crafting, or having spell crafting as an option at all. We know you miss the larger variety of skills and armor and weapon types, and not having a babysitting compass at the bottom of the screen trying to pull a low-rent Navi. 'Hey, hey, LISTEN! YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY! The cave is to the left'. You miss factions that don't have about five quests and then keel over, we know. Look, we understand. Nostalgia is a hell of a thing, and the new games will have neat stuff too! Look, it's Dogmea....er....Wolfenborn, your loyal companion!"

 

[Zanzoken]

OP has some merit but one point I will completely disagree on is the writing quality of the main quest. It's lightyears beyond most of the shit you get in RPGs.

The conspiracy angle behind the Tribunal and the Nerevarine cult is a great hook, and the ambiguity surrounding what exactly happened at the Battle of Red Mountain only adds to it. Then it's fleshed out by the political and religious justifications behind the emergence of Almsivi, their cult of personality aspects, the creepy "police-state"-like presence of the Ordinators... and THEN you throw in some cool moments like encountering the only Dwarf left in the world, re-discovering legendary artifacts, and meeting and conversing with a "living god" in the form of Vivec.

Overall I think it's a really well-developed and believable narrative and is easily top 5 all-time in the realm of RPG storytelling.

 

[CrawlingDead]

Morrowind is one of my favorite titles, but I certainly agree with most of your points. Those were flaws a lot of us had with Morrowind way back in the day -- a lot of those flaws have yet to be fixed -- boring enemies (especially bandits, what a great missed opportunity there), character development, writing, choices and consequences, cities lifeless and dull. Back in the day, we all had these complaints, there is just no defending it. Bethesda abandoned the series a long time ago though, so now we're still left with these problems on top of the dumbing down that has taken place.

 

[ED-209]

Clearly the melee combat is shit, as standing there and clicking the attack button over and over is boring as all hell.
...
So I tried to be a real spellcaster. Instantly the game begin to fuck me over. Even though I chose a race and sign conducive to extra magicka, I still ended up with a pretty small magicka pool, especially when trying to cast custom spells.
...
Also enemies sometimes resist spells, spells will get blocked by invisible walls at times, and other fun stuff along these lines that will make you pull your hair out. What a clusterfuck...
...
But to me, enjoyable exploration has to have two things, an incentive to explore, and variety. Morrowind has neither.
...
After you've seen one or two, you've seen them all.
...
I've actually had some hopes for this, as at some points, the main story seems to be really good, but ultimately, it goes nowhere.
...
Outside of the main quest, writing for quests is absolutely boring.
...
So I am sorry guys, but I have no idea how this game made it to the top 10. The sheer size and scope are impressive, and the lore and writing have their moments, but it's such a broken thing that you can't even call it a flawed gem. It's a flawed turd.

 

[Metro]

But to me, enjoyable exploration has to have two things, an incentive to explore, and variety. Morrowind has neither.

This is the most retarded quip of all. Yeah the combat and systems are pretty bad but the exploration? It's probably one of the greatest games as far as that goes.

New Vegas "dungeons" ARE way better than Morrowind's.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Playing a proper mage in Morrowind requires the player to be genuinely intelligent. Dumbfucks will end up wasting their magicka on expensive spells that do nothing (IE: OP).

What you call intelligent, I call cheese. I've had to resort to it in some tough situations unfortunately, but I sure as hell don't want to build my character around it. Stuff like levitating above enemies, out of their reach, while peppering them with spells, with them having no way to respond in their AI, conjuring powerful allies to fight for you, etc.

Anyway, if you just want to swing fireballs with little to no thought put into your spell selection then just use enchanted items.

Thought put into it? There is like 3-4 things you can do, so once you do them once, how much thought are you putting into it exactly for the next 4,000,000 fights? And forget enchanted items, they are anti-RPG. You want to build up your character, any idiot can put on an enchanted item and use it.

[1] Cliff racers are wonderful.

Thanks for putting that flag in the front of the post.

This is the most retarded quip of all. Yeah the combat and systems are pretty bad but the exploration? It's probably one of the greatest games as far as that goes.

Thanks for responding to my points with a well thought out counter-argument.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Exploration is one of the two strongest components of Morrowind, the other being world-building. Vvardenfell (and the province of Morrowind more generally) offers a unique natural environment, quite different from the usual pseudo-medieval Europe used in fantasy games, with its mushroom flora and insectoid fauna, and divided into 9 distinct regions, each with a different appearance. Although the move away from procedural generation necessitated that the world be scaled down relative to what its represents, those creating the overworld were skilled enough that feels as large as it's meant to be. As for the human, or rather in most cases dunmer, environment, there are six distinct sets of architecture used for settlements (Redoran, Hlaalu, Telvanni, Temple, Imperial which is the same used for most of Daggerfall, and a ramshackle one for a few small and poor villages) each of which appears in multiple places, giving a unifying feel to various areas while establishing architectural diversity across the entire game world. Finally, the dungeons vary from Dwemer ruins, to ancient Dunmer strongholds, to Daedric shrines, to caves/grottos/mines, to ancestral tombs. You seem to be complaining that a random location you happen across is unlikely to contain a powerful artifact or compelling story associated with it, but a lot of them do, and exploration is best when left largely to quests with a few random non-quest-related dungeons as a bonus (I recommend joining 3 guilds/factions with lots of quests; it seems you only did 2). Perhaps you dislike Open World games in general, but Morrowind is the best realization of an Open World RPG ever created.

Writing ties into world-building in establishing a setting that feels real (given the fantastic context) with a rich and detailed history. Ambiguity about certain events that took place many centuries in the past is realistic and a crucial part of the main quest --- far from being "just another cliche destroy the evil villain story", the game invites you to create your own meaning in your conversation with Dagoth Ur when you confront him underneath Red Mountain. The ending of the main quest implies the eventual destruction of the Tribunal, and the passing of Morrowind from one era of its history into another. As for the guild quests, in general the quests for the 3 fighter-oriented factions are more interesting than the quests for the 4 magic-oriented factions, which in turn are more interesting than the quests for the 3 thief-oriented factions. Still, it seems that, as with exploration, you would prefer a more tightly-focused, cinematic design over Morrowind's vast open-world design. There may not be any "questline" tying together the Mage's Guild quests or the House Telvanni quests, but why should there be? Incidentally, my favorite quest in Morrowind is something that's not even a formal quest, just stumbling across a pond in the northern part of the West Gash where a woman asks for help retrieving a ring.

Character customization is strong in Morrowind, if not up to the level of Daggerfall, and character progression is at least competent. The only specific issue you raise in character development is the new method of attribute advancement, different from its predecessor, in which you pick three attributes to improve each time you level up, and each attribute increases by 1 to 5 points depending on how many advances in skills related to that attribute have occurred since your last level up. I complained about this at the time, but in retrospect the error is not so much in tying skills to attributes as in not having any memory of skill increases before the last level up, which means for example that advancing skills related to an attribute 15 times will give you the same +5 increase to that attribute as 10 times would with the remaining 5 skill increases being lost (as regards attribute increases) or that advancing skills enough to receive a +3 increase in an attribute but choosing to increase other attributes results in those skill increases being lost (as regards attribute increases). It's entirely possible to fix this issue oneself, either manually using the in-game console or through a mod.

Morrowind is one of a select few videogames with extremely strong art design, integrated into its alien setting from the second you step onto the ship's deck and look at the silt strider nearby. All 3D graphics age poorly relative to 2D graphics --- Morrowind may not be an exception in this regard, but the Morrowind Graphics Overhaul (MGSO) combined with a handful of separate graphics mods will improve the technical quality from top-notch 2002 to top-notch 2009 or 2010. The NPCs were an exception in the base game, with the humans and elves noticeably rough-looking compared to the monsters, but for this very reason it didn't take long for modders to create new graphics replacing heads and bodies as well as armor and clothing to match --- these are (mostly) included in MGSO.

By the way, it's "coup d'état", not "coup-DE-tat". And you meant "coup de grâce".

 

[Metro]

Dumb statements that aren't well thought out themselves (or have much basis in fact) don't require counter-arguments. You're objectively wrong.

 

[CrawlingDead]

Dumb statements that aren't well thought out themselves (or have much basis in fact) don't require counter-arguments. You're objectively wrong.

Yeah, and you're a faggot. Almost everything he said was spot on, and I'm a Morrowind fan.

 

[Metro]

Yeah, and you're a faggot. Almost everything he said was spot on, and I'm a Morrowind fan.

Joined:
Apr 21, 2015

 

[CrawlingDead]

Joined:
Apr 21, 2015

Nicotine withdrawal, times are rough.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

...

Thank you for putting up a thoughtful post, Metro take notes. I understand your points, Zed, but I disagree with many of them.

Exploration is one of the two strongest components of Morrowind, the other being world-building. Vvardenfell (and the province of Morrowind more generally) offers a unique natural environment, quite different from the usual pseudo-medieval Europe used in fantasy games, with its mushroom flora and insectoid fauna, and divided into 9 distinct regions, each with a different appearance. Although the move away from procedural generation necessitated that the world be scaled down relative to what its represents, those creating the overworld were skilled enough that feels as large as it's meant to be. As for the human, or rather in most cases dunmer, environment, there are six distinct sets of architecture used for settlements (Redoran, Hlaalu, Telvanni, Temple, Imperial which is the same used for most of Daggerfall, and a ramshackle one for a few small and poor villages) each of which appears in multiple places, giving a unifying feel to various areas while establishing architectural diversity across the entire game world. Finally, the dungeons vary from Dwemer ruins, to ancient Dunmer strongholds, to Daedric shrines, to caves/grottos/mines, to ancestral tombs.

I've noticed all those things (the architectures, flora/fauna, etc), but 1) they are cancelled out by the shitty level design and AI, where everything looks sterile and dead, with a couple of clockwork NPCs pacing about like robots around a largely empty city with buildings that look like they've been randomly plopped down by a bored level designer, as opposed to being an organic part of a living settlement, and 2) this is all background stuff. Even if you think this background is so great, which I don't, it is like a book that does a great job of describing the environment and then gives you a terrible plot and stale characters. You will notice the architecture the first time you come to Balmora or Aldruhn or Sardrith Mora, but after that, it becomes the background against which you have to keep running back and forth on boring fetch quests, engage in sleep inducing combat, and other wastes of time.

You seem to be complaining that a random location you happen across is unlikely to contain a powerful artifact or compelling story associated with it, but a lot of them do, and exploration is best when left largely to quests with a few random non-quest-related dungeons as a bonus (I recommend joining 3 guilds/factions with lots of quests; it seems you only did 2).

No, I am complaining about the fact that I visited a LOT of random locations, and the vast majority of them did NOT contain powerful artifacts that I could use or compelling stories. I joined factions based on lore, so I didn't feel like doing the typical Bethesda thing and joining everything and just joined the ones that seemed appropriate for a mage, but I find it hard to believe that had I joined another one, everything would suddenly change.

Perhaps you dislike Open World games in general, but Morrowind is the best realization of an Open World RPG ever created.

I love open world games, which is one of the reasons why I force myself to suffer through stuff like Morrowind, but you want to replace Morrowind with Gothic in your sentence.

Writing ties into world-building in establishing a setting that feels real (given the fantastic context) with a rich and detailed history. Ambiguity about certain events that took place many centuries in the past is realistic and a crucial part of the main quest --- far from being "just another cliche destroy the evil villain story", the game invites you to create your own meaning in your conversation with Dagoth Ur when you confront him underneath Red Mountain. The ending of the main quest implies the eventual destruction of the Tribunal, and the passing of Morrowind from one era of its history into another.

I don't buy this at all. Ambiguity can sometimes be used as a tool by artists, but in this particular case, when you faced Dagoth Ur (or Vivec before him), it was the perfect opportunity to reward the player for completing the main questline by telling them something interesting and/or mind blowing, perhaps some unexpected twist that would cast everyone in a different light. Instead, the main story climaxed early on, and then just dragged on lifelessly after that, with you already knowing everything you were meant to, and the boring, predictable fight between good and evil.

As for the guild quests, in general the quests for the 3 fighter-oriented factions are more interesting than the quests for the 4 magic-oriented factions, which in turn are more interesting than the quests for the 3 thief-oriented factions. Still, it seems that, as with exploration, you would prefer a more tightly-focused, cinematic design over Morrowind's vast open-world design. There may not be any "questline" tying together the Mage's Guild quests or the House Telvanni quests, but why should there be? Incidentally, my favorite quest in Morrowind is something that's not even a formal quest, just stumbling across a pond in the northern part of the West Gash where a woman asks for help retrieving a ring.

That's funny, because one of the reasons I chose House Telvanni is because most people it has the most interesting quests. I also did that quest with the pond and the lying woman, but didn't find it particularly interesting.

 

[Metro]

Best to quit while you're behind, Porkins.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I love open world games, which is one of the reasons why I force myself to suffer through stuff like Morrowind, but you want to replace Morrowind with Gothic in your sentence.

I think we've discovered the root of the problem. And to think you were complaining that Morrowind's graphics have aged.


It seems that you prefer a game with a tighter focus based around a smaller number of differentiated locations (and a smaller number of NPCs) rather than a true open world game with a larger scope like Morrowind. And that you prefer an action-RPG over one where success depends on the character's skills rather than the player's physical skills, which explains your comments about Morrowind's combat in your original post (not that combat is a relative strength of Morrowind). Almost all of your complaints involve one of these two elements. Thus your insistence that every location should have either a compelling story associated with it or a powerful artifact that can be obtained and used by the PC --- Morrowind has a considerable number of locations like this, but it also contains kwama egg mines that are just kwama egg mines, grottoes that are just grottoes, tombs that are just tombs, farmsteads that are just farmsteads, et cetera through many categories to help establish a setting that feels like a real, albeit fantasy, world.

Aside from the open world scope and the non-action-based combat, you only have a handful of nitpicks about the game. Well, that and a criminal failure to appreciate the setting, backstory, and other elements of world-building, which together with exploration are the greatest strengths of Morrowind. I'm not someone to dismiss the usual pseudo-medieval Europe setting of fantasy RPGs; it's the norm for good reasons. Still, Morrowind is not only a unique setting but also extraordinary in the many elements that contribute to the world-building and reinforce each other, from natural environments to architecture to religion (the Tribunal Temple is probably the best-realized religion in any RPG) to literature to history to politics. The main quest ties in beautifully to the lore, and the backstory is still being added to in important ways in the meeting with Vivec late in the main quest and the confrontation with Dagoth Ur at the climax of the main quest. Rather than being a story of good and evil, the backstory reveals how both sides were seduced by power, and the conclusion to the main quest means not only the end of Dagoth Ur and his aspirations, but also the imminent end of the Tribunal and their era of Morrowind's history.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

And to think you were complaining that Morrowind's graphics have aged.

Gothic graphics look old today because of polygon counts and such, but artistically, they are still beautiful. NPCs from Gothic 1 are better looking and better animated than those in Skyrim, in my opinion. Morrowind, on the other hand, just has horrific graphics and animations for living things. Aging is almost the least of their problems.

It seems that you prefer a game with a tighter focus based around a smaller number of differentiated locations (and a smaller number of NPCs) rather than a true open world game with a larger scope like Morrowind.

How does having more locations and NPCs or less focus make Morrowind a true open world game? Your proof is quantitative but your conclusion is qualitative. Actually, as far as I know, being an open world game simply means a game where the player has the physical freedom to go anywhere, as opposed to being limited to certain areas per plot restrictions. Morrowind is no truer to this than the Gothic games.

And that you prefer an action-RPG over one where success depends on the character's skills rather than the player's physical skills, which explains your comments about Morrowind's combat in your original post (not that combat is a relative strength of Morrowind).

Yes, I do, and if you really like combat that's completely devoid of player skill, why not just reduce it to combat where the combatants' stats are compared and the combat is auto resolved. It would be just as boring as Morrowind's, but end faster and with less pointless filter.

Almost all of your complaints involve one of these two elements. Thus your insistence that every location should have either a compelling story associated with it or a powerful artifact that can be obtained and used by the PC --- Morrowind has a considerable number of locations like this, but it also contains kwama egg mines that are just kwama egg mines, grottoes that are just grottoes, tombs that are just tombs, farmsteads that are just farmsteads, et cetera through many categories to help establish a setting that feels like a real, albeit fantasy, world.

Yeah, and if I wanted to go through mines that are just mines, farmsteads that are just farmsteads, and so on, without them having anything of interest, I could do that in real life.

Aside from the open world scope and the non-action-based combat, you only have a handful of nitpicks about the game.

And RPGs have only a handful of different aspects, so...

Well, that and a criminal failure to appreciate the setting, backstory, and other elements of world-building, which together with exploration are the greatest strengths of Morrowind. I'm not someone to dismiss the usual pseudo-medieval Europe setting of fantasy RPGs; it's the norm for good reasons. Still, Morrowind is not only a unique setting but also extraordinary in the many elements that contribute to the world-building and reinforce each other, from natural environments to architecture to religion (the Tribunal Temple is probably the best-realized religion in any RPG) to literature to history to politics. The main quest ties in beautifully to the lore, and the backstory is still being added to in important ways in the meeting with Vivec late in the main quest and the confrontation with Dagoth Ur at the climax of the main quest. Rather than being a story of good and evil, the backstory reveals how both sides were seduced by power, and the conclusion to the main quest means not only the end of Dagoth Ur and his aspirations, but also the imminent end of the Tribunal and their era of Morrowind's history.

As I already mentioned, the story/lore have some nice stuff for a while, but it quickly fizzles out, as the game never takes advantage of it and completely squanders that potential. You learn everything about Nerevar, Dagoth Ur and the Tribunal that you will learn early on, and then it's just all about stopping the bad villain from causing havoc. The meeting with Vivec is a joke, where he basically treats you like a douchebag, refuses to tell you anything important other than how to help him, and just basically uses you. There is zero emotional stuff between all these characters who were supposedly great friends or allies before something really bad happened. And this is supposed to be a great story?

 

[laclongquan]

You expecting the game to "reward" you with some nice piece of lore? Clearly you havent read the Morrowind craps at all. Please spare me such reward. While the complain about the lacks of backgrounds to such dungeon is not without basis, the cure would be more Morrowind writings. Pass.

Now, one thing Bethesda and Morrowind done very well is the systems. You can create a great variety of potions, enchanted items, to help you fight with genuiety and ease. If you refuse to levitate on air to rain down fire on your enemies, occasionally gulp some magicka restoration, like a great white man hunting on safari.... well, that is your problem, exactly, and no one else's.

True, true that their systems are too easily broken and horribly abused. But considering the industry in the whole, it's not a rare occurance and I dont chide them for that.

 

[Higher Animal]

A big reason why Morrowind is known as one of the best rpgs ever made is the savory butthurt delivered whenever a kontroversy fag decides xe has an opinion that it's not so good after all. Greatness requires lots of hate, and you've done your part to insure Morrowind's pillar in RPG Valhalla. What's even more impressive is that you've managed to criticize the exploration, adventure, and aesthetic qualities of Morrowind. Morrowind might now be so good that its objectively superior qualities literally cannot be understood by untermensch.

I've noticed all those things (the architectures, flora/fauna, etc), but 1) they are cancelled out by the shitty level design and AI, where everything looks sterile and dead, with a couple of clockwork NPCs pacing about like robots around a largely empty city with buildings that look like they've been randomly plopped down by a bored level designer, as opposed to being an organic part of a living settlement,

This sounds less like words that have meaning in reality and more like words taken from a newfag criticism lexicon that can be arbitrarily applied to any game.

I love open world games, which is one of the reasons why I force myself to suffer through stuff like Morrowind, but you want to replace Morrowind with Gothic in your sentence.

Gothic fags never change. How's Risen 3?