Morrowind playthrough rant

[Metro]

As much as I love G1 and G2, Morrowind's exploration and world kills it. Sorry.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

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.

Morrowind has unique, visually striking art design that goes a long way toward preserving the overall graphics despite the inevitable aging of technical qualities that occurs with 3D. With the right mods, it's as beautiful as ever, more than a dozen years after its release. Gothic is bland and uninspired by comparison with Morrowind. Though, to be fair, that's true of the vast majority of games.

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.

Having unrestricted freedom to roam in a tiny world doesn't make for a true Open World game. Size does matter. The recent Dragon's Dogma is a good example of this, as it was originally intended to be an Open World game but during production for budgetary reasons the game world was greatly shrunk down from original plans. The game retains a design that allows the player to travel almost anywhere early on, but there are only a handful of locations, and the player can expect to travel to more or less every location in every playthrough simply from being sent by quests. Open World and non-linearity of structure are not identical.

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.

I specified the player's physical skills; the player's mental skills still matter. It's legitimate to complain that Morrowind's combat could be more complex, but it's imbecilic to complain that Morrowind is bad because the combat relies on character skills rather than playing like an action game. And Morrowind does have a vast number of options relating to combat, establishing breadth if not depth.

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

You would probably cry if you ever played Daggerfall. Having a semi-realistic world isn't necessary to every type of game, but it's invaluable for immersion in an Open World game.

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

RPGs have more aspects to them than any other genre of videogame. Morrowind isn't the best RPG in every individual aspect, but it does have the strongest exploration and world-building, and it has enough other strengths that I consider it overall to be the best RPG ever made.

You prefer RPGs to be more cinematic and action-oriented, which in both respects moves away from the essential definition of an RPG. And then you have the temerity to blast Morrowind for not being cinematic and for depending on the character's skills.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Game with the combat and character system of Morrowind cannot be considered best crpg ever made ffs. Both sides should chill with the silly overreactions.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Morrowind has unique, visually striking art design that goes a long way toward preserving the overall graphics despite the inevitable aging of technical qualities that occurs with 3D. With the right mods, it's as beautiful as ever, more than a dozen years after its release. Gothic is bland and uninspired by comparison with Morrowind. Though, to be fair, that's true of the vast majority of games.

Unique visually striking design? The giant mushrooms? Those creatures that were cheap rip-offs of dinosaurs? The ugly impractical looking cantons in Vivec? The NPCs that look like scarecrows? Well, the NPCs animations were unique truely enough, but not in the way you mean.

Having unrestricted freedom to roam in a tiny world doesn't make for a true Open World game. Size does matter. The recent Dragon's Dogma is a good example of this, as it was originally intended to be an Open World game but during production for budgetary reasons the game world was greatly shrunk down from original plans. The game retains a design that allows the player to travel almost anywhere early on, but there are only a handful of locations, and the player can expect to travel to more or less every location in every playthrough simply from being sent by quests. Open World and non-linearity of structure are not identical.

This argument might make some sense if we were talking about tiny games, but Gothic games were anything but. While they weren't as large as Morrowind, they were large enough to qualify for any normal definition of open-world, and make your qualitative assertions invalid. Gothic 2 takes about 75 hours to complete.

I specified the player's physical skills; the player's mental skills still matter. It's legitimate to complain that Morrowind's combat could be more complex, but it's imbecilic to complain that Morrowind is bad because the combat relies on character skills rather than playing like an action game. And Morrowind does have a vast number of options relating to combat, establishing breadth if not depth.

What mental skills does Morrowind's combat rely on exactly? Does repeatedly clicking your left mouse button exert your mental capacities? Or is it the cheap exploits like levitating beyond the enemy's AI reach that you find so intellectually stimulating?

You prefer RPGs to be more cinematic and action-oriented, which in both respects moves away from the essential definition of an RPG. And then you have the temerity to blast Morrowind for not being cinematic and for depending on the character's skills.

Too much of a strawman to even bother with.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Unique visually striking design? The giant mushrooms? Those creatures that were cheap rip-offs of dinosaurs? The ugly impractical looking cantons in Vivec? The NPCs that look like scarecrows? Well, the NPCs animations were unique truely enough, but not in the way you mean.

Visually striking and beautiful from the time you look around from the deck of the ship you arrrive on till the point you finish a playthrough, from the swamps of the Bitter Coast to the rolling hills of the grazelands, from the Redoran manors in the giant crab shell of Ald'ruhn-under-Skar to the Telvanni wizards' mushroom towers, from ice and fire atronachs in Daedric shrines to sphere and spider centurions in Dwemer ruins, from the dust swirls of an ashstorm to the moons and nebulae of the night sky.

Perhaps you can steal an aesthetic sense from someone, since you're lacking yourself.

This argument might make some sense if we were talking about tiny games, but Gothic games were anything but. While they weren't as large as Morrowind, they were large enough to qualify for any normal definition of open-world, and make your qualitative assertions invalid. Gothic 2 takes about 75 hours to complete.

Duration of a game is irrelevant to being Open World; there are any number of games that aren't remotely Open World in design but take 40+ hours to complete. That being said, my response wasn't an attack on the Gothic series but rather than an explanation as to why a large world is essential to being Open World in design. Again, you should try Daggerfall, if you could stomach it rather than quitting after a few hours.

What mental skills does Morrowind's combat rely on exactly? Does repeatedly clicking your left mouse button exert your mental capacities? Or is it the cheap exploits like levitating beyond the enemy's AI reach that you find so intellectually stimulating?
///
Too much of a strawman to even bother with.

The irony is overwhelming.

I expect that anyone who was oblivious to deep world-building and who lacked any aesthetic sense would consider Morrowind's exploration and setting "boring", and that anyone who prefers action gameplay where success depends on a player's physical skill would consider Morrowind's combat "filler". But these are faults within the person making the criticism, not with Morrowind.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Visually striking and beautiful from the time you look around from the deck of the ship you arrrive on till the point you finish a playthrough, from the swamps of the Bitter Coast to the rolling hills of the grazelands, from the Redoran manors in the giant crab shell of Ald'ruhn-under-Skar to the Telvanni wizards' mushroom towers, from ice and fire atronachs in Daedric shrines to sphere and spider centurions in Dwemer ruins, from the dust swirls of an ashstorm to the moons and nebulae of the night sky.

Perhaps you can steal an aesthetic sense from someone, since you're lacking yourself.

I had a somewhat different experience. I got off the boat and found myself in a "town" where there were several haphazardly placed buildings on top of empty barren ground, and hideously ugly NPCs crab walking around with no purpose whatsoever. As I moved around the world, yeah, there some nice things to see, but mostly, it was a repetition of the same crap that got tiring 30 hours ago. Tens of daedric shrines, each exactly like the one before it, a cave door in every second hill, leading to the same boring dungeon with the same exact look, tens of dwemer ruins, each exactly like the last one, the same monsters everywhere, and so on. They didn't even bother to change the fauna between different climate zones for the most part.

Duration of a game is irrelevant to being Open World; there are any number of games that aren't remotely Open World in design but take 40+ hours to complete. That being said, my response wasn't an attack on the Gothic series but rather than an explanation as to why a large world is essential to being Open World in design. Again, you should try Daggerfall, if you could stomach it rather than quitting after a few hours.

You're just going in circles now. You clearly implied that Gothic wasn't a true open-world game like Morrowind due to its size, and now you are just repeating what I said. Ok.

The irony is overwhelming.

There is no irony there. I pointed out the flaws in your argument about combat.

I expect that anyone who was oblivious to deep world-building and who lacked any aesthetic sense would consider Morrowind's exploration and setting "boring", and that anyone who prefers action gameplay where success depends on a player's physical skill would consider Morrowind's combat "filler". But these are faults within the person making the criticism, not with Morrowind.

If the game is shown to objectively have boring combat and exploration, the fault is with the game.

 

[Metro]

Stahp.

 

[toroid]

True, true that their systems are too easily broken and horribly abused.

This is primarily what made me stop playing Morrowind, and it's also what continually reminded me to never play it again. Alchemy for example is so terribly restrained that it goes from seeming like an effective and helpful skill to being obviously unbalanced and game breaking in the blink of an eye, and it's hard to say exactly how and where the line should be drawn to limit its effectiveness. There definitely should have been some mechanism in place to limit how quickly alchemy potency scales upwards; late game alchemy should have some capacity for being a bit overpowered, but it absolutely should not be allowed early on. The economy is another area where the game can be broken without any effort. Haven't played in over a decade so that's all that stands out in my memory at the moment. Anyways, if there was a decent mod that focused on rewriting and rebalancing the rules to help the systems be less exploitable then I would surely give Morrowind another try.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I had a somewhat different experience. I got off the boat and found myself in a "town" where there were several haphazardly placed buildings on top of empty barren ground, and hideously ugly NPCs crab walking around with no purpose whatsoever. As I moved around the world, yeah, there some nice things to see, but mostly, it was a repetition of the same crap that got tiring 30 hours ago. Tens of daedric shrines, each exactly like the one before it, a cave door in every second hill, leading to the same boring dungeon with the same exact look, tens of dwemer ruins, each exactly like the last one, the same monsters everywhere, and so on. They didn't even bother to change the fauna between different climate zones for the most part.

This experience is similar to trying to explain good music to someone who is tone deaf. If you don't have any aesthetic appreciation or sense of adventure, you'll miss out on the artistic accomplishment and exploration of the unknown. Your critique of Morrowind's graphics relates to your complaints about Morrowind's Open World design. You want every location to be completely different from every other location, with a compelling story or quest attached and a powerful artifact as a reward for reaching the end. Morrowind is a better game than that.

You're just going in circles now. You clearly implied that Gothic wasn't a true open-world game like Morrowind due to its size, and now you are just repeating what I said. Ok.

You criticized Morrowind on grounds that were tantamount to complaining that it's an Open World game. Subsequently you mentioned Gothic, which I don't care about myself one way or the other, and it's become obvious that your fundamental problem with Morrowind is that it isn't Gothic. Which is true enough, and Morrowind is the better for it.

There is no irony there. I pointed out the flaws in your argument about combat.

With strawmen. Again, it's one thing for someone to prefer a more complex combat system, and another to criticize an RPG for having combat dependent on the character's skill rather than the player's physical skill. Or to say that Morrowind's combat is bad because you couldn't figure out how to use magic effectively.

If the game is shown to objectively have boring combat and exploration, the fault is with the game.

If the critic subjectively condemns some of the greatest world-building, exploration, and art design to be found in video games, the fault is with the critic.


tl;dr Play Daggerfall

 

[laclongquan]

This is primarily what made me stop playing Morrowind, and it's also what continually reminded me to never play it again. Alchemy for example is so terribly restrained that it goes from seeming like an effective and helpful skill to being obviously unbalanced and game breaking in the blink of an eye, and it's hard to say exactly how and where the line should be drawn to limit its effectiveness. There definitely should have been some mechanism in place to limit how quickly alchemy potency scales upwards; late game alchemy should have some capacity for being a bit overpowered, but it absolutely should not be allowed early on. The economy is another area where the game can be broken without any effort. Haven't played in over a decade so that's all that stands out in my memory at the moment. Anyways, if there was a decent mod that focused on rewriting and rebalancing the rules to help the systems be less exploitable then I would surely give Morrowind another try.

Not just alchemy, though it's the best example. The skill raising activities, the magic enchantment, etc... So many many things~

Although what ultimately turn me off is the lifeless world, the boring quests, and the donkey-hoof-to-the-face writings~

 

[Somberlain]

Game with the combat and character system of Morrowind cannot be considered best crpg ever made ffs. Both sides should chill with the silly overreactions.

Out of Codex's top 10 greatest RPGs ever, 7 have ultra-shitty combat and most don't have good character systems either

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

This experience is similar to trying to explain good music to someone who is tone deaf. If you don't have any aesthetic appreciation or sense of adventure, you'll miss out on the artistic accomplishment and exploration of the unknown.

This is what's known as an ad hominem attack, and is generally used in the absence of good arguments.

Your critique of Morrowind's graphics relates to your complaints about Morrowind's Open World design. You want every location to be completely different from every other location, with a compelling story or quest attached and a powerful artifact as a reward for reaching the end. Morrowind is a better game than that.

This critique has nothing to do with Open World design, it has to do with good design in general. The Mona Lisa is considered a great painting, but imagine you came to a museum, and the entire place only had that same Mona Lisa painting on its walls. Despite the individual painting being great, this would not be a good experience. Same thing with Morrowind, even if you like some individual aesthetics (which I actually do, although certainly not all of them), the fact that they repeat so often impacts the whole experience very negatively.

You criticized Morrowind on grounds that were tantamount to complaining that it's an Open World game. Subsequently you mentioned Gothic, which I don't care about myself one way or the other, and it's become obvious that your fundamental problem with Morrowind is that it isn't Gothic. Which is true enough, and Morrowind is the better for it.

Not at all. My problem with Morrowind is its bad design, the many aspects of which I've already outlined in this thread. The fact that the first two Gothic games happen to excel in many of these areas of design is simply coincidental, and has nothing to do with judging Morrowind on its own merit, or lack thereof.

With strawmen. Again, it's one thing for someone to prefer a more complex combat system, and another to criticize an RPG for having combat dependent on the character's skill rather than the player's physical skill. Or to say that Morrowind's combat is bad because you couldn't figure out how to use magic effectively.

Well, since I completed the game with a pure spellcaster, using no armor, no enchanting or alchemy exploits or summoning, I would say I figured out how to use magic effectively. This, however, does not make the magic system any better or less tedious and badly designed.

And in my opinion, criticizing a combat system that is entirely based on character skill is a great idea, because by its very definition, such a system requires no input from the player and thus, must be boring.

If the critic subjectively condemns some of the greatest world-building, exploration, and art design to be found in video games, the fault is with the critic.

The world building where several templates are re-used a gazellion times cannot be that good, even if it does have some good elements. Exploration where there is neither the incentive to explore nor any kind of variety cannot be that good. Art design is a subjective thing since it depends on tastes, but any that has Morrowind's NPCs cannot be that good.

tl;dr Play Daggerfall

Is the reason that you keep bringing up Daggerfall in a discussion about Morrowind the fact that only the shallow procedural generation blandness of the former can make the non-procedural blandness of the latter palatable?

 

[Higher Animal]

I think I found your shitty blog. What a try-hard attempt at 2015 relevance. I can't believe you're actually a PB fanboy defending that piece of garbage, Risen 3. You should be banned for this level of fanboy retardation.

*Criticizing a combat system that is entirely based on character skill is a great idea*

You know you're a silly sally when you criticize role playing on a role playing game forum. Character skill = item/skill selection. This is not a functionary exercise devoid of creativity or problem solving. You might as well say Wizardry has "no input from the player".

Also, I have to laugh at these obese nerds who think that Morrowind's combat is "luck-based" and "unrealistic." Have you even fought son? Are you aware that not being skilled in combat leads to swiping at the air like an idiot trying to hit your opponent?

And no, Morrowind does not have perfect combat, but it's very creative and deep and allows a lot of freedom for character concept and powergaming.

*My problem with Morrowind is its bad design*

Most of your criticisms about Morrowind's bad design are simply delusions. You've been given no respect in this thread because you say things that are objectively backwards.

"Every dungeon is the same." A stupid thing to say. Dungeons are varied in many ways. Each dungeon has different visibility to the player - some require discovery through exploration, others require following a set of directions, others need certain skills/spells/keys to access, and some appear directly in front of the player's typical path. Each dungeon has a unique entrance which usually connotes its region or purpose. Dungeons range from abandoned ships to ancestral tombs, smuggler tunnels to underground aqueducts, animal lairs and bandit caves, mines, religious temples, and ruins from a lost civilization. The dungeons range from humble to grandiose, feature branching pathways allowing for multiple character concept playthroughs, and contain loot appropriate to that location's purpose in the gameworld. A lot of these areas have quests attached to them, and feature some degree of exploration puzzles.

I can't quite grasp your statements that these dungeons don't have enough lewt for you to jew over. My experience with Morrowind was the opposite - shiny shit was everywhere. I remember diving for pearls near Seyda Neen and discovering a murdered tax collector with several hundred shekels and a quest, eventually running into a downed slave ship with more shit to loot. By the time I was in Hla Oad on the bitter Coast I had already dropped half of my haul on the main road due to encumbrance.

I also remember a ton of shit to do on the game-map, including meeting various NPCs like naked barbarians, sluts, witches, and a dark-elf like apparition which demanded that I fight it to the death. Oh yeah, and slave plantations, faction houses, and religious pilgrims.

This is all varied, interesting, and well designed gameplay. This is not what you were saying. But then again, you ARE a PB fanboy and have admitted to only playing Morrowind for a handful of hours. You are both ignorant of the subject matter and too stupid to make an entertaining troll.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

...

Since unlike your previous posts, this one actually contains some real arguments amidst the usual ocean of nonsense, I'll actually reply.

I think I found your shitty blog. What a try-hard attempt at 2015 relevance. I can't believe you're actually a PB fanboy defending that piece of garbage, Risen 3. You should be banned for this level of fanboy retardation.

As someone who has neither mentioned Risen 3 in this thread, nor played it, I can only find this amusing.

*Criticizing a combat system that is entirely based on character skill is a great idea*

You know you're a silly sally when you criticize role playing on a role playing game forum. Character skill = item/skill selection. This is not a functionary exercise devoid of creativity or problem solving. You might as well say Wizardry has "no input from the player".

Skill/item selection is actually a player skill, since it's obviously you the player who is selecting, and not your character. In Morrowind this isn't really present in any significant way. Obviously as a melee character, you would just spam your attack, same with stealth characters, and as a caster, you don't really have to do it either. In a game like BG/BG2 or ToEE, you actually have to use different abilities to win fights, in Morrowind, you can just spam the same spell and win pretty much any fight (usually a custom Weakness to X damage/X damage or some enchanted item). You can use some other approaches, but most if not all of them are just cheesy exploits of AI that is not prepared for them, and you'll end up spamming them anyway, so there is really no meaningful skill selection.

Also, I have to laugh at these obese nerds who think that Morrowind's combat is "luck-based" and "unrealistic." Have you even fought son? Are you aware that not being skilled in combat leads to swiping at the air like an idiot trying to hit your opponent?

Skilled in combat? Like what, turning your mouse slightly so that you are facing the enemy in front of you? Come on now...

"Every dungeon is the same." A stupid thing to say. Dungeons are varied in many ways. Each dungeon has different visibility to the player - some require discovery through exploration, others require following a set of directions, others need certain skills/spells/keys to access, and some appear directly in front of the player's typical path. Each dungeon has a unique entrance which usually connotes its region or purpose. Dungeons range from abandoned ships to ancestral tombs, smuggler tunnels to underground aqueducts, animal lairs and bandit caves, mines, religious temples, and ruins from a lost civilization. The dungeons range from humble to grandiose, feature branching pathways allowing for multiple character concept playthroughs, and contain loot appropriate to that location's purpose in the gameworld. A lot of these areas have quests attached to them, and feature some degree of exploration puzzles.

There are several types of "dungeons", yes, I already mentioned that. But for each of these types, there are a ton of instances, and each of these instances is similar enough to the others so as to make them boring to explore after the first few. And no, most of them do not contain quests attached to them, have no puzzles, and the only difference is a slightly different layout and inhabitants (chosen from the same limited stock).

I can't quite grasp your statements that these dungeons don't have enough lewt for you to jew over. My experience with Morrowind was the opposite - shiny shit was everywhere. I remember diving for pearls near Seyda Neen and discovering a murdered tax collector with several hundred shekels and a quest, eventually running into a downed slave ship with more shit to loot. By the time I was in Hla Oad on the bitter Coast I had already dropped half of my haul on the main road due to encumbrance.

Again, you seem to not actually be reading what I wrote, and imposing your own thoughts on it. I didn't say there wasn't enough loot, I said there wasn't enough relevant loot. I found a ton of loot everywhere I went, but 99.9% of it was completely useless to my build, and was just crap I had to haul to towns to sell. Well designed games (Fallouts, BGs, Gothics, etc) actually have a loot distribution that rewards the player for exploring, this was clearly not the case in Morrowind.

I also remember a ton of shit to do on the game-map, including meeting various NPCs like naked barbarians, sluts, witches, and a dark-elf like apparition which demanded that I fight it to the death.

Yeah, I ran into the naked barbarian too. Then I ran into another naked barbarian, with the same exact story (some witch paralyzed him). Then I ran into another naked barbarian, with the same exact damn story, in a third place. Morrowind in a nutshell.

 

[Higher Animal]

Since unlike your previous posts, this one actually contains some real arguments amidst the usual ocean of nonsense, I'll actually reply.



As someone who has neither mentioned Risen 3 in this thread, nor played it, I can only find this amusing.

Uh huh

Skill/item selection is actually a player skill, since it's obviously you the player who is selecting, and not your character. In Morrowind this isn't really present in any significant way. Obviously as a melee character, you would just spam your attack, same with stealth characters, and as a caster, you don't really have to do it either. In a game like BG/BG2 or ToEE, you actually have to use different abilities to win fights, in Morrowind, you can just spam the same spell and win pretty much any fight (usually a custom Weakness to X damage/X damage or some enchanted item). You can use some other approaches, but most if not all of them are just cheesy exploits of AI that is not prepared for them, and you'll end up spamming them anyway, so there is really no meaningful skill selection.

BG is a RTwP and TOE is a tactical rpg. Morrowind is a game like Wizardry where you design a PC and alter its stats and abilities to meet challenges.

You have difficulty processing this concept. Morrowind is not some new, luck based system devoid of utilizing player inputs. It is simply an *easy* version of this type of gameplay. Skill selection is indeed meaningful, and you will die if you use the wrong skills with the wrong stat type. Items matter, and so do spells. Creatures/NPCs matter too.

This isn't really worth debating anymore, and you'll take this answer or be ignored for being a dumbfuck. Nobody is saying that Morrowind has perfect combat that isn't exploitable or too easy. Instead of saying this, and leaving it be, you think Morrowind is in some special category of gameplay where nothing in the gameworld matters to the outcome. This is literally, actually, objectively untrue.

Skilled in combat? Like what, turning your mouse slightly so that you are facing the enemy in front of you? Come on now...

Cognitive deficiency on your part. I said that actual, literal combat is very messy for beginners, almost exactly like it is in Morrowind.

There are several types of "dungeons", yes, I already mentioned that. But for each of these types, there are a ton of instances, and each of these instances is similar enough to the others so as to make them boring to explore after the first few. And no, most of them do not contain quests attached to them, have no puzzles, and the only difference is a slightly different layout and inhabitants (chosen from the same limited stock).

There is almost nothing true about this statement.

Again, you seem to not actually be reading what I wrote, and imposing your own thoughts on it. I didn't say there wasn't enough loot, I said there wasn't enough relevant loot. I found a ton of loot everywhere I went, but 99.9% of it was completely useless to my build, and was just crap I had to haul to towns to sell. Well designed games (Fallouts, BGs, Gothics, etc) actually have a loot distribution that rewards the player for exploring, this was clearly not the case in Morrowind.

This statement is remarkable. "Pure Caster" loot = books, unarmored clothing, enchanted items, potions, rings, scrolls, amulets, staves, alchemical ingredients, enchanting equipment..... and I don't know what else you want? This stuff is fucking everywhere and a part of most questlines.

Also, money buys both potions and spells. Literally the two most important items for pure mages in the game.

Yeah, I ran into the naked barbarian too. Then I ran into another naked barbarian, with the same exact story (some witch paralyzed him). Then I ran into another naked barbarian, with the same exact damn story, in a third place. Morrowind in a nutshell.

The problem might be autism. If you don't have the instincts for design, aesthetic, atmosphere and creativity you may be completely flabbergasted as to why Morrowind was so popular. It is not attempting to be an also-ran RPG, shuttling the player from one scaled experience to another. The game is a role-playing sandbox set in a very distinct and alien world about becoming a powerful person and whether that makes you a deity.

Players without aesthetic sense, imagination, or inventiveness are not apt to enjoy Morrowind.

(Here's a post by DraQ you should read) http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...nsions-hard-or-impossible.67292/#post-1888456

 

[CrawlingDead]

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.



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.




Gothic fags never change. How's Risen 3?

Damn, bitch tits, don't like nobody pissing on your faggoty ass Morrowind memories? I mean I'm a Morrowind fan, but even I see how shitty much of the game was and still is. Games have flaws, Morrowind really has a lot of them. And also, what kind of dark void did you pull "untermensch" from? Straight bum over here. Get a job bum.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

BG is a RTwP and TOE is a tactical rpg. Morrowind is a game like Wizardry where you design a PC and alter its stats and abilities to meet challenges.

I think you are just lost now. The bolded part in your statement refers to character development, while we are talking about combat. You obviously don't alter stats and abilities in combat, so everything you said makes no sense whatsoever, although that's pretty much par for the course for you.

Skill selection is indeed meaningful, and you will die if you use the wrong skills with the wrong stat type.

Again, right/wrong stats have to do with character development, not combat, and ability selection is not meaningful in Morrowind, because as I already explained, I finished the game by just spamming my damage spell of the moment, just like a different character would spam auto attack or stealth attack, or some ring enchantment.

This isn't really worth debating anymore, and you'll take this answer or be ignored for being a dumbfuck.

Heh, ok.

Cognitive deficiency on your part. I said that actual, literal combat is very messy for beginners, almost exactly like it is in Morrowind.

So real life combat is you standing there and repeating the same exact action over and over again while the other guy stands there and takes it? Ok......

 

[Higher Animal]

I think you are just lost now. The bolded part in your statement refers to character development, while we are talking about combat. You obviously don't alter stats and abilities in combat, so everything you said makes no sense whatsoever, although that's pretty much par for the course for you.

I'm going to explain this one more time before I ignore you.

Combat success is dependent on a dice roll and player turn activation (and geography, but lets leave that out). Dice rolls are determined by character state. Character state = statistics, inventory/equip, race ability, race powers, enchantments, potions, spells, alchemical ingredients, health/magick/fatigue, attack type, character level, skill level, number of opponents/companions, disease, etc.. These character states are modified through player choice at character creation, before combat, during combat, and after combat. Modifying these states determines both how your character plays and whether that character will be successful, and to what degree.

As near as anybody can figure out, this is the closest definition to how a "role playing game" should be. Player choices impact the character in a way that determines both playstyle and success.

The source of your retardation which others have identified is mistaking a personal preference for action-based combat with an attempt at objectively assessing game quality. Saying the game is broken or easy judges the game based on its role playing merits. The solution isn't to jump to action based gameplay, but fix the broken mechanics and easy gameplay.

Again, right/wrong stats have to do with character development, not combat, and ability selection is not meaningful in Morrowind, because as I already explained, I finished the game by just spamming my damage spell of the moment, just like a different character would spam auto attack or stealth attack, or some ring enchantment.

The first part of your statement is stupid and contradictory.

As far as your personal experience is concerned: that's the risk of giving players tools to experiment. Creating complex systems with large amounts of player freedom almost insures that workarounds and hacks will be developed. This admission is not novel, and reflects back poorly to you. Morrowind is a game that can be beaten in EIGHT minutes. The point is not figuring out the easiest exploit to gain success, the point is to create interesting characters and experiment/tinker with the systems in the game to produce results.

This means the kind of person attracted to Morrowind will be interested in novelty, experimentation, a self-starting producer type.

People like you prefer rote, simplicity, function, and are more consumerist in nature. The reason why you criticize Morrowind's best elements is because you lack the ability to appreciate them.

What's really problematic is your continuous barrage of repeated non-criticisms to the thread that belie an entitlement that all games conform to your personal perspective. This is actually far worse than having a series of shitty opinions.

So real life combat is you standing there and repeating the same exact action over and over again while the other guy stands there and takes it? Ok......

Role Playing Games and Video Games are abstractions that require certain jumps in imagination from the player. The misses in Morrowind don't have visual representations beyond a verbal notifier, but combat in real life usually requires a degree of skill before continuous, successful application, if that. This means that in order to be good at shooting things, punching them, grappling/kicking, hitting with a sword or arrow, you have to have a series of physical and mental tools upgraded in order to do the job.

Complaining about Morrowind's hit/miss ratio is a diet coke criticism. Something popular that seems better on the surface, but is actually far worse. It belies both an ignorance of how actual combat works and that video games are essentially an abstraction. Moreover, it shifts priorities from understanding game mechanics/stats to providing simple, tactile feedback that wrecks complexity. We even have direct evidence of this criticism being applied in both Skyrim and Oblivion. How good are those results?

 

[bloodlover]

We are in 2015 and people still bitch about Morrowind's combat? What the fuck?

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

This is what's known as an ad hominem attack, and is generally used in the absence of good arguments.

Strawman argument. Numerous attempts have been made to explain the strength of Morrowind's art design and how it, along with a number of other aspects of the game, ties into world-building that is among the best ever accomplished. By the time I made my previous post, the only logical conclusion was that you lack an aesthetic sense, which is directly relevant to the argument at hand.

This critique has nothing to do with Open World design, it has to do with good design in general. The Mona Lisa is considered a great painting, but imagine you came to a museum, and the entire place only had that same Mona Lisa painting on its walls. Despite the individual painting being great, this would not be a good experience. Same thing with Morrowind, even if you like some individual aesthetics (which I actually do, although certainly not all of them), the fact that they repeat so often impacts the whole experience very negatively.

The world building where several templates are re-used a gazellion times cannot be that good, even if it does have some good elements. Exploration where there is neither the incentive to explore nor any kind of variety cannot be that good. Art design is a subjective thing since it depends on tastes, but any that has Morrowind's NPCs cannot be that good.

Morrowind contains a large number of general types of locations, many of which have been cited in above posts, yet you continue to pretend that there are only a few (or a single one, as in your Mona Lisa example). When considering the actual number and categorization of locations, rather than what you imagine them to be, your criticism amounts to a complaint that the game world includes many locations within each category rather than just one or two. Far from being a failing of Morrowind, this is necessary to creating an immersive Open World experience in which Vvardenfell, despite being scaled down from what it represents, feels like a living, breathing place. Each location within a general category may be a variation on a theme, but the variations differ quite substantially in size, structure, inhabitants, loot, etc. Some places have a unique story or powerful artifact attached; the majority don't, which is as it should be. Morrowind would be a poor excuse for a game if it had a single grotto, a single kwama egg mine, a single Dwemer ruin, a single Daedric shrine, and so on and so forth. Likewise if it had only one settlement for each of the three Great Houses on the island, one Temple settlement, one Western-style settlement, one Imperial fort, one ramshackle village, one Ashlander encampment. By stripping the game world to the bare minimum, each location would be clearly differentiated from every other location, and it would be easy to provide each location with a story and/or powerful artifact. It would also completely destroy the immersion and world-building, as the game world would be transformed from a realistic yet fantastic setting to an artificial theme park. And an actual Open World game, rather than one that is merely non-linear in structure, requires an expansive, deep, well-structured world.

Well, since I completed the game with a pure spellcaster, using no armor, no enchanting or alchemy exploits or summoning, I would say I figured out how to use magic effectively. This, however, does not make the magic system any better or less tedious and badly designed.

And in my opinion, criticizing a combat system that is entirely based on character skill is a great idea, because by its very definition, such a system requires no input from the player and thus, must be boring.

Your criticism of an RPG for basing success on character skills, rather than having an action-based system reliant on the player's physical skills, is equivalent to someone complaining that it includes an inventory or has character progression. It's not impossible for a game to be action-based and still be an RPG, but basing success on character skills is a defining characteristic of RPGs, one of the elements that set them apart from other genres. There are some people who would criticize Morrowind's combat for not having more tactical depth, or on other legitimate grounds, but for the most part you've been bashing an RPG for being an RPG. Perhaps you'd be happier with Oblivion, which added action-style gameplay.

Not at all. My problem with Morrowind is its bad design, the many aspects of which I've already outlined in this thread. The fact that the first two Gothic games happen to excel in many of these areas of design is simply coincidental, and has nothing to do with judging Morrowind on its own merit, or lack thereof.

Is the reason that you keep bringing up Daggerfall in a discussion about Morrowind the fact that only the shallow procedural generation blandness of the former can make the non-procedural blandness of the latter palatable?

I keep bringing up Daggerfall to see if you're capable of enjoying games for the strengths they possess, rather than insisting that everything be similar to one particular kind of RPG (with action-based gameplay!). Although not as great overall as Morrowind, Daggerfall has a better character customization system, a semi-linear main quest, and massive, three-dimensional, procedurally-generated dungeons where one needs the 3D automap simply not to be completely lost. It also less successfully used procedural generation to create a game world on a 1-to-1 scale, as a result of which one doesn't spend any time in the overworld environment, just in the dungeons and towns. There's a lot of fun to be had with Daggerfall, but you'll miss out on it just as you failed to appreciate Morrowind's exploration, setting, and story-telling.

tl;dr Morrowind stole your sweetroll

 

[Clockwork Knight]

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.

Pulling the nostalgia argument on a ten year old game? Your fedora is showing

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I'm going to explain this one more time before I ignore you.

It's funny watching you get angrier and angrier over nothing.

Combat success is dependent on a dice roll and player turn activation (and geography, but lets leave that out). Dice rolls are determined by character state. Character state = statistics, inventory/equip, race ability, race powers, enchantments, potions, spells, alchemical ingredients, health/magick/fatigue, attack type, character level, skill level, number of opponents/companions, disease, etc.. These character states are modified through player choice at character creation, before combat, during combat, and after combat. Modifying these states determines both how your character plays and whether that character will be successful, and to what degree.

As near as anybody can figure out, this is the closest definition to how a "role playing game" should be. Player choices impact the character in a way that determines both playstyle and success.

The source of your retardation which others have identified is mistaking a personal preference for action-based combat with an attempt at objectively assessing game quality. Saying the game is broken or easy judges the game based on its role playing merits. The solution isn't to jump to action based gameplay, but fix the broken mechanics and easy gameplay.

Actually, I never said anything about action combat in this thread. I was talking about player skill, which is different. Action combat is one way that combat can involve player skill, but there are many others. A combat system could involve the player's intellect instead of physical attributes, for example. The good non-action RPGs present the player with a large selection of abilities from which he has to select in order to overcome the combat challenges, so this involves player skill. Think BG games or ToEE. You have to know which debuff spells you should use to remove the enemy mage's defenses. You have to know to use greater malison to lower their high saving throws. You have to know which spell to use to defend against some particular attack that can one shot you. Which spell to use to banish their summoned demon, or to protect yourself against that whirlwind fighter. On top of that, because there are multiple member parties, you have to know how to position them, how to manage their different roles, etc. In Morrowind, none of this is necessary at all. You can spam the same attack/spell and kill everything in your way. I actually custom created some defensive spells early in the game, and never had to use them, because I one shot everything (sometimes 2 shots) with my custom Weakness to Shock, Shock Damage spell. Therefore, there is no player skill.

The first part of your statement is stupid and contradictory.

As far as your personal experience is concerned: that's the risk of giving players tools to experiment. Creating complex systems with large amounts of player freedom almost insures that workarounds and hacks will be developed. This admission is not novel, and reflects back poorly to you. Morrowind is a game that can be beaten in EIGHT minutes. The point is not figuring out the easiest exploit to gain success, the point is to create interesting characters and experiment/tinker with the systems in the game to produce results.

That's the point. What I am talking about is not a workaround or a hack. It's the simplest, most straight-forward way to do combat, by spamming a damage spell or auto-attack. This is very effective, less cheesy/hacky than the alternatives, and absolutely devoid of player skill/challenge.

What's really problematic is your continuous barrage of repeated non-criticisms to the thread that belie an entitlement that all games conform to your personal perspective. This is actually far worse than having a series of shitty opinions.

Sorry, but the fact that Morrowind's combat involves zero player skill is not my personal opinion or perspective. It's a pretty obvious truth to everyone except the fanboys.

Strawman argument. Numerous attempts have been made to explain the strength of Morrowind's art design and how it, along with a number of other aspects of the game, ties into world-building that is among the best ever accomplished. By the time I made my previous post, the only logical conclusion was that you lack an aesthetic sense, which is directly relevant to the argument at hand.

And numerous other arguments have been also made to explain the weakness of Morrowind's art design, while at the same time avoiding personally insulting you.

Morrowind contains a large number of general types of locations, many of which have been cited in above posts, yet you continue to pretend that there are only a few (or a single one, as in your Mona Lisa example). When considering the actual number and categorization of locations, rather than what you imagine them to be, your criticism amounts to a complaint that the game world includes many locations within each category rather than just one or two. ... And an actual Open World game, rather than one that is merely non-linear in structure, requires an expansive, deep, well-structured world.

I see this in a completely different light. If you don't have the resources to make each location interesting, then don't make it at all. I would much rather have 30 interesting locations than 300 bland ones as in Morrowind. Now you may prefer the latter, and that's fine, but then don't try to argue my point of them all feeling the same and boring.

Your criticism of an RPG for basing success on character skills, rather than having an action-based system reliant on the player's physical skills, is equivalent to someone complaining that it includes an inventory or has character progression. It's not impossible for a game to be action-based and still be an RPG, but basing success on character skills is a defining characteristic of RPGs, one of the elements that set them apart from other genres. There are some people who would criticize Morrowind's combat for not having more tactical depth, or on other legitimate grounds, but for the most part you've been bashing an RPG for being an RPG. Perhaps you'd be happier with Oblivion, which added action-style gameplay.

I am not sure you understand how character skill and player skill figure in RPG combat. All RPGs have character skill, since in all RPGs, characters have stats, skills, abilities, etc. But the good ones also involve some measure of player skill on top of that. In Gothic games that player skill comes in the way of reflexes and anticipation (physical), in BG or ToEE, this player skill comes from understanding how the system (with a ton of spells/abilities) works and how to use it to respond to different situations (knowledge/mental). The precise type of player skill is not as important as its presence in general, because it's what makes the combat interesting. Morrowind, on the other hand, is devoid of this, because it challenges the player neither physically nor mentally, nor in terms of knowledge. You just spam the same attack/spell and win.

I keep bringing up Daggerfall to see if you're capable of enjoying games for the strengths they possess, rather than insisting that everything be similar to one particular kind of RPG (with action-based gameplay!).

Oh, I actually enjoy completely different RPGs. My favorites include Fallout 1-2, Gothic 1-2, Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, Betrayal at Krondor, Fallout: New Vegas, graphical NetHack, Dwarf Fortress, etc. What's common among these games? They are well designed and fun, unlike Daggerfall and Morrowind.

 

[Mustawd]

Pulling the nostalgia argument on a ten year old game? Your fedora is showing

Fair enough. Meh argument.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Oh, I actually enjoy completely different RPGs. My favorites include Fallout 1-2, Gothic 1-2, Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, Betrayal at Krondor, Fallout: New Vegas, graphical NetHack, Dwarf Fortress, etc. What's common among these games? They are well designed and fun, unlike Daggerfall and Morrowind.

You start a thread bashing Morrowind, calling it a "flawed turd", and now 10 posts later you reveal that one of its successors, Fallout: New Vegas, is among your favorite RPGs?

Well trolled, Porky, well trolled. Fallout: New Vegas has its strengths, and it's superior to the other successors of Morrowind (though that isn't saying much), but its exploration, world-building, and aesthetics are all inferior to Morrowind's, as is its combat which is simply FPS w/VATS. Perhaps next you can create a thread hyperbolically attacking Pool of Radiance and eventually reveal that your list of favorite RPGs includes Secret of the Silver Blades or Buck Rogers.

And numerous other arguments have been also made to explain the weakness of Morrowind's art design, while at the same time avoiding personally insulting you.

I could once again point out the strong architectural sense of Morrowind, which clearly differentiates between Imperial, Redoran, Hlaalu, Telvanni, and Temple settlements, each with their own distinct style (which are also highly original, except for the Imperials), not to mention the Dwemer and Daedric styles. Or I could once again point to the natural environment, with regions that are distinct from each other yet avoid being caricatures. Or I could once again point out the unique flora and fauna that contribute to the sense of Morrowind being an alien setting. Or I could once again point to the beauty of the moons and nebulae at night, the water, ash storms. But all of it would lost on you, as apparently you prefer the monotonous aesthetics of a post-apocalyptic desert. This is similar to someone on an art forum starting a thread blasting J.M.W Turner only to eventually reveal they're a fan of Monet.

I see this in a completely different light. If you don't have the resources to make each location interesting, then don't make it at all. I would much rather have 30 interesting locations than 300 bland ones as in Morrowind. Now you may prefer the latter, and that's fine, but then don't try to argue my point of them all feeling the same and boring

Interesting to you means that a location has a quest attached and is just waiting to be looted by the PC. Otherwise, New Vegas offers nonsensical maze-like interiors for buildings, a handful of caves that look alike, and a handful of vaults that look alike. And its overworld is extremely constricted. Morrowind, by contrast, offers an overworld that is well designed so as to feel as large as the area it represents, divided between nine distinct geographical regions, with numerous settlements ranging from large cities to ramshackle fishing villages. And it offers a larger number of dungeon-type locations to match, with more variety in their overall type, and with better interior design.

I am not sure you understand how character skill and player skill figure in RPG combat. All RPGs have character skill, since in all RPGs, characters have stats, skills, abilities, etc. But the good ones also involve some measure of player skill on top of that. In Gothic games that player skill comes in the way of reflexes and anticipation (physical), in BG or ToEE, this player skill comes from understanding how the system (with a ton of spells/abilities) works and how to use it to respond to different situations (knowledge/mental). The precise type of player skill is not as important as its presence in general, because it's what makes the combat interesting. Morrowind, on the other hand, is devoid of this, because it challenges the player neither physically nor mentally, nor in terms of knowledge. You just spam the same attack/spell and win.

In an RPG, a poor combat system based on character skill trumps a poor action-based combat system, like the one used in the Gothic series. Moreover, I wasn't aware that the VATS system of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas involved any great understanding of the game system --- or any understanding whatsoever. However, Morrowind's combat system, though lacking in tactical depth, isn't without points of interest, as others have attempted to explain to you, though you seem impervious to all reason.

Fallout: New Vegas, Gothic, and Gothic 2 can be said to fall into the same subgenre of RPGs as Morrowind, and all three are objectively inferior in world-building, exploration, aesthetics, and even combat. If you want to stir up a reaction by going on a tirade against a successful game, choose a target where your attacks will be credible.

 

[Sjukob]

Morrowind has always been overrated , it's mediocre game , not top 10 . I can agree with OP , Morrowind's points that people claim to be strong aren't actually that good .

Here's what I especially like

The problem might be autism. If you don't have the instincts for design, aesthetic, atmosphere and creativity you may be completely flabbergasted as to why Morrowind was so popular. It is not attempting to be an also-ran RPG, shuttling the player from one scaled experience to another. The game is a role-playing sandbox set in a very distinct and alien world about becoming a powerful person and whether that makes you a deity.

Players without aesthetic sense, imagination, or inventiveness are not apt to enjoy Morrowind.

Every Morrowind lover I talked to said that . It's like you have to be the chosen one to like Morrowind , more like you have to have autism to enjoy Morrowind .

Offtopic rant

Spoiler

You know , I joined codex because I saw people bashing Morrowind here , and I thought there are people who have taste on Codex , but I learned that Morrowind faggotry is strong here . Are you satisfied with the current Bethesda ? You know why this happened ? Because people were so happy to fill their mouths with shit to buy Morrowind , which brought Bethesda on top and have set their general direction in video game industry , which they follow still .