Morrowind is just a plain bad game

[DraQ]

I like how she collected the corpses of the 'failed incarnates'.

Ghosts.

that is, if she didn't kill them herself.

Nah, that would be counterproductive.

 

[abnaxus]

The Failed Incarnates weren't even outlanders. Apparently nobody told them to look for the Lost Prophecies

 

[Commissar Draco]

The Failed Incarnates weren't even outlanders. Apparently nobody told them to look for the Lost Prophecies

Lost prophecies were indeed lost, it is not like they could be bought on Amazon, There was rather complex quest to retrieve full version of them including stepping on toes of Ordinators.
It's not like Oblivion and Skyrim where you became ''Chosen One" right after begining... wait in Oblivion you are sidekick helping true Hero Martin Septim doing His fedex quests.

 

[Sul]

Apart from Shezarrines (lol Dragonborn), there is no reincarnation in TES lore.

Dragonborn is not a reincarnation, it's just men/mer/beast born with the soul of a dragon. And there's no the Dragonborn but a Dragonborn, you can have more than one at the same time.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Apart from Shezarrines (lol Dragonborn), there is no reincarnation in TES lore.

Dragonborn is not a reincarnation, it's just men/mer/beast born with the soul of a dragon. And there's no the Dragonborn but a Dragonborn, you can have more than one at the same time.

Neverarine is Dragon born too. IS cause he is ageless, immune to diseases and hard to kill by both conventional weapons and magic.

 

[attackfighter]

Regarding Moon-and-Star, if you sold it or reverse pick pocketed it to an NPC they would equip it. Although that's probably just an oversight by the devs.

 

[Commissar Draco]

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/17634#

 

[abnaxus]

Apart from Shezarrines (lol Dragonborn), there is no reincarnation in TES lore.

Dragonborn is not a reincarnation, it's just men/mer/beast born with the soul of a dragon. And there's no the Dragonborn but a Dragonborn, you can have more than one at the same time.

Ghost at Old Hroldan names you 'Hjalti' specifically. Hjalti = Hjalti Early-Beard = Tiber Septim.

 

[Sul]

Apart from Shezarrines (lol Dragonborn), there is no reincarnation in TES lore.

Dragonborn is not a reincarnation, it's just men/mer/beast born with the soul of a dragon. And there's no the Dragonborn but a Dragonborn, you can have more than one at the same time.

Neverarine is Dragon born too. IS cause he is ageless, immune to diseases and hard to kill by both conventional weapons and magic.

No, he's not. He is ageless and immune to diseases thanks to corpus and hard to kill beacuse he can pause the game to drink potions (CHIM).

Apart from Shezarrines (lol Dragonborn), there is no reincarnation in TES lore.

Dragonborn is not a reincarnation, it's just men/mer/beast born with the soul of a dragon. And there's no the Dragonborn but a Dragonborn, you can have more than one at the same time.

Ghost at Old Hroldan names you 'Hjalti' specifically. Hjalti = Hjalti Early-Beard = Tiber Septim.

Yep. Both the player and Tiber are the same because they are the aspects of Lorkhan. There's no reincarnation as you said but rather something like a reflection on a mirror.
You are not not reincarnation of Tiber (or Lorkhan) but just his aspect.

Of course, being dragonborn doesn't mean in any way that you are the aspect of Lorkhan. Being his aspect and having the soul of a dragon are two completely independent things.

 

[Deadeye Dragoon]

Trying to fool the player into thinking the Morrowind is this great landmass when it only totals barely 10 square miles. They had to use physical obstructions and I'm not talking about obvious things like mountain ranges. I'm talking about boulders and large trees in specific places. Otherwise you could run across the landmass in minutes. Well, you can anyway even with those in place. So much for immersion. All those "cities" and "villages" stuffed into 10 square miles.

I'm just going to throw this out---have you ever actually walked every street in the 2x5 miles that surround you? If you have you might realize every 20 meters is a new experience and store/personality (and potential quest!). If you haven't I'm going to assume you're a very pale person in an apartment/basement, refusing to exit the door. Thus has no idea of the potential vastness and uniqueness of even ten square miles.

Or maybe instead you think a "real" country should be beyond a mere 10 square miles. The MOTHER FUCKING POPE would like a word with you.

Screw all of you for bringing Oblivian and such into the discussion, but thanks all of you that brought porn into it. In particular Pipeweed-that's going to last me a long time. Yeah. Cosplay is a real 21st century boon.

 

[Shiki]

That kind of open-mindedness though is hard to achieve though, esp. in an adult gamer. It's a slow game that has to be played slowly. I played it as a teen and it worked for me, though.

That's the thing. As an adult you don't have all the time in the world (or, even when you do, you have better shit to do) to spend on a game and when in a 1 hour session of gaming you calculate that you have spent from 15 up to 40 minutes of "nothing" like walking, it sure feels really frustrating. I played Morrowind to death in the past but I would probably never replay that game again. The only other solo game I can think of that rivals Morrowind in the "This was a fucking waste of time" dept is X3: Reunion.
Morrowind had a sweet setting and I loved exploring it, reading the books and what the npc had to "say" (they acted more like wikipedia than dialogues..) but it's hardly entertaining as a game and you need a LOT of time to be able to enjoy it. Most people past their twenties *don't* have that kind of time.

 

[JarlFrank]

I have that kind of time when I take a free weekend for myself and don't have any other things to do. When I take some gaming time for myself, I don't take an hour or two, I take a whole evening and then I actually want a game that's long and isn't over in a few hours. It's just like taking some time off to read a book, or taking some time off to go out with friends for a drink.

Being adult and having little time doesn't mean that you can't take some off-time on weekends. It's an argument I never understood - "I'm adult and only have one hour of free time each day so I want shorter games baww" - well fuck, during the week I don't have a lot of time either, so I don't play any time-consuming games then, but that doesn't mean I don't want to have long games that I can spend a lot of time on when I want to. That's what weekends and holidays are for.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Yeah, but that's because you are a young western degenerate. You can't take an entire "me" evening when you have kids and wife competing for your constant attention. A relative of mine has to sneak out of the bedroom after the missus is asleep so he can play some Silent Hunter in peace.

 

[Excommunicator]

The old "I don't have time" excuse is usually an excuse for everything but time. Most people would never like to admit they have the time, and of course anyone can make it if they want to. When people say they are too busy it is usually a case of them being either horrible at time management (and unwilling to change) or so unfulfilled in life that anything which isn't in some way related to the 9-5 treadmill they're on is loaded with too much guilt for them to enjoy.

Of course, then the game has to prove for itself it is worth the time spent on it in terms of entertainment value and whatever else it is one looks for in a game, and there aren't too many games that can justify it well. Someone approaching Morrowind for the first time now would need to be really enamoured with its particular characteristics to be able to consider it good entertainment value because it does have a lot of problems. For games of its type though, there are very few on the same level.

 

[LoPan]

What are the other games of that type? Thought Bethesda had pretty much a monopoly on that type of open world game, sure there are other open world games like Saints Row, Just Cause or Borderlands, but they are hardly the same type.

 

[Demnogonis Saastuttaja]

Borderlands is hardly open world.

 

[LoPan]

Hardly indeed; it is open world just not very good at it.

 

[LoPan]

That kind of open-mindedness though is hard to achieve though, esp. in an adult gamer. It's a slow game that has to be played slowly. I played it as a teen and it worked for me, though.

That's the thing. As an adult you don't have all the time in the world (or, even when you do, you have better shit to do) to spend on a game and when in a 1 hour session of gaming you calculate that you have spent from 15 up to 40 minutes of "nothing" like walking, it sure feels really frustrating. I played Morrowind to death in the past but I would probably never replay that game again. The only other solo game I can think of that rivals Morrowind in the "This was a fucking waste of time" dept is X3: Reunion.
Morrowind had a sweet setting and I loved exploring it, reading the books and what the npc had to "say" (they acted more like wikipedia than dialogues..) but it's hardly entertaining as a game and you need a LOT of time to be able to enjoy it. Most people past their twenties *don't* have that kind of time.

I have that kind of time when I take a free weekend for myself and don't have any other things to do. When I take some gaming time for myself, I don't take an hour or two, I take a whole evening and then I actually want a game that's long and isn't over in a few hours. It's just like taking some time off to read a book, or taking some time off to go out with friends for a drink.

Being adult and having little time doesn't mean that you can't take some off-time on weekends. It's an argument I never understood - "I'm adult and only have one hour of free time each day so I want shorter games baww" - well fuck, during the week I don't have a lot of time either, so I don't play any time-consuming games then, but that doesn't mean I don't want to have long games that I can spend a lot of time on when I want to. That's what weekends and holidays are for.

Age does not come with a strict set of living conditions, not even marriage or marriage and children does. Living conditions change depending on country, county in that country, city/town/village in that county, upbringing, financial situation, job, working hours, care of children/pet/disabled, partner/spouse/menagé-a-trois and the character, needs and demands of yourself and everyone who is involved in your life and whos' lives involve you, and so on.

Broad generalizations can not reliably be made, and whether you have time or not on your hands has little to do with your enjoyment of Morrowind. I had a lot of time on my hands when I played it, and that is partly why I played it, and I still felt like my time was being wasted and that I ought to go play or do something else in which hours were not spent doing nothing.

Whether you like the game or not, and why you like anything at all in your life, comes down to what you get out of it, surely. Though I am basing this on my own experience with the game, having a great deal of time to spend doesn't facilitate a taking to a game like Morrowind, considering how dire of an attempt I made to get into it. Even a lack of time would probably not keep someone away from it if it is the sort of game they like, when I was young and short on time I would still take whatever brief chance I found to play Black&White, a time-consuming game where nothing happens.

 

[Turjan]

The only other solo game I can think of that rivals Morrowind in the "This was a fucking waste of time" dept is X3: Reunion.
Morrowind had a sweet setting and I loved exploring it, reading the books and what the npc had to "say" (they acted more like wikipedia than dialogues..) but it's hardly entertaining as a game and you need a LOT of time to be able to enjoy it. Most people past their twenties *don't* have that kind of time.

Heh, now that you mention it: I spent a lot of time with Morrowind, and X3: TC is the one game that may come closest. I guess I like this kind of game.

While I don't think that age is the factor here, I can see that playing these games if you have wife and kids may strain the relationship. You may get away doing this once in a while, but if your wife isn't into it herself, good luck.

 

[JarlFrank]

Well, I don't know much about relationships with wives, but I was of the opinion that ideally, both marriage partners should respect the others' hobbies and allow them some downtime once in a while?

 

[Excommunicator]

Turjan, the simple answer is no one should tolerate someone else telling them they can't have a certain hobby or interest. That assumes you aren't spending inordinate amounts of time on that hobby and many others on top of it, but this wasn't a point about how you fit playing a large-scale game into your already-filled schedule of hobbies and daily activities. It is about whether or not someone who has sufficient interest can find the time to play a game if they want to do so. Still, the quality of the game determines how worthwhile that playing time will be, and if nothing else, then surely the "crusades" of the likes of the Codex represent that attempt to instil that quality into a game where you neither regret the experience afterwards nor feel like you could get the same value from another activity. The ideals around here don't represent this "disposable media" aspect that the industry has forced upon games. If you have disposable media of the quality they offer then of course that time investment will struggle to match other activities that feel more productive. With greater substance and better ideals though, you give the games an inherent advantage in terms of how better you can justify the time investment they require.

Honestly, LoPan, someone doesn't spend that amount of time trying to like something and then spend such time criticising it when one simply thinks it as boring and empty like you claim. It is clear to see you have some kind of grudge against Morrowind and my educated guess is that it stimulated all the right areas of your mind that a game needs to, but wasn't then able to maintain that impossible momentum the entire way or in every aspect and so left you angered and disappointed at what should have been. Perhaps you need to take a step back and consider what it was that gave you such initial expectations and what positive things you were experiencing via the interest in that moment.

 

[Gragt]

Well, I don't know much about relationships with wives, but I was of the opinion that ideally, both marriage partners should respect the others' hobbies and allow them some downtime once in a while?

You wish. You may talk of it and get some sort of agreement but you're very likely to get a "it seems you have more fun with your friends than me" or "your computer has more priority than I do" along the road. I'm not even talking of dysfunctional cases where one would spend his whole time away from home or playing games but regular occurences when one would like to spend time for himself. Most of the time she'll accept it but she won't be happy about it and may voice that later.

 

[dibens]

Somehow I can't enjoy/immerse myself in a game when my partner is around. I feel like I'm being judged. I guess there is still some kind of guilt associated with playing video-games.

 

[LoPan]

Honestly, LoPan, someone doesn't spend that amount of time trying to like something and then spend such time criticising it when one simply thinks it as boring and empty like you claim. It is clear to see you have some kind of grudge against Morrowind and my educated guess is that it stimulated all the right areas of your mind that a game needs to, but wasn't then able to maintain that impossible momentum the entire way or in every aspect and so left you angered and disappointed at what should have been. Perhaps you need to take a step back and consider what it was that gave you such initial expectations and what positive things you were experiencing via the interest in that moment.

I have indeed developed a grudge, but not from playing Morrowind but from discussing it with the people who enjoy it; DraQ says I want an 'awesome button' I say I do not and then he insists that, yes, I do, such a childlike discussion can hardly end in anything other than bitterness. The reason I have spent so much time playing Morrowind and writing about it is because frankly I have too much time on my hands and little else to do (I can't read things for longer than 20 minutes on a computer so the use of places like Gutenberg is out of the question); I finished Dragon Age 2 for goodness sake, it was unpleasant and somewhat soul-crushing, like playing The Sims or Minecraft, but the reason I played it was because I wanted to understand just what made it such an horrendous experience. To do something without the intention of trying to understand it is surely like doing nothing whatsoever, but Morrowind was one of the few games to really make me wonder of the point of playing video games at all and it was largely due to the glorious fashion in which its fanciers wrote of it, most of which, unlike the written salivations of a Biowhore, was comprehensible.

The reason I kept discussing Morrowind and have, though not since this topic, come back to it at times is because there are people who hold experiences contrary to my own experiences of Morrowind, and this prompted the vital question of why this is. The conclusion to this ends up in why someone plays a game, and why someone would play Morowind and, more specifically, what someone gets out of it. Sadly, this greater issue, this larger picture, was never indulged or investigated by anyone other than myself, people kept verifying their own beliefs to themselves with increasingly flamboyant and imprecise phraseology since they had been stirred by frustration to speak from feeling; my own perspective and experience can never be adequate in reaching an interesting conclusion as there is no way of exchanging information that does not demand an act of judgement.

To argue and discuss is not about trying to win or to prove that you are right but to make yourself understood and to challenge, and hopefully disprove, what it is you hold; surely there is nothing so remarkable and delightful as finding something out. What greater reason could there be for doing something?

In these lengthy discussions, motivations, intentions and character comes through but are inevitably, when the discussion remains fruitless and keeps building on misunderstandings, frustrated, and the one with the most brofists leaves feeling good about themselves but no one learned anything, and it is this shame that kept bringing me back.

I am now done with it, and quite embittered by it since I believe this entire post, if anyone reads it, will be considered by the reader a mere opinion--an impression, and not something which was considered and written for any particular reason.

 

[Sceptic]

This is why Excommunicator is one of my favorite fellow 2010 newfags*

I am now done with it, and quite embittered by it since I believe this entire post, if anyone reads it, will be considered by the reader a mere opinion--an impression, and not something which was considered and written for any particular reason.

TBH you don't really help your case by making statements such as these:

Sadly, this greater issue, this larger picture, was never indulged or investigated by anyone other than myself

All the ego-inflation aside, there have been countless discussions of why this or that works or doesn't work in Morrowind, why those of us who like it like it despite the things that don't work, both on this very forum and on others, and when it comes to this particular forum both before and after I joined (one of the Morrowind threads was IIRC one of the reasons I finally broke and joined). And the end result of the discussion with you was pretty much "you don't see in the game what we do"; which is fine, it doesn't mean we "won" and you "lost"; but it also makes it impossible to go further since, if you weren't seeing it after a dozen pages, another dozen wasn't gonna make any difference. All it would result in is a rehashing of the exact same arguments, and nobody wants that.

I always got the feeling you were more sad at yourself for not getting the enjoyment that others had, rather than at the game, or at DraQ. This post (specifically the bit about "there is nothing so remarkable and delightful as finding something out") makes me almost certain this is the case. Unfortunately, it just isn't a game you'll enjoy, or understand why it's enjoyed, no matter how much discussion there is. Just like I'll never learn to enjoy Battle Isle series no matter how much I'd like to.

* Do we even still count as newfags?

 

[Konjad]

What are the other games of that type? Thought Bethesda had pretty much a monopoly on that type of open world game, sure there are other open world games like Saints Row, Just Cause or Borderlands, but they are hardly the same type.

1. Gothic series, but the better Gothics (1&2) have small worlds, whole Gothic 3's worlds, while large, is quite boring.
2. Risen series is what you're looking for, although Risen becomes dungeon crawler in the second half and Risen 2, though has large and interesting world, is divided into islands (it did not bother me, but idk about you), and the first 2 islands are linear and meh.
3. Two Worlds series, but it's shit.
4. Fallout New Vegas, in case of exploration it's the same game.
5. Fallout 1&2
6. Arcanum
7. Baldur's Gate
8. Lands of Lore
9. Daggerfall
10. And so on...