Morrowind was massive decline and should be considered as such

[Commissar Draco]

rusty_shackleford could not find Caius Casades.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

rusty_shackleford could not find Caius Casades.

which would you rather play:
a game about helping Patrick Stewart defeat a big dragon
OR
a game about helping some homeless drug addict find his gay lover or something idk

 

[Harthwain]

And secondly, Morrowind plays more similarly to Oblivion and Skyrim than it does to many of the RPGs Codex celebrates. So it's just plain weird that Morrowind is rated as one of the greatest RPGs of all time while Oblivion and Skyrim are irredeemable trash. At least the Codexers who claim Morrowind is overrated, like the thread OP, are being logically consistent.

This only shows you have no idea why people like Morrowind so much.

It has an interesting setting and a lot of systems that reinforce its free-form sandbox exploration. And setting play a HUGE role. Oblivion doesn't have an interesting setting (unless we talk about the Shivering Isles) and got rid of many of the previous features (I won't bother listing them, because somebody else did it already). Yes, it tried to innovate some things too - as you said - but the overall result was net negative for me. Skyrim was better than Oblivion purely because I found the nordic setting more appealing than the bland generic fantasy of Oblivion. It was also mechanically a bit better than Oblivion and managed to pull the illusion of the living world (which was a big positive).

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Oblivion doesn't have an interesting setting (unless we talk about the Shivering Isles)

codex hipsters lose their mind at the thought of a traditional fantasy setting

 

[Commissar Draco]

rusty_shackleford could not find Caius Casades.

which would you rather play:
a game about helping Patrick Stewart defeat a big dragon
OR
a game about helping some homeless drug addict find his gay lover or something idk

The latter my literacy challenged Comrade, Commissar loves to solve criminal puzzles and as bonus you end up as Nerevarine and Hortator instead as mad NPC side kick to Sean Bean.



Also no Dagoth Ur villain in later parts.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

rusty_shackleford could not find Caius Casades.

which would you rather play:
a game about helping Patrick Stewart defeat a big dragon
OR
a game about helping some homeless drug addict find his gay lover or something idk

The latter my literacy challenged Comrade, Commissar loves to solve criminal puzzles and as bonus you end up as Nerevarine and Hortator instead as mad NPC side kick to Sean Bean.



Also no Dagoth Ur villain in later parts.

oblivion main character ends the game far more powerful than the morrovirgin main character, he becomes sheogorath

 

[perfectslumbers]

Morrowind is the best TES game because you can kill not one, not two, but THREE gods.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Morrowind is the best TES game because you can kill not one, not two, but THREE gods.

none of those are real gods
hero of kvatch defeats Jyggalag, an actual god

 

[Jugashvili]

(unless we talk about the Shivering Isles)

lolrandom ≠ interesting

 

[grimer]

Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim play more similarly to each other than Morrowind does to other celebrated RPGs celebrated on Codex. The more logically consistent Codexers use this to claim, as thread OP did, that Morrowind is overrated.

the hypocrisy is even more apparent when morrowind fanboys complain about fetch quests or copy-pasted linear dungeons in skyrim but are not only completely fine with them in morrowind they even cite them as examples of good game design.
e.g. "ajira's mushroom fetch quest is good bc it familiarizes the player with the setting" or "300+ tiny copy-pasted dungeons are good bc they facilitate verisimilitude. large sprawling dungeons don't make any sense"

 

[Modron]

I remember being hyped about Morrowind as long time fan of Daggerfall, then finally getting it and only being able to play for an hour before it wore out its welcome. Then Gothic came along and I could never go back.

 

[luj1]

oblivion > morrowind
lol deal with it turbovirgins

you literally picked the worst example of decline in gaming, good job idiot

 

[luj1]

300+ tiny copy-pasted dungeons

Yeah, you are a moron

Go into the Construction Set and open up a few dungeons, you'll see how "copy pasted" they are. You literally have toothpicks that are hand placed and shit hidden from you everywhere. Furthermore you have something like 9 different types of "dungeon", ancestral tombs, caves, daedric shrines, dunmer strongholds, dwemer ruins, grottos, mines, derelict ships, velothi towers, etc.

What you dont realize is the approach was different at Bethesda prior to oblivion, when idiot Todd started using algorithms for vegetation and radiant AI for quests (and later in Skyrim algorithms for everything), Morrowind was their last PC game and last hand-crafted game

 

[JarlFrank]

Plays similarly to =/= has the same level of quality as.

I'm not sure what standard of quality is being applied here because Oblivion is certainly more polished than many celebrated RPGs.

Quality of systems, quality of gameplay, quality of content.

Most AAA games are super polished but their systems are simplistic, their gameplay formulaic, their content bland.

Morrowind has more complex systems than Oblivion, more interesting core gameplay, and actually interesting content that feels unique and exotic.

If polish is your measure of quality, then Assassins Creed Odyssey would be the best RPG ever due to its high levels of production value. But it has a lot of grind, level scaling, repetitive copypasta quests, etc.
Same with Oblivion: it may be more polished than Morrowind but its gameplay loop is ruined by the most extreme level scaling ever seen in an RPG, the core RPG systems have been dumbed down immensely (equipment system and character system are extremely simplified), and the world feels bland and generic compared to Morrowind's alien exoticism.

Rough gem >>>> polished turd.

 

[JarlFrank]

How many RPGs have getting lost as a game mechanic?

The good ones.

 

[KateMicucci]

Name five, made in the last twenty years.

 

[JarlFrank]

Name five

Morrowind
Ultima Underworld
Arx Fatalis
Gothic 1 & 2
Wizardry 1-8
Might and Magic 1-8

made in the last twenty years.

No.

 

[Brancaleone]

Morrowind's alien exoticism.

Exotic is hard to do without degenerating into copy-pasting random estethics/styles from around our world/history, and alien is hard to do without degenerating into weird for the sake of it.
Not only Morrowind does both successfully, but it also transitions between the two mostly smoothly and consistently.

In terms of setting+esthetics+atmosphere I'm hard pressed to name something that surpasses it.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

good to know that I can impress codex with a big mushroom

 

[JarlFrank]

Morrowind's alien exoticism.

Exotic is hard to do without degenerating into copy-pasting random estethics/styles from around our world/history, and alien is hard to do without degenerating into wierd for the sake of it.
Not only Morrowind does both successfully, but it also transitions between the two mostly smoothly and consistently.

In terms of setting+esthetics+atmosphere I'm hard pressed to name something that surpasses it.

Not only does Morrowind manage to provide a highly consistent and believable world with an exotic vibe... it is one of the very few RPGs that have extremely detailed worldbuilding and make sure to make its society believable.
What do people eat? The game answers that. Where does that food come from? The game answers that. How do people travel from place to place? How is society organized? Etc etc.
Most games don't answer any of that, Morrowind does.

 

[Brancaleone]

Morrowind's alien exoticism.

Exotic is hard to do without degenerating into copy-pasting random estethics/styles from around our world/history, and alien is hard to do without degenerating into wierd for the sake of it.
Not only Morrowind does both successfully, but it also transitions between the two mostly smoothly and consistently.

In terms of setting+esthetics+atmosphere I'm hard pressed to name something that surpasses it.

Not only does Morrowind manage to provide a highly consistent and believable world with an exotic vibe... it is one of the very few RPGs that have extremely detailed worldbuilding and make sure to make its society believable.
What do people eat? The game answers that. Where does that food come from? The game answers that. How do people travel from place to place? How is society organized? Etc etc.
Most games don't answer any of that, Morrowind does.

Yes, and even in filling in the little details they mostly eschewed the lazy path and choose elements that contribute towards the exoticism/alienness. Saltrice and kwama eggs, and so on.

 

[Harthwain]

Name five, made in the last twenty years.

Why add such an arbitrary variable when you know how decline works?

 

[Jugashvili]

good to know that I can impress codex with a big mushroom

Shivering Isles also had big mushrooms but it was a bland turd, like the rest of Oblivion. The difference lies somewhere else.

 

[MWaser]

Impress me with your luminous russula

 

[Brancaleone]

I even liked Ultima 8

Because of the big mushrooms.