Review Morrowind reviewed by an EXPART

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Bethesda Softworks; Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

<a href=http://www.gamersinfo.net>GamersInfo</a>, a relatively new site, has posted <a href=http://www.morrowind.com/>Morrowind</a> <a href=http://www.gamersinfo.net/index.php?art/id:145>review</a> which was apparently written by an expert - "You could say I'm an expert at what makes a good RPG".
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<blockquote>The options in Morrowind are boggling and at times you feel overwhelmed, but hard core RPGers will love this. It's a feature not a bug, as they say in the business. You get this impression right off the bat. The boys at Bethesda give you 3 ways to create your character. You can answer some questions and take the class they come up with, choose from a list of 21 default classes, or you can create a custom class. You may be one of ten races, each with special abilities specific to that race, and you can even choose what zodiac sign you were born under for some added special abilities. Once you have your race chosen, you'll get to alter your facial appearance. Bear in mind that there aren't any opportunities to see your face in the game though (no mirrors); however, you can go into third-person mode and have a look. Morrowind is every bit a true RPG in these respects.
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Now let's face it. Most games today are about killing things. Even old school RPGs were mostly about killing things. Morrowind doesn't depart from this formula. Where it does depart from older RPGs is that the combat is all real-time first person hack and slash. Don't worry though! It's not pure first person mayhem. You won't feel like you're just button mashing and dodging fireballs. The combat is a bit slower paced than that.</blockquote>
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Must have played a different game
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.rpgdot.com">RPG Dot</A>

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Where it does depart from older RPGs is that the combat is all real-time first person hack and slash.

It departs from older RPGs by doing what they did? Cool.

 

[Mendoza]

Meh. I really enjoyed Morrowind, but I'm aware of it's flaws, and whether you love or hate the game really comes down to how much those flaws bother you.

But that review seemed to ignore all the flaws. Great character interaction? Good thieving skills? Not when I played it. I have no objection to someone giving the game a positive review (I would) but it'd be nice for them not to brush over the problems it has.

Oh, and theres an automatic loss of credibility points for claiming to be an RPG expert (whatever that is).

 

[Volourn]

This deserves a very clear:

R00fles!

 

[Avin]

first question: why the hell to review morrowind *now*?
second question: has he played another CRPG in life?

 

[FireWolf]

It's not pure first person mayhem. You won't feel like you're just button mashing and dodging fireballs. The combat is a bit slower paced than that.

I might have actually enjoyed Morrowind if the combat was "pure first person mayhem". What irritated me about the combat was that it was slow, uninvolving and about as tactical as a dead sea bass. I did feel like I was button mashing. Just very....very...slowly.

He played morrowind for half a year without beating it. This is the indication of a good game? Ok, so it is big, but does big mean better? Or does big mean drawn-out. You'd think the "best (single player rpg ever" would be so engrossing that you'd play out to finish in the first sitting.

Apparrently Hard-core RPGers! will love being bogged down in meaningless events with little to no direction.

dialogue is not spoken, the NPCs do offer some spoken words when you walk up to or by them. "Make it quick outlander!"

Obviously, this makes the game far more emmersive. Every single dark elf you encounter says the same mantra whenever you talk to them. The boring, mindless and lifeless text of morrowind was possibly the single-most annoying feature.

Does playing RPGs for a long time make you an expert on good rpgs? Everyone's an expert these days. Then again, can't expect too much from someone who reviews the xbox version of a title.

 

[Vault Dweller]

first question: why the hell to review morrowind *now*?

It's a new site. They've also reviewed NWN and KOTOR (twice) praising it for open-ended gameplay.

second question: has he played another CRPG in life?

Duh! He's an expert. He played "a WHOLE LOT OF RPGs".

 

[StraitLacedDeviant]

his website is G0ing P@ces. At least hes out ther d0ing t1ngs. You can't criticise him wen your not creative like him.

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

It warms the cockles of my heart to see Morrowind still discussed almost 2 and a half years after its release

edit: what exactly ARE the "cockles of one's heart", anyway?

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

It warms the cockles of my heart to see Morrowind still discussed almost 2 and a half years after its release

Fallout's still discussed 6 years after its release :razz: But yes, Morrowind does come up once in a while, for various reasons.

edit: what exactly ARE the "cockles of one's heart", anyway?

According to Merriam Webster online, its:

Main Entry: cockles of the heart
Etymology: perhaps from 2cockle
: the core of one's being -- usually used in the phrase warm the cockles of the heart

"Cockles" is apparently synonim with "wrinkles".

 

[Whipporowill]

It warms the cockles of my heart to see Morrowind still discussed almost 2 and a half years after its release

edit: what exactly ARE the "cockles of one's heart", anyway?

If it gets them cockles boiling, we can talk about Daggerfall instead.

Oh, bt w - feel free to discuss what you guys learnt from Morrowind and what you'll try to avoid in Oblivion. The great character interaction this reviewer talks about for instance... oh my!

 

[fnordcircle]

So it's correct then to say 'I want to feel your cock in the cockles of my backside'?

 

[Mendoza]

Oh, bt w - feel free to discuss what you guys learnt from Morrowind and what you'll try to avoid in Oblivion. The great character interaction this reviewer talks about for instance... oh my!

Out of interest, how would the codexers who are critical of the character interaction/dialogue system change it.

It was obviously very generic, with very few character exhibiting anything approaching a personality. However, given the openess of Morrowind, it allowed you to ask any npc about anything they might reasonable be aware of, instead of being very limited in what you could talk to someone about.

Basically, how would you combine the ability to question npc's on a whole range of topics with the kind of dialogue trees and ways of expressing yourself that other rpgs tend to have?

(And I'm assuming that writing ridiculous amounts of dialogue isn't an option).

 

[Vault Dweller]

However, given the openess of Morrowind, it allowed you to ask any npc about anything they might reasonable be aware of, instead of being very limited in what you could talk to someone about.

The problem, imo, was that whatever they had to say on "anything they might be reasonable aware of", was mostly pointless, and useless. So, without planting them dialogues trees everywhere, it would be good if NPCs could provide useful info. For example, talking to different people in one area could give you a bits of some useful info (for example, some bits and pieces that tell a story about an ancient temple that was destroyed many years ago, but allegedly there were catacombs, etc) Without talking to people and gathering their info as pieces of a puzzle you wouldn't know what to look for. Something like that. Overall, it should be something that you can use.

A starting quest with the hidden stash was a good example, although that was a quest, not a random conversation.

 

[Whipporowill]

One of the worst examples of the extremly generic dialogue was when one the Argonians, who incidentally had a very bad grasp of the language, started talking fluently on another topic...

 

[Sol Invictus]

I don't think Morrowind was too bad a game, and we did choose it as one of our top 3 games a couple of years back at the Codex, after all. Certainly isn't as good as what that reviewer, wrote, though... and that review is indeed poor.

Most games today are about killing things. Even old school RPGs were mostly about killing things. Morrowind doesn't depart from this formula. Where it does depart from older RPGs is that the combat is all real-time first person hack and slash.

Someone forgot about the existence of games like UU, Might and Magic and Lands of Lore.

 

[littleboy]

I actualy own it for my xbox but have only put the game disk in once, made my charicter went into the gaurd house stole some shit went out, and the first person i talked to had a dialogue box the size of the screen with 3 paragarphs of boring text i had to read on my t.v. (uhmmm oookay strike one). Everyone was hiddious (strike two). And when i snuck into another house a guard misteriously seemed to know exactly were i was and hunt me down everytime (strike three, your out).

 

[Mendoza]

However, given the openess of Morrowind, it allowed you to ask any npc about anything they might reasonable be aware of, instead of being very limited in what you could talk to someone about.

The problem, imo, was that whatever they had to say on "anything they might be reasonable aware of", was mostly pointless, and useless. So, without planting them dialogues trees everywhere, it would be good if NPCs could provide useful info. For example, talking to different people in one area could give you a bits of some useful info (for example, some bits and pieces that tell a story about an ancient temple that was destroyed many years ago, but allegedly there were catacombs, etc) Without talking to people and gathering their info as pieces of a puzzle you wouldn't know what to look for. Something like that. Overall, it should be something that you can use.

A starting quest with the hidden stash was a good example, although that was a quest, not a random conversation.

True. The system could certainly use a lot of refinement. A lot of the things you could ask people were more for flavour that any real purpose, and there were a lot of cases where you might wander around the a town asking everyone about a topic until you meet someone with something helpful to say. Whilst this might be realistic, it isn't exactly fun and doesn't add anything (except possibly frustration). Also, a lot of the 'latest rumours' were pointless, and most of the others were too vague to be useful.

There were examples where I felt the system worked well though. There was a quest where you had to track down someone who'd stolen some money, and you had to ask various people about him to follow his trail. Unlike a lot of similar quests though, this one would always point you in the right direction, so you would ask more and more specific groups of people until you got the location of the thief.

 

[jiujitsu]

I liked Morrowind it was pretty fun. I just wish it relied a little more on dialogue sometimes.

 

[geminito]

I liked Morrowind it was pretty fun. I just wish it relied a little more on dialogue sometimes.

That's funny, I say the opposite about KOTOR. "I wish she would SHUT UP!" Those NPC's spoke WAY TOO MUCH! Good grief, they were whiners. But I guess whiners are part of Star Wars tradition. The plot was pretty thin in KOTOR, I wish there had been a quick Morrowind-style way to get the information I needed from those cliche NPC's.

But Fallout's dialogue is still outstanding. Far better than any other RPG's I've personally played. Dialogue trees don't make the dialogue great. If the dialogue is bad, it doesn't matter how it's implemented, imho.

 

[Jung]

Yeah, MW was ultimately a lame game. Glowing reviews are suspect.

This same site(not the same reviewer) says that Divine Divinity is better than Fallout and Diablo ...combined!

http://www.gamersinfo.net/index.php?art/id:126

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

Well, one or two glowing reviews might indeed be suspect, but Morrowind received a very large number of glowing reviews and numerous awards.
http://www.elderscrolls.com/links/links_reviews.htm
GameRankings.com bears this out, the average review with 151 reviews counted for the PC version is 89.9 -- not too shabby.

While obviously it's not a game for everyone and it's certainly not without its flaws, Morrowind WAS very well received.

And don't worry -- it doesn't bother me if some people didn't like it. All feedback is good, positive AND negative.

 

[Avin]

morrowind could be better, MrSmiley... as most of actual CRPGs, of course.

i stopped playing it for two reasons. first the ugly ugly ugly faces... it looked like someone use scissor and glum to put a paper mask in the people. second almost everybody seems to had a quest in sleeves what make me almost despair sometimes... but i had funny with some quests (the boots of blinding speed!!!!!!) and trowing astonishing fireballs in the starry dark night.

so, please, if i can't have isometric tb at least try to focus on less better quests for FO3.

"But I guess whiners are part of Star Wars tradition"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
couldn't describe better SW fans

 

[Vault Dweller]

@MrSmiley:

I liked Daggerfall a lot, and I was curious how you see the transition from Daggerfall to Morrowind. What was the reason for many changes (no banks, no horses, etc) and many simplifications (many skill were gone - climbing was rather handy, swimming, backstab, dodge, etiquette, languages; no advantages/disadvantages in char creation, etc)?

 

[Transcendent One]

I stopped playing Morrowind after about 15 hours when the graphics wore off, my character started killing stuff with one hit, and I realized all the quests are the same and locations boring. Before that, the game was fun, though perhaps not amazing. I wouldn't be surprised if this reviewer has only played several hours. But whether he did or not, the review is still full of mind-boggling errors.

P.S. where the hell are random dungeons? Daggerfall's dungeons were great, if a bit unrealistic. But way better than Morrowind's.