Editorial How Morrowind changed the world

[Dominicholaszlogan Willou]

Morrowind owns your sorry little asses cuntfaces. You wouldn't know a good game if it fucked you in the ass.

 

[Atrokkus]

As for getting killed a lot, in Gothic 2, I leave the castle, walk down the path a ways and have a wolf attack me. I've pretty much been unable to get beyond the wolf. Maybe I suck as an RPG player and should have my license revoked. Perhaps, though, it's not just a problem with my skills, but also a problem with the interface.

That's called a good map design, and a realistic, to boot.
This is one of the things that I really love about Gothic.
There are no difficulty levels, the wilderness is not divided into "noob areas" "ubar monster areas" and stuff. There are just DIFFERENT MONSTERS. and they roam free in the game world, and you can stumble upon something you can't yet defeat. And that's great.

If you can't defeat that wolf, it means your level is too low, or you are so lazy that you don't even try to control your char in combat.
If the first, then you just better avoid those tuff guys for now, and prey upon some scavengers or molerats. It's logical enough.

 

[Grantus]

As for getting killed a lot, in Gothic 2, I leave the castle, walk down the path a ways and have a wolf attack me. I've pretty much been unable to get beyond the wolf. Maybe I suck as an RPG player and should have my license revoked. Perhaps, though, it's not just a problem with my skills, but also a problem with the interface.

That's called a good map design, and a realistic, to boot.
This is one of the things that I really love about Gothic.
There are no difficulty levels, the wilderness is not divided into "noob areas" "ubar monster areas" and stuff. There are just DIFFERENT MONSTERS. and they roam free in the game world, and you can stumble upon something you can't yet defeat. And that's great.

If you can't defeat that wolf, it means your level is too low, or you are so lazy that you don't even try to control your char in combat.
If the first, then you just better avoid those tuff guys for now, and prey upon some scavengers or molerats. It's logical enough.

The wolf is in the path right outside the starting castle in the game! I'm not sure how I can level up when the first thing I enounter kills me. I can't get 20 steps outside the castle without dying. Sorry, but that's not a fun gaming experience.

As for my laziness or lack thereof, sorry, but you know nothing about me. By the time I figure out how to arm a weapon in Gothic 2, I'm dead. Maybe that makes me incompetent, but I don't seem to have problems with controls in most other games I play. And I've been playing video games since Space Invaders.

 

[crpgnut]

@Grantus: What you have in this forum are a large bunch of Morrowind haters. I'm an admitted fanboy of the whole TES series. Many here think that Fallout is the end-all be-all crpg. It was a better than average game and I can see their viewpoint.

I love Morrowind. It has some nasty faults but also some great qualities (alchemy, graphical splendour, birthsigns, 10 races, nearly unlimited exploration), etc. This is an EXTREMELY niche group of crpgers, several of whom have an agenda of hatred towards Bethesda. I find them to be quite entertaining and I hope you do too :D Be careful if VD, Volourn, or Llamagod start foaming at the mouth. I'm not sure whether they're still taking their pills. They're not going to change our minds and we're not going to change theirs.

 

[dipdipdip]

Morrowind owns your sorry little asses cuntfaces. You wouldn't know a good game if it fucked you in the ass.

Get lost, little one-note poster man.

 

[Vault Dweller]

A game that has birthsigns and 10 races must be AWSOME!!! The errors of my ways are clear to me now.

 

[Grantus]

@Grantus: What you have in this forum are a large bunch of Morrowind haters. I'm an admitted fanboy of the whole TES series. Many here think that Fallout is the end-all be-all crpg. It was a better than average game and I can see their viewpoint.

I love Morrowind. It has some nasty faults but also some great qualities (alchemy, graphical splendour, birthsigns, 10 races, nearly unlimited exploration), etc. This is an EXTREMELY niche group of crpgers, several of whom have an agenda of hatred towards Bethesda. I find them to be quite entertaining and I hope you do too :D Be careful if VD, Volourn, or Llamagod start foaming at the mouth. I'm not sure whether they're still taking their pills. They're not going to change our minds and we're not going to change theirs.

Good points, as were the points made above by Seven, who suggested CRPGs have become pretty stagnant. Heck, I'm so desperate for a fun new RPG that I waiting for the Dungeon Lords 1.2 patch, with the dim hope that the patch will make the game playable.

On the other hand, I'd like to think I don't have so much tunnel vision that I can't recognize a fun game when it comes out.

There seems to be an attitude among some people that no good RPG has been made in four or five or eight years. Or that an RPG has to be a third-person isometric view to be good, or that you have to struggle with the controls for a game to be rewarding, or other strange requirements. I'm sure I have my own set of biases, including the problems I've had with the Gothic series.

I'm not sure that makes me lazy or stupid or ignorant, as some here have suggested. Of course, comments from Morrowind fans saying the game "owns your sorry asses" aren't exactly helping my side of the argument, either.

 

[Vault Dweller]

On the other hand, I'd like to think I don't have so much tunnel vision that I can't recognize a fun game when it comes out.

Don't forget that this discussion and your first post weren't exploring the question whether or not MW was a fun game, but whether or not it was non-linear and world-changing, which it wasn't.

 

[Ellester]

You know what is funny? In the RPGCodex picks of 2002, 3 out of the 4 staffers (Calis, Mistress and Exitium (whoever he is)) picked Morrowind as one of their games of 2002.

Saint was the honourable exception.

I fell into this trap too. When Morrowind was released I loved it. NWN, IWD2 and Dungeon Siege were all others released around this time and I felt Morrowind to be superior to them all. Besides the indie games, the rpg of the year should have been Morrowind over NWN or the others released in 2002. In fact I still feel this way.

Honestly it was one of the last games to make me really excited about playing. I played a thief/mage type of character. I liked casting spells (hardly ever did melee), I thought alchemy was cool, sneaking, lockpicking, etc… were all cool for my thieving side. I just explored and explored and hardly ever did anything related to the main quest. Finding sunken ships and underwater caves I thought were cool. I loved the game at the time and got in about 60-80 hours of fun. But then it finally hit, the NPC’s never changed, the quests were all similar, the dungeons and caves were all the same, and you got to a point where you couldn’t be killed. And alchemy started to drive me crazy (I now hate it with a passion). Stopping at every plant to find some ingredients, got real old.

I think Morrowind was fun for a while and in 2002 I would say I liked it a lot, but after you play it for a while you see how repetitive everything is and you find out how shallow the game really is. It took a while to kick it, but it did. Nevertheless I still got my money’s worth, but it got too dull for me to actually complete the game.

 

[chaedwards]

Actually, Ellester you've summed up the game for me too. I never even got to Tribunal, despite buying it to fix the crappy journal.

Of course, adding Tribunal meant that a new character would always be attacked when he first slept by an assassin, who could quite possibly kill him or her. Now that's good game design.

 

[Elwro]

It's easy to kill the assassin (introduced by the Tribunal expansion). Last time I played I (being still a complete 1st lvl n00b) lured him to a cavern filled with water and he drowned (his horrid pathfinding skillz made him stuck on sth underwater), and I swam to the other side. My other chars killed him in hth combat and the fight was challenging at best.
I played Morrowind + both of the expansions for a year or more and liked them very much.

But I really wanted to write about Gothic 2 . The first opponent you encounter should be a goblin - it's even described in the manual. If you somehow evade him, then there's a wolf all right. But iirc it should be a "Young Wolf" (not sure, played the Polish Version) - an easier version of the monster. You should be able to kill it even by mindlessly punching Attack Right * Attack Left * Attack Right...

But two things should be stressed: if you play for the first time, DON'T install the expansion and DON'T play a mage.

Switching from Morrowind to Gothics you have to forget about the "hit the opponent as often as you can" style. Maybe that was your problem. The key to the fighting system in Gothics is proper timing. You have to experiment different fighting methods with different opponents.
I completely redefined the keys in Gothic 2; my system was complicated and required some thinking, but it was good for my playing style. Try to adapt the interface to your needs; it's really worth it as the has some great moments and is generally very good (imo of course).

 

[Jed]

Morrowind owns your sorry little asses cuntfaces. You wouldn't know a good game if it fucked you in the ass.

Maybe you can enlighten us--what was the last good game that fucked your ass?

 

[LlamaGod]

He lubs Morrowind so he can go into taverns full of people not sitting or drinking and all staring at you, and playing Barbie with the TES editor and his character's paperdoll.

LOOK I MADE A HOUSE ITS GOT STANDS AND I CAN PUT CLOTHES ON IT ^__________^

 

[Atrokkus]

Switching from Morrowind to Gothics you have to forget about the "hit the opponent as often as you can" style. Maybe that was your problem. The key to the fighting system in Gothics is proper timing. You have to experiment different fighting methods with different opponents.

Exactly. I told ya, there ain't no dumbfucking clicking opponents to death methods in Gothic. And of course it adds complexity and makes the fights much more challenging than in Morrowind. And most importantly, it's more suitable for the 1-3rd person viewpoint that both games share.

 

[Atrokkus]

He lubs Morrowind so he can go into taverns full of people not sitting or drinking and all staring at you, and playing Barbie with the TES editor and his character's paperdoll.

Hah! Yeah, good point there. gotta love those "realistic and life-like NPC behaviors"! ^_^


Damn, i can't believe that still there are people who say that Morrowind is a pure RPG.
Poor wretches.

 

[dipdipdip]

The game's strippers also make for good conversation.

Hello, traveler. I can teach you in the ways of Morrowind Lore, Acrobatics, or Speechcraft, or maybe you're looking for a specific place or someone in particular?

 

[crpgnut]

The Barbie effect! That was another great aspect of Morrowind, but definitely not in the original game. It is only fun once you have a character that doesn't look like puke. One of my few complaints about Morrowind was how ugly the NPCs were. Once you get Better Bodies and some of the good face mods, the Barbie doll part of the game was fun too.

It'll be interesting to see how Oblivion deals with clothing this time around. IIRC, you can change your character's height, weight, and age. If so, how do the clothing meshes match all the variations? A 300 lb Nord wouldn't look too good in a 120 lb Breton's pants :D

 

[Claw]

On one hand, modding is bad because it's making up for perceived problems with the game. But wait, it's ok when you do a complete conversion of the game, because changing the game completely isn't about fixing problems in the game?

I never said modding was bad. I said it was bad that even fans felt the game needed fixing. And all UT players I know played mods in addition to vanilla UT, not instead. I can't visit the Elder Scrolls forum without noticing someone complaining about a flaw in Morrowind and someone else suggesting a mod fixing it. It's never been like that with UT.

I've never called Gothic's controls impossible, just annoying enough to make it not fun to play. If I have to work at the controls, I'm probably not going to play a game. I'm in this for fun, not work.

It's odd how your entire reply is void of any new statement. You deny a claim I didn't make and repeat that you found the controls annoying and not worth the effort. What's the point?

Using Alt to jump doesn't feel right to me, or using tab to open inventory. The text conversation controls are pretty non-intuitive as well. Even the key remapping process is harder than it has to be. I could go on.

Complaining about the default configuration is silly unless you can't change them or only with difficulties like in ONI, I just can't see how the conversation controls were non-intuitive as I certainly didn't think so (more precisely, I didn't think about them any more than I think about breathing), and finally your complaint about remapping sounds like a joke.
It's hard to take someone serious who seems to complain about everything he can even think of in a game. Key mapping was "hard"? You gotta be kidding me.

A In the context of my post, I think you'll see that when I say "I tend to move on" I mean to another game, not to the next area in Gothic.

And in the context of your post, I think you ought to see that when I said "you shouldn't have been able to" I was referring to something you specifically stated you "CAN" do as opposed to something you "TEND TO" do. Of course I was being ironic anyway.

As for getting killed a lot, in Gothic 2, I leave the castle, walk down the path a ways and have a wolf attack me. I've pretty much been unable to get beyond the wolf. Maybe I suck as an RPG player and should have my license revoked. Perhaps, though, it's not just a problem with my skills, but also a problem with the interface.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. We will never know, as there are only two groups I am aware of, those who don't see the problem and those who cannot describe it.

My suspicion is that people who find the controls difficult just didn't get how the character development system works, seeing how there is no ToHit-Roll in Gothic. The controls are hard because your character sucks. I still don't see how combat is extremely difficult. Also, having skills isn't equal to being oblivious of a difficulty. I know that I am not very good at player skill-based games, your sarcastic congratulations notwithstanding.

Hey, I have no idea what kinds of things you keep in the room with you.

Didn't you play Monkey Island? Let me guess: The controls were too annoying, and you got your ass kicked in your first duel.

I've played them both, and I prefer Morrowind. If you prefer Gothic, good for you.

From your description of your experience, saying you "played" it is an exaggeration, but that is besides the point just like your whole "main point".
I don't care that you like Morrowind is better. I wanted to hear what the problem with Gothic 2's controls was supposed to be.
I denied that the controls were weird by pointing out the similarities to other games, and I assured your lack of skills to challenge the notion that your problem in combat was the game's fault.
Unfortunately "Perhaps, though, it's not just a problem with my skills, but also a problem with the interface" was your best attempt at describing the problem, and then you went and brought up alot of other complaints, all vague and unspecific, and practically irrelevant.

 

[Claw]

Morrowind owns your sorry little asses cuntfaces. You wouldn't know a good game if it fucked you in the ass.

Sig! :!:

By the time I figure out how to arm a weapon in Gothic 2, I'm dead. Maybe that makes me incompetent, but I don't seem to have problems with controls in most other games I play.

What? The principle is the same as in Morrowind: You first activate the weapon in your inventory, and then you hit the "enter combat mode" key. That's exactly how it works in Morrowind!

What did you do, stroll outside without an active weapon? Were you surprised that opening the inventory didn't pause the game? Was it too difficult to hit the right key to enter combat mode? WTF?

 

[Grantus]

Unfortunately "Perhaps, though, it's not just a problem with my skills, but also a problem with the interface" was your best attempt at describing the problem, and then you went and brought up alot of other complaints, all vague and unspecific, and practically irrelevant.

If my specfic complaints about default key assigments aren't enough, here are more complaints:

-- You can't use the mouse to select items in your inventory. Is that a show-stopper? No, but it's annoying.

-- No quick save. You have to hit escape and type in a save game name.

-- No inital character creation. Again, not a fatal flaw, but it makes me like the game less.

So those complaints may be "practically irrelevent" to you. Fine. To me, they're a bunch of annoying little things Gothic 2 got wrong. I'm not saying Morrowind was without annoying problems, it's just that the game play it offered to me allowed me to overlook its faults, while with Gothic 2, I had trouble getting beyond the faults to experience the game.

 

[Claw]

- Your complaints weren't specific, they only described the result, not the cause of the problem.
- It's a minor inconvenience.
- There is a quick save for non-morons.
- Yes and no. Your character's name is "the Hero" and you can completely customize your skills ingame as you start without relevant skills. Also, you can choose a sort of class - again, in the game, which I consider by far superior to doing so in character creation.
Which I agree that it's "less" in some way, it's not significantly less especially when I know that you simply don't know the game.

Oh, whatever. There is no getting a serious reply from you.

 

[Grantus]

- Your complaints weren't specific, they only described the result, not the cause of the problem.
- It's a minor inconvenience.
- There is a quick save for non-morons.
- Yes and no. Your character's name is "the Hero" and you can completely customize your skills ingame as you start without relevant skills. Also, you can choose a sort of class - again, in the game, which I consider by far superior to doing so in character creation.
Which I agree that it's "less" in some way, it's not significantly less especially when I know that you simply don't know the game.

Oh, whatever. There is no getting a serious reply from you.

Ok, if I missed the quicksave feature, it's because it's described nowhere I can find in the manual.

Is there a quick save for non-assholes, too? Do you get to use it?

As for character customization, I understand that concept in the game. You have to have some character customization/levling in the game, or it wouldn't be an RPG now, would it?

If you'll read carefully, I say there's no "initial character creation." I don't know how you can even argue about that. You get one choice, one initial set of skills, one character model.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

@Grantus: What you have in this forum are a large bunch of Morrowind haters. I'm an admitted fanboy of the whole TES series. Many here think that Fallout is the end-all be-all crpg. It was a better than average game and I can see their viewpoint.

My problem with Morrowind is that the combat sucked and the dialogue sucked. If just one of those had been decent, the game would have been okay. The problem is, neither one of those were decent. Without decent combat or dialogue in a CRPG, what's left to enjoy? Apparently just wandering around is all that's left and I did have some fun just walking around and popping in to places to explore. Then again, when you pop in a dungeon to explore, you're reminded of how crappy the combat is. When you pop in a town building to explore, you're reminded of how crappy the dialogue is.

 

[Shagnak]

Morrowind have in fact changed the world.

Today I met some people, not only where they ugly, they had nothing of interest to say and they repeated themself over and over. In fact, I also think they still have not moved from where I last saw them.

LOL
Fuck, you know what? That ain't so silly.
I vsited a retirement home recently and it was EXACTLY like that! :shock:

 

[crpgnut]

My problem with Morrowind is that the combat sucked and the dialogue sucked. If just one of those had been decent, the game would have been okay. The problem is, neither one of those were decent. Without decent combat or dialogue in a CRPG, what's left to enjoy? Apparently just wandering around is all that's left and I did have some fun just walking around and popping in to places to explore. Then again, when you pop in a dungeon to explore, you're reminded of how crappy the combat is. When you pop in a town building to explore, you're reminded of how crappy the dialogue is.

I understand that, SP. I didn't mind the combat. I generally don't like combat in any game, though I like turn-based party combat best. I thought the exploration, alchemy, enchantment, spell-maker, and faction parts of the game were awesome. I agree totally about dialogue. It was the worst part of the game. However, dialogue is not that important to me in a game. I prefer not to waste too much time talking to NPCs and most of my time completing quests, leveling my character, and finding phat lewt I want the game to be all about me :D I enjoyed becoming the master of the mage's guild even though Morrowind didn't really acknowledge that feat in any special way.

What I want to see a LOT more of in Oblivion is recognition of the main character's place in the world. There were a few quests in the main game that did this, but not nearly enough. I remember one quest where a guy has purchased a bunch of items on credit. When the merchants don't get their money, they send your character to collect their goods. You can convince the guy of the error of his ways, and if you do so, he joins the temple. You then find that character in the temple and the whole town thinks highly of you. I really hope this part of the game is heavily expanded. We'll see.