Mithter Thibbs
Novice
My problem with Morrowind's plot was that there was no payoff at the end of it. I realize that in a game as open-ended as Morrowind's supposed to be, they can't have such a complete and total payoff that playing beyond the end of the game becomes lame (a la fallout 2), but come on. It was actually a reasonable story if you followed it closely enough, but that last bit... I ran around the path looking for the way to the stone, He jumped off the bloody side and into the lava pit... whack whack whack and BAM! That's it. It was just disappointingly easy for one thing, the final confrontation, and it didn't live up to any of the potential that I thought it might have had. Given the history of the four involved, I was thinking that there might have been a chance to side with one or the other faction, but in the end it was just a straight up "I must killz you!". No remorse, no redemption, nothing that would've added a bit of depth to the villain's character... depth that was implied all throughout the game up to that point. Being Nerevarine just meant Killing the Foozle at the end of the day; no exploration of the theme of reincarnation, or anything thing else they introduced within the actual story. Boom. You're dead, I win. Yay me.
Nope. My beef with the plotline wasn't that it was Linear in a Continuous World. It's just that the ending fizzled completely. Tribunal's ending was a bit better... haven't fininshed Bloodmoon yet, so I can't comment on that at all.
Regarding the nature of linearity and roleplaying.. it's a tough call for me, which style I prefer. Bioware's roleplaying tends to be forced, in that outside of how you level up your character(s), they like to keep the player in line. Plot Doors will be locked and unpickable and unopenable so you don't enter the wrong area or get the wrong item at the wrong time, and things are pretty well force-fed to you. Pretty much all of the variability in the plot comes through dialogue: If you're a wizard, you might be given a dialogue option to try and put the Ogre Guard asleep, but if you try to actually do it he'll just become hostile. If your character's a diplomatic type but they forgot to put in an option to persuade a certain foe, you're just out of luck. Their game worlds haven't been deep enough to support anything they haven't explicitly thought of.
The freeform sort of roleplaying offers more choice in this regard (ie. if I know there's a certain key in a certain house, I could try and steal it, or I could barge in and kill the inhabitants and take it; it gives you more of an opportunity to play the character you envisioned at startup by not forcing you to take the "Good But Clueless" or "Mass Murdering Psycho" dialogue options), but Morrowind's NPCs and level advancement left that game feeling lifeless. The Hive Mind syndrome they were all afflicted with just didn't do anything for me, and the leveling up led all characters to the same style of gameplay, no matter where you started out (I was a "mage", but the problem with that was that you couldn't actually kill the higher level creatures with magic. They were too strong, and the costs were too high).
IMO, both developers could stand to move in the direction of the other. Bioware needs to release the iron grip they've put around the players' neck and offload some of their roleplaying options onto the players instead of their scripters, and Bethesda needs a stronger emphasis on characters and story within their vast and beautiful worlds... to give the place a sense of life, instead of the MMORPG deadness that seemed to characterize Morrowind (oh, and they could do with a good combat system as well).
As to which style I prefer... depends on which game I've played last. If it's a Bioware Herd-Me-Along-the Path adventure, I'd say freeform. If it was Morrowind or Daggerfall, I'd say the more story-driven style. *shrugs* Bioware's BG1 most closely approched my ideal blend of the two, outside of the Fallouts or Ultimas, but even between those games my preferences vary depending on which day of the week it is.
Nope. My beef with the plotline wasn't that it was Linear in a Continuous World. It's just that the ending fizzled completely. Tribunal's ending was a bit better... haven't fininshed Bloodmoon yet, so I can't comment on that at all.
Regarding the nature of linearity and roleplaying.. it's a tough call for me, which style I prefer. Bioware's roleplaying tends to be forced, in that outside of how you level up your character(s), they like to keep the player in line. Plot Doors will be locked and unpickable and unopenable so you don't enter the wrong area or get the wrong item at the wrong time, and things are pretty well force-fed to you. Pretty much all of the variability in the plot comes through dialogue: If you're a wizard, you might be given a dialogue option to try and put the Ogre Guard asleep, but if you try to actually do it he'll just become hostile. If your character's a diplomatic type but they forgot to put in an option to persuade a certain foe, you're just out of luck. Their game worlds haven't been deep enough to support anything they haven't explicitly thought of.
The freeform sort of roleplaying offers more choice in this regard (ie. if I know there's a certain key in a certain house, I could try and steal it, or I could barge in and kill the inhabitants and take it; it gives you more of an opportunity to play the character you envisioned at startup by not forcing you to take the "Good But Clueless" or "Mass Murdering Psycho" dialogue options), but Morrowind's NPCs and level advancement left that game feeling lifeless. The Hive Mind syndrome they were all afflicted with just didn't do anything for me, and the leveling up led all characters to the same style of gameplay, no matter where you started out (I was a "mage", but the problem with that was that you couldn't actually kill the higher level creatures with magic. They were too strong, and the costs were too high).
IMO, both developers could stand to move in the direction of the other. Bioware needs to release the iron grip they've put around the players' neck and offload some of their roleplaying options onto the players instead of their scripters, and Bethesda needs a stronger emphasis on characters and story within their vast and beautiful worlds... to give the place a sense of life, instead of the MMORPG deadness that seemed to characterize Morrowind (oh, and they could do with a good combat system as well).
As to which style I prefer... depends on which game I've played last. If it's a Bioware Herd-Me-Along-the Path adventure, I'd say freeform. If it was Morrowind or Daggerfall, I'd say the more story-driven style. *shrugs* Bioware's BG1 most closely approched my ideal blend of the two, outside of the Fallouts or Ultimas, but even between those games my preferences vary depending on which day of the week it is.
