Elder Scrolls Why Morrowind is a bad RPG

[AwesomeButton]

 

[Seethe]

More yellow and piss filters than the Mexico scenes in Breaking Bad.

 

[Vic]

The better question is why do you cut up my quote to suit your needs, twist the meaning behind my argument and use it as a strawman to push your own agenda.

Why don't we take a look at the whole argument, with key points highlighted for your convenience:

a large part to its success is the gambling aspect of hooking people in with random loot. The witcher series has at least good writing, take the loot away from morrowind and what do you have? A bunch of broken systems and a shit ton of cliff racers chasing you around the map. Static NPCs with wikipedia style dialogue. The lore and setting are its only strength, but you can only look for so long at giant mushrooms.

Why would you need to take loot away from Morrowind? Should other RPGs take loot away, too?

As for your question - Morrowind has an interesting world to explore. I mean the actual places that are NOT dungeons. Sure going into the wild and exploring dungeons is a big part of Morrowind (or... any RPG), but Morrowind actually gives you this impression of civilization being, you know, civilization by giving you stuff to do in cities and their surrounding areas.

I agree, I had a lot of fun exploring the game, in the early and mid game. But once the powerbloat started to set in dungeons started to become loot pinhatas. which intensified the gambling effect. Additionally, the map is just littered with dungeons and they don't get marked on the overworld like in Skyrim, so whenever you encounter a new dungeon in the wild that is not a kwama egg mine, you feel compelled to run it or risk missing out on potential awesome loot.

All of my best gear comes from a random dungeon that I found while just exploring the map. If I wouldn't have entered that one random dungeon and found Chrysamere or that one underwater grotto near Vivec to find the dragonbone cuirass, I would've missed out on awesome loot. Even though most dungeons do not have anything good in them, and there are just so many dungeons everywhere. This is the very definition of skinner's box and just bad, bad game development practice. Not to mention all the smaller loot hidden in chests and barrels (fargoth's ring anyone?). Unless of course you're fine ignoring all the dungeons and just look at the fauna and flora, but then I wonder what do you do in the game besides playing it like a walking simulator?

Have you played Morrowind recently? Or are you arguing from nostalgia when you played it as a kid and were amazed by the world?

I've actually played Oblivion twice before playing Skyrim. I've played vanilla Skyrim the day it was released, binge played it in fact since I was sick. Afterwards I've played heavily modded Skyrim two more times which made me question how did I play vanilla Skyrim in the first place since it's mind numbingly shallow and brain dead. I've blamed it on me being 19 year old and not having a fully developed brain yet. Then I've played Morrowind for the first time ever in 2014, lightly modded (mostly graphics, balance and minor QoL changes), and I enjoyed it far more than both Oblivion and Skyrim. Mostly because of the dungeon exploration, the RPG elements, the spellmaking and itemization (at least Oblivion still has some of these). The world/towns are also objectively better than Oblivion and Skyrim. It also made me realize that no matter how much I try to fix Skyrim through mods, it will never be a successful venture.

So not only did you misquote me, but you also admitted that the key part to morrowind, and by extension the whole elder scrolls series is the dungeon exploration. Now my question still stands, if you remove the loot from Morrowind, would you still be compelled to explore dungeons?

Anyway, I'm taking a break from morrowind and playing a real RPG right now which is NWN, so I won't have much interest to keep posting here anymore.

Cheers.

 

[MWaser]

Now my question still stands, if you remove the loot from Morrowind, would you still be compelled to explore dungeons?

Anyway, I'm taking a break from morrowind and playing a real RPG right now which is NWN, so I won't have much interest to keep posting here anymore.

Well, considering Morrowind has no incentive to kill creatures, I don't quite see what the point of exploring dungeons would be if there was nothing in them.
What a fucking schizo question to ask.

If you remove the xp from NWN, would you still be compelled to kill creatures and finish quests?

 

[Vic]

I don't quite see what the point of exploring dungeons would be if there was nothing in them.

Exactly, and as dungeon exploration is the meat and potatoes of the series, as also said by the other poster, there would be little reason to play the game at all. Hence, it proves my point that people play this game for the loot, glad we could finally agree. But the excessive amount of it, the either random or randomly handplaced nature of said loot creates a compulsion in the player for degenerate gameplay like pixel hunting in dungeons or opening all those stupid barrels to get to said loot, which was a deliberate, Machiavellian design decision by Bethesda. You and the other poster said it yourself, if there was no loot, you would probably not play. Now, how many kids played this game until late in the night, probably not because they were so engrossed in the storyline but, guess what, because they were hooked on random loot. How many people like to collect stupid shit like fill their house with kwama eggs, etc. You may be superior to those kids and weirdos and play the game for... what, exactly? Question still remains unanswered, but I do believe, and we can agree to disagree that random and randomly placed loot was in fact creating addictive and degenerate behavior in players.

I feel very strongly against gambling in video games, especially all those mobile games that kids play these games, hence my stance. Anyway glad we could clear this up. Cya.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Yeah, for me I want to see all in one playthrough, except for what is locked out, like the other great houses. If you play Morrowind with a completionist mindset, I think the skinner box argument becomes quite apparent, at least it did to me and I got burned out on the game, still have to finish the DLCs tho. Trying to clear all dungeons becomes really tedious as there are just so many of them and various notes and quest items are placed on the floor, on tables, etc. plus the epic loot ofc that I mentioned, means you have to be really thorough when going through a dungeon.

Morrowind might have been retroactively affected by later games that actually do foster a completionist mentality in which the player is urged to experience all content in a single (first) playthrough, before moving along to another game. By design, the player is guided to join suitable factions/guilds, which will offer quests that occupy a large part of a playthrough. There are 10 joinable factions/guilds offering a large number of quests, of which 3 (Fighters Guild, House Redoran, and Imperial Legion) are aimed at fighter-type characters, 4 (Mages Guild, House Telvanni, Tribunal Temple, and Imperial Cult) at mage-type characters, and 3 (Thieves Guild, House Hlaalu, and Camonna Tong) at thief-type characters. There are also a variety of miscellaneous quests and many dungeons not connected to any quest, with the expectation that any given playthrough will experience some considerable, but far from complete, portion of these quests and dungeons, in addition to completing most, if not all, content for three of those ten guilds/factions, and of course also finishing the main quest. This still allows for the player to experience much new content in a second and third playthrough, if a different type of character selects different guilds/factions.

Every once in a while, the Codex has a new person complaining that Morrowind doesn't actively prevent the player from compulsively exploring every random dungeon, or from joining and completing every guild/faction, or from reaching extremely high levels beyond any challenge offered. The game is clearly designed to be approached in a certain way and shouldn't be reproached due to the self-abuse of completionists.

 

[luj1]

This is like Sigourn's saying Morrowind is shit after looking up every dungeon on the wiki to see if he missed anything

 

[Vic]

Yeah, for me I want to see all in one playthrough, except for what is locked out, like the other great houses. If you play Morrowind with a completionist mindset, I think the skinner box argument becomes quite apparent, at least it did to me and I got burned out on the game, still have to finish the DLCs tho. Trying to clear all dungeons becomes really tedious as there are just so many of them and various notes and quest items are placed on the floor, on tables, etc. plus the epic loot ofc that I mentioned, means you have to be really thorough when going through a dungeon.

Morrowind might have been retroactively affected by later games that actually do foster a completionist mentality in which the player is urged to experience all content in a single (first) playthrough, before moving along to another game. By design, the player is guided to join suitable factions/guilds, which will offer quests that occupy a large part of a playthrough. There are 10 joinable factions/guilds offering a large number of quests, of which 3 (Fighters Guild, House Redoran, and Imperial Legion) are aimed at fighter-type characters, 4 (Mages Guild, House Telvanni, Tribunal Temple, and Imperial Cult) at mage-type characters, and 3 (Thieves Guild, House Hlaalu, and Camonna Tong) at thief-type characters. There are also a variety of miscellaneous quests and many dungeons not connected to any quest, with the expectation that any given playthrough will experience some considerable, but far from complete, portion of these quests and dungeons, in addition to completing most, if not all, content for three of those ten guilds/factions, and of course also finishing the main quest. This still allows for the player to experience much new content in a second and third playthrough, if a different type of character selects different guilds/factions.

Every once in a while, the Codex has a new person complaining that Morrowind doesn't actively prevent the player from compulsively exploring every random dungeon, or from joining and completing every guild/faction, or from reaching extremely high levels beyond any challenge offered. The game is clearly designed to be approached in a certain way and shouldn't be reproached due to the self-abuse of completionists.

ah, great, another contribution by a poster who hasn't read what was previously posted and is just picking out low hanging fruit to white-knight their beloved morrowind. I already acknowledged the same argument just a few hours ago:

Yeah, for me I want to see all in one playthrough, except for what is locked out, like the other great houses. If you play Morrowind with a completionist mindset, I think the skinner box argument becomes quite apparent, at least it did to me and I got burned out on the game, still have to finish the DLCs tho.

I hate to use "you're playing it wrong" as an argument, but you are clearly and obviously playing the game incorrectly. There's a reason that you pick a CLASS and factions have SKILL RESTRICTIONS. You're supposed to do maybe two or three factions per playthrough in addition to the main quest, based on the character class that you've chosen. Morrowind is built to be replayed. It's not like Oblivion or Skyrim.

I only did 2 factions, fighters guild and house redoran, but doing the main quest sends you around most of the map, and you encounter a dungeon every few minutes.

So when you play morrowind you just go from point A to point B ignoring what yo encounter along the way? This seems to go pretty much against the design philosophy of an open world game designed to be explored, maybe you're
playing it wrong or you played it so much that you already know where all the loot is.

 

[Sarathiour]

So when you play morrowind you just go from point A to point B ignoring what yo encounter along the way?

Groceries must be an insufferable chore to you.

 

[Jaedar]

By design, the player is guided to join suitable factions/guilds, which will offer quests that occupy a large part of a playthrough.

It's a bit hard to say what the final intent would have been, if MW had not been rushed out. As the game is currently, it doesn't even really make sense that the player is both a member of mages guild and telvanni. It is mechanically allowed, and barely penalized, and the overlap in skills and stats is huge. But in terms of writing the MG and HT are sort of at war and both sides have quests were you sabotage the other one, or try to root out a spy. So it makes no sense that you'd be allowed to get high ranks in both, because either of them would think you are an infiltrator.

Same for cult and temple. High mechanical overlap, makes no sense in lore.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Loot is bad
All the best RPGs have no loot

 

[Funposter]

So when you play morrowind you just go from point A to point B ignoring what yo encounter along the way?

Groceries must be an insufferable chore to you.

the gruen transfer approach to world design

 

[MWaser]

By design, the player is guided to join suitable factions/guilds, which will offer quests that occupy a large part of a playthrough.

It's a bit hard to say what the final intent would have been, if MW had not been rushed out. As the game is currently, it doesn't even really make sense that the player is both a member of mages guild and telvanni. It is mechanically allowed, and barely penalized, and the overlap in skills and stats is huge. But in terms of writing the MG and HT are sort of at war and both sides have quests were you sabotage the other one, or try to root out a spy. So it makes no sense that you'd be allowed to get high ranks in both, because either of them would think you are an infiltrator.

Same for cult and temple. High mechanical overlap, makes no sense in lore.

It seems like a compromise made to not block off too much content deliberately. It really wouldn't have been hard to just block off entry to joining the factions like how the Great Houses are mutually exclusive.
Not really the best decision but I imagine some players may appreciate it.

The main reason why it sucks is because the whole faction process of becoming the faction leader is not very well justifiable to begin with.
But with some of these factions the silly thing is that while the main penalty is Disposition hit, it's just simply way too easy to fix it with bribes/charm/high speechcraft. If Disposition was more of a static modifier and the distrust more meaningful, you could see the aspect of nobody trusting you if you're both a member of Telvanni and Mages' Guild and even if it was allowed to be members of both (since you could imagine Imperial law dictates it as such) they would block off your progress.

 

[NecroLord]

Why would you join those Telvanni nutters?
House Redoran are the gigachads.
Duty,Honor,Tradition,Piety.

 

[thesheeep]

Exactly, and as dungeon exploration is the meat and potatoes of the series, as also said by the other poster, there would be little reason to play the game at all. Hence, it proves my point that people play this game for the loot, glad we could finally agree.

This is some of the dumbest shit I've read in a while, congratulations.
"This mostly made-up stuff proves my unrelated nonsense point. Glad you agree!"
Beautiful. Chef's kiss!

There are so many reasons to play Morrowind, of which the loot is only a very tiny part.
Honestly, the loot in Morrowind isn't that great. It's not total shit, but most dungeons you go through won't yield that "awesome new equipment" reward and yet it's still fun to do.
Why is it fun?
I'll leave that to you to figure out, cause your struggles so far are truly entertaining

 

[MWaser]

Why would you join those Telvanni nutters?
House Redoran are the gigachads.
Duty,Honor,Tradition,Piety.

Location: Southeastern Yurop

checks out

 

[Vic]

There are so many reasons to play Morrowind

 

[jackofshadows]

Why would you join those Telvanni nutters?
House Redoran are the gigachads.
Duty,Honor,Tradition,Piety.

Uhh, imagine always play GAMES according to your irl alleged personal traits.

 

[Harthwain]

Why don't we take a look at the whole argument, with key points highlighted for your convenience:

And why should I "take a look at the whole argument" when I already dealt with your retarded notion of "gambling loot"? I addresed the important (and somewhat fresh) aspect instead: by asking why should the game do away with loot when all RPGs have loot.

So not only did you misquote me, but you also admitted that the key part to morrowind, and by extension the whole elder scrolls series is the dungeon exploration. Now my question still stands, if you remove the loot from Morrowind, would you still be compelled to explore dungeons?

I literally said: "Morrowind has an interesting world to explore. I mean the actual places that are NOT dungeons". I didn't explore the WORLD of Morrowind for loot. I explored it, because it was interesting. Also, some dungeons you will visit, because they are linked to quests, with quests being the driving force behind the game (the desire to explore aside).

ah, great, another contribution by a poster who hasn't read what was previously posted

Weren't you supposed to be gone or something?

 

[Vic]

Why don't we take a look at the whole argument, with key points highlighted for your convenience:

And why should I "take a look at the whole argument" when I already dealt with your retarded notion of "gambling loot"? I addresed the important (and somewhat fresh) aspect instead: by asking why should the game do away with loot when all RPGs have loot.

So not only did you misquote me, but you also admitted that the key part to morrowind, and by extension the whole elder scrolls series is the dungeon exploration. Now my question still stands, if you remove the loot from Morrowind, would you still be compelled to explore dungeons?

I literally said: "Morrowind has an interesting world to explore. I mean the actual places that are NOT dungeons". I didn't explore the WORLD of Morrowind for loot. I explored it, because it was interesting. Also, some dungeons you will visit, because they are linked to quests, with quests being the driving force behind the game (the desire to explore aside).

ah, great, another contribution by a poster who hasn't read what was previously posted

Weren't you supposed to be gone or something?

I wasn't even talking to you, stop being a butthurt morrowind simp

 

[somerandomdude]

No reason to single out Morrowind as a bad RPG, when that's the case for the 2 TES games that came after it as well. The the best way to describe TES games would be as broken, buggy messes that you customize to your liking with available mods. This is not what people do with good games, it's how people cope with bad games.

Is Morrowind with mods large quantities of copium a good game? I guess that depends on the individual, and which mods coping mechanisms they have in place to suit their needs.

 

[Harthwain]

I wasn't even talking to you, stop being a butthurt morrowind simp

So you were highlighting my quote incorrectly, to twist the meaning behind my argument and use it as a strawman to push your agenda, while complaining to someone else about being misquoted to twist the meaning behind your argument and use it as a strawman to push an agenda in the span of the same post?

Bro... You need some serious help. The more I see you talk, the more you remind me of Rusty. Are you his alt?

 

[Vic]

Bro... You need some serious help.

holy shit dude go kill some cliff racers or something, you should not be enganging in arguments if you get all emotional over it like a lil gay faggot

 

[Harthwain]

holy shit dude go kill some cliff racers or something, you should not be enganging in arguments if you get all emotional over it like a lil gay faggot

Weren't you supposed to be gone? What are you doing here still?

 

[Vic]

I was gonna let this rest but this shit is just too dumb to end it with an insult on my part. So let's take a look again at your last post:

So you were highlighting my quote incorrectly

How can I highlight a quote incorrectly? I quoted you word for word, I just highlighted the parts that showed the thread of my argument directed at the other poster.

twist the meaning behind my argument

The meaning of your argument, namely that you can enjoy morrowind without the dungeons by just exploring the overworld, is still intact. Look, it's even highlighted in red.

and use it as a strawman to push your agenda

I did not use your statement as an argument, but the other poster's statement that for him dungeon delving was a major part of morrowind (unlike for you), which was exactly my argument too! But he cut up my post that changed its meaning. I mean, likely he didn't even read everything to understand what I was talking about (like you), hence why I showed him the full discussion, highlighting the parts that would summarize it to not overwhelm him with too much text, and give context to the quote he used.

Your logic is flawed and fueled by emotion. You approach my arguments with an agenda without trying to understand my argument/my side. You just see red and start typing. Thus they lack in logical arguments and just read like fanboy rants. It is evident that you don't even read a large part of what I post, as you incorrectly assumed that the chain-quoted post that I highlighted was addressed to you. I would appreciate it if your next post would not contain any more false accusations against me, or better yet, stop quoting me.

Play the game how you want there's no wrong or right way to play, but there is a way to play the game how the developers intended and the intent behind the systems they put in place, on this we can only speculate thus neither my nor any other posters opinion is a fact, but it IS my opinion that the intent of the developers was to hook players in with random loot and it's a bad, unhealthy practice that has become ever more popular since morrowind was released. If you want to argue, argue this statement instead of being a cringe fanboy.

arguments against this I have seen so far is that you can just ignore it, but was the intent of the developers for what they put in the game to be ignored? I don't think so.