Elder Scrolls Why Morrowind is a bad RPG

[NecroLord]

Truth be told, Morrowind is an awesome setting. Not your average high fantasy setting. Kirkbride is a mad genius.

 

[Kalon]

Why bother with any cheap merchant?

There are two smiths in Mournhold with 10,000 and 8,000 gp respectively, and a Magic Shop (sic) with 9,000. Nalcarya the fine alchemist in Balmora has 3,000 and Wayne also in Balmora has 2,000, then you also have a smith whose name escapes me at the moment in Vivec FQ with 2,200 and Miu-Gei the enchanter who barters with 2,000.

All in all I find that this is enough to sell the average and medium-end loot you find in most dungeons (so anything valuable up to daedric shortswords and ebony longswords) . And like Nutria said, there's no need for much money in the course of the game, even when making expensive CE items.

admit that they're settingfags

I'll probably admit to it if I knew what a settingfag was ?

 

[Jaedar]

The last time I played, I found glass armor halfway through and that lasted through to the final boss. That was the only really significant piece of equipment I ever got.

So?
It is entirely true that the only armor type with good "gear progression" is heavy. But if you play RPGs for gear progression then I wish to inform you that Diablo is that way ---->

Morrowind has Creeper and the Talking Mudcrab merchants.

It does, and it's basically cheating to use them. The economy in MW is never great, but all merchants either have extremely limited cash (a glass longsword is worth like 30K, but glhf finding a merchant that can give you even a tenth of that). There's not a lot to spend money on except for training and enchanting though. The former is a decent moneysink if you don't use drain skill exploits, the latter quickly scales to infinity prices.

There are two smiths in Mournhold with 10,000 and 8,000 gp respectively, and a Magic Shop (sic) with 9,000. Nalcarya the fine alchemist in Balmora has 3,000 and Wayne also in Balmora has 2,000, then you also have a smith whose name escapes me at the moment in Vivec FQ with 2,200 and Miu-Gei the enchanter who barters with 2,000.

I don't recall the smiths in mournhold, but iirc the issue with most non-enchanters is that they will only buy a limited selection of goods. If you found the settlement on solstheim a merchant with 10k gold will move in there, but his barter skill is also through the roof so you'll get shit prices from him.

It's not that I dislike the game, I just want all Codexers who like it to admit that they're settingfags.

What do you call someone who is a gameplayfag, settingfag and storyfag rolled into one?

A person who appreciates quality.

 

[Nutria]

I just wish that in the late game quests maybe they dropped some really special armor, so you had something in gameplay that was telling you that you're making progress. You're progressing out of the middle stage of the game into confronting gods and stuff.

 

[NecroLord]

The last time I played, I found glass armor halfway through and that lasted through to the final boss. That was the only really significant piece of equipment I ever got.

So?
It is entirely true that the only armor type with good "gear progression" is heavy. But if you play RPGs for gear progression then I wish to inform you that Diablo is that way ---->

Morrowind has Creeper and the Talking Mudcrab merchants.

It does, and it's basically cheating to use them. The economy in MW is never great, but all merchants either have extremely limited cash (a glass longsword is worth like 30K, but glhf finding a merchant that can give you even a tenth of that). There's not a lot to spend money on except for training and enchanting though. The former is a decent moneysink if you don't use drain skill exploits, the latter quickly scales to infinity prices.

There are two smiths in Mournhold with 10,000 and 8,000 gp respectively, and a Magic Shop (sic) with 9,000. Nalcarya the fine alchemist in Balmora has 3,000 and Wayne also in Balmora has 2,000, then you also have a smith whose name escapes me at the moment in Vivec FQ with 2,200 and Miu-Gei the enchanter who barters with 2,000.

I don't recall the smiths in mournhold, but iirc the issue with most non-enchanters is that they will only buy a limited selection of goods. If you found the settlement on solstheim a merchant with 10k gold will move in there, but his barter skill is also through the roof so you'll get shit prices from him.

It's not that I dislike the game, I just want all Codexers who like it to admit that they're settingfags.

What do you call someone who is a gameplayfag, settingfag and storyfag rolled into one?

A person who appreciates quality.

Regardless, dealing with them is the sensible thing to do. I want the best deal when I sell that daedric longsword. I don't want to be swindled by some breton merchant due to my atrocious Mercantile skill.
Ah, I remember the good old days(Daggerfall) when gold used to have weight. You couldn't just carry two million gold, you had to deposit it in a bank.

 

[laclongquan]

admit that they're settingfags

I'll probably admit to it if I knew what a settingfag was ?

A settingfag is a subgroup of storyfag who like setting, background above all else writing-wise.
A storyfag place more importance into quality of writing, most particularly quest, description, and dialog.

A settingfag is one loudly proclaim that Morrowind has great writing, but a storyfag will dismiss its writing as subpar, though the setting save it somewhat.

Proof? If you cant list any MW quest has anything worth memorable, or dialog has anything interesting but insist MW has good writing, then you are a settingfag.

 

[Vic]

settingfag = lorefag?

 

[luj1]

I just wish that in the late game quests maybe they dropped some really special armor

Morrowind is not the kind of game where you expect 'drops'. Items are manually placed in crazy places. Such as behind a rock or on a ledge 10 meters up in a cave. You have to look.

 

[Nutria]

But does that mean anything to the ordinary player? I never found anything in a crazy place and I had no trouble winning the end.

 

[NecroLord]

But does that mean anything to the ordinary player? I never found anything in a crazy place and I had no trouble winning the end.

One of the cornerstones of any self respecting RPG is exploration.
Look under any nook and cranny for treasure and great loot.

 

[Nutria]

settingfag = lorefag?

No, the lorefag reads a book about it. The settingfag takes in the ambience of the art, the music, the sound design, as well as the gameplay.

 

[octavius]

A storyfag place more importance into quality of writing, most particularly quest, description, and dialog.

A storyfag is someone who says "I play games for the story". You don't have to be a storyfag to appreciate actually good writing, which in games means concise writing. Brevity is the soul of wit.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

I like Morrowind but let's be honest with ourselves. The last time I played, I found glass armor halfway through and that lasted through to the final boss. That was the only really significant piece of equipment I ever got.

This is also when the economy totally breaks, where money is only limited by Bethesda's classic trick of making it so fucking boring to walk to the store to sell stuff that you just give up on money entirely.

I did find bandits wearing glass armor in Morrowind too. And you reach your peak halfway through the game, itemization works in a weird manner in Morrowind I'd say. But since it's still an early TES game, part of the fun is breaking the game using magic skills.

 

[laclongquan]

A storyfag place more importance into quality of writing, most particularly quest, description, and dialog.

A storyfag is someone who says "I play games for the story". You don't have to be a storyfag to appreciate actually good writing, which in games means concise writing. Brevity is the soul of wit.

As long as you place importance (or enjoy) quality writing in games, you are storyfag. This is the definition. What you mean "You don't have to be a storyfag to appreciate actually good writing". The term is all-encompassing.

 

[NecroLord]

I like Morrowind but let's be honest with ourselves. The last time I played, I found glass armor halfway through and that lasted through to the final boss. That was the only really significant piece of equipment I ever got.

This is also when the economy totally breaks, where money is only limited by Bethesda's classic trick of making it so fucking boring to walk to the store to sell stuff that you just give up on money entirely.

I did find bandits wearing glass armor in Morrowind too. And you reach your peak halfway through the game, itemization works in a weird manner in Morrowind I'd say. But since it's still an early TES game, part of the fun is breaking the game using magic skills.

You only find pieces of glass armor in set locations or being worn by unique NPCs. In Morrowind the best armor is the one you find in set locations(like Daedric, the Dragonbone Cuirass or the Helm of Oreyn Bearclaw, a helm you get after completing Malacath's quest).

 

[octavius]

A storyfag place more importance into quality of writing, most particularly quest, description, and dialog.

A storyfag is someone who says "I play games for the story". You don't have to be a storyfag to appreciate actually good writing, which in games means concise writing. Brevity is the soul of wit.

As long as you place importance (or enjoy) quality writing in games, you are storyfag. This is the definition. What you mean "You don't have to be a storyfag to appreciate actually good writing". The term is all-encompassing.

No. A storyfag is someone who plays games mainly for the story, while a combatfag plays games mainly for the combat. That doesn't mean the combatfag can't appreciate the writing in a combat-centric game.
Writing and story is not the same. Writing can be combat taunts and NPC greetings, for example.

 

[laclongquan]

A storyfag place importance (or enjoy) quality writing over everything else, I should say. Even if shit combat, pathetic exploration, or soso setting, as long as writing is quality, then storyfags feel its A-okay.

A combatfag place importance (or enjoy) quality combat over everything else, you understand. Even if shit writing, pathetic exploration, or watery setting, as long as combat aspect is quality, then combatfag feel its A-okay.

The difference between storyfag and combatfag is in WHICH aspect they place as MOST important, not in what else.

For example, Codexers are mostly storyfags and (some) settingfags, but rare combatfags.

 

[Kalon]

itemization works in a weird manner in Morrowind I'd say

I'm not sure of what you mean by that. If you're referring to levelled lists, it's true that there's quite a discrepancy betwwen the random loot you find in containers at level 5 (Ondusi scrolls, common soul gems and steel weapons) and what you find at level 20 (Ekash Lock Splitters, grand soul gems and dwemeer weapons). And yet the game still occasionnally spawns level 5 loot when you're past level 20, so imo the level-scaling works not so badly in Morrowind.

 

[North Gibraltarian Dog]

I did find bandits wearing glass armor in Morrowind too.

There are some enemies using glass armor pieces or weapons or other high level gear but as fixed handplaced items in mid-high level enemies, independently of player character level. In Morrowind almost all, roughly 3,000 enemies or friendly npcs are unique, non-randomized and only beasts and other creatures are partially randomized (there are several hundreds handplaced/fixed creatures too). However even in the case of those randomized monsters, region or dungeon type are as much or more relevant than player level for their distribution and low level creatures continue appearing at high levels.

That's a huge difference with the infamous Oblivion-like world leveling where all randomized enemy npcs gear (or stats) is totally dependant on PC level, so the same low tier archetypes (road robbers, shitty bandits, marauders, etc) will use worst armors and weapons at start of the game and highest possible gear when player character reach high levels.

Items outside npcs inventories have a very similar design in Morrowind, a large part, I would say a clear majority are handplaced and fixed outside containers in houses, dungeons or wilderness or in some non-randomized containers, while in the case of containers with randomization, item variation depends more of container type and specially location/context than player level and low level items will continue appearing when PC is level 20, 40 or more.

 

[wwsd]

I mean the glass armor is the best light armor in the game. Besides the Dark Brotherhood armor, there are 4 types that yield complete sets, but the two weakest of those are already useless straight out of the gate, because you can buy chitin from the first merchant in the game.

Poor progression if you happen to be using light armor, sure, but I don't think that makes for a great criticism of the game overall. Progression in terms of generic armor is just not a very big part of the game.

 

[cretin]

Truth be told, Morrowind is an awesome setting. Not your average high fantasy setting. Kirkbride is a mad genius.

awesome setting wasted on a fucking boring game.

 

[S.torch]

As long as you place importance (or enjoy) quality writing in games, you are storyfag. This is the definition. What you mean "You don't have to be a storyfag to appreciate actually good writing". The term is all-encompassing.

You don't understand, he is making-up definitions because he doesn't want to be labelled a storyfag, he wants to be part of the codex cool kids and for that to be labelled a storyfag is a no, no.

Don't try to use logic with what he is saying because that is not the criteria he is using for the definitions, but how he can rephrase everything so he can avoid looking uncool to the fellow codex kids.

 

[NecroLord]

I never cared much for all those labels.
"Combatfag, storyfag, settingfag". I confess, however, that I always inclined towards combatfaggotry, but I strictly care about the general quality of a cRPG. Good(or at least serviceable) combat system, decent story, characters and setting.
They are all important.

 

[octavius]

As long as you place importance (or enjoy) quality writing in games, you are storyfag. This is the definition. What you mean "You don't have to be a storyfag to appreciate actually good writing". The term is all-encompassing.

You don't understand, he is making-up definitions because he doesn't want to be labelled a storyfag, he wants to be part of the codex cool kids and for that to be labelled a storyfag is a no, no.

Don't try to use logic with what he is saying because that is not the criteria he is using for the definitions, but how he can rephrase everything so he can avoid looking uncool to the fellow codex kids.

Projecting a bit, kid?

Anyway, if you value good writing, books are a superior medium to video games.

 

[Harthwain]

Anyway, if you value good writing, books are a superior medium to video games.

So...? It still doesn't mean you don't want a good setting for a video game.