Elder Scrolls Why Morrowind is a bad RPG

[DavidBVal]

morrowind with like 2 mods looks better than skyrim

With zero mods.

If I want realistic trees I can just look out of the window. Morrowind shows you things you'll never see. With an outdated engine? I don't care, good concepts and inspired modeling make up for it.

 

[luj1]

There is no WORSE FUCKING SYSTEM than NWN's abhorrent RTwP with combat rounds

Non-round based RTwP

 

[Sweeper]

The worst thing about Morrowind is

• You can achieve 100 in every attribute and skill

This means that the only 2 choices that matter in terms of character building is race and birthsign.

That said, Morrowind is probably the most fun RPG to break. Sure, it's pretty easy to do so, but it's more about all the various options you have of breaking it, and just gameplay options in general.
Bad, good, doesn't matter. It's fucking fun.

If I want realistic trees I can just look out of the window. Morrowind shows you things you'll never see. With an outdated engine? I don't care, good concepts and inspired modeling make up for it.

There is something to be said about aesthetics or art design vs realism.
When a game tries to go hyper realistic, to the extent that it can because it's limited by tech, it usually ends up looking pretty sterile.

 

[Funposter]

sigourn spent half of the OP chimping out about the Mages Guild not requiring any spellcasting while ignoring that even navigating Telvanni towns required frequent use of Levitation and Slowfall

 

[madhouse]

A part of my growing sense of matury and my ability to criticize and judge things was the realization that the dearest game of my youth is actually quite shit and a slog to play through. Gothic 2 held up better after all these years. While much can be said and praised, such as the setting and the brilliant soundtrack, but if we judge the games for gameplay, for after all, gameplay should be a self-explanatory word and often one missing from the vocabulary of RPG enthuziasts, it is sorely missing. And as far as the role playing ( arr-pee-gee; roll pley gaym? ) aspect goes whatever you do has fuck all consequences. Quests are all linear and you don't have much room for different outcomes. One of the first quests with shaking down that Bosmer -- what is his name again; Fargot? -- has no options or outcomes. You can't report this to the authorities, be it Imperial Legion or census office, you can't warn Fargoth and side with him, you can't blackmail that brainlet Nord ( who trusts someone they just met with something like this? ), nor anything possibly interesting whatsoever. You can keep the cash AT LEAST... which, by the way, has no repercussions. Only issue with this path is the annoyance of having an active quest in your journal for the more OCD minded players. Rest of the game follows mostly the same formula.

Spoiler

I'm not going to argue quest design because Morrowind has one unfair advantage that makes its quests more interesting than they are. And that is the lack of quest markers. Add quest markers to Morrowind's quests, and you will quickly realize how most of them are Skyrim-level filler. I agree with the static NPCs. Hell, there are a lot of things I don't like about Morrowind, I just mentioned the one that stops me from replaying the game and enjoying it at the same time. I could also talk about:

• How it is one of the most offensively ugly 3D RPGs ever made. Many people will laugh, but when you happen to be running from one place to the other all the time, you kind of expect the graphics to make it worthwile, because that's all you are seeing while pressing forward.

Morrowind has the best aesthetic design of any 3D RPG ever made, coupled with technical aspects that were near cutting-edge at the time Morrowind was released in early 2002. Unfortunately, all 3D graphics are subject to aging in a way that 2D graphics are not. At the time Morrowind was released, I thought that 3D graphics might finally have reached a point where they wouldn't age, but looking at Morrowind a decade later it was clear that was not the case, and the technical aspects continued to relatively deteriorate year by year as is the case for all 3D graphics. Fortunately, there are a variety of mods to improve the technical aspects of Morrowind's graphics while retaining the original aesthetics, and the Morrowind Graphics Overhaul (MGSO) is sufficient to restore Morrowind to its glory.

Morrowind overhaul is the biggest and ugliest turd I've ever laid my eyes upon. Why do tards think that slapping HD textures on an old game, getting water reflections and spamming bloom and seven different filters make the game look good? It looks bizzare, as if it was some sort of a bootleg version released in Russia in 2014 for computers still running Pentium 4 and Windows XP. Except the performance is dogshit because the game doesn't run on a servicable framerate due to the shithouse engine.

 

[Sigourn]

Morrowind overhaul is the biggest and ugliest turd I've ever laid my eyes upon. Why do tards think that slapping HD textures on an old game, getting water reflections and spamming bloom and seven different filters make the game look good? It looks bizzare, as if it was some sort of a bootleg version released in Russia in 2014 for computers still running Pentium 4 and Windows XP. Except the performance is dogshit because the game doesn't run on a servicable framerate due to the shithouse engine.

The best part is when people who apparently never played the vanilla game claim the MGSO retains the "vanilla aesthetic". Completely changing the colors and styles of textures doesn't sound like "retaining the vanilla aesthetic".

 

[madhouse]

Morrowind overhaul is the biggest and ugliest turd I've ever laid my eyes upon. Why do tards think that slapping HD textures on an old game, getting water reflections and spamming bloom and seven different filters make the game look good? It looks bizzare, as if it was some sort of a bootleg version released in Russia in 2014 for computers still running Pentium 4 and Windows XP. Except the performance is dogshit because the game doesn't run on a servicable framerate due to the shithouse engine.

The best part is when people who apparently never played the vanilla game claim the MGSO retains the "vanilla aesthetic". Completely changing the colors and styles of textures doesn't sound like "retaining the vanilla aesthetic".

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Morrowind overhaul is the biggest and ugliest turd I've ever laid my eyes upon. Why do tards think that slapping HD textures on an old game, getting water reflections and spamming bloom and seven different filters make the game look good? It looks bizzare, as if it was some sort of a bootleg version released in Russia in 2014 for computers still running Pentium 4 and Windows XP. Except the performance is dogshit because the game doesn't run on a servicable framerate due to the shithouse engine.

The best part is when people who apparently never played the vanilla game claim the MGSO retains the "vanilla aesthetic". Completely changing the colors and styles of textures doesn't sound like "retaining the vanilla aesthetic".

AI upscaling works great with some artstyles.
https://kq5upscale.neocities.org/
Anyone who thinks it doesn't look good is blind

 

[agentorange]

Morrowind overhaul is the biggest and ugliest turd I've ever laid my eyes upon. Why do tards think that slapping HD textures on an old game, getting water reflections and spamming bloom and seven different filters make the game look good? It looks bizzare, as if it was some sort of a bootleg version released in Russia in 2014 for computers still running Pentium 4 and Windows XP. Except the performance is dogshit because the game doesn't run on a servicable framerate due to the shithouse engine.

The best part is when people who apparently never played the vanilla game claim the MGSO retains the "vanilla aesthetic". Completely changing the colors and styles of textures doesn't sound like "retaining the vanilla aesthetic".

AI upscaling works great with some artstyles.
https://kq5upscale.neocities.org/
Anyone who thinks it doesn't look good is blind

Well that one looks aright precisely because whoever did it had the sense to set all the smoothing/sharpening filters really low. The best examples in there are the ones where the change is barely noticeable. I still think it looks off in some of the backgrounds because of how it gets rid of all the natural pixel dithering, you end up with objects not blending into the surrounding so they look like paper cutouts (particularly noticeable in the desert scenes). Fucks up the shading on the characters too. But yeah not remotely as bad as most of these HD "upgrades."

 

[Kainan]

A part of my growing sense of matury and my ability to criticize and judge things was the realization that the dearest game of my youth is actually quite shit and a slog to play through. Gothic 2 held up better after all these years. While much can be said and praised, such as the setting and the brilliant soundtrack, but if we judge the games for gameplay, for after all, gameplay should be a self-explanatory word and often one missing from the vocabulary of RPG enthuziasts, it is sorely missing. And as far as the role playing ( arr-pee-gee; roll pley gaym? ) aspect goes whatever you do has fuck all consequences. Quests are all linear and you don't have much room for different outcomes. One of the first quests with shaking down that Bosmer -- what is his name again; Fargot? -- has no options or outcomes. You can't report this to the authorities, be it Imperial Legion or census office, you can't warn Fargoth and side with him, you can't blackmail that brainlet Nord ( who trusts someone they just met with something like this? ), nor anything possibly interesting whatsoever. You can keep the cash AT LEAST... which, by the way, has no repercussions. Only issue with this path is the annoyance of having an active quest in your journal for the more OCD minded players. Rest of the game follows mostly the same formula.

Its true for that one quest, but for most others of that type( bring money from someone) there is some reward if you give the money rightaway either in items or more quests.

 

[Falksi]

People not being able to enjoy Morrowind are like those who can't enjoy a pussy "because it smells a bit"

Grow some bollocks & play away you fanny.

 

[Allwynd]

The worst thing about Morrowind is

• You can achieve 100 in every attribute and skill

This means that the only 2 choices that matter in terms of character building is race and birthsign.

That said, Morrowind is probably the most fun RPG to break. Sure, it's pretty easy to do so, but it's more about all the various options you have of breaking it, and just gameplay options in general.
Bad, good, doesn't matter. It's fucking fun.

There is something to be said about aesthetics or art design vs realism.
When a game tries to go hyper realistic, to the extent that it can because it's limited by tech, it usually ends up looking pretty sterile.

I find something in the graphics of Vanilla WoW (2004) and Morrowind that is appealing. They look more appealing to me than a lot of games released after that. Sure Morrowind has its clunk and jank, but there is something about these simplistic graphics that leave a lot for the player's imagination to fill in. I would wish for Morrowind to have had smooth and polished combat like Vanilla WoW, where every hit feels visceral and all, but that's not the case or the point of this reply. What I mean to say is that there was something in these old games and their graphics that can't be replicated in newer games. Old games had interesting gameplay and gave you immense replay value, the gameplay was just interesting and fun and it drew you in, because there was a lot to do, but new games only focus on the graphics and if you can somehow take out the fancy pants graphics and replace them with simple placeholder graphics, it will become evident to everyone how limited in terms of gameplay these games are and their graphics and voice acting are their only selling point, too bad many people are too blinded and ignorant to look past the modern visuals and see how shallow these games are.

 

[CaffeineConquistador]

I was really trying to shoehorn something about Morrowind and huffing gasoline fumes to get past some smells....but I can’t. Morrowind is simply great.

 

[Ol' Willy]

People not being able to enjoy Morrowind are like those who can't enjoy a pussy "because it smells a bit"

Grow some bollocks & play away you fanny.

I don't care about Morrowind, but I like that Northern England attitude.

Are you like these guys?

 

[V_K]

sigourn spent half of the OP chimping out about the Mages Guild not requiring any spellcasting while ignoring that even navigating Telvanni towns required frequent use of Levitation and Slowfall

Which are both easily available as potions.

 

[Falksi]

People not being able to enjoy Morrowind are like those who can't enjoy a pussy "because it smells a bit"

Grow some bollocks & play away you fanny.

I don't care about Morrowind, but I like that Northern England attitude.

Are you like these guys?

Far less hair, so more like the bellend of PE teacher in this.........

 

[jackofshadows]

Morrowind is one of thouse games which suffer from nostalgic-googles effect the most. At the time, awesome graphics combined with excellent setting, great soundtrack, and interesting lore were more than enough to sunk into for a long, long time and to have a blast. Imagination has been filling various disadvantages just fine.

But if I'd launched the game today I'd say that it's good only as a sandbox. It looks really bad, the story is shit as well as most of the quests, the gameplay generally sucks, NPCs are paper-thin and the only fun thing to do is to mess with the game's system until its total and complete surrender to player's will. That's it. Perpetual praising of this... game everywhere looks odd as hell. A very notable milestone of the genre but nothing more good to say.

 

[Butter]

Morrowind is one of thouse games which suffer from nostalgic-googles effect the most. At the time, awesome graphics combined with excellent setting, great soundtrack, and interesting lore were more than enough to sunk into for a long, long time and to have a blast. Imagination has been filling various disadvantages just fine.

But if I'd launched the game today I'd say that it's good only as a sandbox. It looks really bad, the story is shit as well as most of the quests, the gameplay generally sucks, NPCs are paper-thin and the only fun thing to do is to mess with the game's system until its total and complete surrender to player's will. That's it. Perpetual praising of this... game everywhere looks odd as hell. A very notable milestone of the genre but nothing more good to say.

Morrowind has better exploration and environment design than just about every open world game since. Nobody plays these games for the dialogue, so that's not really a fair point of criticism. Combat is terrible, but that's still true of muh polished AAA games like Witcher 3.

 

[Falksi]

Morrowind is one of thouse games which suffer from nostalgic-googles effect the most. At the time, awesome graphics combined with excellent setting, great soundtrack, and interesting lore were more than enough to sunk into for a long, long time and to have a blast. Imagination has been filling various disadvantages just fine.

But if I'd launched the game today I'd say that it's good only as a sandbox. It looks really bad, the story is shit as well as most of the quests, the gameplay generally sucks, NPCs are paper-thin and the only fun thing to do is to mess with the game's system until its total and complete surrender to player's will. That's it. Perpetual praising of this... game everywhere looks odd as hell. A very notable milestone of the genre but nothing more good to say.

Morrowind has better exploration and environment design than just about every open world game since. Nobody plays these games for the dialogue, so that's not really a fair point of criticism. Combat is terrible, but that's still true of muh polished AAA games like Witcher 3.

Well said Butter.

At least I had to keep my eyes open to win in combat with Morrowind. I playtested TW3 on Death March, and once you have the rhythmic patterns down you can win most standard fights litterly with your eyes closed.

Both games have shit combat, but at least setting your character up in morrowind for the combat is fun & interesting. Unlike TW3's generic shit loot hunt (then defaulting to one of the usual sets)

 

[Serus]

I only played it for a few hours back then, deleted and never looked back. So basically, for me, Morrowind sucks and always sucked. But then i never liked first person action(-ey) games. Especially ones with poor combat and many basic game mechanics. The atmosphere, music and supposedly above average exploration is not enough. Again for me, since i don't like the subgenre in general (with an exception or two) then I can't really judge the quality compared to other games in the same subgenre.

 

[Sigourn]

sigourn spent half of the OP chimping out about the Mages Guild not requiring any spellcasting while ignoring that even navigating Telvanni towns required frequent use of Levitation and Slowfall

How does one invalidate the other?

If you have a Mages Guild that doesn't require you to use magic in its quests, you have a glorified Fighters Guild (fighting) or Thieves Guild (smooth talking). Plus as V_K said, Levitation and Slowfall are easily available as potions or enchanted items. And you are wrong by the way: you don't require either to navigate "Telvanni towns". You only need them for the Wizard towers.

Morrowind has many of the same problems New Vegas has, with its ups and downs. But it's greatest sin is that for all the lore and NPCs there are in the game, for all the quests you can do, there's very little variety in how to approach them.

 

[ArisatoSeldom]

Ten years has passed since last time I've played Morrowind.
So I've decided to play it on mobile with OMW.

The bad:
- I have broke the game easily with just DB and alchemy without guides. How have they missed such exploits back then?
- I am OP anime hero.

The good:
- Exploration and gameplay itself is still like I remember it.
- Ebony warrior still takes some time, but not unbeatable anymore without cheese.
- I'm still owned by werewolves. Werewolves never changes.

 

[Kainan]

sigourn spent half of the OP chimping out about the Mages Guild not requiring any spellcasting while ignoring that even navigating Telvanni towns required frequent use of Levitation and Slowfall

How does one invalidate the other?

If you have a Mages Guild that doesn't require you to use magic in its quests, you have a glorified Fighters Guild (fighting) or Thieves Guild (smooth talking). Plus as V_K said, Levitation and Slowfall are easily available as potions or enchanted items. And you are wrong by the way: you don't require either to navigate "Telvanni towns". You only need them for the Wizard towers.

Morrowind has many of the same problems New Vegas has, with its ups and downs. But it's greatest sin is that for all the lore and NPCs there are in the game, for all the quests you can do, there's very little variety in how to approach them.

Sure but the same can be said of almost all rpg quests. You always either kill, steal or talk. Here at least there is a ton of them. And a ton of tools to do them.
I dont understand the Morrowind hate. Shit ton of items, weapons, monsters, spells, quests, towns, great setting and story that does not care about voice over and cinematics, great 3d gfx style and sound. What more can you want? It just shits over anything released today easily.

 

[zool]

But it's greatest sin is that for all the lore and NPCs there are in the game, for all the quests you can do, there's very little variety in how to approach them.

Some of the mods I listed here try to remedy this somewhat. But no, they won't turn Morrowind into a proper RPG a la Fallout.

 

[Kainan]

Damn. Reading the Codex you would think Morrowind ticks all their boxes and then some. But i guess its just not a proper rpg