Yet Another Morrowind Thread

[Xbalanque]

I don't really agree that Morrowind is so immersive. For me the whole dialogue system broke it - I felt as if I was consulting the encyclopedia not talking to anybody.

It took me 100 hours to get this feeling because of a really simple reason, I played Morrowind right after playing Skyrim and the ability to ask people about general things (and most importantly, quest details) was just great. To this day I don't really care that the dialogue is mostly generic.[/quote]

Never played Skyrim, so can't respond to that.
Anyway, ythere is a mod that makes the stuff people say less generic.
I agree, immersion is totally individual, however it does not mean that the producerscannot do something to make the experinece more immersive to most of the players, just like Piranha Bytes did.
Allthough it is not simply schedules it's overall feel to which every little detail contributes. I felt a lot more immersed in Morrowind than in Oblivion although the latter at the surface would feel more "lifelike" and it's one of the reasons I still like to come back to MW

 

[Akratus]

This is kind of unrelated but I dunno where else to put it:
I bought that Elder Scrolls Anthology pack thing today. While I got it just for the maps (which are fantastic) I decided to try and install Arena and Daggerfall because I was curious about how Bethesda would handle them.

Rather than just using the fully functional free download versions they have on their site, they seem to have bizarrely included different, less functional versions that run on an old version of DOSBox (making Arena unplayable because you can't increase the cycles enough to have it run at anything near normal speed) and Daggerfall's fullscreen mode is a smaller resolution than it's windowed mode. Oh, and they put one of those smoothing filters on Arena which make everything look like a psychedelic nightmare.

Overall, 10/10

EDIT: What the flying fuck, I just noticed that every single Elder Scrolls game has an age rating of 18. Shouldn't they be like 12 or 15 or something? I guess Daggerfall could push 18 under a really really strict rating system, but the others?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

EDIT: What the flying fuck, I just noticed that every single Elder Scrolls game has an age rating of 18. Shouldn't they be like 12 or 15 or something? I guess Daggerfall could push 18 under a really really strict rating system, but the others?

They contain (fictional) drugs, slavery, (fantastical) racism, sexual themes here and there, and of course a lot of blood. While those themes are never treated as the srs bsns they imply, their presence warrants a more strict age rating than the average game. Not that anyone listens to those ratings anyway.

 

[Azazel]

This is kind of unrelated but I dunno where else to put it:
I bought that Elder Scrolls Anthology pack thing today. While I got it just for the maps (which are fantastic) I decided to try and install Arena and Daggerfall because I was curious about how Bethesda would handle them.

I have been curious: Did they turn the fantastically detailed and colorful Morrowind map, featuring every dungeon in the game on it, into generic brown shit with only the major cities like the Skyrim & Oblivion maps for the purposes of the anthology?

 

[Lemming42]

This is kind of unrelated but I dunno where else to put it:
I bought that Elder Scrolls Anthology pack thing today. While I got it just for the maps (which are fantastic) I decided to try and install Arena and Daggerfall because I was curious about how Bethesda would handle them.

I have been curious: Did they turn the fantastically detailed and colorful Morrowind map, featuring every dungeon in the game on it, into generic brown shit with only the major cities like the Skyrim & Oblivion maps for the purposes of the anthology?

Yep, they're all done in the style of the Oblivion map. The Morrowind map identifcal to this one, but coloured brown to make it look much less attractive: http://www.cartographersguild.com/a...te-maps-fantasy-fiction-map-morr-enormous.jpg

The Skyrim and Oblivion maps are hilariously under-detailed, but the Daggerfall one gives a pretty nice representation of the Iliac bay with all the different regions and locations of their main cities marked.

 

[Owlish]

I tried playing Morrowind the other week having never played it before and I couldn't see the fun in it. At least with Oblivion and Skyrim the thieves guild and Dark Brotherhood quests were more cinematic, more complicated, somewhat varied, and actually fun. The main quest may be better written but I don't care to find out.

 

[Lemming42]

That's because Oblivion and Skyrim thrust you straight into MAJESTIC EPIC SCENARIOS without any buildup. If you went to the Thieves Guild and expected to perform The Heist Of The Century straight away and not getting diamonds from a store or whatever it is that Khajiit chick asks you to do, then you had some skewered expectations.

The quests aren't the best part of Morrowind anyway, though.

 

[DalekFlay]

All of them start with errands and shit, the only difference is that lasts for one maybe two quests in Oblivion and Skyrim, but it lasts for half the guild missions in Morrowind. I always found it fine though, since they went out of their way to add good context and background to what you were doing. You FELT like an essential Redoran emissary, not a delivery boy.

 

[ALchymist]

Speaking of immersion, I get so bored with the nice display boxes all over the world locked on 100 with a steel dagger in them. Why would anyone put the worst weapons available on display behind the best lock. There should be stuff like soul gems with good souls or unique powerful weapons.

I have souvenirs with no monetary value. Why shouldn't the game characters too?

 

[DraQ]

Schedules start to feel a bit more important when you get a quest where you have to steal an object that is right in front of a character, and the said character, never, ever moves. Or when the object is in an empty room where no one ever comes to. I've been replaying the Thieves Guild quests in MW and they're worse than I remembered when it comes to gameplay, mostly because of the lack of NPC schedules and movement. At best you may get a single guard that slowly walks around a house, otherwise it's either impossible to fail or the whole thing becomes a cheesefest. The first time I played the game I also really wanted to clean out the Balmora Council Club by killing my targets one by one in their beds, which kind of seemed like the only solution that made sense for a level 3-or-something character, but the game never offered that option. 24-hour shops never really bothered me either, so a lot of this probably could've been done by scripting, but I kind of dislike the idea that the behaviour of an NPC changes radically based on what quests you happen to have active.

OK, I concede.

The most fun I had in Oblivion (OOO, to be specific) was robbing the Ayleid artifact collector's house in the Imperial City. There were a number of guards with different schedules (one of them could be bribed IIRC), you could case the joint during daytime and break in at night, you could wake up the residents if you were clumsy... It was not exactly Thief, it was positively LARPy, and at that point I was desperately trying to get something out of the game, but it at least somewhat resembled being an actual thief and offered gameplay that was more interesting than standing still and clicking on an object when the sneak icon becomes visible, and it wasn't even an actual quest but just me fucking around. The shortcomings of the game undermined the good things with astonishing efficiency, but I thought that this was one of the few areas where Oblivion genuinely improved on Morrowind.

Then immediately rendered the improvement moot by removing any reason for the player to make use of generalized schedule mechanics.
Do note that scripting could also be used to provide constant schedules to just the NPCs who are quest targets.
Of course, generalized mechanics is superior by default, but in oblivion it simply fails to make any difference.

That's subjective, really. Lack of schedules is but a part of a generally static nature of the game. Its effects on immersion depends on personal preferences.

Or rather on time spent watching NPCs derp in the cities.

I tried playing Morrowind the other week having never played it before and I couldn't see the fun in it. At least with Oblivion and Skyrim the thieves guild and Dark Brotherhood quests were more cinematic, more complicated, somewhat varied, and actually fun. The main quest may be better written but I don't care to find out.

Gigantic Fargoth spotted.

Not everything should be awsumcinemajific and Morrowind quests at least had context.

 

[Xbalanque]

Speaking of immersion, I get so bored with the nice display boxes all over the world locked on 100 with a steel dagger in them. Why would anyone put the worst weapons available on display behind the best lock. There should be stuff like soul gems with good souls or unique powerful weapons.

I have souvenirs with no monetary value. Why shouldn't the game characters too?

Do you put them in a box locked on 100 or do you rather display them?

 

[Delterius]

You're frustrated that you didn't get more interesting loot behind the locks, that doesn't mean that NPCs shouldn't use whatever lock's avaiable to them for whatever item they want to conceal.

 

[ALchymist]

Speaking of immersion, I get so bored with the nice display boxes all over the world locked on 100 with a steel dagger in them. Why would anyone put the worst weapons available on display behind the best lock. There should be stuff like soul gems with good souls or unique powerful weapons.

I have souvenirs with no monetary value. Why shouldn't the game characters too?

Do you put them in a box locked on 100 or do you rather display them?

Just call me Scrooge McDuck.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

While it's indeed disheartening to open a fabulous chest and find 3 coins and a mud plate inside, it would be kind of boring if you could be sure how good the contents of a chest were just by taking a quick glance. This is not a real problem as long as the game DOES have good stuff behind good locks more frequently than not.

All of them start with errands and shit, the only difference is that lasts for one maybe two quests in Oblivion and Skyrim, but it lasts for half the guild missions in Morrowind. I always found it fine though, since they went out of their way to add good context and background to what you were doing. You FELT like an essential Redoran emissary, not a delivery boy.

Can you collect some flowers for me?

 

[Delterius]

The fetch quests aren't really the derpiest things you get from Ajira. Rather the whole 'Hai, I'm a shitty journeyman and I know where the most powerful arcane artifacts in the world are hidden1!!!'

 

[Lemming42]

I'm still upset that you can't side with Galbedir in the Galbedir-Ajira conflict.

 

[Delterius]

Why would you? There's no better time to steal shit from Galbedir.

 

[Owlish]

Gigantic Fargoth spotted.

Not everything should be awsumcinemajific and Morrowind quests at least had context.

K, but it should be more than just "fetch this" or "fetch that," otherwise I'll just go do something else.

 

[Cadmus]

Speaking of immersion, I get so bored with the nice display boxes all over the world locked on 100 with a steel dagger in them. Why would anyone put the worst weapons available on display behind the best lock. There should be stuff like soul gems with good souls or unique powerful weapons.

I have souvenirs with no monetary value. Why shouldn't the game characters too?

I'm talking about the display boxes specifically. I doubt you have items as common as "iron dagger", equal to a table knife, displayed in your hallway in a locked vitrine with an 8 digit lock.

 

[hakuroshi]

That's subjective, really. Lack of schedules is but a part of a generally static nature of the game. Its effects on immersion depends on personal preferences.

Or rather on time spent watching NPCs derp in the cities.

That's true. But. Do you often watch random npcs on streets IRL? There should be no reason to do so in a game, unless you have a good reason (same as IRL). Schedules should not attract attention by themselves (that's where Oblivion fails). In MW they chose to not bother with them at all, like they abstracted a lot of other aspects of npcs. It worked pretty decent (like many posts above showed me), you just fill the blanks yourself. Personal preferences come to play when a player have a problem filling particular blank (which another player have no difficulties with).

MW is the only TES game which does not try to provide an illusion of a living world around the PC. It provides the best world of them all, hands down, but it is visibly static. For a lot of people, it's probably a plus, because while Daggerfall and Arena did provide the illusion of a dynamic world, they did it with minimalistic and rather crude instruments relying heavily on player's imagination. And they did not have actual changes behind this illusion. MW is much more interactive in crucial points. Oblvion and Skyrim try not to rely on imagination and fail because of a lot of derp (Skyrim works for a while with mods, but it's not its strong point).

I personally like when I have this illusion in rpgs. It is not what makes a great rpg, but when it is present and done right in can enrich one. Daily activities of npcs can be an important part of a such illusion, and at the same time serve a meaningful purpose in quest flow. Are they necessary? No. Can they be missed? Yes.

 

[Akratus]

You're frustrated that you didn't get more interesting loot behind the locks, that doesn't mean that NPCs shouldn't use whatever lock's avaiable to them for whatever item they want to conceal.

Exactly. What they want to conceal. Which means context. I mean, sure, not every weapon showcase should have an npc's dialogue associated to tell you how the guy smashed a giant's toe with it, but at least something.

 

[DalekFlay]

K, but it should be more than just "fetch this" or "fetch that," otherwise I'll just go do something else.

Every RPG at the end of the day is about running errands for people. The trick is to add context to that to make it feel like you're doing more. Morrowind has some quests that feel like pure errands, mostly the early Mage's Guild and House quests, but it adds good context to most and makes you feel like you're doing more (IMO).

 

[Xbalanque]

K, but it should be more than just "fetch this" or "fetch that," otherwise I'll just go do something else.

That was always the fun part of Morrowind for me. When I got bored with running errands I just looked for another quest, explore or whatever else I wanted to do and found more interesting and came back to the other when I was passing by a place of destination or whatever. Nobody forces you to just run and do other people's errands all the time.

Anyway, the fact that most of the time no one but the actual questgiver cares for what you do seems good enough. I don't suppose to start a slave uprising just by bringing one slave to a Skyrim Mission instead of her owner in Balmora.

 

[Delterius]

You're frustrated that you didn't get more interesting loot behind the locks, that doesn't mean that NPCs shouldn't use whatever lock's avaiable to them for whatever item they want to conceal.

Exactly. What they want to conceal. Which means context. I mean, sure, not every weapon showcase should have an npc's dialogue associated to tell you how the guy smashed a giant's toe with it, but at least something.

My mistake, I hadn't read the 'display boxes' part. Yeah, it is kind of weird that you'd display a common dagger. But I think the issue there is that there are more display boxes than there should have been.

 

[DraQ]

Gigantic Fargoth spotted.

Not everything should be awsumcinemajific and Morrowind quests at least had context.

K, but it should be more than just "fetch this" or "fetch that," otherwise I'll just go do something else.

Morrowind is *about* doing something else.
Quests mostly just kick you off in the right direction.

MW is the only TES game which does not try to provide an illusion of a living world around the PC.
(...)
I personally like when I have this illusion in rpgs.

Well, if I can only pick one of "living, world", I'll pick the later.

MW might have not even dropped the ball on the "living" part, as much as just plain refused to pick it up in the first place, but it succeeded awesomely at the "world" part despite the downscaling.

Oblivion failed hideously at the "world" and left the still not that good "living" dangling in vacuum.
Skyrim... actually did good-for-what-it-was job on both counts.