Why we remember Morrowind as the best

[CasperTheLich]

well i started in skyrim but i still think skyrim is best...

 

that gave me a nice little chuckle... well played. lol

 

morrowind was my first TES encounter. it was my favorite as well, mainly because it was the first game of it's kind that i played. it changed how i look at RPGs, and what i expect from them. and it was the first game that gave me endless choices, or perhaps it only seemed to. it was the first freeform roleplaying game i played; it still grips me quite tightly these days as well. it reminds me of the first time i played half-life way back when. half-life changed the way i solved puzzles in fps games or the way i think of them. pointed me in new directions that i didn't think an fps title could go. sometimes it took me a long *ss time to figure out how to do a "quest" simply because i didn't think an fsp game could or would script that kind of event into a game.

 

Well, it's late and i'm forgetting how to spell stuff. so i'm gonna call it a night. [/rant]

 

edit----

spelling due to lack of sleep

Edited November 29, 2011 by Invisible Man

[LadyAubrie]

Disclaimer: My post is made from a standpoint of personal taste. I think most of us are talking about personal taste. :) Aand...I'm tired, so this will probably sound rambly.

 

 

I never played Morrowind, but it never appealed to me for this reason: I like those 'typical medieval fantasy rpg's' someone mentioned. I'm not big on beast races or really weird places with huge mushrooms (Zangarmarsh? Please.)

 

I did buy Oblivion, and I loved every moment...its beauty, its grandeur...watching the sun come up over Imperial City could bring tears to your eyes. But sadly, yes, it was a pain in the ass to mod. To say the least.

 

I grew up with games like Daggerfall, and while my eyes are a little rose tinted (go ahead, slam me for it) I can see that a lot of my childhood favorites (Realms of Arkania, etc) weren't as good in many ways as Oblivion...and in ways, they're better. But let's take a few installments from Elder Scrolls and see what they *do* offer:

 

Daggerfall: It would occasionally tell you how something smelled, or felt. I'm a writer, and I find that awesome.

 

Morrowind: You impacted your game world, and it was easy to mod.

 

Oblivion: Tear-jerking beauty.

Skyrim: So, so many choices (compared to Oblivion, which, sadly, didn't offer you as much openness)...I can become archmage. I can get titles. I at least have the illusion of having power. Oh, and the whole Old Norse feel...very much a win for me.

 

 

But they have their disadvantages too...Daggerfall was limited by sprites, Morrowind was too alien, and Oblivion and Skyrim were limited by their already-outdated Havok engine. Oh, and Skyrim is in black and white.

 

So in knowing that making a mod with all the pluses and none of the minuses would take hundreds (or thousands) of hours for any one modder, all I can say is...let's hope Bethesda makes a truly gorgeous game next time.

 

Or...they can keep making console games, and we'll keep modding. :)

Edited November 29, 2011 by LadyAubrie

[Pixelfrog1]

Becouse:

 

-it's not like a baby-sitter who tells me that I need to follow a compass like a good boy I am(try finishing a quest without it in Oblivion/Skyrim)

-it only gives me smart indications about a place and I have to fallow the clues to get there

-I actualy have to ask for directions, unlike it's predecessors

-it's a unique and beautiful world

-beast races look like beasts

-it has more weapon types(spears, crossbows)

-armors+++++++++++++

-complex story

-it was actually made for PCs

 

Yeah, these are a few, but main reasons why. :wub:

 

1 - There was plenty of hand holding in morrowind, it just wasn't as obvious or in your face.

2 - It tells you where you have to go unless it's a non essential quest and then you will just get the name of the place you are looking for and roughly where it might be.

3 - No you dont have to ask for directions, you get given plenty of information about where you need to be.

4 - yes it is.

5 - They look no more or less beastly than Oblivion or Skyrim ..Cat is Cat and Lizzard is Lizzard no matter what TES you are playing (Excluding Daggerfall and Arena)

6 - Yep

7 - Yep

8 - Complex and long winded and if you kill the wrong NPC's you are screwed and have to begin again.

9 - Nope it was a console port too, but had it's UI work well with PC's

 

I booted Morrowind up today with the Morrowind overhaul installed and to be honest, while I loved it back in 2002 it hasnt aged very well at all.

Put Morrowinds story and locations into Skyrims engine and I could love it again, but things have been improved to the point that playing Morrowind is

like trying to drive an old model T Ford when all you have ever used is a 2010 Toyota Camry.

 

It's clunky, hard to handle, doesn't like the new fangled hardware I have and overall is rather dated in both combat system and UI. I played it for about an hour trying

my hardest to get used to it again and I simply gave up in frustration at not having the easy to use system we have now.

 

Seriously take off them nostalgia glasses and see that Morrowind was top line for 2002 but for 2011 it wouldn't even meet the requirements for release.

 

Now id some enterprising bunch of people want to port Morrowind over to Skyrim I would love them long time.

Edited November 29, 2011 by Pixelfrog1

[Pixelfrog1]

Disclaimer: My post is made from a standpoint of personal taste. I think most of us are talking about personal taste. :) Aand...I'm tired, so this will probably sound rambly.

 

 

I never played Morrowind, but it never appealed to me for this reason: I like those 'typical medieval fantasy rpg's' someone mentioned. I'm not big on beast races or really weird places with huge mushrooms (Zangarmarsh? Please.)

 

I did buy Oblivion, and I loved every moment...its beauty, its grandeur...watching the sun come up over Imperial City could bring tears to your eyes. But sadly, yes, it was a pain in the ass to mod. To say the least.

 

I grew up with games like Daggerfall, and while my eyes are a little rose tinted (go ahead, slam me for it) I can see that a lot of my childhood favorites (Realms of Arkania, etc) weren't as good in many ways as Oblivion...and in ways, they're better. But let's take a few installments from Elder Scrolls and see what they *do* offer:

 

Daggerfall: It would occasionally tell you how something smelled, or felt. I'm a writer, and I find that awesome.

 

Morrowind: You impacted your game world, and it was easy to mod.

 

Oblivion: Tear-jerking beauty.

Skyrim: So, so many choices (compared to Oblivion, which, sadly, didn't offer you as much openness)...I can become archmage. I can get titles. I at least have the illusion of having power. Oh, and the whole Old Norse feel...very much a win for me.

 

 

But they have their disadvantages too...Daggerfall was limited by sprites, Morrowind was too alien, and Oblivion and Skyrim were limited by their already-outdated Havok engine. Oh, and Skyrim is in black and white.

 

So in knowing that making a mod with all the pluses and none of the minuses would take hundreds (or thousands) of hours for any one modder, all I can say is...let's hope Bethesda makes a truly gorgeous game next time.

 

Or...they can keep making console games, and we'll keep modding. :)

 

Remember BSG tend to leave plenty of room for modding of it's games, such as leaving out the non essentials for game play and perhaps not adding quite as much polish as say Crysis had.

They know how big a modding community their games have and by leaving plenty of slack they are telling us, ok guys we have given you the foundations .. go at it and show us what you can do.

 

That's what I love about BSG, they support modding and are willing to leave plenty of room for the modders to add to their games.

[XunAmarox]

I actually never played Morrowind. xD...

[Pixelfrog1]

I actually never played Morrowind. xD...

 

You are missing out on a massive story that fills you in on what happened to the dwarves, and why Red mountain erupted and destroyed Morrowind.

 

(Sadly Morrowind no longer exists in Skyrim times as it was completely destroyed by the eruption of red mountain, only Solsthiem survived and bits of the mainland.)

 

While the story is A++ the game is rather dated these days and not even mods can fix the issues the game now has when compared to Skyrim.

 

If you think you can deal with a UI and combat system that leaves you wanting to punch a kitten I say buy it and have a good time.

Edited November 29, 2011 by Pixelfrog1

[Oomo]

 

1 - There was plenty of hand holding in morrowind, it just wasn't as obvious or in your face.

2 - It tells you where you have to go unless it's a non essential quest and then you will just get the name of the place you are looking for and roughly where it might be.

3 - No you dont have to ask for directions, you get given plenty of information about where you need to be.

4 - yes it is.

5 - They look no more or less beastly than Oblivion or Skyrim ..Cat is Cat and Lizzard is Lizzard no matter what TES you are playing (Excluding Daggerfall and Arena)

6 - Yep

7 - Yep

8 - Complex and long winded and if you kill the wrong NPC's you are screwed and have to begin again.

9 - Nope it was a console port too, but had it's UI work well with PC's

 

1 - No there was none

2 - That's realism and how it works in real life when you get directions. There was no magic mystic quest markers. You had to use your own map and your own brain when searching and ACTUALLY having to read to find where to go. It was a challenge.

3 - And you still have to manually process that information, unlike the hand-holding of Oblivion and Skyrim that leads you there like a little child

5 - Wrong. Oblivion and Skyrim cut out the beastly gait in the way they walk.

8 - See, no hand holding. It didn't cater to console gamers who can't handle consequences

9 - Wrong it was a game made for PCs. The PC gamers got it in May 2nd, 2002. The port TO the X-Box came five weeks later on June 6, 2002

 

Said what I need to, I'm not reading any reply to this as I'm done here.

[Pixelfrog1]

1 - There was plenty of hand holding in morrowind, it just wasn't as obvious or in your face.

2 - It tells you where you have to go unless it's a non essential quest and then you will just get the name of the place you are looking for and roughly where it might be.

3 - No you dont have to ask for directions, you get given plenty of information about where you need to be.

4 - yes it is.

5 - They look no more or less beastly than Oblivion or Skyrim ..Cat is Cat and Lizzard is Lizzard no matter what TES you are playing (Excluding Daggerfall and Arena)

6 - Yep

7 - Yep

8 - Complex and long winded and if you kill the wrong NPC's you are screwed and have to begin again.

9 - Nope it was a console port too, but had it's UI work well with PC's

 

1 - No there was none

2 - That's realism and how it works in real life when you get directions. There was no magic mystic quest markers. You had to use your own map and your own brain when searching and ACTUALLY having to read to find where to go. It was a challenge.

3 - And you still have to manually process that information, unlike the hand-holding of Oblivion and Skyrim that leads you there like a little child

5 - Wrong. Oblivion and Skyrim cut out the beastly gait in the way they walk.

8 - See, no hand holding. It didn't cater to console gamers who can't handle consequences

9 - Wrong it was a game made for PCs. The PC gamers got it in May 2nd, 2002. The port TO the X-Box came five weeks later on June 6, 2002

 

Said what I need to, I'm not reading any reply to this as I'm done here

 

Says all I need to know about you, your attitude needs a bug fix.

 

1 - There was plenty of it.

2 - There was zero challenge to it.

3 - None of the games lead you any where unless you choose to follow the markers, and to be honest wandering around lost in Morrowind usually lead to you getting dead pretty fast.

5 - What gait .. perhaps you mean the crappy animation Morrowind had that forced all models to walk like that.

8 - Sounding like you hate other gamers to me.

9 - Explained below.

 

Morrowind was a console game (It was picked up by MS during early development as they wanted it on the Xbox), back when the Xbox was mostly being used by PC users and wasn't as popular as it is now, so yes it had plenty of PC elements in it but the UI is based for a console and required modding for it to be fully functional on a PC.

 

Say what you like but every TES since Daggerfall has been developed to be run on a console system, hence the crappy UI's us PC gamers have been suffering with, thankfully we can mod in better UI's

Edited November 29, 2011 by Pixelfrog1

[Euclid]

Morrowind was my very first Tes game and I've enjoyed it immensely. Even retro-played it several times using many of the nice mods (remember Quarl's mods?) and improvements of very skilled people here and elsewhere.

 

Oblivion was nice although I did miss some features like levitate, throwing weapons (dwemer darts yayy) and the "open" world (no closed cities).

 

Now for Skyrim, after 176 hours of gameplay, I feel a little bored. Never had that feeling in any other the other Tes games. Even after many months of playing Morrowind I've still found unexplored dungeons and locations. But maybe it's because of the "first-time" experience and/or the DLCs.

 

Cheers Euclid

[snickerdoodle]

I started with Morrowind and got lost in it for hours, days, weeks even almost lost my job over it. To this date I don't recall any other game that just let me do what I wanted. Heck, my character was pro Empire and until I saw my daughter actually playing Morrowind and DOING the main quest I thought the Ashlanders were bad/rude jerks and that I was there to stop this whole Nevarene nonsense. The Ashlanders called me bad names like S'wit and Inwah and Fetcher so they had to DIE!I I ended up just wandering all over the area exploring ruins and being a treasure hunter. I made my own story. I liked Oblivion too. The graphics and combat was so much better and the world was so stunning -- Morrowind's was also in it's day. I was introduced to mods in Oblivion, so I got many more hours out of it then I did Morrowind but despite what I did in Oblivion I could not escape the looming shadow of the main quest. If I went to Jaffry and unloaded the Amulet of Kings I was compelled by dialogue to go fetch Martin. I could ignore it but that would be immersion breaking. Some grand master just told me X but I did Y... either my character is insane or I am metagaming by ignoring what just happened. Or I could choose not go see Jaffry and lug the amulet of kings around with me forever and have it remind me constantly that there was something very important I was supposed to do. In Morrowind I got off the boat, was processed and freed. I went to meet Cosades and was given free reign to do as I pleased. Oblivion could not capture that open ended feel for me but I had more fun fighting in Oblivion while in Morrowind I had tons of fun just playing sim-treasure hunter/adventurer. In many ways Oblivion with it's combination of graphics and setting has ruined me to RPG video games. Don't get me started on Fable or Dark Messiah or Dragon Age. I have no desire to play another person's character and follow their storyline/script. I want my own.

 

Skyrim doesn't feel like a TES to me. It feels like a console game set in the TES world and nothing more. I play warriors. It's a Nord setting. I remember longing for this game before release and wanting to make my TES version Viking warrior. I hit part of the main quest where I have to be sneaky... Nords don't sneak or at least my thick-hewed axe weilding Nord doesn't. I hit another part where I have to be a caster type in order to succeed. I am a big Nord warrior... I don't sneak or use magic! But to finish the game I have to break my character concept. I find that unacceptable in a TES game. Maybe Skyrim will be better for me when the modding community can put the TES back into Skyrim. Right now I might as well be playing any other number of console "RPGs" as Skyrim feels just like those rather than a TES game.