Why we remember Morrowind as the best

[Jakeo]

They are more likely to focus on Kinect promoting DLC and screw PC users as usual fyi lol... :)

 

But that's why we have mods, to un-console Skyrim and unleash its true potential =)

[DeadSpace]

after reading through this...starting to wonder if bethesda has hired people for damage management...or just a deluge of fanboys. some replies to the various 'points' made within this thread.

 

morrowind had depth, options, choices skyrim lacks they should be self evident to any except the most deluded.

'you can't compare skyrim to morrowind'

bull****, sequels are compared against their predecessors, movies, games, books...everywhere. the other ironic thing about the above statement is same person compares skyrim to morrowind to try and say how much better skyrim is.

 

rose tinted glasses? hardly. i base my judgment solely on a games merits, if that game is a sequel then that is also relevant as to how it compares to it's predecessors.

 

by itself negs> buggy game engine, low res, bad port, bad UI, bad patching, ambiguous statements from bethesda, hype that didn't pan out, caters to the lowest common denominator, horrible AI, mobs can't jump, mobs can't swim, children immortal, companions that do nothing in the players home, broken quests, physics that look at times to have been programmed by a 3 year olds idea of how the world works, cities/towns that seem underpopulated, lack of variety in enemies, grouping weapons in 1 or 2 handed catagories, small grimoire of spell choices, npc's don't react to who you are, what you've done, or what titles you might have...unless you're a criminal, npc's wanting to kill you over tableware.

 

by itself pos> expansive, great art work/landscaping work, perk tree, smithing...can never fault beth's artists...sometimes i think that's all they have there and one poor programmer doing all the coding work no matter what credits say.

 

just based on it's own merits the negs outweigh the positives...now compared to previous TES games...

lack of depth, lack of weapon choices lack of skill paths, reduced armor choices (torso is it), enchanting reduced and made nonsensical given this is the same world morrowind and oblivion took place, lack of spell crafting, laziness on beth's part not wanting to make a specific skeleton for beast races with attachment points for armor and weapons. as well as specific armors for those skeletons. flight, open cities

 

not rose colored in the slightest...though even that statement is typical 'wearing rose colored glasses' <~an attempt, albeit feeble to cast doubt upon those that have issues with skyrim as if they're deluding themselves or living in the past. reality is, skyrim doesn't even stand on it's own figurative feet with it's issues...so the only people who wear the glasses are the fanboys who ignore all the issues the game has as if it's the most perfect thing since pre-sliced cheese. it's not...not even close

 

edit: i knew i'd think of more negs...rebranding gamebryo calling it 'creation engine', designing a game for ancient tech and being too lazy to advance it for modern pc's and finally climbing into bed with steam. thought that last is partly personal, it's still a neg however as is any extra process (when every readme you'll ever see says 'kill nonessential background process for better game performance') and the DRM is fail as well as trashing some mods. so steam being completely useless isn't accurate since it effects performance and customization, it's a negative.

Edited December 8, 2011 by DeadSpace

[Shantih]

I loved Morrowind back in the day and the only thing that I really cared for in Oblivion was Shivering Isles.

 

BUT I have to say that I never considered Morrowind to be the best game ever. The visuals and gameplay were amazing (especially back then) but when it came to quests and dialogues it couldn't compare to Fallout (which is still my most memorable gaming experience -and no it wasn't my first game either).

 

Simply put I may have been spoiled by the first Fallout but being unable to do some things in an open game like Morrowind was a major drawback for me. In Morrowind I couldn't double cross a quest giver or lie and that alone was incredibly annoying to me.

 

Also I understand the complaints regarding the hand holding and I do share some of the concern but I also remember what it was like to run around Vivec looking for an NPC -especially when you didn't remember in which part of the city you had seen the guy. The marker system is not good for immersion but there should be a middle ground (IMO the best thing would be to have a real journal containing relevant information that you could look up during the game and perhaps some divining magic spell when you're tired of spending hours looking under every pixellated rocks).

 

I think there is definitely some truth to what the OP has posted. No matter what nostalgia is always a factor. It's only human.

 

When on November the 11th my friend launched Skyrim on his Xbox 360 we weren't awed (something that distincly happened back when we first started playing Morrowind) and in fact I certainly wasn't impressed with the tutorial and the rather silly (IMO) opening. But despite all that we could see that Skyrim was an Elder Scrolls game and as such it definitely had most of the things we like about these titles.

 

Skyrim may not be as exotic as Morrowind but at least it's not as generic as Oblivion. I do wish that they could have included crossbows (I've missed them since Morrowind) but the more I play Skyrim the more I like it.

 

IMO it is a good game and a worthy addition to the Elder Scrolls Series.

[abaris]

 

morrowind had depth, options, choices skyrim lacks they should be self evident to any except the most deluded.

'you can't compare skyrim to morrowind'

bull****, sequels are compared against their predecessors, movies, games, books...everywhere. the other ironic thing about the above statement is same person compares skyrim to morrowind to try and say how much better skyrim is.

 

 

Morrowind, especially modded Morrowind, had it all. I played it for six years straight and didn't get bored. But at the same time people tend to look at it with rose tinted glasses, especially if we are to compare it with todays possibilities. It had scarce role playing elements which was understandable, since there was only so much you could make an AI do in 2002. It had more stats and I admit I'm missing some of them, especially when it comes to character stats, such as charisma, intelligence and the lot. Others I don't miss that much, since I hardly used them, which boils down to gaming preferences.

 

I'm pretty content with the new system, although I always keep saying, that reduction isn't always for the best. If a lot is included, you can always make the decision of ignoring certain elements. If it isn't there to begin with, you're pretty much screwed if you're looking for it.

 

In my book, the fundamental problem are the NPCs still not reacting to your decisions and actions and the questlines still not being dynamic with choices to be made. In that aspect things haven't evolved since 2002 and that's bothering me much more than losing the stats. For me the fights were always a secondary element. When playing a RPG I want to lose myself in the world. And that happened with Morrowind, because it was something entirely new at the time, but it doesn't happen with Skyrim, since I always get the feeling of being a lone figure amidst a non reacting army of robots doing the same things over and over.

[TotalRookie]

I'd happily pay for a Morrowind with Skyrims graphics and physics engine.

[Pineapplerum]

With reading all the references to Morrowind and how it was such a better game, I decided to reinstall it and play. I was sure it was just nostalgia getting the best of everyone. Then I started to play and all the memories came flooding back. The music, the conversation trees, the inventory, the map, we could dispose of a body of a dead enemy after we killed it if we wanted. :( What happened? Now I'm going to sound like everyone else. Morrowind was a better game. It's not nostalgia.

 

The graphics weren't as good as Oblivion but the game itself feels more complete. I didn't even play for that long, just for 10 minutes. I reloaded an old save and honestly I forget what the heck is going on with my character and the game. Maybe I'll make a new character and go through it again. This time as a mage instead of a warrior.

[Vangarrett99]

I miss Levitation and Craft Spells. :rolleyes:

[Karasuman]

And I answered my opinion. I played it as well, so I feel I am allowed to post.

 

 

You're right. You do have the right to post. However, anytime I write a post that has a decidedly condescending air to it, I expect that people may get combative in response. You should expect it too. The answers given in this thread are on topic with what the OP asked. The thread's question involves both Morrowind and Skyrim, so I'm fairly certain it could safely be put into either forum without breaching any rules. Even still, if it bothers you that much that it's in the Skyrim forum, you could always ask the moderators to move the thread.

 

That said, I could go into the myriad of reasons why I think Morrowind is better, but I've done that in other threads, so instead it'll be boiled down to one word: originality. Morrowind is original. Skyrim is not. I've seen Morrowind's creatures in exactly one place: Morrowind. I'd never seen anything like them before. Then there's Skyrim. Dragons? Sure, dragons are cool, but I've also seen them in about 45,000 other RPG's, movies, books, you name it. The creatures are just one example of what I believe makes Morrowind original. There are several others as well.

 

Skyrim's a good action game, but it's hardly original. Morrowind has a distinctly unique, alien feel that didn't remind me of anything else. I hadn't seen anything like it before and I haven't since either. Skyrim's a more advanced game in almost every way, and yet it still misses many intangibles that Morrowind has, and those intangibles can't all be measured in mundane, technological terms. You and anyone else are fully within your bounds not to like it, but the nostalgia argument gets tossed around as though anyone who thinks Morrowind (or Oblivion) is better is obviously an idiot without a valid opinion.

 

I'm not blind. I see all the advancements in Skyrim. I think Skyrim gets some things right. But I still think Morrowind is a bigger, more ambitious achievement and yes, the better game.

Edited December 9, 2011 by Karasuman

[nivea]

Morrowind came at a time before graphics trumped all else in games, before every line "HAD" to be voiced back in a time where writing a good dialog was extremely important because there was nothing else to dictate emotion. Morrowind will always be the "best" to many because it was before the great graphics crusade hit all the gaming companies, and people cared more about story then anything else.

 

Oblivion was a huge disappointment, I have never been more disappointed in a game then I was in Oblivion its ONLY saving grace was that it has a huge modding community.

 

I am impressed with Skyrim, the world "feels" more like Morrowind it feels huge and lived in. There are a lot of things I am not happy with, but I feel Skyrim is the only TES game worthy of being Morrowinds decedent thus far.

[Seviche]

I started my TES experience by playing Arena. I had so much fun with the game that I forgot that there was a main questline and never "finished" the game. Too much screwing around to be had and it suited me just fine.

 

I was excited for the release for the release of Morrowind and here's where I get labeled a heretic; I disliked Morrowind at the time. I bought it, geeked out at the options, played about 20 hours, and then put it away on the bookshelf (in fact the game is still within arm's reach right now). I hated the game. It probably wasn't the game, it was probably me. I was very into 4x games at the time and it just didn't do it for me. It wasn't the right time to play the game. It never did become the right time to play Morrowind.

 

I bought Oblivion about eight months ago, played the vanilla version and wasn't impressed with it. I modded the heck out of it, and then thought it was an alright game. It made me interested in Skyrim.

 

I bought Skyrim and I love the game with all it's faults. It needs work, (lots and lots of work) but I am now understanding what people say about Morrowind. I really understand what Skyrim needs to go from "Good Game" to "Epic Game," especially after watching THIS (note:not a

) series of "Let's Play" from Novawar (of LAGTV) on youtube. I can see tens of things (if not hundreds) that Skyrim needs from Morrowind to be really epic.

 

Besides a crab merchant, I mean. Although that would be cool as well. :thumbsup: