Why we remember Morrowind as the best

[Ghogiel]

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

 

 

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

Explain why it was released for PCs first then later released for the xbox. Explain why it was only announced to be also for the xbox one year prior to it's actual PC release date.

[bolivor]

Here is what i propose: Find someone who has never played morrowind, oblivion, or skyrim. Have them play the games in the reverse order of which they came out (morrowind last), and ask them their opinion. obviously more people doing this would give a more accurate result, but with the popularity of these games i think finding just 1 person to play these games for the first time would be challenging. Other than that, this thread will just be trading opinions. Which is fine, but won't give a definitive answer.

[Teppup]

I'm not going to go back and quote people but all the valid points have been said, Morrowind was original, it had feeling and a genuine uniqueness. There wasn't anything about it that reminded me of anything else. And nothing to this day reminds me of Morrowind remotely. It's world felt alive and was extremely immersible; I'm not a role player and yet found myself always reading books and quests just because they were THAT intriguing. There was no real babysitting, you chose your race, class and sign and were dropped off outside the door, free to do whatever you wanted. Absolutely no direction but go see this man somewhere in Balmora. First thing in Oblivion you're set up to go the Weynon Priory and you're able to fast travel there if you please AND given a free horse afterwards if you didn't feel like fast traveling to Cloud Ruler Temple. Same thing in Skyrim, go to Riverwood and start your linear questing. Granted, I've done nothing but wander aimlessly in Skyrim thus far, haven't even touched the main quest past being able to get my shouts and being named Thane. Skyrim is a great game thus far, don't get me wrong, I'm lovin' it. But the topic is in comparison to Morrowind and yeah man I'm a fan boy, not much I've played since Morrowind can hold a candle to it.

[lynix112]

Morrowind was great... I will say that no matter what. But! I think skyrim is better simply because of the advancement in the combat system, even oblivion wasn't that great because of the combat.

 

Take morrowind and put in skyrim combat and skill system (believe it or not I was happy to see the major and minor skills go, they were boring and restricted players from changing styles really badly) and my mind = blown... That would be a great game.

 

And tbh I don't like dragons they are boring and repetitive, I actually started a new game after finishing the main story just so I wouldn't have to deal with a dragon every 15 minutes.

[Cthuloot]

I"ll list my feelings on boths sides, because honestly I don't like to compare the two games. Different times, consoles and abilities for their era.

 

Reasons I prefer Morrowind to Skyrim.

- More attention to detail while playing was required. Your hand wasn't held through the game. Your journal felt more realistic because you had to flip through pages and remember when you talked to that guy about the puzzle in the ruin you're in. This for me felt more realistic.

- MUCH more variety in skills as well as less of a penalty for 'general' leveling. In Morrowind you had to level 10 of your major or minor skills. You knew exactly when your next level up would be (kind of) and you weren't really penalized for using your misc skills. In Skyrim all skills count towards leveling up. So picking up a book by mistake or not knowing what skill it'd increase, as well as just selling things to merchants could tip you into the next tier of dragons before you were ready. In Morrowind, this was hardly as much of a problem.

- Continuing the previous point, you could pick up a sword and be amazing with it, if you had spent you life swinging axes around. There was also medium and unarmored skills, so wearing cloth as a mage wasn't a death sentence if somebody got too close.

- Many quests were somewhat unique. Whil there weren't as many as there was in Skyrim, there was no where near the same amount of times I found myself saying "I've done this quest before." as I did in Skyrim.

- Far more factions, as well as some interesting concepts for them. One faction let you build your own city! Which is pretty cool. There was also the fact that if you joined one faction, you weren't allowed to join the rival factions. As far as I know the only time this exists in Skyrim is Stormcloks v. Imperials.

- Fast travel wasn't available. There was the Silt Strider and Mage's Guild teleport. This left a LOT of areas only accessible by walking.

- Absolutely bizzare things happened. Some were never explained to keep the mystery around them and leave the player their own conclusions. Like the Kwama. Bizzare creatures.

- Far more mature dialouge. I don't mean swearing and sex, but some of the conversations felt more mature and intelligent. You also weren't often given dialogue options, so you could ask about a lot of things and not feel like you were ever out of character. Some of the dialouge options in Skyrim seem odd or off. Play a Khajiit for instance. Apparently you're the only Khajiit in Skyrim without a Khajiit accent. If you want to play an older character, for starters the game doesn't recognize it, and you're still treated as a 20 year old adventurer, but you also talk like one.

- Custom spells. I almost cried when this was no longer and option...

- Things were a little less in you face. Racism and such were there and present, but not so common that I found myself hating entire cities because of it. Instead I developed particularly feelings against certain NPC's because they were the only ones saying these things. In Skyrim, I'd enter a city and shortly loath the entire place because every character was incredibly racist. Windlhelm is a perfect example of this. While it's arguable that this was the intention, I was left feeling like I didn't want to be there at all, because I could not in anyways sway these people even in the slightest, despite saving their city from a dragon, catching a murderer, and even helping their beloved king rise to the throne. Even after all this I was spat at with nasty insults and bombarded with derogatory comments, despite my constant efforts and amazing deeds that very surely showed them that they were wrong.

 

From a role playing and story point of view, Morrowind beats out Skyrim in MANY places.

 

Reasons I prefer Skyrim to Morrowind.

- Far more refined mechanics. Skyrim you can fling fireballs and swing a sword at the same time. Morrowind left you to choose one or the other. It also had you feeling like you were dueling even wild creatures with a lot of the blow-for-blow combat. Skyrim's combat is a little more fluid and frantic, which feels nice.

- Far more customization. You get a better selection of what you want your character to look like. I've spent hours making the perfect character. And even hours making horribly deformed characters. While this isn't a major feature and doesn't offer much effect to actual gameplay, it helped me get in touch with and craft a character that fit my own crafted story.

- Perks are amazing. I found myself on many occasions left with odd choices on which perk I wanted, because so many of them were helpful. Some of these perks even dramatically affected how you'd play your character. After investing in Soul Stealer, I no longer had a use for soul trap spells and found myself using almost solely bound weapons. Deadly Bash made me change how often I used my shield bash. Quiet Casting, gave my mage a reason to start using sneak more often. Even smaller things like Allure had me going a little out of my way at times to squeeze a few extra coins out of my latest dungeon sweep.

- Radiant Quests, while a little dull and repetitive, helped me decide which of the dozens of dungeons I'd check out next. It also gave me some extra cash when I was a few septims short of a sword I've had my eye on.

- NPCs have a life. Morrowind didn't have people doing their daily chores, eating or even sleeping. Everybody was always in one place, which was helpful at times, and downright annoying at others. Skyrim however made assassination, break ins and such more interesting. I found myself scoping out a target for a few days at a time, to get an idea of their routine so I'd know when they were alone, or when their house was empty. I personally really enjoyed following a guy into a tavern and sitting in a dark corner for a few hours waiting for him to leave.

- Crafting. Loads of fun, even if it was a bit shallow. I could easily go mine for a day or two and make myself some shiny new armor, rather than grinding bandits for hours on end just to scrape together money for an upgrade.

- Walking around was rewarding. I'd find all sorts of little interesting things and scenarios. Often times in random places. While they were always as in depth as I'd personally like them to be, I'd sometimes tag along with a guard patrol or a fellow wanderer for a few miles. It was nice to have some passing people to stick with in case of a dragon attack you couldn't handle alone or a wandering merchant who'd take a few things to lighten your load.

- Much bigger enemies. IN Morrwind and even Oblivion I was kind of sad that the biggest thing I'd ever fight was only slightly larger than I was. Of course there was the Bull and Betty Netchs in Morrowind, but other than that, there wasn't much bigger enemies. Skyrim brought a few larger enemies into the game which were a lot of fun, and felt somewhat rewarding. I mean you just fought and killed a dragon 20 times your size, and won. How cool was that the first few times you did it?

- Enemies would work together against a common foe. In Morrowind I could run a group of bandits into Deadric ruins and somehow the Deadra and bandits decided that I was the one that needed to die. Always. Skyrim on the otherhand I found myself working with bandits and giants at the same time to down a dragon. Unfortunately though, we'd then immediately attack each other, until there was nothing but the Dovahkiin left standing.

 

Skyrim was much better from an action oriented point of view.

 

Things I can't decide between on the two games.

- Story relevant NPC's. You could kill them in Morrwind, and you'd get a message letting you know that you could have very easily just doomed your world. You were even allowed to take on Vivec himself if you hand the guts and were strong enough. Skyrim however didn't let you do this. While it's nice knowing that you can't screw yourself over too bad by killing an essential character, it's very annoying that some of them refuse to stop fighting no matter how many times you knock them unconscious. Additionally there were a lot of chracters that cuoldn't be killed even though they had almost nothing to do with the main quest, or had already out lived their necessity to the quest.

- Less clutter for crafting. Morrowind's alchemy required you to have your own set of alchemy things. You could also have NPCs enchant things for you. This let you get a pretty nasty sword without having to spend time grinding your enchant level. The type of equipment used for potions also greatly affected their quality, and it was possible to very early on make potions that were better than most you'd find in caves and shops. Skyrim on the other hand had a more interesting enchanting process with disenchanting other items to make your own and a more user friendly potion creation. However, you would usually not be able to make potions that were better than what you could buy until many perks were invested into the tree. Same with some enchantments. You also don't have to find all the alchemy bits to craft potions. However, I was a little annoyed that everybody in all of Skyrim bought the same alchemy and enchanting stand from Ikea.

- Layering armor and clothes in Morrowind was fun, but easy to overpower your character. There was also a large number of pieces to make up a full set. Each shoulder and glove were a separate piece. If memory serves you'd end up with 8 or 9 pieces of armor for one set. Not counting clothes and jewelry. This let you really customize your look, but again made inventory management a nightmare at times. Skyrim made this a lot simpler and easier to keep track off, but you couldn't hide your armor under some robes, or choose to follow Dunmer fashion and wear one pauldron that was much larger than the other (I loved this honestly). It also makes it a little harder to overpower your character. Imagine using enchantments to make casting cheaper, while having 10 or 15 available pieces of equipment to do this with. You could easily make almost all magic free.

- Disposition. Morrowind was awesome when it came to this. It was clear how much a person liked you and many things such as trading, quests, and even chatting could affect this, which in turn made them more or less likely to attack you, report you, and even affected their prices. Skyrim didn't offer this as much and you'd often get pretty similar prices from most vendors. You also couldn't sweet talk all the guards into 100 disposition and get away with crimes all the time.

- Trading. Morrowind allowed a barter system which was loads of fun. You could also grab an item back before completing a trade incase you sold something by accident. This let you avoid occasional mishaps resulting in the loss of a few hundred gold every now and again. However, if you tried to offer or ask for too much gold on a transaction this made the merchant less friendly, and as a result you'd have to readjust your offer, and I'd find myself at times failing the offer 3 or 4 times in a row, because of the constant changes in disposition. This causes much annoyance and grief while playing. Skyrim on the other hand is a lot faster when it comes to trades. You also don't have to worry about fluctuating prices and spend an extra 5 minutes arguing over how much gold you want.

 

Just my really long thoughts on the matter...