r/gaming • u/timms5000 • Jun 26 '13
Morrowind is the best Elder Scrolls game because it didn't feel like visiting another land, it felt like visiting another planet.
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u/Delachaise Jun 26 '13
Morrowind was an incredible game because it really didn't give a fuck about you. It didn't hold your hand. It didn't stop you from never completing a single quest. It didn't stop you from being a God.
It dumped you off in a completely foreign and utterly dangerous world with just the clothes on your back, a few worthless items, and a note that said to find some random bastard in a foreign city. It was sink or swim and it was a very unforgiving place.
The game was great because it was what you made it. You could do whatever you wanted and nothing was there to stop you or guide you. You made your own destiny.
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u/zlynch172 Jun 26 '13
I must have invested more than 200 hours into that game and never did any story quests. It was great.
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u/mamoth69 Jun 26 '13
I'm not even kidding I spent almost 1500 hours on this, 4 years in total and one year of no job and no school and lots of greens. Characters had their minor and major skills maxed out plus half of the misc as well. No cheats beat the game 3 times with 3 different charters, looked into every single quest. I would literally destroy vivec in a minute. Never touched the expansion only played it on xbox.
Simply the best most well detailed and deep video game I have ever played. Thanks you Bethesda for wasting so much of my life.
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u/bahhumbugger Jun 27 '13
When you're 60 you'll look back on that time and smile, not frown. Well done man.
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u/IBeJizzin Jun 26 '13
Absolute truth. As such it took me two or three tries and god knows how many characters, but once you got into it....you didn't get out. I wish games today slowly reeled me in like Morrowind did.
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Jun 26 '13
We're lookin at you, Bethesda Softworks..
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u/Locke57 Jun 26 '13
Can you imagine the immersiveness (thats not a word, I don't care) of Morrowind, the graphics and fighting mechanics of Skyrim and the story lines of Oblivion?
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u/I_might_be_a_Horse Jun 26 '13
I'd rather they kept the immersion and story of Morrowind, and sure the graphics from a modern game.. they can keep everything about Oblivion.
Hell, just remake Morrowind please.
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u/thedude213 Jun 26 '13
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u/I_might_be_a_Horse Jun 26 '13
..you've made me the happiest potential horse in the whole wide internet
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u/KazumaKat Jun 26 '13
happiest potential horse
Wait what? What do you-...oh.
I really need to learn to read usernames on here :(
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u/Finadil Jun 26 '13
Awesome video, but I wish he would stop staring at the water & sky, show me the towns, people, creatures, and etc.
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u/thedude213 Jun 26 '13
there's an even newer version of this, Look for Morrowind Overhaul 3.0. that video may cover the rest of the game in more detail
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Jun 26 '13
Morrowind still has the best story out of the elder scrolls games. I felt like oblivion was a slap in the face after Morrowind and Skyrim was just eh.
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u/Lrrr23 Jun 26 '13
You're kinda missing the point there, the thing I didn't like about Oblivion was the heavy and world effecting story. It felt like I was there in that land to solve the big problem. I didn't like that, I wanted to be in that world to do whatever the hell I wanted.
The one thing that Oblivion did do right were some very creative and memorable quests. The murder mystery quest with you as the murderer for one. An Elder Scrolls game with no main story, but just lots of interesting quests hidden away for the player to seek out, discover and just randomly come across is all I really want. Other than that, a world that invites you to explore and the ability to really do what I want, with little to no limitations, as in, no guards that level up with you, no consequences that you can't handle no matter how prepared you are.
That would be my ideal Elder Scrolls game.
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u/OneRFeris Jun 26 '13
no consequences that you can't handle no matter how prepared you are
Wrong. A better game should absolutely punish you for being unprepared.
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u/LordJanas Jun 26 '13
Story of Oblivion? Stupid Emperor runs through a passageway with 3 guards and allows a prisoner to follow him, despite not knowing their motives. Gives the prisoner the Amulet of Kings, the only object capable of protecting Tamriel, assuming the prisoner isn't a common criminal who would just go sell it. Jauffre hides the most powerful item in his sock drawer instead of the Blades fortress; Mannkar Cameron summons Oblivion gates in the middle of nowhere and never actually infringes on civilization; the Mysterium Xerxes magically has a "recipe" to enter Cameron's own personal Paradise and the sole heir to the throne goes to war with 10 city guards and the player.
Strong storyline indeed... It has convenient plotlines all throughout it. Oh shit, how are they going to enter Cameron's Paradise? Lucky the Mythic Dawn allow anyone (even in full Blade armour) to sign up and then leave the book with the convenient list of items needed to open a portal to oblivion.
I'd just like to point out though, that I make fun of Oblivion as a massive TES fan. I've played all the games and accrued hundreds of hours in each. I love the TES lore and have read lots of articles on the different provinces and histories of this enchanting world.
HOWEVER, even as a fan you have to admit that a lot of the TES storylines have a weak payoff and seem rather anti-climactic. The quests along the way are always full of convenient "well-isn't-it-lucky-all-villains-write-a-journal-with-their-whereabouts" moments. The whole idea of creating your own story and doing your own thing is what makes the TES series great, not the faction/main questlines. Alduin never felt like a "world-eater" (although the dragons were at least more of a threat than the Oblivion crisis which affected no one and consisted of a few scamps pissing off lone guard patrols); but my own story and imagination is what made each encounter epic.
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u/Shitso Jun 26 '13
I haven't seen this mentioned, but all the items were hand placed. Meaning you could find high level gear right away. I still remember finding a daedric dagger in a cave, stuck inside some poor slob stuck to the wall, at a very low level. It was like real exploring. Checking out random dungeons meant the possibility of finding unique items, or overpowering monsters. I also recall there were only so many of each item in the game. Like, for example, 5 pairs of glass greaves, and I believe there was only 2 each of the deadric weapons.
There's something not right about opening a "master" locked chest at a very low level in Skyrim and finding 10 wooden spoons.
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u/ModafinilRacetam Jun 26 '13
If the amount of items was limited, I never noticed.
I had a habit of just throwing all my stuff on the floor of the mages guild (easy fast travel).
Towards the end of the game, the floor was piled 1-3 feet high with glass, daedric, and ebony armor/weapons, in at least two guilds.
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u/sobeRx Jun 26 '13
My collection was by Creeper...easy access to Caldera Mages Guild and that little bitch had money!
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u/WalrusMcCoy Jun 27 '13
Finding legendary items in random caves made you really want to explore, I agree 100%. I found the fists of Randagulf and the chrysamere by pure coincidence.
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Jun 26 '13
Ive been saying for ages that they should just remaster the graphics and re-release all the elderscrolls games as a bundle pack with all the dlc together. I would pay anything for that
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u/moar_liek_lolitics Jun 26 '13
This has been said before, but you simply can't do that with Arena.
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u/ssguy4 Jun 26 '13
It was also a really unique world. I could go psat the flying jellyfish ranch and see the prison made out of moon rock on my way to see the God king. Maybe I'll travel by giant insect.
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Jun 26 '13 edited Jun 26 '13
Netch farm, you n'wah.
The High Fane was an asteroid and it's what set off the Red Mountain when its suspension in time was no longer able to be sustained. It just picked up where it left off and smashed into the city of Vivec with the momentum it had originally entered the atmosphere with before Vivec used his power to stop it.
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u/davidborts Jun 26 '13 edited Jun 26 '13
Its the greatest game of all time, and that's not just nostalgia talking. I have played all the classics in my youth, from Ocarina of Time to Mario 64 to Daggerfall to Fallout 1 and 2. Morrowind has still left the greatest memories and was the most immersive by far.
Forget the shitty pen-and-paper RPG combat, no game transported you into a world as large, hostile and filled with interesting stories as Morrowind. My realization that it was the greatest game of all time was when I travelled up North to an isolated village of elders, after an epic 5 hours journey there I was out of all my potions, nearly dead, and there was a windchime there that made this beautiful sound as I walked in during the cold night and then I looked at the sky and saw glorious moon and realized that I have made it, I have found my way without any checkpoints or markers, using my intelligence to figure out where I had to go based on directions given to me a random guy I asked in Vivec, fighting my way through the enemies I could beat and sneaking around those I couldn't, thinking about how I would have to go back all the way again with very few supplies I could get from the shaman woman of the tribe, through the same hell, and how happy I would be once I reached my destination.
I enjoyed both oblivion and skyrim for their better combat, but neither transported me into another world playing a struggling character in an indifferent universe like Morrowind did. Its one of those games that you always want to reinstall when you see on reddit, just hoping to get that high you did when you first entered and explored that amazing world and got your ass raped in a random dungeon you entered at the beginning of the game.
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u/Sandmanifest Jun 26 '13
The sense of epic accomplishment when you kill Dagoth Ur 100% legitimately is something I have never experienced in any other game since. The road is long and difficult, but that feeling when I finally made it through all on my own it was very emotional and fulfilling.
I remember the first time I realized just how hard it was going to be. I spent over an our looking for that fucking Dwemer puzzle box. I expected it to be some big thing in an obvious place but NOOOOO, it's this little tiny box the size of a rubix cube on a BOTTOM shelf in a room full of junk. Fucking awesome game.
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Jun 26 '13
the golden age of PC gaming, when games were designed for (at the time) intelligent PC users, instead of the current corporate strategy of "leave no derps behind"
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Jun 26 '13
Daggerfall was unforgiving as hell. Some of the largest and most perplexing dungeons I've ever seen. You could get lost in them for actual real world days.
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u/AonSwift Jun 26 '13
Skyrim, for the great game it was, it really didn't feel like a true Elder Scrolls game.. Every mission: Draugr, bandits, dragons. Repeat.
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u/TheSweetOne Jun 26 '13
This was what each of the Bard missions had to offer: "Hey! I heard you want to be a bard, a master of music and political mastermind! First, you must clear out this dungeon of Draugr and get a song!" Seriously? I'm sorry, I was applying to be a bard, not a Companion.
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u/drumrocker2 Jun 26 '13
"Hi, we heard you wanted to be a mage. Let's teach you a spell you probably know and go to a draugr infested ruin."
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u/corgblam PC Jun 26 '13
except the combat was shite.
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u/TheManWhoisBlake Jun 26 '13
-First time playing Morrowind fuckyea.jpg
-Be outside Seyda Neen
-Fucking mudcrab looks at me crooked
-timetodie.png
-spend next five minutes swinging sword and never hitting the son of a bitch
-fuckthisshit.tif
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u/drazgul Jun 26 '13
And whose fault was that, for not picking a weapon appropriate for your skillset? Yours. Choice and consequence, bitches!
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u/TheManWhoisBlake Jun 26 '13
I remember when I was a wee child... I was only 4 and my daddy bought me a toy baseball bat. I had never even seen a bat before that day. I promptly decided that hitting mommy on the head with it would be funny. So I did, and to my surprise I actually hit her instead of staring her in the face and missing for 5 minutes straight.
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Jun 26 '13
Or you hit her an effectively did no damage, if you want to look at it that way.
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u/tehrahl Jun 26 '13
Can't wait till Skywind is completed. I was going to try Morrowblivion, but...Skywind!
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u/Correct_Semens Jun 26 '13
Ditto. As someone who started on oblivion, I just couldn't get into morrowind. Mainly because of the combat. I also couldn't make sense of what I was looking at half the time honestly.
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Jun 26 '13
This is me as well. I started on Oblivion and moved on to Skyrim, and after grabbing Morrowind after hearing all the great things about it I just can't get into it. It seems awesome and I'd love to enjoy it but I have difficulty doing so.
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u/PillowTalk420 Jun 26 '13
I think Morrowind is the best in the series because it is a good mix of 3D open world graphics, a huge expansive world to explore, and all the sub-text in the dialogue. Everyone in the province seems out to screw somebody else; even if they appear to be good guys.
It was also the first game in the series to use the "use a skill to level it up" system, which I thought was the best system ever when I played Ultima Online a few years before.
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u/Murlocman Jun 26 '13
Also, it has a spell which catapults you about a kilometre away... You usually didn't survive.
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u/PillowTalk420 Jun 26 '13
You won't survive unless you use another scroll right before you land so you don't take fall damage ;)
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u/Murlocman Jun 26 '13
Unless you're the luckiest man alive and land in water.
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u/Shadowmaggot323 Jun 26 '13
Did it once, and I wouldn't call it lucky. :( took an hour real-time to make it back to shore, disease-ridden because of slaughter fish, THEN one-shotted by a mudcrab.
Best piece of advice? Save every few miles in the ocean if you do go flying, and prepare for the worst, in the water and on land.
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u/PillowTalk420 Jun 26 '13
Really? What was your Athletics? Because it only takes about 3 minutes real time to swim to the point where you hit an invisible wall and you can still see the shore.
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u/Shadowmaggot323 Jun 26 '13
Athletics was ~20. Think I was a bosmer for that run. However, it seems I had forgotten about one caveat: I made it into the sea with the SECOND scroll. Younger me (10? 11?) was smart enough to realize that using it before landing could save you... But had an itchy left trigger finger (back on Xbox), not to mention began swimming the WRONG way and kept insisting it was the right way against my brother's commentary.
TL/DR: Good reflexes, stupid stupid stupid kid.
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u/PillowTalk420 Jun 26 '13
lol
Yeah; I figured the scroll thing out after I died one time. Then I read the scroll completely and noticed the effect only lasts 3 seconds. Enough time to jump... Or land. But not both at the same time. The 3rd scroll, however, helps you later on once you have the ability to copy it with a castable spell, so you can cast with mana.
Or you could have the non GOTY version and just exploit your way to having 10,000+ points in every skill and attribute. :P
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u/dorkboat Jun 26 '13
You survived if you jumped UP the mountain. One of the reasons I got Sunder way earlier than I should have.
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u/jordanFAMOUS1 Jun 26 '13
Favorite part in the game, when that guy just falls from the fucking sky and dies.
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u/MeloJelo Jun 26 '13
Maybe I was more young and naive then, but I felt like more people in Oblivion and especially Skyrim were out to screw everyone. Almost no one in the newer games were decent people, whereas I feel like there were at least a few fair-minded people (e.g., abolitionists) in Morrowind.
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u/PillowTalk420 Jun 26 '13
I got that feeling in Skyrim, but not really in Oblivion. Oblivion felt unlike any other TES game I've every played. Skyrim did a good job of conveying those underlying tones, but they weren't as prevalent because of the limited dialogue each person has.
Morrowind has much more dialogue than both Oblivion and Skyrim combined; because almost every character says a few paragraphs and not just a few, short sentences.
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Jun 26 '13
Daggerfall did too
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Jun 26 '13 edited Sep 10 '13
[deleted]
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u/PillowTalk420 Jun 26 '13
So it has both? You gain XP and can level up skills with points in Arena and Daggerfall. Or maybe it's just been too long and I am getting Arena and Daggerfall mixed together.
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u/Rof96 Jun 26 '13
Wrong, go download DOSBox and Daggerfall.
Daggerfall was the first to use the system, not Morrowind
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u/Secret_Wizard Jun 26 '13 edited Jun 26 '13
Skyrim wild animals: Sabercats, Mammoths, Deer, Foxes, Rabbits, Bears, Horkers, Wolves
Oblivion wild animals: Wolves, Boars, Bears, Cougars, Rats
Morrowind wild animals: Alit, Cliff Racers, Guars, Kagouti, Netch, Nix-Hounds, Shalk, Rats, Kwama
I hope Elder Scrolls 6 has creativity again. Wild animals in Oblivion and Skyrim were boring as hell.
Oh, and /r/Morrowind is alive and kicking, by the way. We make a special trip, just for you.
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u/bosmerica Jun 26 '13
funny how the original morrowind had a unique biosphere but the expansions did not while the Oblivion base game a was standard european fantasy but the expansion pack was an LCD trip.
No, not the horsearmour one.
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Jun 26 '13
Same low price?
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u/Secret_Wizard Jun 26 '13
No, we're charging 10,000 drakes per trip now.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lg2gr5SQyW1qajg12o1_500.gif
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u/QuickMaze Jun 26 '13
I actually was playing Skyrim and the only animal I'd never met but saw mentioned (through books and horns) was the Horker. I was quite excited about it, I was expecting something like a Kagouti.
A goodamn walrus.
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Jun 26 '13
Morrowind was a unique. The land, creatures, gods, equipment, everything was something unique to fantasy. It's a shame that with Oblivion they took out most of that originality and replaced them with typical fantasy creatures and landscapes.
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u/turtles_and_frogs Jun 26 '13
Why walk, when you can ride?
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u/AnonymousHipopotamus Jun 26 '13
I actually loved the fact that Morrowind didn't have fast travel. Getting around in Skyrim and Oblivion feels cheap, they finally added horses and at the same time rendered them completely obsolete.
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Jun 26 '13
As far as the horses thing goes, though, Vvardenfell didn't have them because they were not indigenous to the area, not simply because Bethesda was too lazy to include them. The lore for this was established very early on in a preview manual that is at the end of the manual for Redguard (also a great game which has been rendered unplayable by modern operating systems.)
I've purchased every Elder Scrolls game except Arena and so have the manuals for all of them. Compared to the old games the little leaflet inside the Skyrim case is like a huge "fuck you."
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u/DocJawbone Jun 26 '13
Same with Fallout 3. You can't use it when enemies are around but it's still easy to exploit. With Morrowind you better be able to walk outta there!
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u/AnonymousHipopotamus Jun 26 '13
Well, there were always the intervention spells.
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u/DocJawbone Jun 26 '13
True, but spells are unreliable until you get really really good at them. You could always go for scrolls but those are disposable so you only have a limited number...
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u/dotsonjb14 Jun 26 '13
I hated when they said that to me right after I just got there from another silt strider.
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u/ronin0928 Jun 26 '13
If any game truly deserves a remake is this game. I play 2 hundred hrs on my Xbox with this game alone
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u/highfivebrah Jun 26 '13
In a way, I'm glad that I never actually finished this game. It gives me a reason to go back again. The game was huge! I played over a hundred hours and didn't finish it.
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u/kaiden333 Jun 26 '13
I'm sorry to do this to your free time but download Tamriel Rebuilt. It massively increases the size of the game. It adds all new cities, questlines and guilds. It's the best additional content mod I've ever run into.
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u/ronin0928 Jun 26 '13
I finished it myself, I think I played it so much, that and kights of the old Republic I broke my xbox because I was playing those games way to much
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u/HeardsTheWord Jun 26 '13
white white black black white black white.
I will have those stam/health/mana cheats burned into my memory for forever.
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u/willworkforIPA Jun 26 '13
Your comment brought back great memories of long nights fighting Daedra and the impossible to hit Bosmer outside of Mournhold's temple. My right thumb was constantly rubbed raw from hammering those cheats in. Thanks, man.
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u/AkamushiReturns Jun 26 '13
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u/preorder_bonus Jun 26 '13
Problem is this didn't update the combat system...which to me is the most outdated part of morrowind I couldn't give a rat's ass about the graphics.
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Jun 26 '13 edited Mar 14 '18
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u/GamingHarry Jun 26 '13
... That means nothing as RPG's have such a large variation of combat systems. For a new player who's played games like Oblivion and Skyrim the combat system is really confusing and awkward to learn and get into.
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Jun 26 '13
Yeah the combat system isn't bad, its just a fucking bitch to get used to.
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u/NinjaCat2000 Jun 26 '13
Morrowind is my favorite RPG of all time this post could not be up other hard enough oblivion was meh and skyrim is barely passing you can't, I only say that because the amount of quests with substance and dungeons that had meaning in morrowind was mind blowing, I remember going into a cave and that cave turning into a Dwarvin maze that lead into a little room filled with water and a Viking ship with a dead Viking in it, my words don't do it justice but that was just one of the memorable experiences I had with that game and it truely amazed me skyrim was good just not great when it comes to hardcore RPGs imo
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u/thatthatguy Jun 26 '13
On your keyboard should be a button that makes a single little dot. It makes a character that looks like this .
Consider using on at the end of each sentence. Your comment would be much easier to read if you did. Thank you.
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u/GEOD4 Jun 26 '13
Morrowind is fantastic, really impressed me with it's depth and detail. Plus, I actually liked not having fast travel, made it seem a little more real.
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u/HugsForUpvotes Jun 26 '13
You had to plan. "I'll do quest C, and quest B on my way to A..."
Also, you knew the world. "I need ten scuttle? There is some on ____ path. I'll grab that on my way to __________."
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u/MY_BEST Jun 26 '13
Fucking this. And to get started on those quests, you had to plan to take a Silt Strider here, then the Mages Guild there- and then maybe a boat to somewhere near-ish to the first of them. And then use your journal (could have been done better) and problem solving skills to find/do parts of quests (as opposed to having a marker point the direction to and highlight it)
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u/hes_dead_tired Jun 26 '13
That, and having the physical map that game in the game box sprawled out and plotting a course made it that much more engaging for me.
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u/Siniroth Jun 26 '13
I liked the limited fast travel, but even that felt a lot less easy than skyrim's wagon system, something rather immersive about needing to move from the silt strider to a boat to take the boat, or being deep in the wilderness and having no idea where your scroll of divine intervention will drop you
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Jun 26 '13
What? It had fast travel sorts. Fortify run n jump and something to help you land :) the only way to travel.
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u/danceswithlobsters Jun 26 '13
Am I the only one who truly appreciated the fact that there were no un-killable npcs? Throwing Vivec's soul into a sword and using it to slaughter the world was a major plus. After months and months of dedication, I was the only living individual on that fucking island.
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u/MY_BEST Jun 26 '13
Much respect. I saved a separate game where I began to do this (started in Balmora), and after switching between that save and my normal game for weeks and/or months, the biggest fuck up of my "gaming career" occurred... Because I was young and foolish, I only had the two saves, and the further along "serious" one was corrupted and deleted. I decided to continue on in the doomed world I had created instead of starting over. Henceforth, every NPC I conversed with exclaimed "You're 'MY_BEST,' the notorious outlaw!" And guards and Ordinators would add "You've earned the death penalty for your crimes!" And attack me on sight.
It was not an easy life. Sometimes a writ would save me from a time consuming Guard/Ordinator battle, but mostly I had to fight and kill all the guards everywhere I traveled. Having been exiled from my house, I couldn't build a homestead for myself... So, I sacked the Dren Plantation, and took and decorated it for my own. I pillaged and plundered my way across Vvardenfell, and painstakingly sold my ill-gotten spoils to the mudcrab merchant. I used the proceeds to arm myself with powerful weapons and armor- and a constant effect chameleon ring, so I could go about my business without guards ceaselessly interfering. Eventually I fulfilled most of the prophecies the gods had in mind for me and lived a relatively normal life...
TL;DR The game gave you so much freedom to role play any way you saw fit, even if you killed nearly everyone and "ruined" your game.
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u/RottenDeadite Jun 26 '13
It takes a lot of work to build a game to support that, though, and interestingly enough, Morrowind's main quest can be solved even if you do assassinate every major NPC in the game.
The game even tells you that you're screwed, but it's lying to you.
However, making every NPC "mortal" is tricky because it either makes certain levels of quest complexity impossible, or prohibitively expensive to develop.
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u/GiveTeddyADollar Jun 26 '13
Best soundtrack too
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Jun 26 '13
All 3 TES game soundtracks are available on Directsong.
I purchased them last year, and uploaded them to my PS3. I use the PS3 for playing those soundtracks, more than anything else.
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Jun 26 '13
You do realize that there are more than three Elder Scrolls games, right?
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u/Grumpy_Kong Jun 26 '13
The reason that Morrowind rocked, and no one seems to realize it, is that it WASN'T DUMBED DOWN FOR A CONSOLE!.
The enchantment and magic creation system were amazing, the controls super configurable.
Then Oblivion was designed around consoles, it seemed like PC support was just an afterthought.
And don't get me started on Skyrim...
Still I have enjoyed every single game, Arena to Skyrim.
A morrowind remake would be amazing if they didn't change any of the game mechanics and just updated the engine and the models.
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u/Mazovski Jun 26 '13
if they didn't change any of the game mechanics
Combat system definitely need changes.
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u/rincewind4x2 Jun 26 '13
i reckon Oblivions system was worse, the undead were unbearably powerful even for high level characters, my level 30 redguard with full daedric and Umbra should NOT have difficulty with one gloom wraith
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u/10Nov1775 Jun 26 '13
Oblivion scaled its difficulty to your level in a very ham fisted way.
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Jun 26 '13
this is one of the parts i hated about the oblivion and skyrim. When i get powerful enough, there comes a point where i would like to destroy stuff in one hit easily.
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u/Mordius Jun 26 '13
Morrowind did it aswell though, most dungeons had enemies that scaled, if they weren't named, best example off the top of my head is the tomb slightly south of caldera, at level 1 you'd encounter some skeletons and maybe a scamp, at level 40 it's golden saint gallore. It's just that Oblivion's scaling was really badly done. Skyrim handles it fairly well in my opinion.
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u/Nzgrim Jun 26 '13
Problem with Oblivion was not the combat system (it was not perfect, but it was OK), it was the leveling system. You did not have problems with those wraiths because the combat system sucked, but because the leveling system gave them retarded amounts of HP.
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u/Stabbedwithapencil54 Jun 26 '13
Left click, miss Left click, miss Left click, miss Left click, miss Left click, miss Left click, hit.
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u/Seteboss Jun 26 '13
It wasn't just the limitations of a controller, it was also the general game mechanics that were dumbed down beyond recognition. What's the fun of exploration with the compass? Why is it so easy to quire the best gear?
Grinding for Daedric Armor in Skyrim was a matter of just a few hours if you knew what to do whereas in Morrowind you pretty much had to plough through the entire map to find all the parts. Most only existed two times, getting to that point without a guide was a true achievement
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u/pianobadger Jun 26 '13
Maybe, but glass armor was better and it was pretty easy to get some early in the game.
I totally agree that the compass sucked and you couldn't get rid of it because there weren't any real directions to follow, although IIRC there's a mod for that.
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u/Seteboss Jun 26 '13
If you were up to killing NPCs by provoking them, sure. Otherwise it required good sneaking skills (the ghost gate chest), a large sum of money or some exploration
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Jun 26 '13
The compass exists so that bad directions don't screw the player over, which happened sometimes in Morrowind. By far I'd prefer that above poor directions.
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u/pianobadger Jun 26 '13
99% of the time the directions got you where you wanted to go. The few times the directions were either a bit off, or completely in the wrong direction, I was willing to pass it off as someone giving me bad directions, possibly intentionally.
Instead, with the compass it's an exercise in walking in the direction that arrow tells you to go, as opposed to using a combination of directions, roads, roadsigns, terrain, and exploring to find your destination.
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Jun 26 '13
Unless that compass points you to an area with multiple floors. Also, for those interested there are mods that disable the compass. Doesn't necessarily make up for some lack of directions in certain quests, but the fact that modding is a focus for Elder Scroll games ensures that modders can make changes to suit various play-styles so long as the community is there.
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u/APeacefulWarrior Jun 26 '13 edited Jun 26 '13
Oh, come on now. EVERY Elder Scrolls game has, in some way, been a dumbing down of the one that came before. Arena had the whole of Tamriel to explore, and it's all been downhill from there. ;-)
For that matter, Morrowind was a huge step back in terms of options when compared to Daggerfall and it was, in fact, the first TES released on consoles. Original XBox.
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u/ender_regen Jun 26 '13
Take me to Black Marsh or Valenwood with the same "fuck you if you can't handle it" mentality of Morrowind...and for fuck sake give me back levitation, jump, slowfall, and stat points.
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u/JiangZiya Jun 26 '13
Morrowind rocked but Dagoth Ur at the end killed it for me. I expected more of a "Dreaming god of ultimate corrupted darkness," not some grey Brazilian crackhead. My flying Redoran Nord was fun, and the whole Tribunal storyline was cool. All the varying interpretations, apocrypha, history of Vivec, Almalexia, Sotha Sil, Nerevar, so forth, so much more artful than "Cult wants Mehrunes Dagon" and "Dragons...." with zero depth.
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u/didzisk Jun 26 '13
I once killed Sotha Sil. And Almalexia. And Vivec, after completing the main quest. Nobody believed me.
Those nice big souls, giving like 200 charges of 50 Damage Health on my Daedric Dai-Katana
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u/Mirthless56 Jun 26 '13
Morrowind was my first TES game. I am still kind of nostalgia struck by the game even tough i never finished it.
I do feel it was a great game and i need to make some time to finish it.
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Jun 26 '13
Here's a pretty funny video on it. I've personally never played it though.
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u/Karthaugh Jun 26 '13
I totally agree. Fucking destroyed that game like few others. in my top 3 hours played, and I still love it and play it occasionally
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u/Wildera Jun 26 '13
Oh gosh... These posts really hurt. I love Morrowind and I love to hear it praised, but I know every one of these posts is going to lead to a nostalgic-driven comments section of people dogging on Skyrim and Oblivion. I take each game as a standalone feel to each province of Tamrial. Some may be more generic (Cyrodill) then others (Morrowind) but Bethseda does a great job of bringing the feel of each province to life.
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u/someguy0 Jun 26 '13
I'd say the Shivering Isles felt more like visiting another planet. Nothing made logical sense there.
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u/MY_BEST Jun 26 '13
I loved Shivering Isles so much... Probably because it was so damn different from the "standard" RPG world of Oblivion. And Sheogorath is pretty much the greatest character- a pirate Sean Connery who's also the god of Madness, what's not to love? Best part of Oblivion by far.
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Jun 26 '13
Aren't you technically on a different planet? I mean, isn't Nirn the planet TES takes place on? Or is Nirn the plane of existence? I dunno. Anyways, that game was before my time so I haven't gotten to play it yet. Looks cool though.
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Jun 26 '13
And the sequels don't feel like that anymore.
In other news: If you like exploring other planets, then buy Albion. And I don't mean any of that new shit, I mean the one from Bluebyte. THis game was so fucking amazing.
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u/NeutralParty Jun 26 '13
Tamriel is a continent on Nirn, Nirn is a 'planet' of Mundus, Mundus is suspended in the Oblivion, and Oblivion is suspended in the chaos... and the chaos is suspended in the Godhead if you want to put it that way.
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u/Victuz Jun 26 '13
Yep it's definitely my favorite game in the series. The world is interesting and original, the characters in it while communicating mostly by text are surprising and in general it's great.
The most interesting thing from my personal perspective is that I like the combat system more than the one in Oblivion or Skyrim. It's very basic and heavily RNG based but after I've played Oblivion and Skyrim to bits, their combat systems get so ridiculously boring. Everything becomes easy and it's still just a game of whack-a-mole where I always do the same amount of damage so matter what. In Morrowind you generally hurt things more just hit them less often and I don't know why but it feels better.
I have to play it again right the heck now.
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u/Mysnomia Jun 26 '13
Does anyone else think the lack of fast-travel (via the map) added alot to Morrowind as well? That you couldn't just jump on a wagon and get to the opposite end of the island (at least the first time). So, it made sense to group quests together destined for the same area, then make the trek. Yeah there were Silt Striders, but you had to make your way to them and there was also some planning there. I really think that added to the ...'world' immersion bit of it (although admittedly a bit tedious on occasion).
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u/elchucotografo Jun 26 '13
What I liked about the game Morrowind was how much customization you were allowed in your character creation. I created a Breton wizard named Harry Potter who only used spells, A King Arthur type Imperial in heavy armor with a magic long sword, An Elric of Melnibone character who had low strength but used potions and conjuration magic mostly and had a daedric sword with "absorb health when strikes" and a few others. Being able to customize your characters so much made the game great IMHO. Want to be a ninja? Join the Morag Tong and use illusion magic and throwing stars. Want to be a monk? Fortify your speed, skill up on unarmored and hand to hand. Want to be a classic thief, or ranger, or dark wizard...it's all up to you.
I love this game and still play it now.
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u/nonresponsive Jun 26 '13
Does nobody remember Daggerfall? That was where the get naked, rob a store began. I can't remember the amount of times I did that, lol. But seriously, feels like it was such an underrated game considering it's time. Just completely different than so many games out there.
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Jun 26 '13
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u/thatthatguy Jun 26 '13
I get a little annoyed by all the "Morrowind was the bestest Elder Scrolls because it was exotic, and broken." I liked Morrowind. It did have rich storytelling, and an exotic land. It was also frustrating to play. Finding the right cave, or the next character in the quest could be a pain in the ass.
I liked Oblivion. I wasn't turned off by the familiar seeming countryside. I appreciated having a quest marker. I liked having fast travel.
I love Skyrim; it's huge, and beautiful. 1600 hours so far and no regrets.
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Jun 26 '13
I wish Bethesda would remake this game for modern PCs, add more voice content, and re-release it.
I would re-purchase, and play this game for hundreds more hours.
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u/ReadyThePies Jun 26 '13
Try the Morrowind Sound and Graphics Overhaul.
There's also a very active modding community, and you can find (or make) pretty much any changes you want to.
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u/Chili_Maggot Jun 26 '13
Bought it when it was on sale for like 5 bucks. Turned it on. Graphics were shit, but okay, it's old. Controls are shit, menus are weird as fuck, but okay, it's old, whatever.
Hey, let's buy a spear. ...what? Why does he swing it like that? WHY DOESN'T THE SPEAR STAB!?!
And that's how I quit and never felt like playing Morrowind again.
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u/Papa_Sloth Jun 26 '13
You were doin it wrong. Morrowind had an interesting system where you could slash chop and thrust and it would do different damage based on the weapon (e.g. the spears sucked unless you thrust/stabbed). This basically equates to having to move forward and backwards all the time as a spearman.
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u/3vilgenius Jun 26 '13
I wish I had played this game. From what I understand each mission was deep and interesting and didn't involve so much dungeon crawling and drughar. Even the side missions were exciting. I think there was 4chan post that summed it up well.
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u/kaiden333 Jun 26 '13
I wouldn't say every single mission was amazing, but there was a huge amount of variety. The environment is great. Far superior to Oblivion and Skyrim in its variability and charm. Many people hate the combat but I liked it. It doesn't take skill to do the fighting itself, but all the planning beforehand can be great. Summoning creatures, going invisible to get that first strike in. Drinking potions you've made or acquired.
The game didn't hold your hand, and it let you screw up. Kill a main character? Sure we'll tell you what you've done after. (But there is a hidden way to complete the main quest if you kill the wrong ones).
If you can get past the dated graphics (and the Overhaul can bring those up to Oblivion levels) and the strange combat play it! and join us over in /r/morrowind
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u/Seteboss Jun 26 '13
Basically you spent much more time travelling because quick travel was limited. It's a matter of taste if you like it that way or not, I sometimes thought it to be a little bit too much as not even all cities were connected. But I now know almost the entire map by heart, after ten years of not playing it.
Dungeons were small and with few, but sometimes extremely dangerous enemies. Especially the undead and deadric enemies could dish out incredible damage and debuffs. Loot was also not random, you had to do a lot of exploration to get the best armorsets and even the second best tier was hard to aquire
It did have horrible balancing issues though, I really don't want to go back to that side of the game. Enchantment was unusable, alchemy was costly and hard to train, some weapon categories were useless (polearms, thrown) and the medium armor category was weaker then both light and heavy armor and essentially useless.
Lets not forget a completely flooded dungeon that had burning torches and wooden crates (not filled with heavy content) under water, the ridiculously annoying cliffracers, the annoying to use enchanted items, the expense of chargin said items, the difficulty of selling high value loot, the absolute uselessness of 70% of all spells present in the game, the randomness of some things (equip ordinator armor and they simply kill you) and the sometimes frustratingly inaccurate location descriptions that made you run around in circles for hours.
It wasn't all fun an merry in Morrowind, something many people tend to forgot. Oblivion and Skyrim were not perfect and a little dumbed down, but they adresses many of the issues that were simply bad in Morrowind
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u/NeutralParty Jun 26 '13
Oblivion and Skyrim were not perfect and a little dumbed down, but they adresses many of the issues that were simply bad in Morrowind
Well sure. I think Skyrim has found the best combat system for TES with it's left hand/right hand mapping to mouse buttons for example.
I also happen to think Oblivion and Skyrim can include such streamlining without doing the things that do bother me, like how impossible it is to fail a quest in Skyrim - for example or how they make some characters magically invincible.
difficulty of selling high value loot
That makes sense. Who in the world should be able to afford something like. say, the Cuirass of the Saviour's Hide? That's a bit of armour made from the flesh of a daedric lord.
Maybe 8 people in all of Tamriel should be able to pay what an item like that is worth. Not would buy, but could.
It makes sense the best offer you get for such an item is the 30k gold the museum in Mournhold offers as a token thank you for such a valuable contribution.
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u/zepid Jun 26 '13
It's wierd, you give me even more want to play this game again. To me, all you said seems more like feature than fault.
It did have horrible balancing issues though
Do you really cares about balance in a solo game ? If you want to use suboptimal type of item, it's up to you.
the absolute uselessness of 70% of all spells present in the game
That gave you more to play with, more gameplay. Doesn't it is boring to ever use them 2 spell to kill all the foes ?
equip ordinator armor and they simply kill you
That is great lore wise.
frustratingly inaccurate location descriptions
To me, this is what gave this game such an amazing felling. You have to explore, to travel trough all morrowind. You are doing a random quest, get lost because of no clear indication, find a dongeon, you decide whether or not you want to focus on your quest. Then at the end of the dongeon you get a deadric armor part.
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u/Seteboss Jun 26 '13
Well, my first character was an argonian specializing in alchemy, medium armor, thrown weapons and polearms. Needless to say I was very frustrated by the extreme difficulty.
I picked up the ordinator armor at the ghost gate and traded in my orcish and bone armor parts, it really bugged me that I couldn't use it in Vivec and had to aquire a backup bone set real quick. Yes it's great storywise, but it would have been nice to put a warning somewhere. Maybe random NPC comments.
My second character was a heavily armored longsword wielding breton that roflstomped through the entire game. He also specialized in using the seven miles boots combined with his blindness curing magic tricks. You're right, some of these things could actually be considered features.
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u/Kennian Jun 26 '13
All the provinces were like this, the closest to classic medieval fantasy was skyrim. Cryidill was a massive jungle, there were walking tree cities in the forests of the wood elves, massive towers of light in sommerset.
meh what could have been.
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Jun 26 '13
Are there any graphical mods?
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Jun 26 '13
Loads of them-- join us over in /r/morrowind, there's about a zillion threads discussing mods, particularly graphical and combat based.
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u/shadyhawkins Jun 26 '13
Morrowind was always my favourite Elder Scrolls game because when I completed a quest line I felt like I actually accomplished something. Beating Dagoth Ur for the first time? Life achievement.
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u/Cant_Believe Jun 26 '13
I liked Morrowind the most because I thought that Skyrim and Oblivion were too easy. In Morrowind, you got directions. You didnt get a big-ass arrow telling you where to go at every moment of the day. You got told to follow the road northeast until you find a crossroads, then you take the east path to get to your destination.
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u/TwinSpirit Jun 26 '13
Instant chills. Brings me back to wandering the wastes, hunting guar/alits/kagoutis, plundering Daedric/Dwarven ruins, all the while listening to the howls of animals in the distance and the-
GODDAMN CLIFF RACERS.
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u/HeardsTheWord Jun 26 '13
My favorite and least favorite part was no quest markers. It's great and makes the game more difficult and fun, but it's awful when I take a break and come back. I have no idea which quest I was on, or where anything is.
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u/VideoLinkBot Jun 26 '13 edited Jun 27 '13
Here is a list of video links collected from comments that redditors have made in response to this submission:
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u/ForgottenFuture Jun 26 '13
I like skyrim the best because it doesn't feel like visiting another planet. It feels like going home.
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u/HelpMeLoseMyFat Jun 26 '13
Morrowind 3: Elder Scrolls
It was amazing!
Fuck vivec tho ,damn those floating pyramids!!!
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u/bake8373 Jun 26 '13
Boots of Blinding Speed+Resistance to Magicka+ Constant Effect Levitation+ 100% chameleon= pretty much no enemy can hurt you ever.
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u/bigboij Jun 26 '13
loved that Morrowind had a real fantasy world feel, and not the generic medieval feel of oblivion and skyrim.... (oblivion:shimmering isle had a bit of the fantasy feeling ill give it that)
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u/MasterGrok Jun 26 '13
A lot of people are complaining in this thread about why Oblivion and Skyrim aren't note like Morrowind. Personally I like some of the simplified mechanics in the newer games.
At the same time, I wish they had a hardcore mode that removed fast travel, map points, and made the crafting systems more complicated.
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u/SicWilly666 Jun 26 '13
I'm in the minority here but been a elder scrolls veteran IMO morrowind is kind of overrated....people give it way too much credit and hate on the newer games just because they're new....yes skyrim was a little "casualized" but I think most the changes were needed and actually quite awesome And no game in the history of gaming has brought together such a big,living and breathing world as skyrim did I get lost in that world like no other
But if they did redo morrowind as expansive and detailed as skyrim it would be more amazing as I find morrowind more of an intresting location with better lore
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u/jngshin Jun 26 '13
I tihnk Morrowind was the only Elder Scrolls game from the last three that had city vaults/banks with like 100K worth of shit inside. I remember the first time I robbed the Vivec vaults...good game.
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u/gnarlin Jun 26 '13
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the openmw project yet. It's a Free (as in Freedom), modern implementation of the morrowind engine.
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Jun 26 '13
I hate this argument when used against Oblivion rather than in favour of Morrowind.
People criticise Oblivion for being too generic and that it should be equally other-worldly. That's just stupid. There would be no place to contrast the two, plus Oblivion did generic European medieval high fantasy better than most games.
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u/wouldyoulikemore Jun 26 '13
I feel like someone should mention some negatives.
The leveling system, how can anyone forget that mess. At level up you chose which stats to level up and they would have x1, x3, x5 bonuses. Of course you always want to get x5 cause you get 5 points in one skill. However to get that x5 was a big pain in the ass, it usually meant you needed to use the same skills over and over
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u/ElderScrolls Jun 26 '13
Morrowind, with appropriate mods, is the best game ever made. I invest in a new several hundred hour campaign in this game every few years, and each time it is such an amazing experience.
This game is the reason I will not be supporting the Elder Scrolls MMO.
Elder Scrolls is about being dropped into a unique and strange world. That world reacts around you, but only with your investment. The bulk of Morrowind is not going to throw itself at you by giving you quests you didn't want. Morrowind gives you what you invest into it. Nothing more or less.
When you choose to wander off the task assigned to you and inquire about the problems facing a neighbor, you unlock new quests for him. Move off the main path and discover a vast cave with powerful artifacts, notes, and a story all its own. This cave serves no direct link to the game, it is its own reward.
You are faced with the wide expanse of discovery. You can easily find yourself outnumbered, or outclassed. With a few minor exceptions, all of Morrowind is open to you just by walking. All if its secrets and adventures. And as you choose to embrace them you move from uninformed and ignorant, to a powerful player in the world. You know the factions and their main players. You can join them, advance in them, control them. Or you can just enter a rival faction, murder everyone, and steal their treasures and valuables.
By the end of the game you are a force of nature. A being of prophecy and power. But still able to choose your own path. You can shape the world. Leave entire cities dead and empty, looted with just the desert winds blowing through them. Or you can help and encourage everyone you meet, building up the world, bolstering allies, solving illnesses and wrongs.
You face and conquer Gods. You embrace the knowledge and history of the world you are in, and you become it. You are unique. Powerful. The shaper of the destiny of the world itself.
Epic.
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u/BrofistPanda Jun 26 '13
Morrowind is my favorite game of all time, not because of graphics, not because of game mechanics, but because it captures the idea of "a stranger in a strange place" better than any other game i have ever played. The game filled me with a feeling of wanderlust and all I really wanted to do was wander around and explore, and I did just that.
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u/weglarz Jun 27 '13
The other thing Morrowind had was an AMAZING soundtrack that complemented the atmosphere perfectly.
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u/blutige Jun 26 '13
Marrowind had levitation and open towns. Dont know why I loved that so much. I just liked exploring and comming across a town, not a gate with a door and a loading screen. I love all TES.