Remember when I first got Morrowind, didn't have a clue what Elder Scrolls was, what it was about, took me months to start to get into it, and that's not an understatement, I still play it to this day, and even find out new things! This is the kind of game which doesn't really make me take anything for granted in the latest RPG games, or similar ones for that matter.

Not having to rely on map markers, instantaneous fast travel on-tap, having to root through a journal, 10 pages back, 12 pages forward just to finish a measly quest, no silly enemy levelling system, little stuff like that make me feel like I can take on pretty much any RPG game.

Morrowind shaped me, too. I was strictly a first-person-shooter gamer when I bought Morrowind. I didn't even know what "roleplaying" was. I'd never done it before and no one I knew had ever done it either. The only reason I bought the game was because the graphics looked good.

For the first year I played as though Morrowind were a shooter. I did what I would do. I played as myself. My first character was a Redguard - not because anything intrigued me about Redguards but because I figured it had the best stats to survive as a warrior. Later I began making only Breton warriors because magic attacks were my warriors Achilles heel. I was just power-gaming.

I got my roleplaying education in this forum right here. Some of the stuff I was reading fascinated me. People were creating characters who behaved differently from the way they behaved. They weren't playing as themselves, they were playing as those characters. It was fascinating. I could have some of the fun of being an actor without needing to have any acting talent!

I took my first baby steps towards roleplaying about a year after I bought Morrowind. I would tentatively experiment with doing something I thought my character might do. I would toss it into my FPS play style every now and then. Then I began doing it a little more, and then a little more...and before I knew it I was doing it all the time.

By the time Oblivion came out I was a confirmed roleplayer. But I'm still learning how to do it well. I don't think I'll ever fully master the art of roleplaying. But I intend to have a lot of fun while I try.

Morrowind was only the second RPG I played. First one was Kotor. Which, in a sense, prepared me to understand that stats really matter, and that interacting with NPCs is a pivotal point of any RPG.

But Morrowind further stress these points, since you can't rely (not much, anyway) on the story to guide through the gameworld, and there is no obvious way to tell which character advances the plot (since all NPCs have distinct names). It also forces you to pay attention to details, if only for quest directions.

More importantly, even though you can eventually become a Jack-of-all-trades demigod, on early levels it teaches you that you can't make a character with some strong advantages without suffering some drawbacks in other aspects; so a good mage character will have low HP gains per level, and a melee tank will not be as nimble as a thief, and you are thus forced to roleplay in order to succeed.

I have to admit though, that I didn't really roleplay much (not conscienciously anyway) on my first playthrough. I made a Nord warrior, who I figured would be well-suited for exploring the world and survive to any dangerous situation.