Just wanted to say this :

You do realize Skyrim isn't even decently patched right? It's just the beginning for Skyrim. What we're playing now is just "Vanilla" (hate the word) Skyrim. It's the worst version of Skyrim we will ever play. It's just the beginning. It will get progressively better (although for me it's already better than Morrowind). Morrowind is a complete game. Morrowind's 2 Expansions are already out, along with tens of thousands of mods to make it better. You're comparing a Complete Morrowind (with Bloodmoon & Tribunal) to a "Vanilla" Skyrim. Just my opinion/2c.

I agree. But Morrowind is just more intense, larger and more in-depth than Skyrim.

Edit: Even in Vanilla I think.

Yeah man if you bring up mods for Skyrim you'll HAVE to bring up mods for Morrowind too. Can't have it both ways.

It's a matter of differing tastes. I've watched the daughter of a friend play Skyrim, and I really dislike the inventory interface compared to Morrowind. I much prefer the greater variety of skills and the full character creation of Morrowind, too, and the importance of dexterity in striking, as opposed to "always strike" in Oblivion or Skyrim. And Alchemy, too, always works in Oblivion and Skyrim, whereas at low values it often fails in Morrowind--as I think it should. (I also like the fact that potions in Morrowind and Oblivion can have negative effects along with positive ones, which Skyrim removed, along with wear on items, and negative spell side effects.) Skyrim improves on the strict scaling of Oblivion while retaining some elements of it, but one thing I never liked is kept: monster regeneration in many cookie cutter dungeons. In Morrowind, each dungeon, however small, was uniquely designed, with enemies whose levels couldn't be easily determined, some engaged in mini-plots.

None of this is meant to tell anybody else what to think of Skyrim. It's only to point out that some of the things I especially enjoy in Morrowind aren't in the newer game and that's not likely to change, because they're basic to its design. As a late friend of mine used to say, "De gustibus," meaning De gustibus non est disputandum. Tastes aren't disputable. They simply differ.

Potions can fail in Skyrim, although not as much as MW.
And I'm pretty sure that potions can have negative effects on you. Although I haven't done lots of alchemy yet to be positive, but there is a Perk that states this: "All negative effects are removed from created potions, and all positive effects are removed from created poisons."

Thanks for pointing that out, Pluto. I'll pass it along. My niece--who like me, is addicted to using alchemy in the ES games--will be pleased. Since also like me, she doesn't like so much of a cushion from failure as the recent ES games provide.

I hated the dexterity / hit system. I didn't think it was forgiving enough. *miss miss miss miss hit miss hit miss miss miss. Wtf? I'm aiming right at the thing!
I understand how it worked. I wouldn't mind if they brought it back, but it needs some tweaks to keep it from feeling like a punishment.

But I gotta disagree with the rest. Alchemy doesn't always work, and there are negative effects on some potions in skyrim. Take a look at the alcchemy tree.

Skyrim reminds me a lot more of Morrowind than Oblivion in terms of the story, I'm pleased with how much lore there is. All the same, in every bethesda game since morrowind I've missed the ability to drag items from your inventory directly into a position in the game world. It was fun to display all your books and gear on shelves and such, rather than spend 5 minutes screwing around with item physics before giving up and putting your books in a box.

Skyrim still doesn't have the depth or wonder of Morrowind for me, but it's much closer than Oblivion was. Maybe because it's in a slightly less familiar fantasy world, and the lore is more coherent than Oblivion. A weird part of me still misses separate pauldrons, though....

It shouldn't feel that way if you attack a creature who also has a very low level of dexterity. Then, you should hit one out of every two times, all things being equal. From my perspective, the problem is the FPS-based belief that your gun/knife/sword/whatever must always hit, and what changes is only damage relative to health. That's true in Oblivion, but not in Morrowind.


I should have been clearer. By alchemy always working, I meant in the sense that it does in Skyrim and Oblivion: if you know a formula and you have the ingredients, making the potion always works. In Morrowind, knowing the formula didn't mean you could always employ it correctly. This seemed more...realistic to me. I might know how to fix a car because I have a book in front of me (to use a tedious anology), but that doesn't mean I'm as good as an auto mechanic, and I can probably destroy it as well as any destruction spell can.

The negative effects thing on potions is that in Morrowind or Oblivion you could make a potion that had mixed effects, good and bad. In Skyrim, effects are either one or the other.

Vanilla Morrowind was a work of art.


Is it better than Vanilla Skyrim?

I'd like to think so.

Hype killed my Skyrim experience.

I saw so much potential, hoping that they would dive deeper into the world and its people, sharing more of that awesome TES lore that gets me so immersed.

But what did I get? A 3rd person Action/Adventure game where they only scratched the surface of potential so as to not scare away the casual gamer.

I like Skyrim, but it's not what they made it out to be.

Business/Marketing is an evil, evil thing.