Logorouge, I have to disagree with you on one aspect, which is the bows and arrows. And this is coming from someone who played a Marksman in Morrowind, but I think that Marksman is totally better in Oblivion in Morrowind.

There is just about nothing more satisfying than getting a 1-shot sneak attack with a bow & arrow in Oblivion and watching as the body goes flying, haha!

I agree 100%. I think Marksman is one of the areas in which Bethesda really improved the game over Morrowind.

THIS is one of the better answer to this questions I've ever heard. (Not that other answers weren't good as well).

gameplay>graphics, always

:thumbsup: Well said.

And like some vaultboyt3 said, gameplay > graphics. Don't compare Morrowind to newer games while you play, think of it as a whole on its own. I don't have personal experience on this, since I played Morrowind before Oblivion, but I did go and play Daggerfall after Morrowind. Just keep yourself from comparing and think of the good things in the game, instead of getting stuck on something as trivial as graphics. Graphics make little difference.

After a foray into Oblivion, I returned to Morrowind, and the primitive graphics and animations really took me by surprise, because I had gotten used to Oblivion's later generation technology. I got "used to it" again in MW after about another 10-20 hours, but it was enough to make me start looking for graphics replacers (fortunately, I have it on PC). Between a decent "base" texture replacer (I use the venerable old Visual Packs, with about half of that overwritten by higher-resolution specific replacers) and Better Bodies (by Psychodog Studios) to fix the disjointed puppet look of the NPCs, and with Morrowind Graphics Extender (MGE), it now looks almost as good as Oblivion, but with a more unique look and what I consider better artistic vision behind it. Incidentally, between the Morrowind Patch Project (which replaces the Unofficial Patch), and the Morrowind Code Patch that changes a number of issues that can't be touched by the Construction Set or altered by "standard" modding, the game now runs without any "significant" bugs for me, and looks about as good as OB in most places, and better in others.

The further you dig in MW, the more there seems to be. I had been playing the game for several weeks when it suddenly dawned on me that there was another way of doing what I was trying to accomplish, which totally changed my perspective on the situation.

The presence of Levitation opens up an entirely new dimension to the game, quite literally. One of the most frustrating quests, which is almost constantly posted in the HInts, Cheats, etc. forum, involves thinking in that third dimension, whether you levitate, jump, or just pick a careful and cautious ground route. Eventually, if you want to have dealings with the Telvanni wizards, you'll need to be able to reach their tower-top abodes.

Enchanting was so heavily "nerfed" between MW and OB that I finally gave up trying to play an Enchanter in OB, but was able to produced an extremely effective character based on it in MW. Like many things in MW, it's extremely difficult at first, and the failure rate is staggeringly high unless you really limit yourself (managing failure is one of the key things to learn, which is never mentioned). When you succeed, and your skills begin to improve, the satisfaction is so much greater than having success just handed to you (which was one of my biggest complaints with OB). You can get custom spells tailored to your level (including easily-cast low-casting-cost "training" spells), and adjusted for various strengths, durations, and area effects, rather than "canned" spells in OB that you can't even attempt at 49 skill, but can't possibly fail at 50.

Enchanted items very gradually self-recharge over time; unfortunately, your own magicka doesn't. Personally, I prefer (and added a mod for) having a slow regeneration similar to that of enchantments, rather than OB's fast regen but shallower magicka pool.

Marksman had good and bad sides in each game, and while archery was a lot easier to start out with in OB (and poisons were a wonderful addition), the scaling made it increasingly useless as the game progressed; in MW it was frustrating to try hitting anything at first, but just kept getting more and more deadly, until I had my one moderate-level archer retire his bow and switch to ranged spells because Marksan was just TOO powerful.

The majority of the various "good guys" and "bad guys" in the MQ, and a few other questlines, had other sides to them. A lot of the "stories" are told from one point of view, and later you hear a slightly different account from a different perspective, which makes you wonder about who's telling the truth, if anyone. I could sympathize with the "main villain" in a way, but that didn't make what he was doing any less monstrous or evil.

As another poster put it, the longer I played OB, the more I felt that it was ultimately "empty", and that improving my character and exploring had no purpose. In contrast, Morrowind was tedious to start, but just kept getting better and better the longer I played it. Now, with some remarkable mod content available (such as the Tamriel Rebuilt expansion, which aims to ultimately make the entire Morrwind mainland), I'm still finding fresh things to do and places to visit after roughly 5 years of relatively heavy playing. Each new character is a chance to try something different, and approach the game from a different angle, which is meaningful in a game where one character can't do everything, yet will probably never run out of things to do.

The problem you're likely running into is that, as a new player with a fresh character, you don't even know what you CAN do, much less have the skills and abilities to pull it off. The fact that it looks a lot worse than OB from an overall graphical technology standpoint just amplifies the frustration. All I can say is, if you can't change it, hopefully you can either learn to accept it or suffer through it; the rewards are well worth it, in my opinion.

Play Arena or Daggerfall, and then come back to Morrowind. It'll look like God Of War III graphically then.

I think for many it is the complete openness of the game. How many games are out there where you can do what you want, opposed to those that take you by the hand and lead you form place to place. As I have mentioned before, I have used several characters. First I could be a pure mage, thief or fighter or some combination of them. I can do the MQ or not. One character has never joined a faction or done any quests for that matter. She just tomb raided. Another was a thief whose goal it was to see what was in all the locked areas that law abiding characters wouldn't touch. Another joined several factions and completed the MQ. I don't have to join factions or I can. If I want to go around and murder entire towns, I can. Simply as I stated it is the openness of the game that is the main attraction for me and many others. Un-modded I think most (if not all) the NPCs are fugly.

The other appeal to me is the vast amount of mods out there (I know you said you were on xbox). But they can add a lot of replay value and keep things interesting when you get high level.

So...you disagree that I enjoyed using a bow in Morrowind?

Marksman in Oblivion is fun and all, but I avoided comparing them since it was not really relevant for my post.

Off Topic!!!!!!

Logorouge~ Is that L from DeathNote (awesome series) in your profile pic?


On Topic!!!!!

Have you gotten over the graphics yet and just started playing?

It is. :happy:

Morrowind graphics are great compared to Daggerfell. Technology changes so obiously they will improve over the years. But Morrowind has a great story and awesome gameplay and that is all that matters to me.
Oh and those long sticks with pointed heads on the end are called spears another great thing about Morrowind.

AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i like these guys! they don't care about graphics!
anyway on topic I played oblivion first and actually kinda "zombied" through it because i normally play rpgs where you have to do a lot of stuff.Morrowind on the other hand.......... It has soooooo much more depth by comparison. also has some "random" events that are really funny, even if they are programming errors, like silt strider being spawned with a giant nix hound texture!

In a weird way my love for Morrowind can almost be summed up by the feeling I get looking at it's paper map.
I know, it's weird. I think it comes from reading The Hobbit when I was really young (and later, The Lord of The Rings). The map in that book is incredibly detailed, and even if they don't go to parts of it in The Hobbit, you feel like they're real. Plus, they probably DO go to them later in LOTR...

But that's off topic. It's because when I look at the map, you can literally see every detail of the game world. I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure it shows every rock. Morrowind has those crazy, tiny rock-like islands, hundreds if not thousands and they spot the map everywhere. It also shows all the cities, but not only that, the camps, mines, mountains, bogs, lakes, anything and everything.

Obviously that has nothing to do with the actual GAME, but it's basically that "adventure" feeling that I'm not sure I'm summing up very well (obviously).

So, if I had any complaint with Oblivion, besides maybe the baddie scaling, it would be that it has a lackluster paper map. There, I said it! It only shows the major towns, and since it only shows a little "rough" texture where there's grasslands or mountains or whatever, your eye tends to skim over the big distances, making them seem tiny. When you look at Morrowind's map, it just seems like it would take FOREVER to walk that far! So many mountain paths and roads and bodies of water to cross.

Seriously, that is in my top 5 maps. Who drew it? It's incredible. How long could that have taken? A long time, that's what!

How do I still enjoy it, despite being close to 5 years playing it? Well, mods, of course

- Having 3 fixed companions: Julan (Dark Elf Ashlander warrior, also my pupil), Arin (short for Arinbjorn, a fellow "Solstheiman" Nord Warrior, old friend and package carrier), and Comes-By-Road (Argonian healer, he watches over me as well as the others to keep us all healthy).

- Roleplaying to death, including Neccessities of Morrowind' need for sleep/food/drink, which my fellow Nord friend carries in his backpack.

- Non-overpowered char (level 74 and with a nice sword, but HP capped to 300, and always Unarmored while in Vvanderfell*) makes sure you never lose the tension in fights.

- Questmods, including a re-do of the MQ with Julan (which I'm currently doing), and the Twin Lamps faction one (which I simply love).

- Lots of imagination can be surprisingly fun.

- Being stylish helps

There are tons of other reasons, but those are the main ones why I'm still playing MW despite having already dropped Oblivion (forever now I presume).



*All of that at 100 Difficulty. And with Creatures X mod installed. Despite my veterany, I die more often than I should...even at Vvanderfell.

I generally play the GOTY Morrowind and Oblivion on the Xbox 360, so I'm used to the vanilla games. I'm not an Oblivion-hater by any means--in fact I just finished a nice four-hour session tonight before browsing the forums.

What draws me to Morrowind? I love the depth of the worldbuilding. The main quest opens up so gradually before you. You start out knowing nothing, then you talk to a few people, do a few quests, read a few books, talk to a few more people, and before you know it, you are totally immersed in the "Oh wow, what's next?" feeling. I love sneaking down a path, looking this way and that...hey, here's a cave! Funny, I've played this game three times before, I never knew there was a cave there...whoa! Oh, nice potions stash, funny, why'd they put a levitation potion there...oh, THAT'S why. Sweet!

What originally got me interested in Morrowind, actually, was that I always played Dunmer characters in Oblivion, and was fascinated by the little glimpses of their homeland in that game. I wanted more. I wanted lots more. I heard that Morrowind was difficult and complicated and didn't look as pretty, so for a long time, I thought, enh. I'm not that much of a gamer. But we found a copy cheap, and I *was* curious, so...

Well, the graphics were ugly, I passed out everywhere I ran, mudcrabs had me for lunch, I ran out of magicka before firing a spell, I couldn't hit anything. But I kept going, and the game began to open up as I got stronger. And it rewarded me tenfold.

I still think there are few more magical moments than walking to Balmora, looking at your map, and realizing how very big the world is, and you are very small. I've played the main quest twice so far, but every time I start a new character, the awe tingles my spine.