I played Morrowind It wasn't my favorite game of all time, sure it was hard in spots but besides it being hard it didn't really challenge you to think about anything honestly. Leveling up wasn't as complicated as some people would have you think. You wanted to build a warrior character just choose all the warrior type skills and so forth for other classes you wanted, it wasn't hard to figure out how you needed to spend your skills. The effects items would have on your character was spelled out for you and told you what they would do. It didn't take any sense to find where you needed to go it was mostly dumb luck that you were going in the right direction.

The problem is that we are approaching the game with a 'gamer' mindset. We expect these kinds of things but other people might approach such games with a 'casual' mindset and for them it is all new and weird.

But I do agree with you. People were completely overreacting.

there are things i liked about morrowind bu there are also alot of things i hated about it to or found annoying

I don't think people are arguing that Morrowind was complicated - because it wasn't - rather, they're just claiming that it was more complicated than its successors.

Recently there's been talk of Morrowind being hard compared to the newer TES games, which it definitely is. Luckily. Poor directions, no compass, not as much tips popping up to the screen, et cetera. Basically not as much hand-holding as about every newer game even close this wide has, basically because gaming is more and more trying to spread its market to those who don't yet play, I think, who do not have all the cognitions/mindsets ready as gamers do. You can see games become progressively easier to somehow "finish" and be more and more linear, movie-like adventures.

And, I think on today's standards, Morrowind is a hard game. Confusing, at least. Because it doesn't give away much information on its own. Everything's in the manual or, if not, then waiting to be discovered. Also the hint towards the main quest is pretty subtle and might easily get forgotten for the first time player. Also, the directions to Caius' house are your basic vague Morrowind directions (that I like very much! Feels realistic). I remember I wasn't that splendid in English when I first played MW, and I haven't played anything that was so free. My feelings were "what am I supposed to be doing...?". Also, use a weapon you haven't put skills into, and you won't hit. At all. There are several things at the start of the game that can very easily make a new gamer go wtf.

One thing that I'd have to say is hard to figure out (comparatively), is the main quest. It's long, not completely linear, and requires actual thinking sometimes. I have to admit I got a little stuck the first time I played through. I believe it was because I neglected to bring a certain document with me, assuming I could convey the information verbally. Because of Morrowind's less "hand-holdy" way of doing these, this wasn't immediately obvious.

So is that bad? To some extent, I think so. But the risk of getting stuck is worth the satisfaction of figuring things out IMHO. And if you get really stuck, there's always the Internet, right?

Gaming as a whole is more widely accepted and mainstream. This opens game companies to alot of new paying customers. To grab as much of those paying players as possible games are made for the new market majority. This majority, thru sales figues, has prooven to like games that are easier to play abit feel like something was done but used to unwind. I would say mind numbing entertainment but that is just my opinion.

Games to cater to the niche market of older gamers who liked morrowind, baldurs gate, icewind dale, fallout 1,2 ect just wont make as much money as the alternative.

Times change, thats life sadly. The only hope for the TES series from my standpoint is if modders can change it back to a morrowind type experience. If so then both sides can be happy at least.

Just my 2 septims.

I suspect that part of the reason MW is considered "complicated" is that a lot of new players are heavily into "maximizing" the character, and want to make the "perfect" build. Morrowind allows you to play (and succeed) with a far less than optimal character, it just takes a little longer. The newer games don't allow that kind of "laid back" approach: you have to stay ahead of the "levelling curve", so in that respect MW is actually a lot easier, even though it seems harder. Also, if you build a combat character in MW, the fights really are pretty simple, but if you don't, a lot of encounters border on the impossible for a couple of levels (especially if you start wandering into caves and tombs at L1, which wasn't a problem in the "other" games with enemies all levelled and scaled to you).

It just feels like the whole industry has gone from games where you struggled until you succeeded, to ones where you have to feel like a moron if you even fail once. How many players ever considered a "dead is dead" game in most of the early RPGs? It just wasn't possible, unless you already knew the game down to the minute details. Now, you can almost do that straight out of the box, because the games are designed never to allow the player to be outmatched.

Honestly I never found MW to be hard. The times I died were mostly to to falling off a mountain, being low level and walking into a daedric shrine, or being ganged upon. By level 20 I think I could do beat anything on MW (expansion mobs were harder). I had to usually increase the difficulty to make the fights harder and not a faceroll. Learning how to do enchanting or potions and such took a little bit to get used to but most games have certain features which take some learning or getting used to. Hard to figure out? No not unless you are talking about some of the directions the NPCs gave you.

Never found it difficult, either. I think the JRPGs--the Japanese RPGs, which are extremely linear, focus on combat, and require little or no interaction with the environment--and the Diablo clones have created a sense among many younger players that all RPGs are supposed to be like that. How can you find your way without a directional pointer (Oblivion), or even a spell that shows you the exact path to your destination (Skyrim)? How am I supposed to figure out what skills I need? All these numbers--it's so confusing! Just do it all behind the scenes and don't make me think about them, thank you.

Which isn't to say Oblivion or Skyrim are bad games, or that the other games mentioned above are bad, either. It's only a matter a matter of expectations, and younger players who have discovered the simpler, later ES games consider Morrowind hard because they think it will be more of the same.

Morrowind also has many mods that increase depth, complexity and difficulty, the onus is really on the individual to alter the game to suit ones tastes

I just bought Morrowind yesterday and have played like 5-6 hours. There are only two things that seem more difficult than Oblivion or Skyrim:

1. Following NPCs directions. They are rather vague (probably on purpose) and it can be tough to figure out where they want you to go. Eventually you figure it out, but I have already twice gone the wrong direction for quite some time trying to find somewhere. I think this is mostly fine though. It's a game of exploration and even if you get lost, you're still exploring. Oblivion and Skyrim sometimes feel oddly linear when you ALWAYS know exactly where to go and just power through a bunch of quests without ever being lost. At the same time, Morrowind's system naturally takes more time. It's a trade off. I expected not to like this aspect of Morrowind, but I actually might like it.

2. There's not strict level scaling. You can find stuff that will kill you REALLY easily. I walked into some cave at the very beginning on the way to Balmora and got totally destroyed by some bandit in two hits. However, I just went back to that same cave. I am STILL level 1 (I'm not avoiding my major or minor skills at all; stuff just seems to level up slowly), but after 5 hours of the game, I have a better idea of what I should do. The Bound Longsword spell + restore health potions allowed me to clear out the cave, though it was quite difficult. It felt so satisfying to go back there and kill those bandits, because they had been impossible not long ago. This is not a level of satisfaction that can be had in Oblivion and not really in Skyrim either. So while you can find yourself in difficult encounters, that can add fun. And I haven't encountered anything that's required for a quest that is too difficult.

Even old school JRPGs feel less linear than skyrim to me for some reason, some are very long, impressive hard core adventures, and many have many sidequests with no map marker, compass, or anything of the sort. Whether it be old school morrowind, or classic older rpg's such as the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy series, games are losing the magic of old. Luckily for me there are many older games that i can go back to

Yes NPC directions can drive you mad at time. There was one in particular that always drove me nuts as the NPC said west but you really needed to go east. But as you said you were still exploring. I have found a lot of neat things while trying to find a cave on bad directions.

The leveling is hard at first, imo. But once you get your skills up to about 45 you seem to level fast for a bit since you can hit more often and such. I was always fine with the level scaling. I liked the fact that if I went into the wrong cave, I could be demolished easily. Made me more wary when in places and made me appreciate ranged attacks more. Though at higher levels I feel the monsters could be harder esp Ascended Sleepers and Golden Saints.

Morrowind wasn't difficult, it just required a little patience at times and concentration. It was vast, detailed and challenging. It did not lead you by the hand or set map markers for you. On more than one occasion i found myself jotting down my instruction or co-ordinates on a spare bit of paper. The need now is for everything to be fast, shiny and 'streamlined''

No quest markers.

That's about it. Though that's a pretty massive single point. Nothing symbolizes the complete change in Bethesda's design philosphy than that simple quest arrow telling you exactly where to go. Morrowind required investigation, which can be frustrating.

Your points about building a character and such don't really apply to the discussion in the case of Morrowind's level of complexity. That's always been pretty clear, at least if you had more than 2 brain cells to rub together.

Edit: Also, level 1 walking speed. Ha.

the only thing that was complicated were the lame/vague/just plain wrong directions for me, also i thought combat was really...bad, i can remember when i started it up and trying to slay a cliff racer (first thing i fought) and my long sword just went right through it...lame, after you figure out the way agility works your unstoppable

i'll also admit that i personally like the quest marker, would have really helped me find a certain dwarven puzzle box, oh well its not like i went through some damn ruin for four hours looking for it /sarcasm

It's funny, because once you get past the initial hour or two (or six?) of frustration and complete bewilderment, which can be enjoyable, the game pretty much blows wide open when you realize it's the most exploitable game ever made.

768 speed for 2158 seconds? Don't mind if I do!

Not that it bothers me. I mean, I'm the Chosen One, being a genius alchemist is part of the deal.

This is my memory of Morrowind. Levels 1-5 were a [censored]. It was like being a citizen of a town with no fighting abilities where the first quest to fight rats in Balmora ended in death. After that the game got really easy. I think a lot of people mis-interpret difficulty with learning curve. Once you learn the game mechanics, Morrowind is bloody easy. Its its LEARNING CURVE thats hard to get.

I went through about 3 stages with MW:

The first was where it was totally new, I knew nothing about the game, the world, the capabilities and features, or how to deal with it. It was fairly difficult, but I quickly figured out that if I played it safe, there wasn't all that much that could go completely wrong....other than occasional bandits with giant axes, a pair of Mating Kaghouti, or a few other nasty surprises to keep it exciting.

The second stage was where I learned a few of the workings of the game and how to avoid the obvious mistakes, how to mimimize failure, where a few of the "goodies" were, and how to make the game too easy. Those latter parts lasted only a few weeks, and taught me not to intentionally break my own game.

The third stage was (and still is) where I understand the freedoms and limitations of the system, know where most of the placed items are (or knew and then forgot) but don't go out of my way to get them, and essentially "live" the character and do what the character would do , based on what the character knows at the time. The exploits are there, the bugs are there, but I know them and generally avoid them both, unless I've got a particular reason why the character would know about them.

For a new player, that first stage is daunting. You're failing at almost everything, making little progress in your skills because of the failures, and the NPCs are making fun of you. That's not what you're used to, in games where you're constantly told how special and wonderful you are, and everything's spoon-fed to turn you into "super-whatever" in a few easy clicks. So, you snap out and take it out on Fargoth, and then the guards kill you. Of course, for those of us who are used to the struggle in order to gain the reward, being handed all of the praise and rewards for doing nothing makes for a really pointless game.

It's a good point you raise that bears repeating. In Morrowind, not finding what you want leads to finding other things of great interest. Dungeons (meaning everything from temples to old ruins) aren't generic. You're never quite sure what you're going to discover in the way of enemies, or treasures, or even a wandering NPC who has a request to make.

Just my personal opinion, but I'd rather get lost in Morrowind than easily find my way in Oblivion or Skyrim.