While playing Morrowind, some just play, have fun, and go on rambling on their own business. But how many of you have felt such immersion that you got lost in your thoughts and philosophies taking game world for real one? I took the game more than a mere game for entertainment, it was as pleasant for my mind as exquisitely chosen literature, or a fabulous play which you think over and over again later. Aside from playing game as it is, it gave me sort of meditation and fine matter for thinking, um, metaphysically about life, crisscrossing game world ideas, symbols and lore with the real ones. Like immersing myself what would I really do there, in Morrowind, or how the life be here, if it had atmospheric commonities and similarities. Standing there in Vivec and watching this gondolier I thought what kind of life he leads, what he does, what he believes, and how he feels, and it so makes sense there, under moon and sky, that is sometimes, more that sometimes, does not makes sense to me here, on earth, because the atmosphere seems spoiled and thin.

That is why I have here a practical question for those who have felt similar nectarities from this work of art - how often, when, where and on what occasions have you felt this kind of feel on daily basis in your life goings?

As for me, my birth towns river and its remote banks with few benches, tree trunks, and quiet pathways gives me slight chills of excitement and reminds me of Seyda Neen region. This year I spent some time in India, and travelling in the south of it, I often had this similar feel seeing cosy shacks with pots and rugs around them, and all the remote temples, but the sad thing is that massive amount of garbage and nasty behavior of monkies always ruined my fairy-taleish mind-state. Sometimes after half bottle of wine, but only when alone, lying there in bed and looking at the spidernet in the corner of a room I get me warm and pleasant chills of being on with the stars.

Well, you got me, but if not, pardon the lover of thoughts and perceptions.

So, anything to tell?

For me, it was when I left the official's office through the back door and as I left the small back courtyard there I saw people walking around and the sun over the water with the soundtrack going off. That was pretty much my "I'm in an actual world" feeling for the first time.

One thing Bethesda has done well with the last 3 TES games and Fallout 3 is give you that "I'm actually in this world" feel after the introduction.

I feel a powerful sense of history when I wander through the game world. The sense of history is so palpable for me that I am able to indulge the illusion that this world was not created for me. I'm able to imagine that this world existed before I started playing and will continue to exist after I stop playing.

I feel a deep sense of awe and mystery when I see a Dwemer Ruin looming up ahead. I don't often get that feeling in other video games. I don't often stop and wonder, "Who built that? What happened? Where did these people go? Why are they no longer here?" when I play other video games, even other Elder Scrolls games.

I think part of it has to do with Morrowind's vivid depiction of cultural and political diversity. I sometimes feel as though the people in the game are not there for me, I am there for them. They have shifting political alliances and cultural antagonisms into which I am thrust like a time traveler. It's my job to figure them out. It's not their job to explain themselves.

The first time I played the game I was every bit as lost culturally and politically as I was lost geographically. For me this feeling of alienation actually stimulated my imagination and produced an effect of entertaining disorientation that few games can manage to produce.

Even the graphics emphasize the political tensions in the game. When I approach a town in Morrowind I can tell which faction controls that town by looking at its architecture. It is this sense of history and culture that sets Morrowind apart from other games, in my opinion.