Because they were annoyed with hearing Oblivion compared - unfavorably - to Morrowind all the time. They probably did it to strike out at the Morrowind die-hards (myself included).

Anyway, just a little conspiracy theory. Flame away.

Yeah, I doubt it.

Morrowind had doom marked on it's during Morrowind.

No, it didn't necessarily have to be destroyed. I could think up a hundred different ideas of how that giant rock could have been stopped. It is fantasy, lots of things can happen. If a false god can suspend it there in the first place, I am sure there are ways to get rid of it.

Anyway, I really believe that is why they destroyed it, but I don't expect anyone else to think that.

They destroyed it because it made a heck of a good story.

No, I see it now you must be right. Bethesda hates Morrowind fans!

If that's the case then they would have destroyed Hammerfell and High Rock after hearing Morrowind compared - unfavorably - to Daggerfall.

I don't think they hate the fans, I just think they must get frustrated with all the Oblivion bashing when it is compared to Morrowind. Imagine spending years of hard work on something only to have it dismissed as third rate compared to an earlier project. Bands feel the same way all the time about albums. It happens a lot when a band puts out their magnus opus, but can never recapture it, and they end up hating it for the same reasons. So there really is no need for sarcasm. If you have something intelligent you would like to contribute, I would love to hear it though.

Haha nicely said

Michael Kirkbride, an ex-dev who wrote a great deal of lore, is the one who destroyed Morrowind.

Could have, sure. But why? Morrowind was designed from the start to be destroyed (aforementioned Michael Kirkbride, who was one of the people responsible for the lore and writing in the game, was actually hoping for more destruction). The signs were there in the game. It was Bethesda's plan all along. It's not a "strike" at die-hard fans to follow through with the ideas they had before the game even hit shelves.

The real problem would have been if they didnt destory Morrowind...Vivec was using his power to stop the gaint rock that was going to hit morrowind, makes no sense that without his power, it would continue to just hover there for no reason.

Lore becomes boring if the world doesnt adjust around it.

And he's gone on record to say that he had always intended for Morrowind and a large amount of the Dunmer to be decimated in such a way, and I think it's very clearly what should have happened. It only makes sense and it makes a good story for it to happen. Let's face it, as awesome and interesting as their culture is and their pantheon is, the Dunmer are rotten, xenophobic, racist bigots. With Vivec gone, they forgot love, and the Ministry of Truth crashed. Poetic justice.

It makes me sad to hear so many people get upset to learn that Morrowind was destroyed. It's like being upset that a movie ends or a villain is defeated. It's what was supposed to happen. It's that part of the story coming to an end.

I'm a hardcoe fan of Morrowind, and just I see it as an integral part of the storyline. Maybe it was intended from the start, or maybe it was thought up afterwards based on the circumstances, but either way, the gameworld goes on, things change, and the new replaces the old, whether we wish it or not.

While the place has "sentimental" value, I can let it go. The combination of artistic license (doing something "alien" like a Nix Hound doesn't bind you to the same restrictions as making a familar Wolf) to create a strange yet believable world, a detailed look at conflicting cultures and religions that added a sense of vibrant life to the world despite the "stand there 24/7" NPCs, challenging game mechanics (which has almost nothing to do with combat), and NPCs with personality that relied as much on the freedom from the constraints of voiced dialog as on the sheer quantity of topics and lines, all helped make it a memorable experience, but much of the same can be done for another setting (and hopefully is being done in Skyrim). The actual details, like mushroom trees, giant insect taxis, crabshell palaces, or twisted demonic architecture can all be replaced by something else, as long as it all FITS together and makes internal sense to the game as it did in Morrowind.

A few of the later development team members might have gotten a twisted sort of satisfaction in seeing the die-hard Morrowind fans take a hit, but I can't imagine any of those who put the time, effort, and "self" into making that creation of the mind in the first place being thrilled to see it erased, even if it still lives on in the form of 50,000 CDs (or whatever the number is), and as colletions of 1s and 0s on nearly as many hard drives, besides as a warm and fuzzy place in the minds of many.

Really the destruction of morrowind set the player up for a return. with the landscape in upheval and set a couple hundred years in the future they could make a morrowind 2 (for lack of a better term) and be able to make all new enviroments for returning players...

edit: double post

Morrowind was doomed as soon as the Heart of the World landed in that sea that would become Vvardenfell, after Trinimac ripped it out of Lorkhans chest and Auri-El fastened it to an arrow and launched it.

So, yes, as you said it was meant to happen.

While I accept and acknowledge that what happened did happen, and that it was planned long ago, I still can't help but question why they didn't just use the Ingenium to buy time in order to, I don't know, mine the damn rock into tiny harmless pieces and scatter them into the ocean or something along those lines instead of keeping it afloat. Dunmeri Pride I guess.

Can't help but wonder if everything could have been prevented if the Nerevarine had stuck around. Perhaps they'd have a sufficient amount of Love left in such a scenario. Probably not, but I'm going to pretend otherwise so that most of what I am doing in the game isn't rendered 100% pointless. ._.

I know how you feel, I loved Morrowind. That being said, they tried to use the ingenium to buy themselves time, but Sul [censored] that all up for them.

And the Nerevarine's main purposes were complete, to destroy the blight and free the Heart of the World. I hope you don't think of these events as pointless, as I think we(people who love Morrowind) will all come to see that these events were for the best. Plus, I think Vivec might have another part to play in this story.

In addition to the ten tons of foreshadowing in the game itself, I think Bethesda makes an effort to subvert the usual Elven fanwank that infects at lot of fantasy fiction.

As such, the Altmer are haughty eugenicists who get thrashed every time mankind gets organized (despite their magical prowess), the Bosmer are annoying cannibals, and the Dunmer are just all around unpleasant (anon without a homeland).

If that were the case, then that means that the staff at Bethesda can time travel, since, if they did it because Morrowind was being touted as better than Oblivion, they would have had to go back in time to when development started and begun writing the foreshadowing for its destruction as far back as the late 90s. And if that were so, there would have been much more practical things to do with their time travel ability, like remove or change the parts of Oblivion that were thought of unfavorably, or play the stock market.

Not anytime soon though- or it would all just be a wasteland. That would get old. If there is a return it would have to be a very long time into the future,.

dont see the issue with that

No issue with the time- but they probably will make games of other places in the meantime.

You have to at least understand and put yourself in their shoes though. They're so xenophobic and "rotten" sometimes because they've been through hell. Azura transforms all of them physically, while at the same time their existing gods are cast down and replaced with an almost Nazi regime type pantheon of "fake" gods. It messes with time like crazy, so they're brainwashed by it's non-linearity into thinking that the Tribunal were true from the beginning and has always existed. On top of that, rumors of Nerevarine and then after with Baar Dau, when Vivec upped and disappeared altogether abandoning his people even though he could have CHIM....it's kinda like how much can one race go through in such a short span and still survive? They barely are.

Edit* When I say regime, I just meant using the Indoril Ordinators as a deadly force to strict laws of worship.