I don't like to generalize, but one thing that's true is that lots, lots of gamers care only about the graphics these days. Take my friends and acquaintances for example. They are the "look at those graphics" type. Most gamers I know won't play a game unless it has really good graphics.
Yes, it's sad.

I can understand the need for good graphics, I like eye candy too. But focusing only on graphics is something I can′t understand at all. There is a need for something much deeper than that. My mind goes directly to the non-journal quests in Oblivion where you have to notice oddities like that sword pointing in a certain direction, and then give birth to the idea to walk in that direction.

I approve of good graphics, but if that′s all that′s offered then I′m outta here

^
Same here. I love eye-candy as much as everyone (maybe even more than the average ) but I don't like it when people refuse to play a game simply because it is old. It might not have the graphics, but it does have the gameplay (Quake 2 comes to mind).

Have you played Tomb Raider Underworld? That game is one big waste of potential. It pissed me off that a game which such good graphics has such a buggy camera and is overall buggy and has poor level design. My opinion. That game could have been much better.

Also Deus Ex. I believe I have mentioned that game a few times..?

Haven′t played that one, but your depiction of TR:U sounds like VtM:Bloodlines. Buggy as all hell but loads of potential really.

Haven't played Bloodlines TRU had these absolutely amazing landscapes (only Skyrim beats it to them) but the camera was so bad, it made the game frustrating. They also tried to made the game "non-linear". I don't think non-linearity works well with puzzle games. It should have been either linear or a real sandbox game.

Deus Ex was indeed great.

Words cannot describe how much I agree with this.

Goddam, this thread was such a nice read. I'm glad I finally made an account here.

Modern games really have forsaken rewarding patience in favour of a brainless "insta-satisfy" Hollywood mechanic. I remember when I bought Machinarium last year (An absolute gem of an indie game. Completely hand drawn and with one of my favourite soundtracks of all time) and I ended up clearing it in five hours because anytime I got stuck on one of the game's many brain melting puzzles for more than like fifteen minutes, it was straight to Youtube to look up the solution. When I was eventually watching the game's ending, I kinda sat back and thought to myself "Why the [censored] did I rush through like that?" I mean, the game was wonderfully memorable, but I probably would have enjoyed it a LOT morr if I hadn't lacked the patience to actually solve everything myself. Not to mention the satisfaction of completing it on my own.

So in retrospect, I'm trying out a lot of older games that I never got around to playing before, such as Mass Effect, Grim Fandango, Baldur's Gate, etc. etc. I played Vampire: Bloodlines from start to finish years back but it was way too buggy and unfinished to really enjoy.

Also, double post.

You should try it again with the latest fan patches. Just about the only remaining problems are engine related and some cut content has been restored. The ending levels still aren't spectacular, but there's an actual map editor out now so it's probably just a matter of time until somebody improves those. There's even a project working on porting VTMB over to the current version of the Source engine.

Might I recommend the Camarilla Edition 1.4. A very good mod which enhances the gaming experience. And of course takes care of the most frustrating bugs.

That would be pretty cool. Unfortunately, I sold it on ebay a few months back. I'll keep an eye on that project though. It might sway me to pick it up again.

Best gaming experience hands down was playing for a few years on a certain well managed multi-player NWN persistent roleplay world. I've been tempted several times to dust off the old NWN discs and see what's going on these days in that community. That game really struck gold in its possibilities and some communities with quality player base and dms really managed to push the limits of gaming heaven using its possibilities.

It was the same old story with NWN2. It just wasn't the same. I wish developers would realize that if you come close to perfection you don't have to radically change everything to make a sequel. Just make some tweaks, update the graphics, create a new setting and leave the core intact for fu**s sake. Notice they were wise enough to do this with BG 1 to 2 and reaped the rewards.

yeah - nice thread, agree completely. I have tried my darnest to love skyrim, but I can't. Its not a half bad actiony dungeon crawler, but I find no fun in improving anything. Someone in another thread summed it up beautifully, and I feel this is the main reason morrowind is so much better than oblivion or skyrim -- In Oblivion and Skyrim, you start off good at everything, and get better. In morrowind, you start off as a worthless peasant, and become a legend.

That's an amazing summation. I'm going to keep that for future reference.

Man, you said a mouthful. Your statement holds the most truth for americans out of any other culture. Our country is... uh, well we're not supposed to get into real life politics on here.

I always love reading threads about gamers who play Skyrim and come to Morrowind and are blown away by its charm. I can't wait until SHOTN completes Skyrim so that we can go to the province of Skyrim in TESIII!

Yeah, I also played Machinarium. Really one of the best games I have played last years.
At a certain point I stopped looking forward to all these "promising" modern games, because most of the time it ended in dissapointment. I started a lot of games which I just couldnt play through because it was just "brainless entertainment", which in fact isnt entertaining. Then I started lookin for some of the older games.
I played for example Jagged Alliance Wildfire, which I still havent finished, takes a long time to conquer all the areas. Its kind of repetitive but really addictive!
Then I played Fahrenheit (The Indigo Prophecy) which is more of a interactive movie game. It really has a lot of atmosphere and cant be compared to almost none game. However towards the end the story becomes too epic, but still I would recommend this game to anyone.
And the last treasure I found was The Last Express! What a game, what an experience.

I am always suprised by the fact that a lot of old games from sometimes 10 years ago, created amazing experiences, which the modern games (10 years later!) cant achieve. With all the graphical enhancements they forgot about the things that makes games interesting. But I guess in fact they dont really care. They are just money making machines and as long as people buy their stuff there is no room for originality.

Currently playing a JA2 game with the recent v1.13 modder-made overhaul, which adds a lot of equipment and reworks a lot of the mechanics, besides fixing bugs. A good game is still a good game, regardless of how dated the graphics are. From all that I hear, the new "remake" abandons everything that made the original a classic.

Also playing Hearts of Iron III, which is a WWII strategic game deep enough to hit magma. The learning curve is nasty, pretty close to vertical, and if you're not into micromanaging, you'll hate it, but it's the most detailed WWII simulation out there. Unpatched, it's close to unplayable on account of bugs, which is why there are about 4 or 5 patches for each of the "expansions", which by themselves are little more than bugfixes with a few bells and whistles added.

X3 was another "deep" game, if you're into space flight sims and/or exploration/trading games, but the scaling is as bad as in Oblivion.

It's not that there aren't any "intelligent" games still being made, it's just that there have been no character-based open-world RPGs released in ages.

Love this topic, and it's been my view about "modern" games for about the last 5 years, if not more. I don't care about graphics. I care about gameplay. If a game has replayability, then it's value for money. Playing once and then never again is a waste of my time and money.
MW had a good enough graphic system for it's gameplay value, and with the brilliance of the fairly easy to use Construction Set being sold with it, allowed the game much greater success.


Reading this also made me think, would the current "modern" gaming community out there even be able to cope with games like the Myst series? Nice graphics, and give you a major brainache working out all the puzzles. Each one has kept me hooked to my screen for hours on end.
There was even a Myst clone released ages ago, I had to give up on it, it was too challenging. Even looking online I was like, "I need a university degree in maths to do that puzzle...."

Classic games are the best, Skyrim is my most recent purchase, before that I got Left 4 Dead 2 due to being recommended by a friend. Played it for 10 minutes and thought "what a load of rubbish", and before that one, I think it was WoW I joined up with (side note, WoW seems to be going down the "Steamlined" route too).

There is a market for "complex" number crunching systems that give players massive of choice on their character builds, it's just budgets are swamped by having voice acting (the biggest game killer imo) and perdy graphics, because currently that's what the majority market wants. Same with films, some can be swamped by effects, and have no story.


Anyway, to the OP, welcome to Morrowind, enjoy your alternative life and learn from your deaths

Hey Pirate, I'd recommend Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It's rather cheap now, and it's a bit more stealth orientated, but it has some great dialogue to it, and the stealth system is done quite well. Multiple outcomes to situations and multiple ways to achieve them.

Also now and then you find indie developers still working http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33mxD4FjD3w.

And a definite recommendation is of course Deus Ex

I think that's partially due to the gaming media. I remember reading some of the pre-release Skyrim hype. What do you think was a big "improvement" over oblivion? Questlines? depth of the combat? great story? You'd be wrong. They were impressed by ... flowing water. The water in Skyrim flows from place to place instead of not flowing in Oblivion. More press goes to graphical engines, voice overs, and other stuff like that. I think its partially because graphics are an easy way to get attention, especially when you have only a few weeks to make your sales, and reviewers aren't going to play all of the content. Reviewers may play a game for a few hours, and if you have 100 hours of content VS 1000, it won't be much of a selling point -- it won't be reviewed past maybe 15 hours. What you do to game that system is make the first 20 hours of easily accessable content graphicly and storywise AWESOME. And as far as any reviewers know, the whole game is like that. And since what gamers know is based on what reviewers say, they'll think much the same.

That almost forces a lot of dumbing down. In MW, you might play 10+ hours before you saw TEH AWESOMES, and nothing graphical would stand out. The game reviews would say that it had only random quests and cliffracers, and the main quest is the player delivering a package to a blade. not epic enough to get someone to pay a New Release price for. Add to that the finite budget, and you pretty much HAVE TO favor easy gaming and graphics. If you make it hard to do something awesome, the reviewer will miss it. I

Well that goes without saying.

It's a good game, what a rotten way to miss out if he hasn't played it. And if he hasn't...what a shame.

I've seen reviews based on 30 minutes of play, particularly if the reviewer doesn't like the genre. If they spend 15 hours at it, consider it an "in-depth" review. Granted, a few take the time and effort, but many do not.

I suppose you're right -- the point is that out of perhaps a 100 hour experianc, the review of the game is based on less than 1% of the content -- it's got to be flash and polish and purty or they'll be bored, and say as much. Then you can forget "GOTY" which is chosen by media outlets, and most important, you'll never make sales. That's why indies can still make deep stuff -- they don't have impress people who play short bursts of long games.

Remakes do that usually. This is why I don't want Morrowind to be remastered. It would be a completely different game. Voice acting would ruin the characters.

@septimine - I agree with everything you said. Seems everyone was impressed by the water except me. I complained about it, and it was only once the game was released that I started to like it.

I miss adventure games. Syberia for example, that was a fine game.

So far as I am concerned, Morrowind was the best in the Elder Scrolls series. It was the last of the "real" rpg games. Oblivion, and then Skryim, became adventure games with RPG elements. Things got more and more simplified, fewer skills, less dialog, no thought required at all. Games that you can be everything, to everyone, and someone that can hardly cast a healing spell can be the archmage....... It's really rather sad.

Don't expect games like morrowind to come from mainstream publishers though...... the bean counters and marketing department will make sure that a game that doesn't appeal to the widest possible audience will ever make it past the conceptualization stage.