Morrowind was my introduction into RPG's. Morrowind was the reason I bought an XBox instead of PS....oh and Splinter Cell...lol...back to the topic...

Morrowind, IMO, was close to perfection. An open world that seemed logical and rational (merchants wouldn't buy their own stolen goods or illegal substances but you could still find NPC's with a sweet tooth).

Factions that actually had feelings about other factions that was expressed in the game.

An interconnected world. Public transportation.

No level scaling so some places were simply dangerous from the start of the game.

No map markers but NPC's gave...adequate directions including landmarks. If you were looking for a NPC their name would be a topic and people would direct you to where they were.

An epic story that involved various factions.

Multiple paths to complete the MQ: IIRC, every factions questline eventually led the player back to the MQ.

You could actually play a "role" and the game/NPC's acted accordingly. You could play a Lay Servant (where you would get light missions that would fit a clerk) or a Warrior (where you'd get quests fitting a warrior)...

Oblivion, Fallout 3 and NV have little to none of this, why?

Oblivion was shallow...single choices in conversations (what's the point of forcing me to pick a single choice?) The others are like this too.

Fallout 3 was like a bunch of locations plopped down for the player to shoot up...eventhough Three Dog blabbed about everything noone knew/talked about anything outside of their little spot.

Fallouts did away with the "role" aspect of RPG'ing. Regardless of what you think of yourself nearly every NPC in the Mojave calls you a "merc." Fallout 3 you're not called anything you're just a guy showing up to shoot up some stuff.

In Fallout 3/Oblivion side quests were more detailed/intricate than the MQ (Replicated Man/Collector)...

*exhale*...

What happened? What was so wrong with Morrowind that they haven't tried to duplicate it but yet they're duplicating the shallow dumbed down Oblivion model?

EDIT: Is it that hard to have an immersive game with good graphics?

Voice acting is one thing that happened. It's the standard now, pretty much. And if everything has to be voice acted you can't have huge amounts of dialogue, and a simple map/quest marker is preferred to long voiced directions.

The idea of level scaling isn't so bad but it shouldn't apply everywhere and they took it way too far in Oblivion (generic loot everywhere, marauders in daedric armor). They realize that though.


I don't think so. There's one main path, and a quicker back route in case you accidentally killed an NPC essential to the main quest. And it's possible to skip the Hortator part of the MQ and go directly to Vivec by having a reputation of 50 or higher.

I think Fallout 3 was a step back in the right direction. It still misses all the political intrigue and interaction between factions (Well, FO3 has no real factions) that you see in Morrowind, but exploration was worthwhile again (unlike in Oblivion)because there were unique things to find in the world, including quests in the wilderness/dungeons.


Planescape Torment puts you in the role of The Nameless One, someone who has had a predetermined past, and it wasn't possible to change his appearance. But I still consider it an RPG, and I can still decide what kind of character TNO will be. Just because you are/were a courier in the past in New Vegas doesn't mean you can't let your character be who he wants to be right now.

I do miss not having such a variety of factions as in Morrowind.

Modded Morrowind.

did i already mention that i hate voice acting? they should make games for people like me. i skipped it even in games like baldur's gate 2. well, sorry for ranting.

Well it seems the vast majority of gamers prefer the "dumbed down" oblivion style since oblivion, fallout 3 & new vegas were FAR bigger hits than morrowind was...

I would say its because those games have more personality than morrowind did, sure morrowind had way more RPG elements to it, but it was a lifeless bland static world, NPC's didn't do anything but stand around waiting for you to talk to them and when you did talk to them about 90% of them said the exact same things. Also oblivion and the fallouts are much easier to get into, morrowind doesn't get good till you put some effort in to progress in the quests and level up a bit.

As for the immersive game with good graphics....ummm perhaps you should look at the mass effect games they have great graphics, great characters, great storyline and great gameplay... and then there's dragon age, a proper RPG with decent graphics and amazing story and characters. No offence to Bethesda but when it comes to immersive RPG's bioware are the masters....

Accessibility. That`s an aspect they thought was lacking, so they made Oblivion the way it is.
Because simply put, a dead newbie is not an happy newbie.

Morrowind was static due to technology.
It would be good a today real morrowind. Also voice acting, i often skip it because i read faster than the npc speak

Morrowind is perfect for gamers like us who are closer to the "hardcoe" end of the spectrum. Unfortunately most people are not hardcoe gamers anymore. Most people are what could be labeled as "casual" gamers. Those are the kinds of gamers that video game companies (not just Bethesda) are trying to sell to nowadays because they make up most of the gamers in the world. You see, back in the day, video games were only popular among certain people so video games were made accordingly. The people who liked them were willing to take the time to get to know the game. However video games have become increasingly popular in recent years. The companies that made these games needed to adjust their products accordingly to take advantage of emerging opportunities even if that means "dumbing down" their products. The result is something that people can just pick up and play without having to worry about things like immersion. They don't want to make choices and develope a character with depth, they just want to play a game. What Bethesda was trying to do when they made Oblivion and other newer games was make something that anyone can enjoy. They still tried to keep as much of the old "hardcoe" elements but the imerging accessability inevitably calls for the elimination of some things.

Believe it or not it is really hard to make a good game. Especially considering the increasingly high standards that video games must live up to. 20 years ago 8-bit graphics were cutting edge but nowadays thet simply wouldn't fly. The unfortunate side effect of that is that 8-bit graphics are extremely easy to work with. Using models with thousands of polygons are not easy to work with. The graphics alone take up a huge amount of a games budget. Then the already stated voice acting comes into play. It's almost a requirement of modern games to have fully voiced dialog. Because of the cost of hiring actors and the time involved in recording the actors, the dialog content is extremely limited. Personaly I think I would prefer writen dialog to spoken dialog, especialy for content-centric RPGs but it's not my call. There are also deadlines to keep which greatly limits a games content. Everything must be planned meticulously. Frankly, considering the complexity of the process, it's a miracle that video games get made at all.

Personaly I would be over the moon if another game like Morrowind came out but I don't think it would be in Bethesda's best interests (money-wise) to do that so it's not likely to happen.

What was wrong with Morrowind?

Well, it had God awful animation and character models, even for its day. But Bethesda seem to be incapable of finding a decent animator.

The combat system was equally awful. Take a look at the indie Mount & Blade for how it should be done.

But apart form that it was a pretty fun and complex game.

Ten or fifteen years ago games were made for computer users (who had to be reasonably technically adept), not for mass-market idiot appeal. Just look at the depth of sci-fi plot and puzzle solving in a shooter like Marathon, compared to Bungie's later Halo.

It's the same with cinema and TV - everything is marketed at attention deficient teenagers for maximum moolah. Vampires and zombies for miles. :rolleyes: Invention and artistry is dead.

My opinion is the exact opposite. But the previous RPG series I played before TES was Baldur's Gate, so the combat system wasn't really hard to adapt to. (Try to use a weapon you're not good with in BG, see what happens.) The 2 big problems I see with Morrowind's combat system is the lack of animations for dodge/miss/parry and that not enough new players know what the Warrior birthsign does. I just find it a bit harsh to call it an awful system. Then again, I don't know your reasons so it's hard to say more.

Since Oblivion I prefer voice acting, even though I have no problem reading. But I do like when they actually talk to me
I agree with som others, graphic wise and animation flaws regarding dodge and so on, I think those are the biggest problems. The former however easily fixed with mods
Besides that Morrowind is a great game, and the lack of level scaling is a bliss!

Morrowind would have been so much better if it had used the far superior Infinity Engine. What's this nonsense about first person view? Isometric perspective is the way to go. :ninja:

People were not ready for it. Maybe they still aren't but things are better now thanks to new sandbox games like Stalker, Oblivion and Fallout 3. Morrowind was just not recognized for its genre at that time.

In Morrowind when you are released, you are free. Many players didn't know what was happening. They didn't realize they can go their ways as they like it. Do they have a clue about the game world size? Do they know about the story? There is a chance they though the game has no storyline. Well, it is a sandbox game but it has a many stories and they are more complex than any other FPS game out there. Just one opinion you can get from a random NPC has more story than %90 of games out there.

It is impossible to hate Morrowind, it has something for every taste. You go try to join Telvanni, they will tell their world view and let's say you hate it. This doesn't mean you can hate the game too. Because there are other factions who likely think entirely different from Telvanni's. You still can bring your morals and views while joining one group. You control the pace, you try to solve the world around you. You can't say it is slow paced, it is you playing it slow then. Some other player might have finished the main quest in the time I finished the dwemer puzzle box quest! It wouldn't surprise me a bit.

It is always how you understand it not what developers intended. This is not like those types of games. This also doesn't mean "all left to player's imagination", no. Morrowind provides more than any other game in its richly detailed world. But it is still left open for player's imagination. You are not forced to listen someone else's morals and act accordingly like it is yours or you agree with it. You can do whatever you want. This also doesn't mean "there are no consequences", no. Consequences are there but they happen in real time without scripts manipulating where you can only sit through those consequences and suffer. It doesn't lock you to two dialog options unnecessarily every two steps. When you do something with big consequences you can easily accept it because it is you who brought it to yourself, you aren't tricked to choose a dialog branch written by some clever writer.

I really didn't realize what was Morrowind actually bringing to the table until I read "The name of the rose". It is called "open text", Morrowind was trying to get it to next level in an interactive world. I wonder how many people realized this connection. This is the future of interactive medium. Not moral maschism.

Also first person lets you see its world from your character's eyes for its depressing and ugly beauty. I love it personally.

And also it suffered from serious bugs. It was a system hog. Long pauses traveling the world. Without patches,
you got stuck everywhere and you have to open console and type fixme. You have to learn this information but from where?
All types of other collision problems.
Low cpu cycles of that time was making AI go stupid. Everyone in Balmora liked to swim.
CTDs. CTDs. CTDs. (Although I never crashed to desktop, mine was just slow).


Also,
And abomination of faces. I mean animations were OK for that time. Faces were just awful. Good thing I learned about mods at the right time. Thank you World of Faces, my first mod.
Fog distance could be better. I know the view distance could be doubled in original engine. So there could be better transitions.
Combat needed more work. I'm not against probability and skill based system, not at all, but mudcrabs can't dodge [censored].

Mods and patches work great though. I still never stumbled a CTD, except my MGE beta testing sessions. It is a great time to play Morrowind. It is one of the best looking games right now and content is just enormous. Community seems to be bored a little though this year or maybe it is something about this time of the year?

Many things like that scared the players. Oblivion was mostly hype. It was gorgeous. It was grand. Everyone had this urge to check it out. The presentation was perfect. It doesn't last until level 10 though. You can even get your fix in 10 hours and done with it.(What would it be without modders?) But it really reached that scared audience of last time. Fallout had its fan base already. So with that they reached even more people. Now everyone on internets will ask "Hey, is it like Oblivion/Fallout 3?" on a new game. I think Bethesda did their job very well on advertising the genre. The crowd is more educated now. Still I would like to see games in the spirit of TES. I am stuck with Bethesda and their engine and bugs. Yes I am complaining because no competition is no good.

Where are my open world FPS/RPG hybrid games?

Now think about this, let's say Tes 3 was called TES 3 Forever and wasn't released until this time. And in 2011, TES 3 as a combination of Morrowind and Oblivion plus their mods and a good amount of professional polishing/improvement over them was released. (It would probably come with 10 DVDs or 1 blu-ray.) TES III would be the best [censored] game ever. Meh, I think about it, it still is.

I disagree strongly with this. Morrowind has the most personality of any game I have ever played. There is so much strangeness and culture in it that it takes months, even years for some people to learn everything about the world. I have been playing Morrowind for nearly five years and I still don't know everything about it. There is so much variation and flavor in it that I have never, ever found myself bored playing it. Ever. In Oblivion, however, once I played it for a few months I felt like I had experienced everything the game had to offer. Oblivion felt much, much more stale to me than Morrowind. I wouldn't even consider calling Morrowind stale, really. In any case. Sure, it's a very old game in video game years, but it is still the most creative one I have ever played.

My favorite game of all time, the second most critically acclaimed WRPG of all time, and one of the best, if not the best, selling WRPG of all time...

Honestly, this mentality of "look at all us cool hardcoe gamers with our indisputably superior game picking on the supposedly casual game that is shallow, pathetic, and worthless" both disgusts me and pisses me off. What's wrong with Morrowind? I don't know and I do love the game very much myself, in addition to Fallout 3 and Daggerfall, but certain comments from some members of its fanbase, whether intentionally condescending or not, don't leave a very good impression and surely the irony of such comments are within the grasp of the group of people who had to deal with "Daggerfall is much deeper, Morrowind is all about graphics and mindless action", but perhaps I'm expecting too much. After all, Morrowind is a dumbed-down action game that's all shiny graphics and the pure essence of dumbing-down. :rolleyes:

Well, I didn′t agree to agree with everyone when I joined up on this forum If they do that to TES V I sure as oblivion won′t buy it

Bazzing! Very good! I′m sure they will say "Oblivion was much deeper" when TES V comes out :hubbahubba:
In all people, don′t compare the games if they′re not named "TES V - Oblivion II" for example, even if they belong to the same series. At least I don′t compare either MW or OB with Deus Ex just because they′re all in first person :shrug:

I think you're being too harsh on me and putting words in my mouth frankly. I just said it loses the wow factor after some time. And wasn't it hyped with non-existing features in the released game? And these can be said for almost any mainstream game. I wouldn't really have repeated this criticism but it was to serve a response to the OP. It isn't exactly about Oblivion. I didn't say "there was nothing wrong in Morrowind" in any where. And mods really make these games something else, don't you agree?

In Daggerfall, windows glow at night with interior lighting. You have to mod this in Morrowind and Oblivion.

BTW, I am not being sarcastic when I say it is gorgeous or grand. Those are my true feelings. I like TES 4: Oblivion. <_<

I am sympathetic with you though, I can see(from your comments) how you feel when you see all these criticism towards your favorite game. Especially the "dumbed down" comments.(which I've never ever used. I also dislike the use of "casual". I just say bad design choices, mainstream and point the unfamiliarity.) But here you're doing the same to me because I happen to be not liking the game as much as you do and now I am disgusting(or the mentality of the group you assigned me)?! I'm a person. Oblivion isn't. Can you see the difference?

If they say Morrowind is [censored]. What can you say? If they say "getting around in Morrowind is tedious". You can say "Well, Morrowind is full options regarding travelling. Any service is at most two minutes away. And if you are too far from a service you must have been traveled to remote locations where the game turns into survival. And teleportation is always an option." These are still opinions. I would like to have quality criticism myself.

See, they criticize a game, mostly. Even if they say "it is dumbed down", this is targeted at developers. Let's assume it is true and but then we can also assume this group can be only consisted of one person. And I am willing to be that dumb person since I like Oblivion. So you are free of this criticism as you can be outside of that group while still enjoying the game. At most a dev can come here and answer the criticism as "We didn't dumb it down". You are taking being a fan to the extreme, I think. As you seem to take the game like it is a real person, religion, race etc and you seemed to be offended personally from the criticism and you often reflect it back in personal remarks... It is just a game.

Phew. You made me go into politics. I hate that.

You're talking about two different things. Mystical Cheese Muncher was merely pointing out that NPCs (and by extension the game world in general) is more static in Morrowind. He's right: Morrowind NPCs don't have schedules. They don't talk to each other. In Morrowind you won't see a Black Horse courier riding from city to city or Quill-Weave traveling from Anvil to Chorrol once a month to visit a friend, etc, etc. In Morrowind NPCs don't do anything other than stand around 24 hours and day and wait for you to talk to them.

But you are right also when you say that a static game world does not necessarily mean a game is less interesting. It's my belief that your two posts do not necessarily disagree. I think he just phrased his post poorly by using emotionally-charged words like 'boring' and 'lifeless' that obscured the real point he was trying to make.

Nope, nothing was wrong with Morrowind. It was perfect.

...

I mean come on.

I'm not going to sit here and name the shortcomings of Morrowind because despite all of them it is still my favourite game and the one I have spent most of my gaming time on. But to say that it's the true hardcoe game for true hardcoe players and that those who enjoy Oblivion(and other games) are mindless casuals is ridiculous.

You should've been here when Oblivion was announced. You would have found out from the community itself what was wrong with Morrowind, or rather, what was NOT.


P.S. I'm not directing this at any specific member, just letting off some steam.

Already posted this in a way, but I′m with moosa. Why complain about the current game and lift the previous to the skies? I suspect that in many cases it′s all about what game you play first. It′s usually that one you protect in debates like these when neither is actually bad

Wait what, Morrowind no personality? Morrowind is the embodiment of personality and immersion to me. Sure, you have to get into it to really understand what's going on, but that's the beauty of it to me. You get so immersed because there's something to gain from immersion. You understand what's going on and the payback is huge - unlike Oblivion, where everyone has AI and singular time tables etc, but they still all say the same things, except now it's a lot more noticeable because they all have the same voices. Morrowind doesn't have great graphics (even though personally it's all I need), but it has more NPCs, more quests, more of a back story... it just has more. It's harder to get in to, but it's a game that sticks with you long after you've finished playing the MQ the first time - and even then, you're never really finished. New games are just too easy and dumbed down.

Morrowind is a real world, Oblivion is a game where you don't need to think for yourself. There's a difference.

It had plenty of problems. Large share of bugs, tedious gameplay (combat and stealth come to mind), and a boatload of uninteresting generic NPCs who 'sounded' as though they'd swallowed the Encyclopedia of Morrowind. Gotta' say I don't really agree with this 'no voice acting' lark. I find voice acting adds to immersion, at least much more so than a list of the same topics over and over again. Oblivion was also obviously faulty in trying to give every NPC (generic or not) voiced dialogue. I think they probably hit the sweet spot with Fallout3, being that filler characters (such as the citizens not tied to quests in Megaton) didn't have a list of choices for the player, they just had one or two responses. So they managed to keep VA in the game (for important characters) without overspending on it, allowing room for other things.

Concerning Oblivion being dumbed down, I'd agree, but only some aspects. Bethesda made some great improvements to the feel of the game as a whole. I think that easier accessibility is a good thing. I've lost count of the number of characters I've thrown away in Morrowind because I wasn't in the right 'mood' to play it properly. The game takes a lot of effort, and I just want to relax when I play games tbh. But they didn't need to take the political (and religious, actually) depth and intrigue out of the game to do it. I remember hearing that they were going to follow up the Kvatch quests with the Player becoming Count, and having to deal with the problems there alongside the crisis; and it just escapes me why they decided not to put it in. Because I think even the members who jump to defend Oblivion would agree that that questline would've been brilliant.

To end, I'll just say that I think both are great games and both have their problems. Duplicating Morrowind would've been boring; new ideas are what keep things fresh and exciting. At least they tried with Oblivion. I'd say it's up to the customer if they succeeded or not.

Most of Morrowinds problems were technical, and due to limitations of the day. (Ok, the stock bodies and faces were horrible even by those standards, but still...)

This is fortunate, because almost all of those limitations can be fixed with mods. Sure, some things are just stuck, hard-coded, but by and large, they are repairable. And guess what, they have been. Texture replaces can take care of the antiquated looking scenery. Improved trees and MGE can allow Morrowind to look as good as Oblivion, and there are a myriad of mods that add schedules, fix bugs, etc. Shoot, we even have MCP correcting rain/snow collision, allowing for all new manner of outdoor structures.

This is all icing on an otherwise wonderful cake, though. The whole setting, storyline, and progression is amazing. The sense of freedom is overwhelming. You can actually approach a town from almost any direction, including above. You can go anywhere you are big enough.

I dunno. I played Oblivion briefly on a friend's xbox. It was stunningly beautiful, and I walked around dazed at how animated everything was. Horses, NPC's sitting and laying down, etc. However, at a certain point, I noticed how many doors were just flat textures with no real building behind them, and so on. The world seemed flat somehow.

So, I put up with the bugs, irritating limitations,etc. and mod for Morrowind. Frankly, the only things from Oblivion I really wish I could have in Morrowind are improved bed/chairs (being worked on) and the ability to have real water above sea-level. Everything is is either already achievable, or not terribly important.

As for voice acting, I like the way Morrowind handles it. Voice acting for the first few lines of something important, and text for the remainder. As I recall, this was the way Baldur's Gate handled it, and it's nice. The few seconds of voice acting give you a feel for the character, and then you can transition to the much faster reading of text. Frankly, I'm not sure I could tolerate waiting on some of the slower NPC's to dribble out their spoken lines.

I wasn't referring to you, specifically, but it (that attitude) ia in this thread elsewhere, hence why I separated the two statements. Other than that, being told I'm not ready for the game simply because I prefer another is a problem I have, and I'll admit I actually have a problem. Perhaps I am taking things too seriously, but surely that shows just how much I admire Oblivion, and I hope it does. It's a not a game I'm playing for outdated graphics or crappy action elements and it's a game I still plan to play a bit 10 years from now, while, again, [b]some[/b] members of the Morrowind fanbase believe those are the reasons anyone plays the game. I just need to point out and ask the question "What was wrong with Oblivion?" It's the reason I bought my PS3, a game I have fond memories of being this big, open-ended RPG like I have dreamed of since I started playing RPGs with Baldur's Gate II. If I asked that question on these forums 4 1/2 years ago, I would assume that the answers would be strikingly similar to those to "What was wrong with Morrowind" if that question were asked on these forums 8 1/2 years ago.



Why is everyone here playing Morrowind? You should all be playing the "deeper" game, no? What's that, people like Morrowind more than the far superior game that proceeded it? Blasphemy! Truthfully, why aren't you all playing Daggerfall? You want hardcoe, play Daggerfall, you want casual, play Morrowind. I swear Bethesda is appealing to little, action-addicted kids with Morrowind!

The comments may have even been far worse than that, as Oblivion really is much closer to Morrowind than Morrowind is to Daggerfall. If people want to know why certain things were changed for Oblivion, here's what I know/guess based on changes in Oblivion in comparison to how they were done in Daggerfall

criticizer of Morrowind.........................................................................................................................Bethesda's solution

the game is too easy above a certain level......................................................................level-scaling, as in Daggerfall, but different

the environment is too weird, cartoony, childish, and/or stupid................go back to a more realistic/traditional fantasy setting with similar factions and culture as in Daggerfall, starting with Bloodmoon

the combat/stealth system svcks and what's this spell-casting mode thing; that wasn't in Daggerfall..............combat/stealth overhaul; able to cast with weapon out, as in Daggerfall

the fast-travel system is bad and nothing like Daggerfall's...................................................instant fast-travel brought back

the dungeons svck and are pathetic...........................................................bring back larger dungeons with their own music

no horses as in Daggerfall..............................................................................................brought back ridable horses

no buyable houses as in Daggerfall.................................................................................brought back buyable houses

too few Daedra summonings..........................................................................................brought back most, as in Daggerfall

spell failure is bad; what happened to magic skill affecting spell cost instead of failure rates........................magic skill affects spell cost

Jeez, you want to talk about a great game truly hobbled by bad technology, Daggerfall was it. It was a beautiful, expansive game. I still love the music from that game, and how it changed through the day as a function of time and weather.

I even miss the old "guard mrs. X from bad guys tonight" missions, even though they got a bit old after a while.

However, I do not miss automatically generated dungeons that occasionally generated a non-working dungeon (ie. quest item not accessible), Ridiculously easy shoplifting, and absurdly bad architecture - inside and out. However, for the day, it was pretty darn cool.

However, whenever anyone disses it, I remind them of the absurdly cool stuff - like the quest where Mannimarco sends you a message on the back of a ghoul - which you can only read after it attacks you, and you kill it.

Zombie mail is pretty cool.