This is purely a limitation of the game's animation. If the target visibly ducked and weaved, or jumped back, or parried, it would be the same thing from a gameplay perspective (no damage inflicted), but people would stop complaining about misses-that-look-like-hits. Some imagination is required.

Yes. So much yes.

My heart sank a bit when after watching the 'Alpha' demo and hearing that Dunmer bandit in the webs, the voices were again, changed for the final game

The reason people don't like Morrowind now a days is because it was not as technologically advanced as the later games. but the thing that got me about Morrowind was the plotline, well that and the detail of the world. I spent years playing Morrowind and still never did everything you could do in it. the world of Morrowind truly felt endless. You would come across new things each time you played no matter what. If you put all the games into the same technological level Morrowind would win or tie with Skyrim, and Oblivion would come last

Nostagia. A lot of people did grow up playing Morrowind.

Lolwhut? Ever noticed that "3" in TES 3: Morrowind?

Interesting to see how such a large majority of the old-timers who discovered the series during the days of Arena or Daggerfall say that Morrowind was actually a step back/down from Daggerfall. Also interesting to see how comments such as that get completely disregarded in threads like this. I see a lot of comments like the one above how Morrowind started the series and brought about all the game mechanics, when in fact they were already in place, and in some aspects even better prior to MW.
Daggerfall is old and the series were still pretty "indie" back then. If Daggerfall had been more widespread I think this eternal discussion of "which was the better game" would be slanted more towards Daggerfall than Morrowind, since one major argument is that as long as the game has good RPG elements, graphics and such do not matter.
I still prefer Daggerfall to any other game in the series. I play the others and I will surely play future releases as well but Daggerfall will always remain my favourite.
Now you are all welcome to disregard this post as well.

beware Ulsh, many here will simply disregard your opinion for foolish nostalgia. :rolleyes:

Daggerfall is wonderful though, I've yet to get fully into it given its rather difficult to me but its certainly great.

This. So this.

And that you have consequences for your actions. The system doesn't hold your hand and if you randomly decide to murder some guy you meet on the street to steal his shoes... you could very well destroy any chance you have of finishing the main quest.

(I haven't play Skyrim though, so I am not sure if the "hand holding" system that they used in Oblivion is still in place or not. I assume it is as there have been comments that lead me to believe that.)

Ulsh: I desperately tried to play Daggerfall. I'm so not a graphics snob (my games don't have to be pretty at all) but I continually got lost/didn't know who to talk to in Daggerfall because I couldn't make out anything. It frustrates me because I have heard from lots that it was a superior RPG experience to Morrowind.

I honestly think you should give it another shot. It's an excellent game. Concerning he graphics, I don't know if it's a matter of game/Dosbox settings or just how used one is to chunky old nineties graphics but I never had that problem. When I bought Daggerfall back in '96 I actually thought the graphics were pretty pimp. That can be chalked up to industry standard I suppose.

Coming from someone who honestly does not play that much of Morrowind, due to the frustrating combat system and the fact that I struggle to connect with the AI-less (which also makes stealth less fun) and unvoiced NPCs (which I obviously can't blame it for, it was a limit of the times), there are certain aspects I absolutely commend it for. The world is beautiful and alien, always creating a sense of wonder and discovery, the main plot (which I haven't completed in-game, only read about) is fascinating and engaging, and there's just so much more content than Morrowind and Oblivion. Far more. 13 factions, many more settlements (and larger ones, too), twice as many quests as Oblivion and Skyrim, far more armour slots AND armour/weapon variation. It's sad the amount of stuff in the world feels so much more limited in Skyrim and OB, especially with Todd saying they had way more content than ever before (blatant lies, those faction lines are tiny).

For me, Morrowind was where I fell in love with The Elder Scrolls (I have played all of the others now, but I played the older ones after Morrowind). That being said, when I think of the series, Morrowind is the first one that pops up in my mind, and when Oblivion came out and I compared it to Morrowind, Oblivion's story was weak, and the amount of quests in it is like taking a rock (Oblivion) and comparing it to a mountain (Morrowind). You may say the combat was better -- and I wholly agree -- but The Elder Scrolls isn't just about combat, it's about getting immersed into the world, talking to people, exploring, trying to build your fortune, learning the lore, etc. Oblivion was good, but it lost a lot of what the previous games had simply because they had streamlined / dumbed-down the game to be more appealing to the 'Call of Duty generation'. Skyrim did better than Oblivion in these aspects, though again it's story is still much weaker than Morrowind's, and there are less quests though each individual quest is larger and more thought out (which more than makes up for it).

Morrowind also had better armor customization, with regular pants and a regular shirt underneath a cuirass, separate left and right pauldrons, separate left and right gauntlets / bracers / gloves, greaves, a set of boots / shoes, a helmet, and a robe / skirt. It had more options for ranged combat such as the obvious bow, as well as throwing knives, throwing stars, and crossbows. It also had spears (and the related skill), and the unarmored skill.

Oblivion is a game I stopped playing after I beat the whole game (DLC and all) on multiple characters over a few years. That being said I STILL PLAY MORROWIND. That's right, for the past nine years -- almost half of my life -- I've been playing Morrowind, and I've never managed to complete everything in the game on one save file. Hell, even if I combined all of my save files I still wouldn't have run out of quests.

I agree with everything in your post - but this part is incorrect. It was not a limit of the times. It was a design choice. The technology to include fully-voiced acting was available to Bethesda when they made Morrowind (as it was to Bioware when they made Baldur's Gate): first-person shooters had been doing it for years. Bethesda, Bioware, Black Isle, among others, all made deliberate, conscious choices not to fully voice NPCs. It was a stylistic, aesthetic and philosophical choice.

Fantasy roleplaying games, as we know them today, evolved out of pen-and-paper games and MUDs. Reading was part of the experience. It was expected. It was, to be blunt, one of the things that set roleplaying games apart from first-person shooters.

As the traditional roleplaying game companies moved toward player-skill-oriented gameplay and away from character-skill-oriented gameplay (i.e. away from traditional roleplaying mechanics and toward traditional first-person shooter mechanics) they also incorporated other elements of first-person shooters, including fully-voiced NPCs. Frankly, there was money to be made by luring in gamers who primarily played first-person shooters. Whether this development represents an evolution or a devolution is another question altogether.

It may have been a technical possibility, but that does not mean it was a feasible option. I don't know, but I think it's highly possible Bethesda would have had voice acting if they could, but they were on limited technology (disks had less space then) and were close to bankrupt, already putting a lot of money into the game as it was. I don't think the lack of voice acting adds much to the game except of course, space available for content (though given Skyrim's minute file size due to compression, I don't think that was the reason for the lack of content this time. If they had done it for Morrowind, with smaller discs and less compression, they wouldn't have been able to fit in half of what they did). I wouldn't conclude that they did it intentionally purely as a design choice. I mean pen and paper RPGs did not have background voice actors, music and sound effects or graphical representations of the world either, yet obviously TES has never shyed away from that.

One of the things I loved most about Morrowind is the fact that it is a game where they obviously put in more content then was actually necessary to sell the game. You had a huge array of factions, cities, weapons, enchanting, spell making, alchemy and handcrafted dungeons.

With Oblivion and Skyrim, it is obvious Bethesda took a more commercial approach, by which I mean "less is more" is used as a cover for "less is more profit".

- They cut out crossbows, spears and throwing daggers among other weapons.
- In Skyrim, they cut out 75% of the summonable daedra, replacing them all with Atronach's.
- In both OB and Skyrim, they kept the least amount of factions possible, and in Skyrim the faction lines are even shorter than in OB.
- In Skyrim, you have five truly unique cities: Riften, Windhelm, Solitude, Whiterun and Markarth. All the other cities/towns/villages use the exact same architecture, which I guess is cheaper then crafting unique cities for the other supposedly "large" cities of Falkreath, Dawnstar, Morthal and Winter Hold. In Morrowind, you had far more cities and towns, with a far greater variation in architecture.
- For some reason, the marketing division of Bethesda thought it was a good USP to state that Skyrim had a brand new engine, but obviously it's fundamentally the same as OB.
- In Skyrim and OB, most of the faction quest lines are linear, this saves the work of having to create extra outcomes which may not be played, i.e. might be wasted work. But in Morrowind, some factions had multiple outcomes, for example the Thieves Guild could end up in conflict with the Fighter's Guild, or you could root out the corruption in the Fighter's Guild. Which brings to another point, in Morrowind, the factions actually interacted with each other, acknowledged each others existence. In Skyrim, YOUR OWN FACTION NPCs don't even acknowledge when you're the leader of the guild!

* But this is not to say OB or Skyrim are worthless.

They are visually beautiful, the combat is far more interactive then in Morrowind, Skyrim actually feels a lot less buggy and doesn't seem to crash as often as other TES games and all these games are still a lot better than any Call of Doody junk.

In my opinion Morrowind lacked polish and some essential features of the later games. What I enjoyed about it was the setting, they managed to create some truly alien looking locations which were fun to explore. It was a good sandbox for fooling around in. It was an alright game for it's time but it was no masterpiece... neither is Skyrim but I find it far more playable, it's been streamlined to get rid of most of the clutter making for a more interesting and immerse experience.

...whereas hitting them square in the face, acutally connecting, and barely scratching them because you're not skilled with the weapon makes SO much MORE sense.....

Morrowind's combat system was "character based", as opposed to Oblivion's and Skyrim's combat systems being "player based". That's the difference between a RPG and a FPS. Morrowind was more RPG than FPS, while the later games are more FPS than RPG. If Morrowind had the animations to show WHY you missed (glancing blows, fumbled attack, etc.), it would have been less frustrating than seeing your weapon connect yet not hit. The combat was still more direct and controllable than in the later games: you could hold back the attack for a variable amount of time to increase the damage, up to the weapon's maximum, or spam quick jabs for the weapon's minimum damage). In Oblivion, it felt like I was turning the character over to the computer with every attack, while the animation played out. On top of that, there were three attack types in Morrowind, which unfortunately, any but the primary attack form didn't offer any particular advantage to use. The bare bones of a complex "character based" combat system were there, it was just never fleshed out.

As for "nostalgia", after playing FO3, I read a lot of posts by "old school" Fallout fans about how FO3 looked really great, but didn't have the same feel and challenge to make it a worthy successor, so I bought the original game. Surprise, surprise, I actually LIKED the older game a lot more. The interface was horrible to the point where I felt like I was fighting more against that than the opponents, the 3rd Person Perspective graphics were seriously dated, and the simplistic random encounter nonsense was more annoying than fun, but overall I felt that the underlying game was much more enjoyable, mostly for the same reasons why I liked Morrowind over Oblivion. Sure, it needed updating, but not "gutting". How is it "nostalgia" when you played it AFTER the sequel?

After a couple of years of playing MW, I bought Oblivion, and was quickly svcked in by the newer game's better graphics, physics, and other flashy gameplay elements. After about 5-6 levels, I began to notice the excessive scaling, and the lack of any high level items anywhere, until my own level increased to where every bandit in the game would suddenly be equipped with them. For a "sandbox" game, the linearity of the opponents and loot began to grate increasingly on me. The sense of "must upgrade to the next set of armor and weapons" in a game where the common enemies got harder as you improved, made it difficult to choose items from a RP or cosmetic perspective, compared to Morrowind's "take it as fast or slow as you feel comfortable" combination of static and levelled enemies and more and less difficult regions. I resolved to finish the MQ before giving up on the game, and was totally fed up with it by the time it finally ended. To this date, I have not been able to muster the enthusiasm to put the OB disc back in the drive. I went back to playing MW, and people call that "nostalgia".

As a "hack & slash" game, Morrowind was terrible, but as a character-based open-world RPG, it's still unmatched by anything other than possibly Daggerfall. Your opinions on them will depend on what type of game you enjoy, but Morrowind and Daggerfall were a very different TYPE of game than Oblivion and Skyrim.

Nicely said, Kovacius.

It really upsets me that some of Oblivion's fundamental flaws are again present in Skyrim. At least the positives outweigh the negatives this time, so I'm still able to play Skyrim occasionally. On the other hand, after finishing Oblivion's MQ for the first (and only) time I was so disappointed with the game that I put it away for 4 years, and only gave it another shot because I heard lots of great things about the Shivering Isles expansion pack.

Over the past 14 years I've put in hundreds of hours into Daggerfall and Morrowind, but barely 50 into Oblivion. I still play Morrowind, might revisit Daggerfall at some point, but very much doubt I'll ever touch Oblivion again. What about Skyrim? Well, I expect to eventually have played it for 100 or maybe even 200 hours, but I doubt it'll have the same appeal and replayablity that DF and MW had. There is something fundamentally different about those two games that makes the experience of playing them feel much more enjoyable. Admittedly, nostalgia has something to do with this, but honestly I think it's more a matter of superior game design. If you look beneath the flaws of DF and MW (and there are plenty of these), you'll find a diamond of a game. I can't really say the same for Oblivion and Skyrim.

One of the neat things I have seen over the evolution of TES is the music fits the mood of the game so very well.

Daggerfall gave you mysterious, dark themes for wilderness and near dungeons. But the towns gave you these bustling city themes. And the merriment of taverns was spot on.

Morrowind different themes gave you a sense of majesty and mystique. The feelings of an alien land full of a proud race.

Oblivion main theme provided a sense of urgency in the face of the oblivion crisis. The explore music tended to feel sort of happy-go-lucky at times(Unless you were in a dungeon), which I felt kind of clashed with the main theme.

Skyrim main theme is a heroic one. The coming of the dragonborn. And most of the music stays true to this. The dragon fight themes fit in great.(I also loved the throwbacks to DF with some of the bard music)

I'm not commenting on arena because I can't remember the music for it.

I've noticed a trend though. The first two focus on the world, the third focuses on an event, and the last focuses on yourself. It's the same way in game for each. In Daggerfall and Morrowind, you're a nobody in a new world. You have no idea what's going to happen other than the emperor expects you to fill some vague obligation. But people in this world aren't going to give you any special treatment, you've gotta earn your place. Trying to be buddy buddy with them often ends up in failure and they hate you for it. Most guild bosses treat you like dirt because you're a newbie who hasn't made a name for himself.

Oblivion. Everyone's worrying about the emperor and the appearance of these oblivion gates, but pretty soon it turns into cheerful banter and sweet rolls for everyone. A colorful world that doesn't try to convey the true sense of danger that's being faced. Some might seem grumpy, but a couple rounds of spin the wheel and you're their best friend. And forget about training in your guild of choice, you're special. Do a few tasks for us and you can take that old fogies spot as leader.

Skyrim. Dragons return, people are of course notably upset by this. After your first battle with a dragon, everyone talks about you. The greybeards summon you, and you become the target of everyone's attention. Did you fail the TG initiation? That's ok I'm pretty sure you're someone special, come see us some time. Come to join the companions eh? Nevermind that all you demonstrated was that you can wildly flail a dagger, I think you've got what it takes to go on extremely dangerous hunts and having known you for a day, I think you should be the next leader. You wish to study at the college of winterhold? You'll have to...oh you're the dragonborn? Come right in, you can take the arch-mage's chair, he won't need it.


And this is what I'm not liking. The more recent games have been putting all the attention on the player even if all the players done is help in a battle.(You don't have to kill the dragon, the guard will take care of it eventually) Suddenly you're given all the credit and all eyes are on you.

Nostalgia mainly but also because Morrowind was more complex than Oblivion and Skyrim.

All this praise for Skyrim from the Morrowind-lovers bothers me though. They were good at identifying the stuff that was taken away from Morrowind in Oblivion but many of the same people seem unable to see how dumbed down and broken Skyrim is compared to Oblivion. In their defense though, many of these people seem to have found some of that gritty atmosphere in Skyrim that they fell in love with in Morrowind while I'm a guy who prefers the innocence of Cyrodiil.

Morrowind was the first elder scroll game I ever heard of. First time I played it at my friends house back in 03 I was immediately svcked into it. I even went it bought it on pc afterwards. To me Morrowind was the perfect game. Yes, I know there were flaws but any games gonna have some kinda flaws. The one reason I loved it so much is more about the storytelling to me and interaction with the people. It felt I was in Vvardenrfell fighting rats or whatever monster they threw into my face. Nowadays, majority of the people only care about graphics. To me, graphics are okay but there is so much into a game than just graphics. I rather have a good game with horrible graphics then a horrible game with the best graphics.

Not trying to stray too far off topic here, but I have to disagree with many people who are trying to suggest that RPG games must require dice rolls and hard stats to be considered part of the RPG genre. First of all, the terms "RPG" are subjective and may vary greatly from person to person depending on individual preferences. For me, a Roleplaying game is any game that provides an enviornment where a player can interact, communicate, or change that enviornment. To this degree, one could consider FPS games like Duke Nukem or Doom to be an RPG game. All you need is your imagination to make it happen. Even when playing older editions of pen and paper D&D second edition, one of the first things the DM guide tells you is to use the rules and dice rolls at your own discretion, none of them are necessary but they all add their own flavor to the gameplay. Its possible to play a full campaign of D&D without ever rolling a single dice.

For a game to be considered an RPG, you just need a game that puts you into someone elses shoes and gives you a platform for effecting the enviornment they live in. Stats, spreadsheets, dice rolls, need not apply to all RPG's.

Fixed. Nostalgia is NOT a reason for preference of the game unless you speak for yourself in which you have every right. However, unless you live within the minds of everyone else I wish people would stop with the nostalgia excuse, its unbelievably rude to write off someones opinion as nostalgia. I have to agree with you on one part at least, though I've yet to play Skyrim I''ve heard it does the lore better justice than Oblivion did.