I was introduced to the Elder Scrolls series with Oblivion and immediately fell in love. I've since played nearly 800 hours of Oblivion and several hundred in Skyrim. I have to say that I still think Oblivion takes the cake for my favorite game out there, but I've never played Morrowind. So since I love the lore and history and Tamriel overall so much, I figured I ought to give Morrowind a shot.

So, if I love Oblivion and still thoroughly enjoy Skyrim, then am I going to get totally immersed in Morrowind as well? And any tips for me? Is the leveling process more intricate like in Oblivion?

History learns us that you will probably hate Morrowind at first, and will have to bite through a very sour first few hours. Afterwards, you should be fine.

You might want to download some graphics mods first, as to ease the transition.

It is similiar to Oblivion in leveling, but I recommend reading the differences between http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Oblivion_for_Morrowind_playersand http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Morrowind.

There are quite a few mods made to improve the graphics of Morrowind, if that is an issue.
If you can look aside all the flaws in the gameplay and you do not mind treading a fantasy world a bit stranger than the usual one, I am sure you will like it

It takes a while to get used to but it's a great game. If you have any questions about leveling or really anything feel free to ask.

If you enjoy Skyrim then you'll probably like Morrowind better than Oblivion, but that's not for the mods nor the gameplay. No what I'm talking about is the depth of the game that Oblivion is lacking while Skyrim has more of plus a dose of Morrowind in-game depth.

Here is a few tips about playing Morrowind and I recommend that you a least install MCP, MPP aka http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1398294-official-unofficial-morrowind-patch-thread/.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Starting_out
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Differences_Between_Morrowind,_Oblivion,_and_Skyrim
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1305729-mod-recommendations-for-new-players/

Things you should know:
-no voice acting (instead you get tons of detailed dialogue and descriptions)
-clunky and dated combat
-no quest compass (you follow directions from journual and NPC's)
-no fast travel (you travel on ships, silt striders, mage guild teleports, fortress portal, teleport spells)
-no NPC schedules (but AI is still similar),
-the game is "unepic" youre not saving the guilds from impending doom, their plots are more "earthly" and realistic, lots of politics and intrigues
also the number of joinable fractions is much more bigger
-dated graphics can be fixed with mods partialy,
-the game is one big elderscrolls fan orgism lore-vise, you realy feel like exploring a new alien culture, history, architecture, on this aspect the game beats rest of elderscolls games easly
-much more items than newer games from the series, separate glove and pauldron slots, you can put armor on clothes, and robes on top of it, there are spears and halbers, crossbows, throwable weapon like knives, darts
-small importance of levels scaling, you never know what you will find exploring, the loot is hand placed you can find unique artifacts in some god forsaken places, you can encounter high level enemies on lower levels
-diversive locations,
-beast races and humanoids are different, they use diffrent sets of animations and are restricted from wearing boots and full helmets
-more skills,
-there are no mounts/horses

This is all very helpful, thanks guys. Good to know what I'm getting into. And the general consensus seems to be that the story and lore drive the game which is excellent. The gameplay and graphics and combat systems are nice, but what makes TES what it is (to me at least) is the world they created and people that populate it.

Also, I was planning on getting Morrowind for my console, but that means no mods.

Hmmm, I would not get Morrowind for console if I were you. The interface is absolutely fantastic on PC, but probably very clunky on consoles.

In addition to that, you'll miss out on console commands which can be very helpful if you get stuck by bugs and finally there are a few mods that are pretty much 'needed' like the unofficial Morrowind patch.

Good to know, thanks for the heads-up guys

There is also the difference of enchanting in-game compare to Oblivion or Skyrim except for the sigil stone in Oblivion, because you can enchant items almost anywhere by your self if you have the skill plus a filled soul gem without enemies nearby.

Just drop the filled soul gem upon your character while you're in the inventory then the enchanting window appear and that's the same for alchemy too if you drop any http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:Alchemy#Tools upon your character.

PC is the way to go, Morrowind's interface is far more complicated than both Oblivion and Skyrim's so you'll be throwing the xbox pad at your TV otherwise, also you'd be missing out on the Morrowind Graphics Extender, which basically gives you Oblivion's distant land feature.

As for the actual game I'd agree with what others have said, the first twenty hours can be a [censored] but that's half the fun, you'll be totally lost, treated like some dog of an outcast and a single insect will slaughter you...but when you finally find your feet you'll get a sensation of freedom that (in my experience) hasn't been matched.

Also, the game is extremely buggy on the 360. Very long loading times, too.

The venerable Unofficial Patch has been replaced by the Morrowind Patch Project (MPP). In addition, the more recent Morrowind Code Patch (MCP) fixes several engine issues and bugs which were considered unfixable until this. Since adding the MPP and running the MCP installer, I have not had a single game crash in over a year, as opposed to an average of about one every 10-15 hours of play. Other than these and a few graphics replacers (like the Morrowind Graphics Overhaul compilation, which includes MGE) I wouldn't recommend changing actual gameplay until you're reasonably familiar with the original game. Changes without knowing either where you're starting from or where you're going to are not necessarily a good thing, especially with all of the unforseen implications that it can have for a complex game like Morrowind.

The biggest difference between Arena, Daggerfall, and Morrowind on the one hand, and Oblivion and Skyrim on the other, is that the earlier games are based on your character's skill, with the possibility of failure at tasks such as spellcasting, alchemy, repair, weapon attacks, and other actions when your skills are low compared to the difficulty of the action. In the later "player-skill based" games, you can't even attempt the task until you reach the appropriate skill level, and then success is automatic. As your skills improve in Morrowind, or you learn ways to either improve your chances (skill or attribute boosting) or lower the difficulty (inexpensive custom-made easier spells, expensive better tools, etc.), you will fail less often until it becomes a rare event. Your initial skills and attributes are vitally important to survival at low level, unlike in Oblivion where it often paid to take your most heavily used skills as minors to slow level-up. In Morrowind, you'll need those skills.

First and foremost, enjoy your stay here on the island of Vvardenfell, in Morrowind province. Since it's quarantined, you're probably going to be here for a loooooong time, like the rest of us.

I haven't seen any bugs yet and the only long loading screen is the initial load and reloading after deaths.

You can't see it, but there is a bug that makes the game unable to properly handle the unarmored skill. You have to have some armor on to level the unarmored skill. Not sure how this bug came about during the development. It's obvious that it wasn't intentional. It just happened. Unarmored is technically just the dodging skill from Daggerfall in armor form. I'm assuming the reason it was taken out of Oblivion was because either acrobatics, agility, or athletics already had the dodging skill built in.

It is a fun skill, though. I love it. I don't know if the Xbox version of Morrowind has the engine bug that the PC version has. The engine bug makes the player have to save almost constantly, and this can also cause the game to bug out and be unable to load the save in worst cases if you have too many individual save files.

Morrowind has some of the strangest bugs... This is coming from someone who saw a deer fly in Skyrim!

Your game hasn't crashed at all? And yes, that's the loading screen I'm referring to.

No, no crashes yet.

They will happen. No game is crash proof. Some games are just good at not crashing. Not even console games are crash proof.

Morrowind Code Patch has a fix for unarmored bug

I know. It's just that not everyone plays the PC version. I play the PC version, but the person I was quoting plays the Xbox version. I use Morrowind Code Patch, but there isn't a fix for the problem on console versions.