Morrowind: Best Computer RPG. Ever.

[Vocenoctum]

Afterwards I played KOTOR and hated the fact that I couldn't manipulate everything around me and that I couldn't find a lightsaber on the dark jedi I had just killed most of the time.

KotOR was a lot more linear, as is Fable, Morrowind was great for just wandering off.
And yeah, Elder Scrolls, if they have it, you get it.
In KotOR2, it was very frustrating at game start to be surrounded by Sith wielding these big double weapons, and I can't get one, instead using my little knife or whatever for melee.

In fact, I found KOTOR inferior and tedious compared to Morrowind in almost every aspect despite the fact it was a newer game. However, more people enjoyed KOTOR than Morrowind. Take the lightsabers away from KOTOR and I think they would have realized what an inferior product they really had.

I loved Morrowind, though I like Oblivion better. I love KotOR also, though I think 2 sucked. They're two different styles though, and I think the KotOR game had better plot and such due to it's more linear nature. Oblivion was just fun to wander in.

Morrowind was a great game, but the setting for me was irritating. I didn't like the architecture, and loathed the sandstorms. Otherwise it was great, and I bought both expansion as soon as they came out. All Elder Scrolls are buggy though, and often slow to patch. (Not sure if Oblivion has even gotten a patch on the 360 yet, and the Fighter Guild quest line is glitched and impossible to complete.)

 

[trancejeremy]

Right, and that's what I love about. The fact that I get lost all the time, but frequently wind up doing something more interesting because I run into a monster-infested cave to escape a sandstorm, or just meet someone on the road who asks for help, these aspects of the game intrigue me.

It's like one of those D&D worlds where the GM is REALLY railroad-phobic, has tons of time and has just populated every possible dungeon, forest and city, then just asks you "what would you like to do".

...

Chuck

OT Hey Jeremy, I've been emailing you about some reviews, do you no longer check the email listed on your review site? Drop me a line please.

The Elder Scrolls series was originally designed and programmed by people who played D&D. So that is exactly what they were going for. Even though the original designer left (to work on the Simpsons, IIRC), they sort of replaced him with a ex-TSR guy (whose name escapes me, but he did some 2e Ravenloft stuff).

(Back in the day, I was a external beta tester for Daggerfall, so I got to know some of the Bethesda people back then on the secret testers forum on Compuserve)


I still use that address, but if you put "Review" in the subject, it probably was deleted by a filter, as I frequently use that after a RPG.net review is posted to avoid hate mail and duck a couple of really strange people there who have been trying to get me to review their really strange rpg (Not you)

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Morrowind was a great game, but the setting for me was irritating. I didn't like the architecture, and loathed the sandstorms. Otherwise it was great, and I bought both expansion as soon as they came out. All Elder Scrolls are buggy though, and often slow to patch. (Not sure if Oblivion has even gotten a patch on the 360 yet, and the Fighter Guild quest line is glitched and impossible to complete.)

I remember one bug being that you would sometimes fall through the floor of the main city in the game. Another glitch in the same city was that if you ever did anything illegal, such as wear the armor of one of the guards, they would always attack you. Even if you paid off the fine for the crime and dumped the armor, you would still always be attacked. I even killed off all the guards once, but then they respawned. Really, really annoying.

 

[takyris]

My Morrowind experience was brief and unhappy. It's a really nice wide-open world, but I personally like a bit more work put into making plots react to each other (and I'm not saying that in a "people who don't feel that way are inferior" way; it really is just me).

I wandered out of the first little town, met a bandit who I had to talk into attacking me -- if I just ended the conversation, I could walk away from him. Until I asked him what his business was, he didn't actually, you know, try to extort money. Once he tried to extort money, I said no, and then I killed him when he attacked me.

Then I wandered for awhile and found a woman who wanted to give me her glove so that I could take it to some guy she loved. I briefly looked in my journal, and the guy she loved turned out to be the bandit. There was no dialogue option for me to tell her that I had killed the guy when he tried to rob me, no dialogue option to lie, no nothing. The two plots involved the same character but had nothing written to account for his death.

Once I hit that, I decided that, for me at least, the best I could hope for was some wandering and dungeon-hacking from this game, since the designers hadn't put in the ability for me to really affect the world. And the wandering and dungeon-hacking didn't grab me, so that was that.

Glad it's working for other folks!

 

[Vocenoctum]

The two plots involved the same character but had nothing written to account for his death.

Right, such things are a consequence of the size, and irritating.

WHat I always hated was deciding to clean up some of the other plot-lines, and joining a guild as a high level guy and still being treated like a 1st level nobody. Especially in Oblivion, where the fighters guild fellow wants to call you maggot and such, when you can slaughter most of the guild without breaking a sweat.

It does improve each time, the reaction part, but it's still not quite "there".

What more irritating to me is when you get to a part where the boss insta-freezes you for some plotpoint, even though you can wipe the floor with him. KotOR was bad with that, I've taking no damage, trouncing the guy, and then I'm frozen. "We better escape before it's too late!" Too late for what? I was killing him!

Glad it's working for other folks!

Right, it's all subjective and there's nothing wrong with it. Different Strokes for the world.

 

[takyris]

Yeah, that bugged me in KotOR as well. "Why couldn't I just use Stun and Sneak Attack and take him down NOW?" Especially when said baddie had gained a few levels or something (or was stronger in his place of power, if I remember right), and was essentially unstunnable (and thus, un-sneak-attack-able) for my plucky Scoundrel/Consular.

For the record, "Forced running away from a guy you were beating" is something we've been directed to try to avoid in plots in future games. We weren't the only ones bugged by that.

And yeah, while slamming Morrowind's lack of interconnectivity, I forgot to praise its size. It's a HUGE game, and that's a very nice thing.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I put about 8-10 hours into Morrowind and found it boring. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing so I just walked around and looked for stuff to do. I did some guild quests and stuff but that was pretty weak.

Never saw the appeal to be honest, it doesn't hold a candle to KotoR in my book. That game had me engrossed and thinking about it all the time.

 

[takyris]

KotOR versus Morrowind is a pretty good example of something that's being talked about a lot in the CRPG industry right now. There's a popular argument that there are essentially three facets to gaming enjoyment:

- Progress: How powerful your character gets, how cool your loot is, how many neat moves you can do.
- Story: Making your way through the storyline in an enjoyable fashion.
- Exploration: Doing neat little side quests, seeing the entirety of a well-realized world, and choosing from a wide range of character customization options.

I'd put Morrowind and KotOR roughly on par in terms of progress -- I don't love the Morrowind leveling system, but you can get some pretty cool spell effects and powerful items -- while KotOR lets you combine effects for some cool powers, and upgrading your lightsaber the right way can give you a nice level of badassity. KotOR dusts Morrowind on story, as even ardent supporters of Morrowind usually concede. And Morrowind has a lot more options on the exploration side -- a larger world, a lot more character race and class options, and a ton more side quests.

So in terms of the appeal, I'm definitely with Team Flexor (which is why I work at the company that does more story)... but I can see the value of the Exploration stuff, even if I personally don't get as much of a kick out of it as other people.

 

[GlassJaw]

I played Morrowind a LOT, but I can't see myself getting into another game like that. You literally need a month off from work to even think about finishing it. Luckily, I was unemployed at the time I was playing Morrowind.

I really liked the crafting system. The best thing about Morrowind? Making permanent levitate and speed items - Superman!! Long travel times got you down? Just fly everywhere.

 

[James Heard]

Morrowind was just so....ugly. And personally, for me, if someone's going to put such a wide open world out there I just thought there should be more interesting things going on. I mean, if I can steal the silverware and pillows from every place I go, then I should be able to burn the whole village to the ground, have everyone flee from me, rumors pass to neighboring towns of my crimes, etc. And the music/sound? Ugh!

I really liked KOTOR and KOTOR 2 (up until the end and except the exceptionally buggy play I had in some areas) though. Jade Empire was pretty fun too, though I haven't finished it. If they'd had built the size of Morrowind and irrelevant quests into KOTOR though, I'd have been a very happy boy. I'd still want to be able to burn down anything I could touch though.