Stop attributing the love for Morrowind simply to "nostalgia"

AlexanderDeLarge

I keep hearing people talk about their nostalgia for Morrowind, which is fine and dandy, it was part of your childhood/teenage years, it was the first major RPG you ever played, I get that, but people are acting like Morrowind isn't particularly special within the genre of RPGs and open worlds, and that's a shame because it is, and it's particularly special within the franchise it belongs to.

You may not know the name Michael Kirkbride but he is likely responsible for everything you love about The Elder Scrolls' universe and I think it is disingenuous and insulting to accredit the love for Morrowind to "nostalgia". Simply put, he's the reason why there was such a jump from Daggerfall into Morrowind (when he was hired) and from Morrowind into Oblivion (when he left the company). Morrowind is the game where Bethesda started "coming into their own" creatively and there's a reason for that. Michael Kirkbride. Contrarians like to say that Kirkbride had very little to do with the successes of Morrowind's design and lore but that's like saying Giger had little to do with Ridley Scott's Alien.

Compare the overall design in Daggerfall (extremely generic Tolkien-based fantasy though not many examples exist), Morrowind (strange alien world with South American architecture mixed with Asian design) and Oblivion (generic Tolkien-based fantasy with remnants of Kirkbride's crazy lore)
Morrowind

Oblivion


Compare the character/armor design.
Morrowind


Oblivion


As for the lore, go on /r/teslore or go in a /TESG/ on one of the Chan sites one day, it'd be far better than listening to me about it but trust me when I say that The Elder Scrolls would be VERY BORING without Kirkbride's work on Morrowind because the only interesting parts of Oblivion and Skyrim involve things that Kirkbride created/greatly expanded on while working on Morrowind and consulted as a designer on Oblivion and Skyrim.

As for the game itself, again, I think I would be wasting my time seeing as there is better, more in-depth information on the matter but I highly suggest watching "The dumbing down of the Elder Scrolls"
https://youtu.be/JweTAhyR4o0

I also suggest "Why you should still play Morrowind today"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf0jiOpD-AQ

And I also think that it's interesting to watch "Main Quest Comparison: Skyrim & Morrowind" by Super Bunnyhop considering he played the game after he played Skyrim.
https://youtu.be/1wujJnlsJh4

Anyways in summary, don't listen to people who say it's "nostalgia" driving the excitement for Morrowind. Morrowind is still relevant today (especially with OpenMW releasing soon and Tamriel Rebuilt coming together adding hundreds of hours of extra high-quality content) and while I do believe ignorance is bliss, it's fascinating to see how far Bethesda has drifted away from Morrowind in recent years. Especially accounting for Fallout 4. I doubt it'll have many of the elements that made people love Morrowind due to the lack of Kirkbride and the modern Bethesda open world design philosophy but at least it's not generic fantasy land: snow edition.

http://openmw.org/
http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/
#bringkirkbrideback
And while you're at it, bring back Jeremy Soule too. His exclusivity contract with Everquest Next originally keeping him from ESO should be gone now.

Narvuntien

I tried to play morrowind recently but it was unplayable, because I am too familar with modern RPG design and It is just too painful to get through. walking everywhere, no map markers, no fast travel, no quest indicators, caves with unspeakable horrors you can't hope to fight at low level.

I like to argue that morrowind is gaming literiture, its meant to be difficult to get through, because being difficult helps to engage you in what it is trying to say.

I agree that the wierdness of morrowind is very important to ES, it felt truely alien, a stranger in a strange land and it definately pulled us out of the fairly generic high fanasty setting to something quite fantastical setting it apart from its rivals.

raj72616a

Narvuntien wrote: »

I tried to play morrowind recently but it was unplayable, because I am too familar with modern RPG design and It is just too painful to get through. walking everywhere, no map markers, no fast travel, no quest indicators, caves with unspeakable horrors you can't hope to fight at low level.

I like to argue that morrowind is gaming literiture, its meant to be difficult to get through, because being difficult helps to engage you in what it is trying to say.

I agree that the wierdness of morrowind is very important to ES, it felt truely alien, a stranger in a strange land and it definately pulled us out of the fairly generic high fanasty setting to something quite fantastical setting it apart from its rivals.

no fast travel? don't you see the silt strider in seyda neen? there is no quest marker, because you should be reading your quest journal, directions to your quest objective is given in words.

enemies are not level scaled, so you have to be careful in choosing where you go to. but it's not so hard, you just need to figure out a playing style that fit you (abuse alchemy, abuse magic items, or just get good armor and prepare lots of potions, etc).

and right at the start you get an npc friend who is about to become *very close* with you, isn't that great?

Narvuntien

I found those, just cost gold and only go to the major cities. Then you have to walk... walk!. i always got the flying shrine so I could actually move around vivec city at a reasonable speed.

Got lost in the ashlands once, finally stumbled out with 0 arrows and 100 cliff racer what was it again? you collected after you killed them.

I am saying it is both great and terrible at the same time. It is kind of like how difficult Lord of the rings can be to read for some people.

Korah_Eaglecry

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

/r/teslore

If you think r/teslore is a bastion of TES lore youre delusional. That place needs to be renamed r/kirkbrideshippers. Most of the responses in that sub-reddit is either theories, conjecture or outright made up based on kirkbrides non-canon TES works. You will get a better look at lore if you did the research yourself in the imperial library and the UESP.

Rohamad_Ali

I didn't realize this was a big debate . In fact this is the first I've heard of any complaints .

AlexanderDeLarge

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

If you think r/teslore is a bastion of TES lore youre delusional. That place needs to be renamed r/kirkbrideshippers. Most of the responses in that sub-reddit is either theories, conjecture or outright made up based on kirkbrides non-canon TES works. You will get a better look at lore if you did the research yourself in the imperial library and the UESP.

So it's better to listen to Bethesda themselves?
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/236697017336856579/278024096191741953/pete_hines.jpg

"it doesn't have to make sense, it's fiction who cares"

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

I didn't realize this was a big debate . In fact this is the first I've heard of any complaints .

It's not a debate, it's not a complaint. It's just an observation that people keep attributing the love of Morrowind to nostalgia rather than it being an amazing game that withstands the test of time outside of the combat and technology involved.

NewBlacksmurf

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

I didn't realize this was a big debate . In fact this is the first I've heard of any complaints .

I didn't either.

I was over taken by Morrowind but I was overtaken by other RPGs for different reasons and MMOs each with their own experiences.

FluffyReachWitch

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

I didn't realize this was a big debate . In fact this is the first I've heard of any complaints .

I'm also surprised. The nostalgia for Morrowind is widely regarded as a positive thing. Love of Morrowind brings people together. It's very common for newcomers to be introduced to Morrowind as a sort of rite of passage, as far as I can tell.

(Nostalgia isn't always bad, either. It's just a common go-to criticism of gamer culture, whether the intended meaning of "people are so in love with a past game they can't see that it hasn't aged well" is true or not.)

I can't say I experienced Morrowind, getting into the TES fandom less than three years ago. I started on Skyrim and bought Oblivion and Morrowind later. I love Oblivion, but Morrowind is... tricky to navigate with its UI. My dad, on the other hand, remembers it fondly and still has the giant guide to Morrowind sitting downstairs right now, with the silt strider page bookmarked. He still likes to tell me about how he had this cool Dunmer character in glass armor. He also tells me that he used the console because Morrowind was incredibly difficult.

Gothren

the elder scrolls series is getting dumber and dumber with each new game that is released. There are things that I like about all TES games. However, the newer titles are straying away from what made this series popular. I hope they start fresh and return to their roots on what made this franchise special. kinda like what was attempted in RE7.

AlexanderDeLarge

FluffyReachWitch wrote: »

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

I didn't realize this was a big debate . In fact this is the first I've heard of any complaints .

I'm also surprised. The nostalgia for Morrowind is widely regarded as a positive thing. Love of Morrowind brings people together. It's very common for newcomers to be introduced to Morrowind as a sort of rite of passage, as far as I can tell.

(Nostalgia isn't always bad, either. It's just a common go-to criticism of gamer culture, whether the intended meaning of "people are so in love with a past game they can't see that it hasn't aged well" is true or not.)

I can't say I experienced Morrowind, getting into the TES fandom less than three years ago. I started on Skyrim and bought Oblivion and Morrowind later. I love Oblivion, but Morrowind is... tricky to navigate with its UI. My dad, on the other hand, remembers it fondly and still has the giant guide to Morrowind sitting downstairs right now, with the silt strider page bookmarked. He still likes to tell me about how he had this cool Dunmer character in glass armor. He also tells me that he used the console because Morrowind was incredibly difficult.

I wrote that first paragraph to state that nostalgia isn't an issue, as long as it is acknowledged that it isn't "just rose-tinted glasses" and those are the people this thread is directed at.

"I keep hearing people talk about their nostalgia for Morrowind, which is fine and dandy, it was part of your childhood/teenage years, it was the first major RPG you ever played, I get that, but people are acting like Morrowind isn't particularly special within the genre of RPGs and open worlds, and that's a shame because it is, and it's particularly special within the franchise it belongs to."

If you were to sit someone down in front of Morrowind and they were able to get past the dated graphics and the awful combat, there's a lot to appreciate today as opposed to what people get in today's western RPG.

Nova Sky

Anyone up for some popcorn?

AlwaysOnFire

The original Morrowind is about as creative as any white dude's effort to write an orientalist star wars planet. People still find sushi and yoga 'exotic,' too.

And fyi, almost everything invented primarily by white guys that's 'asian inspired' (asia is a huge ass continent and series of islands, thanks) is orientalist to all hells.

Nobody's bad or has bad taste specifically for liking the game but please. don't pretend that the original release of Morrowind is inherently special in terms of media. a weaboo that ordered his first knockoff katana off ebay thinks that's special too. We can only hope that ESO gives us more refinement on the by-now dated and no longer 'original' content. If it ever was.

There's plenty of modern fantasy that isn't a knock-off of medieval europe, often written and created by people who aren't white europeans and americans. To say that Morrowind is some kind of hero for having content like that reveals one's own biases in consuming media. Maybe read better, more diverse fantasy.

AlexanderDeLarge

AlwaysOnFire wrote: »

The original Morrowind is about as creative as any white dude's effort to write an orientalist star wars planet. People still find sushi and yoga 'exotic,' too.

And fyi, almost everything invented primarily by white guys that's 'asian inspired' (asia is a huge ass continent and series of islands, thanks) is orientalist to all hells.

Nobody's bad or has bad taste specifically for liking the game but please. don't pretend that the original release of Morrowind is inherently special in terms of media. a weaboo that ordered his first knockoff katana off ebay thinks that's special too. We can only hope that ESO gives us more refinement on the by-now dated and no longer 'original' content. If it ever was.

There's plenty of modern fantasy that isn't a knock-off of medieval europe, often written and created by people who aren't white europeans and americans. To say that Morrowind is some kind of hero for having content like that reveals one's own biases in consuming media. Maybe read better, more diverse fantasy.

I had to double check my URL bar to make sure I wasn't on Tumblr or Neogaf by mistake.

Jitterbug

Member siltstriders and cliff racers?

AlwaysOnFire

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

I had to double check my URL bar to make sure I wasn't on Tumblr or Neogaf by mistake.

Orientalism is an academic term that has been used since 1978 but sure pretend it was invented on a microblogging site, if it makes you feel better. Just don't add soy sauce to wonder bread and call it "asian fusion."

TheNuminous1

Jitterbug wrote: »

Member siltstriders and cliff racers?

I member? you member? Oooo member telvanni mushroom houses.

Shaun98ca2

I couldn't watch the whole video "The Elder Scrolls: The Dumbing Down" because I couldn't agree with it.

Failing a quest........means what? I have to "restart/reload" to retry it? So if the quest takes 4 hours to complete and I fail it to have to start over........that's simply bad game design.

Actions should have consequences......but those consequences SHOULD be made know or apparent and not arbitrary. I honestly cant think of good examples cause most games leave things like this out or they are very apparent at the beginning.

I'm curious if there is a an up to date Morrowind type game that looks good and plays good that will hold strong by Morrowind standards? I have to wonder if it would be widely accepted.

AlexanderDeLarge

Shaun98ca2 wrote: »

I couldn't watch the whole video "The Elder Scrolls: The Dumbing Down" because I couldn't agree with it.

Failing a quest........means what? I have to "restart/reload" to retry it? So if the quest takes 4 hours to complete and I fail it to have to start over........that's simply bad game design.

Actions should have consequences......but those consequences SHOULD be made know or apparent and not arbitrary. I honestly cant think of good examples cause most games leave things like this out or they are very apparent at the beginning.

I'm curious if there is a an up to date Morrowind type game that looks good and plays good that will hold strong by Morrowind standards? I have to wonder if it would be widely accepted.

I don't think you understand the concept of role playing. It's not about what's optimal, it's about what's interesting for your character. If you make a mistake, your character made a mistake and true roleplayers stick with that mistake rather than "save scumming".

How many epic stories have a character that is absolutely perfect all the time? Doesn't make any mistakes? I can't think of any because it would make for a really boring story and that's how I feel about modern Bethesda games. Imagine Lord of the Rings without the Bridge of Khazad Dum, Weathertop or Shelob's Lair. If those scenes were quests in a video game, they would have been fail states without dying but had permanent repercussions.

There are modern games like this such as Divinity Original Sin where a mistake can lock you out of an entire quest line or losing a fight won't kill you but will have permanent repercussions that you either have to live with or deal with, but since it is from an isometric standpoint, they don't sell Skyrim numbers.... But I don't want Skyrim numbers if it means that we get a "role playing experience" where the meaningful choices are binary at best and the world is sterile and boring and the player can do every single thing in the game on a single character even if it means joining opposing factions.

Fortunately I don't think that's necessary now that Elder Scrolls is a household name and they could make a fairly hardcore RPG experience without pandering to the lowest common denominator and losing out on sales.

Sausage

You dont realize what Morrowind did, it made the standard for all current RPGs. You dont get it, sadly. Morrowind was kinda same what Steve Jobs was to the world.

Faulgor

Korah_Eaglecry wrote: »

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

/r/teslore

If you think r/teslore is a bastion of TES lore youre delusional. That place needs to be renamed r/kirkbrideshippers. Most of the responses in that sub-reddit is either theories, conjecture or outright made up based on kirkbrides non-canon TES works. You will get a better look at lore if you did the research yourself in the imperial library and the UESP.

lol, hating Kirkbride is really the new loving Kirkbride. All the cool kids are doing it, mom!
I really don't get this attitude, forming theories is the whole point of discussing TES lore. The only people claiming truth are those that ride on about what supposedly is and isn't canon, trying to put the world back in order like tiny Peryites. Yes, Imperial Library and UESP are great resources, but /r/teslore is a discussion board, so people are discussing. And when devs (who read it constantly) like Schick are popping in from time to time, that's great too.

That said, a lot of other people contributed to Morrowind's greatness, not just Kirkbride.

SaRuZ

I loved Morrowind. I wouldn't replay it because I want it to remain awesome in memory

ESO's expansion is a different Vvardenfell. One stepping back in time. Nostalgia? Maybe. Interesting? Absolutely. I am a huge lore fan. I don't get hung up on the small stuff. I am excited fo see what happens in the middle of Nerevar and Nerevarine.

I like to experience Art and Entertainment as they are. I don't like getting caught up in the details. Most actors never watch their films after a premiere, why? Easy, for us, the audience, it's exciting, every scene is new and brilliant. For the actor? They see months of work, retakes, rewrites, rehearsals, long days and short nights. I imagine It's an exhausting experience. I'm certain it's the same for all entertainment mediums.

Rosveen

I think your thread is very disrespectful towards the dozens of men and women who brought TES to life, but aren't called Michael Kirkbride. Yes, the guy created some of the foundations and the best pieces of lore. But no, he isn't the be-all and end-all of the Elder Scrolls universe. He isn't even the only person who wrote the lore of your beloved Morrowind. I agree with you that Morrowind was a good game regardless of nostalgia, but I'm not subscribing to the fanatical worship MK gets from some people.

Knootewoot

To be honest... I still play it. I tried Oblivion and Skyrim but a second or third playthrough wasn't working for me even witht the enhanced skyrim edition. But Morrowind I cannot get enough from.. it's not Nostalgia.

I tried Daggerfall and Arena to but they just look to crap to look at and the combat system sucks.

Currently I play Vanilla Morrowind with all official plugins and expansions. I play mostly this on Wednesday evening. Currently in Gnisis joining the Imperials.

"DIE Fetcher"

alephthiago

Hey, its that dude who was grinding skyreach with me lol

Faulgor

AlwaysOnFire wrote: »

The original Morrowind is about as creative as any white dude's effort to write an orientalist star wars planet. People still find sushi and yoga 'exotic,' too.

And fyi, almost everything invented primarily by white guys that's 'asian inspired' (asia is a huge ass continent and series of islands, thanks) is orientalist to all hells.

Nobody's bad or has bad taste specifically for liking the game but please. don't pretend that the original release of Morrowind is inherently special in terms of media. a weaboo that ordered his first knockoff katana off ebay thinks that's special too. We can only hope that ESO gives us more refinement on the by-now dated and no longer 'original' content. If it ever was.

There's plenty of modern fantasy that isn't a knock-off of medieval europe, often written and created by people who aren't white europeans and americans. To say that Morrowind is some kind of hero for having content like that reveals one's own biases in consuming media. Maybe read better, more diverse fantasy.

I didn't know they were riding on giant insects and spreading the divinity of dead gods through dream-illnesses in Asia ...
I'm really baffled by your post. Morrowind absolutely does stands out in its creativity among comparable games in terms of genre and markets. If its contents are so beneath you, why don't you at least give examples of fantasy that supposedly did it better?

Illurian

I tried to play Morrowind years ago, but simply could not get through it. I was too spoiled by Oblivion. Too many QoL options that were simply not present in Morrowind.

I feel like I'm part of the minority that doesn't really care about the Morrowind expansion on ESO because I never played it. I will probably get it cause I like ESO, but I'm not particularly hyped or disappointed by the announcement of its release. Everyone I've spoken to who is hyped about it always attribute it to the fact that they loved TES: Morrowind, so I'm not sure how you can rule out nostalgia as a attributing factor.

BigBragg

So some people love the same thing you do for different reasons.....

Ankael07

We need more threads like this instead of '' will there be dragons?''.

zaria

Narvuntien wrote: »

I found those, just cost gold and only go to the major cities. Then you have to walk... walk!. i always got the flying shrine so I could actually move around vivec city at a reasonable speed.

Got lost in the ashlands once, finally stumbled out with 0 arrows and 100 cliff racer what was it again? you collected after you killed them.

I am saying it is both great and terrible at the same time. It is kind of like how difficult Lord of the rings can be to read for some people.

Going into the ashland to early and its like jumping some zones in ESO before one tamriel.
That its too hard is an design and not an fault.
Skyrim reintroduced harder content after Oblivion.
Morrowind's leveling system also had an issue in that if you leveled on non combat skills you would end up weaker relative to scaled monsters. I had serious problem with my first trip into the ashland for an mage guild quest as I had leveled up a lot on stealing.

More an problem in Morrowind was the lack of high level content, too many low level npc enemies you single hit to kill.
Late you also single hit to kill high level enemies.
And yes movement speed is too low, modern games are more fast paced.

Still its an awesome game, obvious the most important TES game as it was the first modern.
As for ESO, it could just been any zone but seeing some of the old locations will put an smile on my face if they look recognizable like vivec city looks like it does.

Stormvessel

Morrowind is an incredible RPG experience that just flat out blows any other Elder Scrolls game out of the water. There are so many cool things you can do in that game. And the progression is off the charts. I started as a wimp off the boat who could barely kill a rat and by the time I finished I was flying in the air at incredible speeds raining down utter destruction from on high. You literally become godlike. It's an amazing experience and the atmosphere is unlike any other.