Stop attributing the love for Morrowind simply to "nostalgia"

Preyfar

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 still recall one of the first delves (a crypt) in Morrowind had undead so powerful I couldn't wing 'em, but they'd slaughter me almost instantly. The game had a huge power curve, and that's part of what made it fun... but also frustrating as can be.

Cadbury

I could have sworn I've seen this same topic somewhere before. Except replace "Morrowind" with "Final Fantasy 7".

My, how times change.

JD2013

Having played Elder Scrolls games since the beginning (Arena) I have to say that I don't agree with you, OP.

Whilst I agree that Morrowind is an excellent game with some wonderful quest writing and lore, it can also be inherently frustrating at times. And anyone who quotes that "Dumbing down of the Elder Scrolls" video are just showing themselves to be entreanched in nostalgia and rose tinted glasses.

Michael Kirkbride did a lot for Elder Scrolls lore, I absolutely agree there. But too many fans take his non canon stuff and treat it as complete fact, no matter that he only occasionally has worked for Bethesda on a freelance basis for a while now.

Up until, let's say Oblivion, the Elder Scrolls games were really quite niche and appreciated by a lot less than they are these days. With Morrowind, a lot of the lore became far less generic fantasy and a lot more esoteric. Which again is fine. I love a lot of the lore, and think it absolutely superbly written. But at the same time, after Kirkbride moved on, so too did the games.

And whilst pieces of things such as c0da are very interesting, that doesn't necessarily make them canon or where Bethesda are headed with the series. The idea of Landfall and people taking refuge on Masser is very intriguing, but we should not take this as a fact unless Bethesda say it is. Because ultimately they oversee the property.

Same with the games. I wouldn't consider Oblivion dumbed down at all. In fact it has some of my favourite Elder Scrolls quests in there. As for Skyrim, well it sold over eleven million copies. And of course there's the train of thought that just because something is popular, doesn't make it good. And I am naturally inclined to agree with that. But also Skyrim had some wonderful quests (my favourite quests were probably in the Dragonborn expansion with Hermaeus Mora) and the base game had some good quests too.

Skyrim is the product of a game's company dragging the series to the mainstream. I probably spent 3,000 hours in it. If I didn't like it, I would not have spent so much time in it. And the lore of Skyrim was always going to be simpler because, in my eyes at least, Skyrim is a simpler province with simpler people. More rustic and less Tribunal and Neverar and magic and far more down to earth as it were. And far, far less alien and weird.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing what ESO does with Vivec and the Tribunal.

Fly666monkey

Take this from someone who beat Morrowind last year: as great a game as it was back in the day, it has not aged well mechanically.

Combat is the aspect most people are familiar with when it comes to criticizing Morrowind, so I'll keep it brief. It tries to be a hybrid of classical dice rolling combat, and action combat. The dice rolling aspect of combat lacks feedback, and when I can easily bunny hop around fireballs missing melee attacks at point blank range just feels off.

Stealth might as well not have been in the game. The aforementioned dice-rolling combat make stealth attacks an exercise in frustration, and since NPCs raley moved around you could never really set up stealth attacks properly anyway.

Thievery was broken. Again, since NPCs don't move around, you can't steal a lot of items needed to do the thieve's guild without getting caught, there was no way to tell what items in your inventory are considered stolen, and the was an engine level bug that made it so that if you stole an item, ALL instances of that item are considered stolen. (I.E. If you steal a steel sword, EVERY steel sword you ever put in your inventory from then on is flagged as stolen.)

NPCs dialogue was extensive, sure, but outside of a few characters related to the main story, every single NPC uses the same copy-pasted responses to every topic. They have no character, they're just walking Vvardenfell tourist brochures.

The game's balance was very skewed. Forget all that nonsense about "freedom of choice," if you want to succeed in Morrowind, you pretty much had to roll a spellsword of some kind. You NEEDED alteration and Mysticism to survive at higher levels, and you NEEDED a weapon to deal with the numerous enemies that stacked spell reflection (especially in the expansions.). The lack of Magicka regen outside of resting or potions, combined with spell failure meant that playing a pure mage was a chore at best, and god help you if you took the antronach as your sign.

Vampire clans were clearly an afterthought. They have two quests a piece, were bugged to oblivion, and the other vampire quests are basically impossible to find without a guide.

Gaenor

Joining a faction didn't really have much in the way of consequences, outside of locking yourself out of content after a while. All raising in a faction's ranks did for their enemies was give you a disposition debuff. Easily fixed with bribes or speechcraft. And completing the Tribunal Temple faction questline results in the main quest making to sense near the end.

Quest directions are often misleading or outright wrong. No one enjoyed spending hours trying to find that one cave that doesn't seem to exist, and if you have mods installed that change the landscape in any way then WELCOME TO VIDEO GAME PURGATORY! My character has a map, just mark where I need to go FFS.

The Journal. Do I really need to elaborate?

Don't get me wrong, the story, the setting, the atmosphere... Morrowind blew me away when I was a teenager, and it will always hold a special place in my heart. But it is not a perfect game by any stretch of the imagination.

Kawall

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.

Fallout 1 and 2 was my favorite games before. I played them 4 times decades ago, and I decided to played all of them before fallout 4 release. But simply I couldn't play. It was so hard for me, I get used to easy games, where game helps you with quests, looting and about everything. Old games pretty unplayable when you get used to new games.

frethopper

If I said I was nostalgic about Morrowind, I would hope its creators would actually take that as a compliment, but nevertheless well said OP.

Kawall

Gothren wrote: »

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.

That is impossible now. Before only gamers would buy the game, now there's a huge market for video games. And I honestly think there are more casual gamers than hardcore gamers. So I can understand why game companies makes more casual games. Lot of people don't have times for hardcore game mechanics. Even I don't have time such things now. Before I could play video games 5-6 hours in a day. Now 14-15 hours in week max.

GreenTea

I owned Morrowind for at least 5 years before I actually /played/ it, and it wasn't until the Dragonborn DLC that I gave it another shot.

Played vanilla and loved it. I still love Skyrim too, but for different reasons. The people who don't want to at least try it because of the graphics are truly missing out on not only a wonderful TES experience, but likely a whole bunch of wonderful older games.

menedhyn

Narvuntien wrote: »

...walking everywhere, no map markers, no fast travel, no quest indicators, caves with unspeakable horrors you can't hope to fight at low level.

All the things I absolutely love about RPGs! Oh, and I still walk everywhere in ESO. And turn my quest markers off. I'm a stubborn old fool...

As for this version of Morrowind, to say that I have massive expectations is an understatement.

RoyJade

I'll be honest : I wasn't able to test Morrowind my myself before one week ago. I just put one graphic mod (Morrowind Overhaul), and here I am.
The game suffer from some problem, my three main concern are the quest journal (even with the GotY "quest" option), some map marker (those pointed on things your character already see, because I like the part when someone give me a road and I follow it) and the inventory. But even with that, Morrowind is truly amazing. The world is beautiful, the dunmer culture is immersive, the enormous number of possibilities given by magic is awesome, it feel alive and well-thinked.

There is no nostalgia, since I haven't played to Morrowind before. It's still an amazing game. And old game, but and old amazing game.

Tabbycat

Clear the scamp from the house. I got this.

Runs inside house. Fires firebolt at scamp. Scamp kicks butt! Barely make it outside. Heal up.

Run back inside, shoot a few more firebolts. Boy scamps are tough! Run back outside. Heal up again.

Run back inside and finish off the scamp.

The best part of Morrowind was the door combat. You could take on monsters much tougher than you if you could run back and forth through a door. lol

kyle.wilson

Banana

Ive never payed Morrowind. But I do love a new PVE zone

kwisatz

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.

I love each and everything you consider "too painful to get through"... Morrowind is all about "when RPGs were really awesome" and it was one of the best.

zaria

Fly666monkey wrote: »

Take this from someone who beat Morrowind last year: as great a game as it was back in the day, it has not aged well mechanically.

Combat is the aspect most people are familiar with when it comes to criticizing Morrowind, so I'll keep it brief. It tries to be a hybrid of classical dice rolling combat, and action combat. The dice rolling aspect of combat lacks feedback, and when I can easily bunny hop around fireballs missing melee attacks at point blank range just feels off.

Stealth might as well not have been in the game. The aforementioned dice-rolling combat make stealth attacks an exercise in frustration, and since NPCs raley moved around you could never really set up stealth attacks properly anyway.

Thievery was broken. Again, since NPCs don't move around, you can't steal a lot of items needed to do the thieve's guild without getting caught, there was no way to tell what items in your inventory are considered stolen, and the was an engine level bug that made it so that if you stole an item, ALL instances of that item are considered stolen. (I.E. If you steal a steel sword, EVERY steel sword you ever put in your inventory from then on is flagged as stolen.)

NPCs dialogue was extensive, sure, but outside of a few characters related to the main story, every single NPC uses the same copy-pasted responses to every topic. They have no character, they're just walking Vvardenfell tourist brochures.

The game's balance was very skewed. Forget all that nonsense about "freedom of choice," if you want to succeed in Morrowind, you pretty much had to roll a spellsword of some kind. You NEEDED alteration and Mysticism to survive at higher levels, and you NEEDED a weapon to deal with the numerous enemies that stacked spell reflection (especially in the expansions.). The lack of Magicka regen outside of resting or potions, combined with spell failure meant that playing a pure mage was a chore at best, and god help you if you took the antronach as your sign.

Vampire clans were clearly an afterthought. They have two quests a piece, were bugged to oblivion, and the other vampire quests are basically impossible to find without a guide.

Gaenor

Joining a faction didn't really have much in the way of consequences, outside of locking yourself out of content after a while. All raising in a faction's ranks did for their enemies was give you a disposition debuff. Easily fixed with bribes or speechcraft. And completing the Tribunal Temple faction questline results in the main quest making to sense near the end.

Quest directions are often misleading or outright wrong. No one enjoyed spending hours trying to find that one cave that doesn't seem to exist, and if you have mods installed that change the landscape in any way then WELCOME TO VIDEO GAME PURGATORY! My character has a map, just mark where I need to go FFS.

The Journal. Do I really need to elaborate?

Don't get me wrong, the story, the setting, the atmosphere... Morrowind blew me away when I was a teenager, and it will always hold a special place in my heart. But it is not a perfect game by any stretch of the imagination.

Main problem with combat was that on low levels you had low hit chance so less than 1 in 10 attacks ended in hit this was frustrating.

Sneak worked but was primitive, one fun effect of the hit chance and primitive stealth was that you could stand and swing an heavy weapon at enemy until hit registered and you did sneak damage, use strength potion for extra damage.

Dialogue is true, its more line of dialogue in Oblivion than Morrowind, however Morrowind had plenty of unique dialogue, my favorite was an netch herder who teached me more about netches than I wanted to know.

Quests and guild had the nice part in that you did not need to do all the stating guild quests.
Nice as it was easy to mess up quest items. I remember stealing a book who was quest object in an end mage guild quest and had to search all over to find it.

Fighter guild / thief guild conflict I sleepwalked around, I simply skipped the Balmora quests who forced me into conflict with thief guild, and did other quests and an solution came up.

And yes starting an new game, remember to pick mushrooms in Seyda Neen, you need them for the first mage guild quest.
One of the last time I played Morrowind I did not remember picking the mushrooms, it was on autopilot

Gothren

Kawall wrote: »

Gothren wrote: »

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.

That is impossible now. Before only gamers would buy the game, now there's a huge market for video games. And I honestly think there are more casual gamers than hardcore gamers. So I can understand why game companies makes more casual games. Lot of people don't have times for hardcore game mechanics. Even I don't have time such things now. Before I could play video games 5-6 hours in a day. Now 14-15 hours in week max.

none of the TES games were for harcore gamers. now dark souls on the other hand....

Kawall wrote: »

Gothren wrote: »

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.

That is impossible now. Before only gamers would buy the game, now there's a huge market for video games. And I honestly think there are more casual gamers than hardcore gamers. So I can understand why game companies makes more casual games. Lot of people don't have times for hardcore game mechanics. Even I don't have time such things now. Before I could play video games 5-6 hours in a day. Now 14-15 hours in week max.

morrowind is not hardcore gaming. period.

Prof_Bawbag

i wish someone could find any archived data from the old Bethesda forums from when Morrowind first released. They were in meltdown. Made the now defunct toxic BioWare forums look like child's play. Next to everyone on the forums at the time loathed it. It was dumbed down for future release on consoles etc etc etc, they wanted nothing to do with it. Utter carnage it was. Now, most of those people are the ones defending it like it's the best thing since sliced bread.

Lord_Draevan

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

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

There's actually a good rebuttal video to most of the points in the Dumbing Down video I watched a few years ago:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=LEI4yS7sFEw
While he agrees on a few points, he also shows why the changes might not be as simple as "Bethesda pandering to casuals", as I used to think.
He also made a 2nd rebuttal video, but that one was unscripted and a bit too ramble-ey.

BRogueNZ

How else are we to form an opinion other than our memory of it?

I bet if I played it now I wouldn't be that amazed as was back then. It will be new and interesting for those who've not played it if its the same story, and if it not the same story then its just a new class to not balance and location and that's all.

of course Ill still buy it, CU is still miles away godamn it

Lord_Draevan

Prof_Bawbag wrote: »

i wish someone could find any archived data from the old Bethesda forums from when Morrowind first released. They were in meltdown. Made the now defunct toxic BioWare forums look like child's play. Next to everyone on the forums at the time loathed it. It was dumbed down for future release on consoles etc etc etc, they wanted nothing to do with it. Utter carnage it was. Now, most of those people are the ones defending it like it's the best thing since sliced bread.

I know right? Morrowind was loathed by TES fans and Daggerfall "purists" when it came out.
"Filthy casuals ruining our games" came up a lot. Now Morrowind is the gold standard. Funny how that works.
I wonder how long until Skyrim is the gold standard

jaye63

No I will not. I own the entire franchise at this point and the only reason I decided to try ESO WAS nostalgia. I stayed because I liked it even tho it felt like every other MMORPG with an ES skin on it. This will be the last MMO I play. Im tired of paying $80 for a game that, in one capacity or another, requires I spend money to get the best benefit out of the game. Had this been any other franchise, I would have happily stayed with single player games. So no.... I will not stop saying it's nostalgia. And I'm not holding out hope that it wont feel like every other MMO and a lot less like Morrowind. It will because it's an extention of TESO.

Epona222

Of course I have nostalgia. I walked off that ship at Seyda Neen for the first time and realised I could walk in any direction, and do anything with more or less complete freedom. Yes that sometimes resulted in me reloading from the last save, but I have never before or since experienced such freedom - TES games since have seemed as though they are funnelling you into the quest at the start, which is something Morrowind avoided, and one of the reasons I love it. And I still play it, so my feelings about the game are not simply due to nostalgia, I have recent memories of the game also.

dodgehopper_ESO

I'm one of those people who loved Morrowind as well. The game systems were amazing and unlike anything seen in the series since or before. The combat was not as interesting as Skyrim, I will certainly grant that. The animation was obviously inferior to subsequent games as well, but these things should not come as a great surprise. What made Morrowind so fantastic was the openness of the world, the uniqueness of the setting (while still giving us familiar experiences in places like Pelagiad), the way choices mattered and the wide array of factions one could join, and the way the story unravels to the player. I agree as well that Morrowind is not just great because of 'nostalgia'. It set the bar for video games and opened up a new genre.

Alchemy, Enchanting, & Spellcrafting were amazing in Morrowind. Other games introduced other good features like weapon/armor crafting but they diminished some of these other features.

The marriage of a more modern combat style and a more modern and beautiful artwork style are a large reason why I'm intrigued by the Skywind project.

Balamoor

I respect the OP's post and he makes good points, but to be honest Morrowind was a bit of a let down for me after Daggerfall, I saw Oblivion as more of a paradigm shift than Morrowind.

Different strokes.

Abeille

My first experience with Morrowind was awful. I was a kid, I didn't know English, I didn't know what was going on, I couldn't understand why it was so hard to hit stuff sometimes. No nostalgia here.

I played it again after I played Oblivion and I could see that it had a better storyline and it was overall a more interesting game. Single player TES games, in my opinion, do not have good gameplay - combat is clunky and everything is annoying - so I judge them all for the story and the characters, which is why I consider Morrowind to be the best single player TES. This is actually something that always makes me confused when people said they "loved Skyrim but didn't care for the lore". I mean... What else does it have going for it, if not the story, the characters, the very setting of the game? I say this with love, I am a huge fan of the series because the lore is the most important thing in a RPG game in my opinion.

I_killed_Vivec

It isn't just nostalgia, it's the way that Morrowind absorbed you. Everything, from the infuriating cliff racers to the difficulty of travel, the lack of quest markers and the ambiguity of quests, , the unremittingly bleak ash storms, the possibility of turning a corner and finding something very, very nasty... the cryptic clues to what was going on (just why did the dwemer disappear), the length of the tasks required to become the Nerevarine... the joy of progression, of gaining understanding, of finding that those daedra were no longer instant death but a source of valuable materials...

I spent ages playing Morrowind, and it formed the way I play all ESO games - just run around doing stuff... picking up quests, exploring, killing baddies, crafting, perfecting spells.

I really did play that game "my way".