For some context I've spent Around 20-30 hours playing Morrowind, over 100 playing Oblivion, and around 120 playing Skyrim. One could say that isn't enough time to fully appreciate Morrowind, however my argument is I wouldn't even have played morrowind for 5 hours if I hated the game, nor would I have gone through the back breaking work of modding the game... not modding wasn't that bad.

I'm actually thinking about doing a three game playthrough with one character starting in Morrowind, and transitioning into Oblivion then Skyrim. This would be the same character, same race, class, story, etc. But that is irrelevant to this topic... I'd also have to buy Oblivion again and I don't really want to spent $20.


Character Creation:
Creating your character in Morrowind is the ultimate display of beauty on the inside. Your character';s appearance is about as shallow as modern day pop culture. Most of the time you're a cookie cutter character that is more or less a reflection of the NPCs you interact with. There are some cool features like the Female Bosmer having butterflies in her hair (I'd pay like $2 for that as DLC despite never playing female characters), but most of the time it doesn't matter as you';ll be covered up by armor. The real beauty if what your character is made up of. There is a certain addictive quality to creating your character. However after that first run through it became like the equivalent of taking a test, I've started studying for when I create a character. I run my guild through external sites in order to get an idea of what I want. It becomes like trial and error, the sad thing is you can go through around half of the game before you realize that this isn't the build for me. To cope I've learned to not become attached to me characters as I know I'll just start a new one half way through. The nice thing is I've progressed further and further with each new character, getting around half way done with the main quest and mages guild before making a new character.

I understand the weird high I get when I see stats flashing on a screen, which is why I become so addicted to games like WoW, or torchlight where loot becomes a huge part of the game. Mixing and matching different armor combinations to get different stats, and bonuses becomes almost addicting, however it can also lead to a ton of trial and error. With WoW you had the ability to reset your skill trees, which is almost necessary given the balance tweaks they do. In Morrowind the only way to reset yourself is to start afresh. When researching build ideas, testing builds, and creating builds exceeds the time that I actually play the game I know I have a problem.

With Skyrim I could make the character look like godzilla, or a troll for all they care. The attachment to your character becomes a more physical bond as you learn to love your Gandalf look a like, or one your eyed warrior. Your quality feels unique aesthetically, you feel like you're a your own person, rather than a cut out of some npc. However from the get go your character is different in looks, rather than talents. You're not longer unique based upon your race, or your class. Yo're in a way just one class, and one race. You may have some innate difference in starting spells, or what skills you have leveled, but it never affects your character. Although my Orc may have a little bit more heavy armor "skill" he is at the same level as a Khajit who may have slightly less. Skills don' really have that much of an affect on your character, your perks handle most of the bonuses but the skills points are the criteria you must meet to actually grab a perk.

This style allows for more flexibility over time as you're never restricted to what you determined at the beginning of the game. You could go through the first 5 levels without getting any perks because all the races play almost exactly the same. Your characters destiny is never set in stone, they're never restricted to one skill or the other. In Morrowind you could be screwed easily in the beginning because the AI isn't rubber banded to you, via level. You could effectively gimp your character for the rest of the game without knowing it.

Characters:
Before you start fighting all your epic dragons, rats, and other dangerous creatures you're most likely going to meet a nice man who determines your future. You may even meet his friends who may or may not like you.

Morrowind tends to focus on more realistic characters. I've yet to meet a character who is basically a cartoon crazy man. The different races feel like they all have different personalities, which I enjoy. However non really stand out to me. The same was true for Oblivion I can't really remember any of the characters.

Skyrim is... interesting. Since it';s fresh in my mind I can remember quite a few of the characters. The room for voice acting allows for a lot more personality to come through, however at times it become a mess. Characters personalities range from Astrid who has this very subtle, dangerous tone to her voice. Accenting words that really enhance her dangerous persona. All the way to guys like Cicero who are just stupidly over the top. There are a host of good, subtle, strong characters and a range of just stupidly annoying characters.

TES has never made me fall in love with the characters... unless you count the world as a character. I don't spend extended periods of time with them like I would in a Final Fantasy, Dragon Age/Mass Effect game, or Shadow of the Colossus, which means I don't ever develop any bond with them.



Combat:
To say that Morrowinds combat is slow is an understatement. To say that Morrowinds combat is terrible is an overstatement. The combat doesn't feel as fluid, or immersive as Skyrims, but that can be attributed to the ways games have evolved, and the progressions Bethesda has made as a studio. Coming from a long time Final Fantasy player the combat is very similar to Final Fantasy. However the problem becomes the hit boxes being somewhat terrible. Within a Final Fantasy game the combat was turn based. I said attack, he/she attacked. Depending on the Dodge rate of the other character, I'd hit or miss. It also depended on whether I was blinded via, a spell, and do on. If the character dodged my attack the character would step back, or give a sign that it dodged.
In Morrowind there is no such thing, there is no animation for a dodged attack. You end up slicing at air wondering whether your aim is off, or if your agility/weapon skill is too low. This is most noticeable when shooting a bow, or hitting smaller creates... OR when you're trying to attack one specific enemy when there are two or more, or when you';re trying to talk to an NPC in a crowd. Also you get caught on every single piece of geometry in the world.

The addition of a dodge animation would make the combat more fluid, responsive, and immserive. It's inexcusable for a game to lack a feature in which the hit/miss mechanic is based upon percentages. Even in Final Fantasy the doge animation was merely the character teleporting backwards, and then forwards. It had no where near the fluidity of animation today, but it was a sign that they had dodged.

The combat in Skyrim is much more immersive, and much more rewarding. It's something you tend to look forward to, rather then dread depending on how you built your character. The lack of outside influence (such as dodge, or hit/miss) means it's based upon your skill rather than your stats. The one area that the combat is lacking is in depth, the game becomes more a hack and slash rather than a strategic encounter. I'd much rather see more development put into creating a more engaging experience, or see it become turn based because as it is now it is stuck somewhere between Dragon Age, and Dynasty Warriors.

For all my negativity towards the Morrowind combat I'll say that it isn't that bad. It can be especially fun, and rewarding later on when you've honed your character into a killing machine, but that's dependent on whether or not you can even get to that point.

Story:
Can I just say that I';m not a fan of either story? I love the way that Bethesda works its players into the lore in the move ambiguous way possible. But for me the story has always been me, and what I've done in the world. The main quest is just a footnote in the overall story that is my character. I saved the world!... But I also become the master of the Thieves guild, and the champion of the Arena. That's the story to me, and in that way the stories in Bethesda's games are some of the best around. But for the overall main stories I'd say they're never all that interesting. A lot of the Deadric quests are awesome, but the main quests, and even some guild quests, are sub par.

Real World issues:
One of things I enjoy about the TES games (and many fantasy games) is that they can handle issues that other games rarely touch. These things would be Racism, sixism, Slavery, Religion, and so on.

In Morrowind you're hit in the face with the issues of Slavery, and Racism right away. Fresh off the ship you're seen as an outsider, or outlander, you're not liked because you're different. That coupled with the fact that the world you're forced into has a large slave trade and the atmosphere of the grim becomes more real, dark, and intriguing. I enjoy this, not because I'm some sadistic a-hole, but because I find that to be an intriguing plot device, or tool for immersion. Religion is another interesting factor in TES and I feel Morrowind handled religion the best. You truly feel the sense of religion in Morrowind, it's never really forced (you don't hear people praising Talos every second), but you feel the weight of religion, and the way it influences the different mechanics between temples, and cults. It's also nice that you can join temples and feel like you're apart of the religious atmosphere of the game.

In Skyrim you get a similar scene, although slavery has made its way out. Racism is taken to another level in which it doesn't make as much of an impact on how NPCs view you (they still have an opinion of you, although it doesn't hold the same repercussions that it did in Morrowind), but it's taken to another level in which segregation occurs in some cities. sixism is present to a degree in the game as well, however it's as in your face as the racism. As far as religion it has taken a backseat to a degree. Your ability to involve yourself in religion has been greatly reduced. However the ban on talos makes for a very interesting, somewhat strained relationship between the Thalmor and the citizens of Skyrim.

Overall I feel like both handle somewhat different issues, and take them to different levels. I'd love to see more done with these issues, as the issue of religion is very interesting, especially in a world with so many different gods, or deities. As it is now the different issues have very little depth, and player interactivity, especially with player involvement.

Conclusion:
I feel like both games provide different experiences. In a lot of ways there are some things about Morrowind that bug me, much like there are things in Skyrim that bug me. However for me there isn't anything in Skyrim that can potentially ruin character creation, and inevitably the whole game. Morrowind feels like a 100 hour game that should be a 40-50 hour game. When re-rolling a character becomes a chore rather than a fun way to start fresh then I know I have a problem. That to me is what really holds Morrowind back. I understand that some people like the trial and error mechanics but it just makes the game bloated. In Skyrim I end up making a new character because I want to play the game differently, not because my character has become inept.

For some the redeeming quality of Morrowind is its story, and depth. The story is lost on me because as I've said the story for me is my character, and I'm really not attached to any of my characters because I know I'll just up re-rolling. The game can be truly deep, and at other times it's basically re-arrange numbers to fit what you want.

I like both games and am enjoying Morrowind. However I enjoy where the TES series has from and also where it's going. For me Morrowind is the game I sink maybe an hour or two into before getting bored, frustrated, or burnt out. Skyrim is a game where I can spend hours just messing around and being immersed in the world. Morrowind is dated, no matter how you look at it. A lot of the hooks that developers use today are beautiful and work maybe too well. For me Morrowind doesn't allow me to RP, or become immersed in the world.

Maybe I'll finally make a character I truly enjoy and can feel like I want to invest my time into. But for now I'm fine with just repeating the same process until I find that character.

I'll commend the attempt at making an unbiased decision. However, I feel you've personalized it far too much for it to be unbiased as well as left out some major factors. For one, Morrowind IS dated, it's an old game, 10 years actually, however, it is still playable today and is still being compared to the later games, that alone says something. also, Skyrim does have an issue with leveling, I had to restart my Nord after 80 hours of play time because I realized, that all of my trial and error to find the right set up for my perks, I wouldn't be able to max out my levels the way I wanted. So yes, if you want to truly be precise with your character, you DO need to plan ahead. I've encountered the same problem recently with my High Elf, his Smithing and Enchanting are very high, but unfortunately, his Destruction isn't and due to all the random skill books, time when I've had to sneak and sell goods, I've raised other levels. Now he's level 25 with only 46 Destruction and the ability to cast only Apprentice level spells. I'm getting DOMINATED by enemies now because of level scaling. At least in Morrowind, you could keep your ass out of dangerous areas, in Skyrim, areas become dangerous while you remain the same.

As for combat, Morrowind's isn't horrible, but this is what to expect from a game back then, sure you can make the claim "well other games had better combat." Just because better combat systems were available doesn't mean Morrowind was bad for it's combat. I feel Oblivions combat was better, and Skyrim has a few mechanics to work out, like remaking the ability to mix and match melee and mage without having to sacrifice a shield or weapon and also have the ability to block with 2 swords.

Overall, you made good points and it was a nice effort for unbiased decision, but still, I think you should leave less of your own habits of recreating characters out of the picture because not everyone has that trial & error problem. At least in Morrowind, if you leveled your Miscellaneous skills, you wouldn't become over-powered because there's hardly anything scaled.

1: I only ever needed to remake my character once in Morrowind once and that was because beast races could not wear boots.
2: Skyrim had an awefull setting. Talos and akatosh can go [censored] themselves. Not a single quest had decent writing. Saying that, i did find Balgruf and ulfric to be incredibly powerful characters if you choose the stormcloaks.
3: cicero was a MUCH better character than astrid. You praise her voice, but i see that as poor stereotyping.
4: Morrowind is Deep yet Crippled . Skyrim is shallow

I can't help but tackle your conclusion, as I feel it does Morrowind some injustice.

Your preference for Skyrim over Morrowind seems to gravitate around the belief that Skyrim has "safer" character progression. You explain how you admire World of Warcraft for its convenient ability to reset one's talent tree points. However, I feel obligated to point out that that Skyrim, unlike Morrowind, has a system of allocating level-gained points very similar to WoW's, and that it does not feature the convenience of a reset. A new player could put his perk points in places he could come to regret later, but he would be incapable of doing anything about it. On the other hand, Morrowind features no such point tree; no anology can properly be drawn here between Morrowind and WoW. In fact, any level-related mistake made in Morrowind can be amended in time, given you play your character long enough (especially since skill training has no per level limit). Morrowind, I believe, is more lenient in this regard than Skyrim.

Anyway, as you said, you've only played Morrowind for a short while (for a Bethesda game), and I honestly encourage you to try it some more. The roughest spot for Morrowind is the beginning, which is usually the most polished area in other TES games. My first time playing through Morrowind was definitely grueling as well, especially right off the boat at Seyda Neen. However, I persevered, and Morrowind is now my favorite game of all time.

Morrowind has a larger open world when compared to skyrim. Lets be honest. The better part of skyrim is spent underground when your not fast traveling to an area. The main thing is that had skyrim been more of an open world exploration it would have been a much better game. I would have loved to see what these new graphics capabilities are able to procure when I can travel to a new area and see a whole new and improved landscape with cities and kingdoms scattered throughout to where It can be more of an immersion into a world rather than a game that is fun to play purely based on combat. I think if they had the open world as more of their focus rather than having a game that is more or less an action game. I feel it would have generated a better, more positive response, because it goes back to what we all valued and enjoyed with TES.

two words: fan boy, not intended in the offensive way, but that's anything but unbiased. sounds more like a Morrowind fan show-off

Jarik- Morrowind actually has the smallest gameworld in the numbered series. Oops.

I won't dispute that Morrowind's character creation process can be tedious (despite the fact that many Daggerfall fans felt that DF's even longer and more complex character creation was a highlight of the game), and that the pre-made classes are garbage, but in the long run, your initial choices don't make that much of a difference. Unlike OB (or SR, from what I read), you aren't under constant pressure from the levelling and scaling to "beat the levelling curve". You can buy training, if you feel that you're too poor at something to self-train. If you want, you can tackle the game at your leisure, or wait until you're better prepared; Cais Cosades even recommends it, and he's "important". The first 3-7 levels are generally a struggle (which can easily take the entire 20-30 hours that the OP played), after which I reach the "good enough to fight the big fights, but not always win" stage, then eventually the character hits the "too good, no challenge, time to restart" self-limit, which the Expansions delay for quite some time.

Combat, as has been pointed out by the OP, suffers badly in MW due to the visually painful lack of a "miss" animation, but is otherwise "adequate", especially once your character gains some skill with the weapon. The control response (at least on PC) is very direct, and the amount of time that you "draw back" to strike affects the strength of the attack, so you can either "spam" the button for a flurry of weak hits (ideal for delivering enchantment damage) or hold long enough to deliver full power for the weapon (more likely to stagger or knock down the opponent, especially if you use a heavy weapon). Unlike Oblivion's system, if you do manage to connect with the target, you do full rated damage for that weapon, plus a bonus for your Strength, not some nerfed scratch because of low skill. Skill affects hit probability; the weapon and your Strength determine damage. In Oblivion, it always felt like I was turning over control of the character to the computer when I pressed the attack button. Besides, combat is not the focus of the game, just one facet of the whole experience.

Obviously, the OP did not get very far with the MQ in 20-30 hours, and can't make a knowledgable comment on it. Granted, you CAN get pretty far in that time (in fact, you can beat the game in 5 minutes if you abuse all the exploits and bugs to the absurd limits, bypass the MQ, and just go straight in for the "kill"), but you won't see anything along the way, have time to read the dialog, or othewise have any chance of understanding what's going on around you.

The biggest single difference between the earlier games (DF and MW) versus the later (OB and SR) is that the earlier ones were highly dependent on the character's skills, whereas the later are far more reliant on the player's skills. In DF and MW, you can fail at spellcasting, potionmaking, enchanting, or repairs if your skills are low, and in fact will do so frequently throughout the game. In OB and SR, the very possibility of failure in almost everythng has been removed to make it "more accessible". In that respect, the old games are "hardcoe", where you struggle to gain competence and eventually mastery, while the newer ones are more heavily oriented toward getting you to the next combat as quickly as you like. The games are written for distinct but somewhat overlapping markets (many people like both, but some vehmently prefer one or the other), and a direct comparison is almost like comparing Chess to Tetris. If you like one or the other, who's to tell you you're wrong; if you like both, then congratulatons.

[ Edit: As Siant_juib points out, MW actually had the smallest game world. The "playable area", however, was comparable to or greater than Oblivion's, because the boundaries of the OB map weren't player-reachable, and many areas were unscalable or closed off. Morrowind's Levitation allowed you to access nearly 100% of the map, and there were actually a number of things to be found by "going 3D"; the realization shocked me at the time, when I noticed how some content had been placed "just in case" somebody ever managed to get to some hidden nook or cranny high up on a ledge or mountaintop. The excessive use of levelling and scaling meant that much of OB's content was "redundant", since there was never anything to find except the same random garbage as everywhere else; it make exploring more than a fraction of that huge map pointless. In contrast, I'm STILL finding new and unique items that I never found before in Morrowind, after over 5 years of frequent playing. ]

Despite a promising start your conclusion is so terribly biased that the thread title becomes laughable.

The conclusion seems like a bit of a leap from where you had everything established, and I largely disagree with your opinions on Morrowind, but I commend you for a generally well-written, non-flammative post. One thing I did not see mentioned here was the soundtrack. Morrowind's music blows Oblivion and Skyrim away in my humble opinion. Even so, I'd go so far as to say Daggerfall's is even better.

I don't think it was intentionally biased, though. It's just that 20-30 hours barely scratches the surface of Morrowind, and doesn't allow one to see it from a position of knowing the game.

Hey! Modern pop culture has surprising depths! (It's just way, way, way too foul as you get deeper into it)

Anyway... my two cents on Morrowind Vs. Skyrim:

Morrowind's skills are terrible in comparison, and extremely "Gated" - You need to have a skill at a certain level before you can enjoy the benefits of that skill.

I've recently started a new game, and created what I hoped to be a Khajiit Thief - Sneak, acrobatics, and Lockpicking are all Major skills, and Speechcraft's a minor skill. My findings? They're absolutely terrible skills compared to the way Oblivion and Skyrim did either of them. Actually... I have to say Oblivion did all those skills best in the series.

In Morrowind, you cannot use Speechcraft at all at low levels - Even with a high starting Speechcraft skill, a starting character has to rely on Bribes to raise disposition ("Admire" always fails), which a new character cannot afford. It's better just to spend that money on training the skill, which isn't as fun as actually using it.

Sneak is in a worse position. My Khajiit Thief cannot sneak past anything, despite having everything optimized toward the highest Starting Sneak Skill possible (I tried using Morrowind Enhanced, but that made the process even more painful). NPCs auto-detect me as soon as I'm within range for the skill to start accumulating experience, and the random nature of whether I'm detected or hidden causes me to last about 3 seconds before detection around Monsters (rats and Mudcrabs). When a skill is unusable even at optimal starting position, that is bad

On the other hand, Oblivion and Skyrim have a gradual system - Instead of a chance-of-detection-per-cycle, your steath skill determines how close you can get to someone before being detected (As opposed to a Chance of being detected at any level). Skyrim's also beautiful in that there are four different tiers of Detection, so a small misstep can be recovered from (Unlike Morrowind, where it's Combat Music+Stealth Over the very moment you fail a single stealth check against the RNG).

Speechcraft in Oblivion, aside from the lack of options, actually scaled pretty well (The shame that it was so limitted in effect is a different matter entirely, that Mods fixed for me). The minigame allowed you to actually use the skill, instead of simply Admiring someone's disposition into the ground, while the Disposition Caps made the actual skill level matter. Having a daily # of spins would have been better than vanilla, but then again, you also got unlimitted chances in Morrowind. Not exactly immersive, but it was functional from a gameplay standpoint.

Other skills are equally bad in Morrowind, especially the magic skills. While there is a sense of "Progression" (From Painfully unusable), there's only a small window in the system where the game's actually "Fun", and you can miss it if you blink. Prior to that point, the game hits you with constant, unavoidable failure with no ability to improve or use your skills. After that point, the game becomes an unchallenging Cakewalk as all your spells ALWAYS cast, EVERY lock opens for you, you can sneak past EVERYTHING, EVERY swing is a hit, and you can spam "Admire" for 100 Disposition in everyone for free.

The only skill Morrowind seemed to get right was Mercantile.

Yeah, that was a heck of a problem in Morrowind. Especially things like the block skill which you could have no control over, so if it's a minor skill with you, it will probably never level. What ended up happening was very slow leveling of those skills at low levels, quick leveling in the middle range, and slow leveling again at the upper levels.

Or there was the hilarious Unarmored skill which didn't actually work unless you were wearing armor.

There is a pretty steep learning curve before a skill reaches proficiency. You can "use" it at any level, but the chances of success are pretty low. On the other hand, if your character has a novice-level skill, that basically means he knows which end of the sword is the pointy end, so he ought to be careful what he points it at.


What do you mean by a "high starting Speechcraft skill"? 30 or 35? If you only got 35% of the answers right on your math test, you flunked. 35 is a "high starting Speechcraft skill," but it's a low Speechcraft skill. Morrowind doesn't "grade on the curve." If you want a skill to work, you have to learn it. That's why there are trainers all over the place.

Admire fails because the NPC has a low disposition to you, and sees through your attempt to manipulate him. That's because at 35 your speechcraft skill still equals "flunk."


Morrowind is actually the only one of these games in which Sneaking is in any way realistic. It should be very hard to actually sneak up on somebody who is alert and awake. In Oblivion, if you train your skill high enough, you can sneak up on somebody in the light, when they are looking right in your direction. How silly is that?


To some degree I agree with this. The problem isn't that the starting success rate is bad, though; it's that the success rate gets "good" too suddenly. Then the game gets too easy, and that transition is far too abrupt.

Morrowind is one of the last games that doesn't "baby" the player. It's hard. It's supposed to be hard. It was made in the tradition of old RPGs like Baldur's Gate, Fallout (1 and 2, not 3), and the like. You were supposed to fail a lot, and feel like a "noob," when you started one of those games. If you survived, you felt pretty good about it, and only an experienced player could "do everything."


...And yet, everybody uses the Creeper and the Mudcrab. Some kind of "right."

No, you can't use it at any level - Failure does not increase the skill, and the success rate is so tiny that you cannot progress without resorting to a Trainer or grinding the skill against Failure to a degree even Runescape would be appalled by.

That's the whole problem with the system - A skill is absolutely useless unless you pay a trainer to zoom it up to a high level. It's a serious design flaw. No, a starting thief should not be able to sneak into a maximum-security area, but he should be able to sneak around low-level monsters and bandits reliably, and a new Speechcraft character should be able to persuade people to do simple favors or give them low-sensitive information without having to delve into pockets as deep as an end-game hero's.

And everyone in reality is actually a master orator, because everyone has at least one friend they've made just by talking to them? That's your logic.

What? Morrowind is just as bad, if not worse, in this regard. The difference is that in Morrowind, it was entirely Pass or Fail - If you were within an area you were at risk of detection (And therefore able to improve your skill), you had about a second or two before you failed an arbitrary Sneak check almost regardless of level. In the later games, a low sneak skill reduced the amount of space you had to work in before being detected, making it much more reasonable to level at low skill levels.

Actually, the difference here is that in Baldur's Gate, Fallout 1, and Fallout 2, your character was still viable at his task right from the beginning. A diplomat-character could talk his way through the situations he'd find himself at lower levels right out of the vault. A Warrior could hold his own in combat against enemies of his level. In Morrowind however, you have no room to improve without using the trainers - And that's not playing the game.



The skill itself worked. There were just exploits to get around it.

I have had quite a few characters with most skills at 100. Speechcraft and mercantile are annoying but defintely workable (Taunt). I agree it was not always fun and sometimes annoying. But the point about Speechraft is that it goes up by playing the game normally.
Yes, it may level-up slowly but it does and it levels up enough. Of course if you desperately want to level such a skill up quickly you are indeed grinding and yes it is an annoying grind. In normal play though speechcraft will level up with a little bit of patience.

I find it weird though that how you have a problem with this. You keep saying how you like the perks in Skyrim because they give the game and especially 'the levelling' a better flow. Then why are you so annoyed that you cannot powertrain this skill as easily?



I do not know what you are talking about. I never had any problems with sneaking in Morrowind. At the lowest levels it might be annoying but once your sneak reaches about 50-60 it works very good.



Trainers are seriously over-hyped. I never used them and I never had any problems with Morrowind either, not on lowest difficulty nor on the highest. Perhaps you could say that in a way, patience was my trainer.

By personalized I am assuming my use of "I". I used I to show it as an opinion, rather than a fact. If I'm indeed missing the point then please elaborate.

As for the rest, Skyrim does have a similar trial and error piece. When I first started my character was a blob of random perks, needless to say I restarted. That's not a problem, I expect that with any game I try for the first time. Morrowind is different in that you could spend hours going through the world only to be held back, or limited by one mistake. The lack of level scaling means you'll never get a consistent way of comparing whether your character build is good or bad.

As for the combat it isn't terrible and I quite enjoy it. There are some things that annoy me like staggering, and switching between melee and magic. But my biggest pet peeve is the lack of animation in combat, you don't know if you're missing due to your lack of agility, or because they have high agility, or if you're just missing the hit box.

As for my bias I'll admit I'm kind of a perfectionist with my characters. I tend to make 10-20 alts and maybe 2-3 mains in almost every RPG I play, the problem becomes when I am forced to restart.




1: I've remade a couple of characters. 2-3 were due to impractical builds, 2 were due to them being boring, 1 was because I basically broke the game by killing a inmate.
2: I actually really like the setting of Skyrim, I like the realistic atmosphere that the game has. Morrowind to me is a close second in setting, but I feel it has the best atmosphere. As for Ulfric I find him to be my favorite character mostly because he is such an interesting character to me.
3: I'll have to disagree. Cicero reminds me of the annoying fan, and I don't know how Astrid having a deceivingly calm voice is a stereotype. She has a much more intimidating and powerful character than Cicero who falls into the role of comedic relief more than as a dangerous member of the Dark Brotherhood. One could argue that's his greatest strength is his ability to deceive you by his somewhat eccentric nature, but the same is true for Astrid.
4: I wouldn't call Skyrim shallow. Some of the features in Morrowind that made it deep were broken and useless outside of a few select situations.




True, as someone else stated there is room for error in both games. I think why I find Skyrim more lenient is because it focuses more on skill than stats. You can win a battle based upon your real skill more than your stats. I haven't felt that in Morrowind yet. Morrowind feels like I am much more dependent on my skills and attributes while Skyrim feels like the perks I select only enhance my ability in combat. But I digress... there is room for error in both I just feel like in Skyrim your error can be overridden by your own skill, although I'd argue Skyrim doesn't require much combat skill.

I honestly don't know how long I've played Morrowind for, 30ish hours seems right but my game is modded so I had to turn off some Steam functions that don't allow it to record my time played. I almost killed myself today however as I couldn't get cured from the Corpus curse because I killed an inmate but worked around it by throwing all my gold at the problem picking up a charm spell, training up my illusion, and grabbing a fortify personality spell. Although I was close to just restarting finally fixing my idiotic problem was very rewarding and relieving.




As someone else pointed out Morrowind is very small when compared to the other games in the series. The overall land mass may be the same but when you factor in dungeons, forts, and cave in Skyrim it eclipses the amount of exploration you can do in Morrowind. I think they had to make the world like they did, and honestly it's beautiful. There will always be people who find the textures to be too small, or that it doesn't stress their PC enough but Skyrim reminds me a lot of Red Dead Redemption. Both are games that I spent a lot of time just wandering around the world watching the weather change and sun rise/set.

Maybe it's because I played Minecraft for the last 8 months but I appreciate the level of detail that went into the world. As it's now they had to make a breathtaking game because everybody is doing it.




I dunno, it honestly would seem more like I was a fan of Skyrim rather than Morrowind... but maybe I'm miss reading your post. Also I'm not offended by being called a fan boy, however I'd say that would be an offense to people who are actually really big fans of the Elder Scrolls series because I'm not as knowledgeable as many of the hardcoe fans are.



That's the one thing I enjoy about Morrowind is that it is a somewhat relaxing experience. Oblivion had this as well, but the MQ felt a little more "epic" (which I hate). As much for my hatred of the fail/pass mechanic that feels like Morrowind character creation I will admit there is something about addicting about creating your character in Morrowind. Not to mention it's the quickest intro of any Elder Scrolls game I've played.

With Skyrim I'm almost forced to level, and forced to progress. In Oblivion I could stay level 1 throughout the whole game, the same could be said for Morrowind. However in Morrowind you'd get destroyed with no level scaling. I can't stay level in Skyrim unless I go throughout the whole game only using my fists, normal clothes, and my shouts.

As a last thing I like the armor selection in Morrowind (pauldrons need to be added back into the game) and I like how you can wear robes over armor. It makes for a much realer looking spellsword, or crusader.


There is a level of depth to the combat. There different types of attacks adds for some interesting combat coupled with the different strengths each weapon has. It's also nice that, as you said, combat isn't the main focus. That is one thing I miss, or envy, about Morrowind is that towns actually feel interesting because there are a lot more dynamics to the towns. Skyrim towns feels like a hub to sleep, get quests, maybe do some crafting, and get quests. Morrowind feels more like you're actually spending time there because you want to, rather than because you need to.



I'm not terribly far, maybe around half way done, but my overall opinion of the stories in Elder Scrolls games is that I generally don't care fore them, and Morrowind is no exception.


Basically sums up my feelings towards Morrowind and Skyrim. Two totally different games for two totally different audience. Oblivion is somewhere in the middle.

One thing I've never gotten about Oblivion and Skyrim...Why the hell do you perfect the usage of a spell simply by learning it? "Abrakadabra!" And the spoon bent.

Seriously though, are you really making this arguement? I mean I know it's you, but seriously. In life, when you first start playing soccer, are you supposed to be good at it? No, you learn over time. Cast a spell enough times and sooner or later ya get it every time. As for unavoidable failure, only if you're trying to Summon a Golden Saint when you can hardly summon a Scamp. You literally tend to exaggerate EVERYTHING when it comes to faulting Morrowind, like Speechcraft being unavoidable, Sneak being nearly impossible, or spells going from impossible to infailable over an instant. I trained speechcraft no problem, it goes with the game, the higher your reputation, your factions, your "Personality" remember, if you're an Orc, your personality svcks so that effects the outcome as well. Ya can't be Nerevar right of the boat. I grant that hitting opponents with a sword should be a bit more likely with less damage, but that's not a bad thing entirely if they added a dodge animation.

I also hate to break it to you, but... EVERY spell is cast in Oblivion without ANY level and EVERY lock is opened provided you have the level (like in Morrowind) and EVERYONE likes you provided you have the skill (Like in Morrowind) And sneaking is BETTER in Oblivion if you have 100. Literally I played a stealth character, I fought 5 people through the course of the game, everyone else was a one shot wonder. As for Skyrim? Don't get me started, I can sneak past anythign and everything, apparently NPC's don't even display emotions towards you or have disposition and you can still basically cast every spell. At least in Morrowind there's always a chance you can the spell, just unlikely while in the others you can't even attempt to cast the spell if you don't have the perk or level for it.

Granted I still like Skyrims magic animations, support, and what not, and I prefer Oblivions method of using, but Morrowind was semi-realistic.

You personalized it when you simply stated that you started new characters over and over again and used that as part of Morrowinds faults. The problem is, you're one of the few people who really have that fault. not to mention, 20-30 hours of play in Morrowind gives you hardly any time to create new characters unless you are really THAT indecisive about what you want, I can't hold morrowind accountable for that. A players inability to choose what stats he/she wants is not the games fault, and you don't really have to worry about choosing your stats either as I said, there is not a lot of level scaling so you can't be over powered. As for gauging whether your levels make a difference, try and enter a new area that you couldn't previously, that will tell you. Do you hit more with your sword? Do succeed at speech more? Do your spells flunk as often? Subtle changes in your normal activities are evidence of your improvement.

Level Scaling puts you behind the curve at times and really never adds anything new to an area. Areas aren't scary because you know they're gonna be scaled for you, quests can't be gauged on difficulty because their scaled. Even the rewards are weaker if your weaker. Everything is hand-holdish and simple. It just took out a lot of anticipation and suspense from the game, like, it made it so nothing could really surprise you.

Morrowind was a game that was built on Avatar strength, where your characters ability was what dictated whether or not you could do it while Oblivion and Skyrim were more of player strength. There are advantages to both but Bethesda seemed to choose one over the other.

Not true. I've played hundreds of hours of Morrowind. I've played all kinds of characters. It's possible to progress from new character to godlike, without ever visiting a trainer. The success rate of low-level skills is not zero, and skills do gradually advance. Morrowind is not a quick easy game for people with little patience, though.


But that's not true -- see above.


And just why should he be able to do these things? Because you want the game to be easy, and not have to work to build your character?

In easy-to-master games, what you describe is definitely the case. It's not the case in Morrowind, and that is not a game flaw. It's the game as it is intended to be played. You're playing a Noob just off the boat, with a Flunk-rated set of skills.

And, just for what it's worth, I was recently playing a relatively non-sneaky character, and was working on Sneak. I had no trouble with a Level 1 character, sneaking around mudcrabs, as long as I stayed behind them and some distance away. Are you sure you're doing it right? (Sneak doesn't toggle in Morrowind; you have to hold the key down.)


I don't know about you, but my new characters usually get one friend right away, by giving him back his ring. And that leads to better disposition from his friend, the merchant, etc. Disposition overrules persuasion in Morrowind, unless your speechcraft is massive. You may have noticed that you can't successfully taunt somebody if they hate you too much. That's the way the game works. It's supposed to be hard.


I'm playing Fallout 1 right now. You can't really expect to pass a Speech check in the game without a Speech skill of at least 50%, and that's right in line with Morrowind. Baldur's Gate doesn't really have skills like that; there's a Charisma attribute that gets you better dialog results, but character builds in that game are based on dice rolls, and most people don't spend build points on Charisma.

Likewise, in Fallout 1 & 2, if your character is trying to use a weapon that he has less than a 50 skill in, he's going to miss half the time, and when he hits, he's going to whittle away the enemy's points 1 or 2 at a time. He's going to fail at Lockpick, Science, etc., half the time, if he's got a 50% skill. (What a surprise!)

And believe me, a character in Baldur's Gate is barely "viable" at low level. It's a party-based game, and is extremely difficult to "solo."

I'm honestly beginning to wonder if you've actually played any of these games.

Lol, again, you guys are wasting your time in arguing with the guy/gal(Scow2)who thinks Morrowind is the worst game in TES.

It wouldn't be the first time I've wasted time.

I mean, what else do I have to do with my spare time...? Hmmm... Maybe I'll go play Morrowind for a while.

I did mention that I am a compulsive creator in all the RPG I play. However there are few RPGs where I felt forced to restart, even after multiple characters, because of choices I made in the beginning. The same goes for when I essentially break the main quest by killing a dang inmate. I wasn't indecisive when I created my characters, I knew what I wanted... I wanted a character who was like a traveling bard, someone with great speechcraft, and mercantile who could defend himself if he needed. I also hoped he'd be a noble man who never stole or killed unless he had to. But luckily for me he couldn't kill, or steal, if his life depended on it... and it did most of the time.

Level scaling has its ups and downs, and but so do hard capped enemies and NPCs. The problem for me in Morrowind is my mind doesn't follow any logical progression, as time has gone on I have an understanding of what areas are higher level, but the game lacks color coding. In WoW I knew that this enemy is either too hard, or too easy for me based upon the color assigned to its name. In Morrowind I have none of that, only through trial and error do I finally learn where to go, and when to go to places.

I wouldn't even call simple things like color coding, and level scaling hand holding. I feel like I'm always blind, or ignorant in Morrowind. The game feeds off of trial and error making it a much longer game than it needs to be. I understand that kind of enjoyment as there are times in Morrowind when I feel awesome when my character accomplishes something I didn't think he could do. But, I believe if you're going to basically criticize Skyrim for being too "Hand holdy" then you must criticize for being way too trial and error based. Both are serious design flaws but I feel Morrowind gets a pass because of its age.

As a last note I enjoy Morrowind, and I like the challenge. However trial and error has been executed much more efficiently in games like Dark Souls where the hardships of the game can be beaten by player input which Morrowind has very little of.

Lol. It's alright of course if he dislikes MW. It's not his cup of tea. I hope Skyrim or Oblivion last as long as MW. 10 years and counting.

It's in my nature, I like to debate these topics with people who have conflicting view points. Hell, hear some of my stuff on Religion (Whoops did I say THAT out loud! )

in response to FailedtoOpen, I would say trial and error is mix and match. In Morrowind, I never had to start over because of something, if I entered a bad area, I died, simple as that, my progress reloaded to the last save and I steered clear of that area. Also, there was a common factor for every high level area. The Daedric Ruins usually had powerful enemies, the caves closer to Red Mountain had stronger enemies, the Grazelands had a lot of witches and hunters. Morrowind made it so that you never exactly knew what to expect, that doesn't make it bad and trial and error is not a design flaw, it's a process we encounter in every day life. Still, there's nothing in Morrowind that should make you start your character over and no time where you should have been sent into something for a quest that was too hard to accomplish as everyone gives you fair warning before hand, need I bring up Caius?