I fail to see how Morrowind is deeper than Skyrim.

Then you must be legally mute.


And? That they leveled up by running and jumping (and gee, YOU DO THAT ALL THE TIME GENIUS, IS THERE REALLY A BIG PROBLEM IN HAVING SOMETHING YOU DO ALL THE TIME IN THE GAME GET PROGRESSIVELY BETTER? Oh but wait, you don't want your characters to get faster or jump higher? Do you walk everywhere? ) only mattered if you picked them as majors.


Just because someone is likely to fail doesn't mean you shouldn't be pushing them to do better.


Having 100 athletics is gamebreaking? ????????????????????? Since when?


I fail to see how it breaks immersion (unless you're being silly and raising speed along with it, which is unnecessary unless you're intentionally creating a speedy character along with it), it messing with combat is due to horrid AI, and what fun parts are bypassed by being able to run faster? Hell, there's a part of Morrowind where you NEED to run faster in order to succeed. I mean if you consider walking around everywhere slower than a turd more enjoyable then be my guest but doing that isn't going to raise your speed.


And you say the game hasn't been simplified. Please, do us all a favor and get a clue.

well yeah, not doing something sorta makes an opinion of it invalid. also you probably should have made up a different term to disparage the game, since micro-content is, like, this entire franchise.




lol

Sorry, but I don't consider random nothings spread throughout the world that only capture my interest for all of 5 seconds to be worthwhile. And you're foolish for thinking that having a bunch of content like that makes up for the severe lack of substantial content.

Skyrim didn't make sales based on it's merits. Who played it before the bought it? It made sales based on Bethesda's reputation and previous games. And some nice ads. Based on it's merits I'm not buying their next game until I hear of some improvement from people in the forums about changes they made. No more preorders for Bethesda games for me.

Because times have changed and the general consumer doesn't rate story that highly on their list. They are just more concerned with the 1000 ways you can decapitate your enemies.

Otherwise Star Wars: The Old Republic would be massive right now because it puts back story into and RPG into MMORPG. But a certain group of players scoff at that, and are more interested in Guild Wars 2 where they have mechanics like fire + arrows = fire arrows.

I disagree with that anolysis, the demographics of general casual gamers is very wide, it includes people of all ages and genders and great stories will cater to many people within this wide range of different people. But if a game has enough content and fun to satisfy players, they can disregard and look past other flaws and accept the game, but a great story would certainly make casual gamers enjoy a game even more.

...and I am pretty sure this is not true. story is still rated highly. Where do you people get the idea that like 95% of today's consumers are just stupid? You guys sound so elitist. Story is still one of the main factors why people buy games. That is the whole explanation for the huge success of games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age (Origins), the Assassin's Creed franchise, Batman (Arkham ...), The Witcher 2 and Amnesia, to name a few. I am PC-only so I may have forgotten some like Uncharted. I did not play TOR so I can't say anything about it.
For all those games the factors story and/or deeper characters is a major contributor to their success. Sure, there are many more releases than just them, but the one's I named where some of the most successful in the past two years.

For TOR: it still is a mmorpg and alone for that reason the customer base is another one. MMORPG implies that people want to play with each other or against each other. While even in this case story contributed to its success (one million suscribers in the first 3 days), together with the name of course, people who like MMO's have another focus IMO (I certainly did not play WoW for its story). There is also the monthly fee not everyone is willing to pay.

Someone says Morrowind was deeper- another no way. So now we can't agree about Morrowind. Ditto Oblivion. Any assertion will be denied by someone- there is always such a view in any sizable gathering of people- particularly when their ox is being gored.

But all is not relative, either. Skyrim saw the dropping of attributes, of choices; it saw the loss of NPC interactions with themselves and the player, the loss of spells, spell making and other assets. These are real measureable choices now gone.

I think observing that industry often cheapens product and that's the way it is = Is not the way it is. IN a open market what people want matters- if there is a need, the market will respond. There are monopolies- and these often seem insumountable, until they break. I can't imagine we've reached a stagnant period in gaming- not yet. And I won't accept less in a game because a company wants to offer it.

Urrgh, another one of these threads

Well, in my opinion both Morrowind and Skyrim hold similar positions in terms of fun, ease, etc.

In Morrowind, reaching level 15 was the point where you could basically do anything. Morrowind's NPCs lacked an incredible amount of detail - only quest important NPCs had anything unique to say, and player input was very lacking (Remember those red choices you occasionally got? Yeah - not often). It had a better loot system, a fairly decent monster system (featuring many levelled enemies (Shock!)) and arguably still a better style of environment than Skyrim.

However, it was clunky, the world occasionally felt hollow, everything moved at a snail's pace and roleplaying was limited in availability - not unlike Skyrim, you had to imagine most of it yourself. Quest wise, it had some good, but mostly dull quests backed up by good strong plots. Skyrim has fun, interesting quests (No, not the randomly generated dungeon ones - they do NOT count as they are computer generated) but weaker or at least not fully explored plots.

Still, Skyrim feels leagues ahead of Oblivion, which only really had guilds and Shivering Isles going for it. In my opinion, at least.

agree with this . ofc the game is fun , but it simply has ceased to be a real RPG , you know there are different games for different tastes and I thought the elder scrolls would satisfy my roleplaying side.
Honestly there are enough games that tend to lean more towards action than RPG these days. And I can find enjoyment in those, this just disappoints me a little since its TES.

They are removing diversity from the game , less dialogue (spoken dialogue isnt that fun when its shallow without consequence) and ofc what I feel was the worse choice : removing of attributes , now I can be a two handed wielding orc and at the same time shoot fireballs at no decrease in effectiveness. Seeing as every race and every level is now as strong as eachother( only governed by weapon skill , which is trivial really as its so fast to increase) there is no real reason to reroll or experiment anymore , I remember Morrowind where it was a breath of fresh air just to reroll as an orc , only for the increase in strenght and thus run speed.

TES should be rolled into a new category called sandbox (not that names really make a difference) when it comes to games being ''dumbed'' down at least Mass Effect 2 (3?) has a great story(character interaction) left (something I can't really say for the elder scrolls anymore)

For alot of people, the degree of customisation and presented options gained upon a level up reflect depth.
Skyrim gives you two choices: Perks and 1 increase to one of the three stats its built upon.

Morrowind had lots more.
More equipment slots, spellcrafting, the ability to have a stat raised more by having gained more skill-ups related to those attributes etc.

For me, a game's depth is more reflected by its ability to draw you in and keep your attention for numerous hours, something Skyrim succeeds in brilliantly.

I did kind of miss the reduced amount of equipmentslots and not being able to spellcraft, but the followers, dualcasting/wielding, shouts and perks make this game a major succes for me.
Not to mention the graphical presentation.

Well, time changes people.Old Morrowind fanbase might feel there is simplification of the series.But who is more important?
Morrowind fanbase or hordes of casual gamers who really don't care who Sotha Sil was.My friends know me as Tes fan and they all tryed Skyrim and are enjoying the game.Yet I noticed one habit with all of them, they really don't care for lore or story.Of course, this might be exepction since all are hard core Call Of Duty players.
Today, gaming scene is very much different than when Morrowind was launched and Betsheda needs to move to mainstream and consoles for profit.
I hope they don't go to far in hunting profit.

I have yet to accept this series simplifications. One thing I do accept is the fact that I will not be buying another one of Bethesda's games without waiting for at least one month. The incredible amount of bugs and glitches are stunning and the huge amount of really ''wet behind the ear'' generated reviews are useless to me. Should they give us a new TES game, then I want to know every little bit about it before I even consider buying it.

Eve online, a very specific and deep mmorpg, which stand to his "hardcoe" line even if it is not the best mmo in term of sale, it still have a growing community after 5-10 years, while usually, mmo tend to lose people over years.

I have only accepted the simplification because I knew I could get Mods. Otherwise it would`ve stayed on the shop shelf.

Intellectual devolution --> we dont have intelligence anymore, nor willpower!

Sorry, "rational advlt", i'm for simplification for better gameplay and choices. I think the perk system made the character build more interesting, It's what I THINK, not a kind of logical truth or something that important. After all, i always thought that the story behind the character and the description of his personality is more important than the attributes, and this relies only on us.

Great post.

If I designed an original chess game where all the pieces could move anywhere on the chessboard, then I would have a game with lots of choices, but it's not a good game. When someone takes my game and decides that there needs to be a limit as to how the pieces move, they have IMPROVED greatly on the depth and design of the chess game, making it more complex and much more interesting.

Revising a game and shrinking the options is not at all a simplification and the complexity of a game can never be measured in the amount of counters, maps, dice rolls, meeples, cards or other amount of content it has, but solely on how the mechanics interact with the game environment to provide a cohesive experience.

I acknowledge but refuse to accept. The fact that I have to rely on mods to get the same experience I got out of Daggerfall or morrowind is irritating, but whatever. There's mods coming now. It'll be fine.

Morrowind was an epic divine gift directly from heaven, so beautiful, mystical, magical an alltime masterpiece!

Skyrim has very good graphics.

I agree with the OP.

In TES I accept things like removing Crossbows, but removing important RPG features like NPCs having a Disposition towards your character and expressing it is unacceptable in my opinion. Also casual player things like the Compass Markers should be toggleable on the consoles too, a reason why the PC version is the only option for me.

I'm only 28, but it's already the sad truth that there isn't many games I want to play anymore. When games aren't intellectually challenging and have things like auto-aiming I simply get bored. Almost every AAA game needs modding for me to like them so I can't play the console versions. I mostly play Indie games these days. They're still unique and not so casual.

Same thing.

You always have to imagine it yourself. VRs on that level haven't been invented yet. The point of a good RPG is to facilitate your imagination, be conducive to it. Can't tell you how badly Skyrim's lack of quest directions hurts that for me.

Such as:
the "broken dungeons" mod
the "thirty-five dialogue options that are exactly the same as with every other npc" mod
the "automatic bunny-hop for veterans with bunny-hop withdrawal syndrome" mod
the "why is my dagger missing the target all the time?" mod
the "bear in the crypt" mod
the "one-hundred thousand cliffracers to make exploration more repetitive and tiresome" mod

I didn`t know that. This is the problem with the gaming industry. They think consolers can`t handle anything providing depth or choice, so give them less. It`s a very bad mindset of Devs\Publishers. I can hear them now even, "Oh don`t bother with toggleable compass markers, consoler gamers won`t want that!"

And this is why the Pc also suffers, as we get the wake of the simplification.


Yea, it`s sad. I have a load of games from Gog.com and love playing them even more than Skyrim for the depth!