In my view. This.

Go back, put your mindset into `another world for the long haul` mode and go.

You can`t really explain Morrowind to many people. It`s a bit like trying to explain the Matrix, you gotta experience it- and not just for the 1st 30 minutes...

Don't forget that Daggerfalls main quest is great. Not only great in elder scrolls scale but when compared to most other games it is great.

Actually, I think WoW is a great game. But we digress.

Wait you skipped oblivion, you should prob not be on this forum...just kidding but you should prob go back and play it.

Too many people look at the series as a bunch of individual games rather then a set. Each game represents an era, both within the game itself and within the real world. This allows for each game to really shine in different areas.

Morrowind:
Feels like a tech demo. The game is a ton of fun, and the world feels very hostile. Morrowind feels the most cultured and the interplay between factions was absolutely amazing. Despite the feeling of a complex, hostile society there are a lot of mechanical issues that just make me laugh at the game. Things like levitation, acrobatics, and athletics just seem really silly and useless. I actually became a vampie (which was cool because everyone hated me) which boosted my acrobatics past 100. Needless to say I could almost leap as high as some buildings which just totally killed any immersion I had.

Oblivion:
The middle child, definitely the transition between parenting styles. I hate the art style as most of the colors are over saturated. I dislike the floaty, weightless feel of the game as I feel like I'm always on ice. But I do enjoy the story and most of the guilds.

Skyrim:
Feels like the most mechanically sound TES game yet. Your character's actions have a sense of weight to them, and the controls are easily some of the best. The graphics and sound are all top notch and really add a layer of sensory depth to the game. There are some elements I wish were in the game but I feel like it's the easiest TES for me to actually roleplay in. I'd like to see more choice in quests because as it stands there seems to be too much killing to me.



I understand opinion but I don't see how WoW and CoD aren't good games... both allow for months, even years of in game playing time. Both are the leader in their respective genres, and both are easily two of the most polished games on the market.

I beleive I covered it under politics of High Rock.

So you think you are somewhat a different kind of person cause you like a specific kind of game?

Well, i enjoy being one of the massive majority of players that like either Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Resistance 2 (i didnt played CoD, but always enjoyed FPS games too, like Left4Dead, Battlefield, etc), WoW, and also RPG systems out of video-games. Well, how to define it? People who enjoy everything that games can offer you.

You offend people with your comments.

Don't let it bug you, some have to try harder than others to find reasons to look down on people.

This is a good anology. it reminds me of years ago when CoD was actually a pretty respected title, especially the first and second were great and played competitively all the time.

Oh...so it's like a spiritual thing that you can't explain...

...kind of like Scientology...no thanks, I try to stay away from cults.

Entertained would be a strong word to describe such games. I'd say "less bored" would be a more fitting description.

Trying not to get completely off topic here, but WoW is simply not a good game.

Things that allow a game to be classified as good are not to be found in WoW any longer, unlike Vanilla WoW.
Right now the game still has a ton of budget money invested into it, among other things, that allow the fact that it completely svcks to be clouded by them.


I understand how I must've seemed to come out as a complete elitist [censored], however, that's not what I meant.

I do not think myself to be different or better than the mass that enjoys MW3/Skyrim, I simply believe that the same mass that truly enjoys and considers this generation's CoD and Elder Scrolls to be amazing, or even simply just very good games, are either not nearly as into gaming as I am or they simply haven't tried out enough games for their opinions to actually matter.

It may sound arrogant and d-baggy, but I still stand by this. If you truly believe that the content offered by CoD/WoW/TES of their latest releases should be treasured as good gaming content, I'm sorry, but you either haven't played enough games, forgot what good games are really about, or maybe you are just utterly casual when it comes to gaming.

The good days : (

To some extent yes, but I was merely pointing out that Morrowind is by no means better in this regard, so what you are left with is an earlier version of Skyrim, with worse combat...

Just wanted to point out Advances in Lockpicking first showed up in Oblivion, not Skyrim, so it's not even new either.

Morrwind svcked it wasn't a great game at all least compared to the likes of Baldurs gate or Fallout 2 for rpg quality..

edit- the more is see of this morrwind best gaem ever the more i don't like it.... actually i was quite displeased with my purchase.... it wasn't hard core either it should of looked to ultima underworld for its [censored] breaking doors a chance of dieing when you sleep in unprotected places... bags... better spell casting..... i don't even remember it coming out i was too busy playing halo and baldurs gate 2....

if u went back to morrowind or oblivion u would see that the actual magic system was better due to its creatitvity and openess in wat u did. you would also see that the guilds in the games were superior.(im not saying that they were all ever amazing but atleast they were long and had content) . there was much more wacky stuff i found in the prevous games like stacking the skooma in morrowind or the dark brotherhood house party kill quest. vannilla player housing has also seen a massive drop to wat it used to be there are only like 3 houses you can have in skyrim while the other games had more.(dosent affect me tho playing on pc ) other then those i feel like skyrim is superior then its predesseors

Skyrim is a decent game. So long as you don't look at it as an ES game. So long as you don't try to compare it with Morrowind. They've done great one thing in Skyrim: subtly and gently delivering the message to old ES fans that those days are gone, that our world has changed, Tamriel has changed. Through lore updates, through small, subtle and heartbreaking, tearjerking encounters such as reading a journal found in some shipwreck and giving it to the last heir of a Dunmer Great House, or seeing a shack in slums, carrying the name of once glorious Dunmer Great House. Those hints are subtle, yet very clear. That glory is gone, both in ES lore, and in (gamers') world. At least, they cared to give us those little, sad bows of respect.

Once I stopped looking at Skyrim as a next installment of TES, Skyrim seems decent as a stand alone game. As decent as, say, Aion. Indeed, playing Skyrim feels much more like playing in a deserted server of some MMORPG. Pretty much the same features - gathering of craft materials, grinding, huge amount of repetitive shallow quests, some lore and some kind of main plot and subplots with no impact, no ability to change the world and no consequences of actions, and the list of similarities goes on. The only thing that is lacking, is multiplayer aspect. Other than that, it's on par with Aion. I used to enjoy Aion too, so no biggie for me. I just refuse to look at Skyrim as a TES world. Just some pretty looking time killer. Offline, this time around.

Look, I really like Skyrim much better than Morrowind and Oblivion, but I do feel Skyrim could be inproved by reintroducing a few of the traits of proir games that have been deleted. There are many, but I will only list a few that are easily verifiable by the OP.

1. Skyrim has no NPC disposition. No matter what you do the NPC will not like you more or less. Morrowind had a NPC disposition. Your actions affected it and there were consequences. You could get better/worse deals with merchants depending on their disposition (and you had to haggle). But there were deeper consequences than that. In Morowind, go to any mage guild and find the guild member who teleports you to other guilds. Lower their disposition to below 20. Many ways to do this. The easiest if you have a low speechcraft is to pursuade her and fail several times in a row. Now she won't teleport you anywhere no matter how much you pay her. Now go to a bandit cave. Charm/calm the bandit so it won't attack you. Now bribe the bandit until you get the bandit's disposition up to 100 (you don't have to bribe, there are other ways to raise disposition, but for a test bribing is easiest). Now when the spell wears off, the Bandit still won't attack you. Now do that to every Bandit in the cave. Now you can live as a bandit in a bandit cave. In Skyrim there is no NPC disposition. No one is caring what you do good or bad. Skyrim could be improved by reintroducing NPC disposition into the mix.

2. Skyrim has no guild skill level requirements for advancement and no ranks. In Morrowind, go to a guild, any guild. Join and try to advance in the guild without advancing any of the skills the guild holds dear. Pretty soon, the guild will tell you that you have done enough jobs for advancement, but you don't have the skills. That doesn't happen in Skyrim. Morrowind also has many more guilds and factions than Skyrim and some of them don't like each other, so joining one guild will make other guilds like you less. See #1 above.

3. Skyrim doesn't give you enough directions from the game world to complete most quests. Instead you have a magic "Jack Sparrow" compass with a quest arrow. In Skyrim, a typical quest will start with the NPC telling you that you need to get X, but they won't even give you a hint as to where to start looking. But you have a magical quest arrow you can follow. Sure, you can turn it off, but then what? Which way do you go? No clue. No go to Morrowind. Take a quest, any quest and notice the detailed instructions you are given. Notice that there is no quest arrow. Now I am not saying that Skyrim should not have a quest arrow. I am glad the quest arrow is there for those who want to use it, but for those of us who do not, there should be some more hints in the game world about how to do things so we can figure it out wihtout having to peek at the quest arrow.

Okay, that's three that I have given specific details for any one to verify. There are more, like spell making, a detailed quest journal, a wider variety of spells -- open, mark/recall, slowfall, jump and waterwalking are a few that come to mind (notice I didn't even say levitation cause that starts a whole new conversation), and many others listed by other folks.

I can understand this but for me, the ability to play a quality roleplaying game in a Norse setting is the best. Most Viking depictions are completely schlocky and I've learned to shun them, which is a bummer since it's an interest of mine. There is some schlock/ stereotype in Skyrim but enough details are true to the myth that it makes it heads above even other RPGs I love. I wish the Morrowind old-timers would remember that when they call the game "overrated." Not everyone's taste is the same.

This kind of argument makes it "sound arrogant and d-baggy". I could argue with you saying that you are wrong cause you are too attached to old things and nostalgic feelings and cannot see the quality of new games. Does it sound fair? I dont think so.

Edit: I'm curious, what are games really about?

Guess what..... if gamesas just made morrwind like games with the same features they would of went bankrupt by 2005...

You don't have to play the games to recognize that the focus of Bethesda, and actually the whole games industry, has changed. In the 90's gaming was smaller and well written adventure games were popular. There was more focus on story. Nowadays, gaming is much bigger. It's huge! And that means that the player base changed with it. And the rule of thumb with audiences for anything is that, the bigger they are, the more popular simple entertainment becomes. The Elder Scrolls is actually lucky in that less has changed over the years than with other things. But I can say that it was more important for Bethesda when making skyrim that it was user friendly, simple and fun than complex and well written. It's just a natural change. A pity though because the only thing modders can't change is dialogue, characters, voices and story. And the combat is still very bad. Bethesda actually ignores a lot of changes in game play from the last 10 years or so. And that's because they get by so well with the popularity of their free roam adventuring game play.

It does, but unfortunately I see no other way to put it that expresses quite exactly how I feel about this. You could, but that'd be a completely not plausible and invalid argument seeing as how it is a known fact that new games have been going downhill qualitywise. Again, it's not simply how I feel about new games, it's just a fact that for the most part, new games have not evolved qualitywise.

Instead of ranting for hours about what games are really about, I'm just gonna go ahead and ask if you have played and beaten Dark Souls.

Well, have you?



The only thing I disagree with you out of everything you have stated is the fact that "it's just a natural change".

Sure it's a natural change, if you're looking to make a lot more money, or if you're looking to get the MW3/WoW audience to play your game.

However, If your actual focus is to make a great game, that maintains or advances in actual gameplay/storyline/etc quality, then it is no longer a "natural change".

That is very true. It's the only reason I play TES games. No one else does it. Well Two Worlds tried, and not a bad attempt at that, but not quite as good as a TES game either.

Skyrim has disposition, it's just not visible as a number and accessible through a backwards rinse and repeat speech system. Do a favour for a NPC, now hover your crosshair over their stuff and notice how they will now let you take it without stealing. Improve your standing within a faction, again, you can now take equipment and stuff without breaking the law or upsetting anyone. All in all, disposition is at work behind the scenes. The bandit cave example serves as a great example of people imagining that there is actual content where there isn't. So now you live among bandits in a bandit cave, are there any caravans to raid? do you get soldiers or bounty hunters showing up? rival bands of bandits attempting to move into your territory? No, you are just in a cave with some non-hostile bandits, but in no way are you living AS a bandit.