what is your definition character development and how does Morrowind do it better? factions are better in morrowind... there really is no disputing that. I'm just curious why you get to choose 3 attributes of an open-world RPG and dismiss another 3. it's a matter of opinion but you are deadset on telling everyone Morrowind IS better.

I remember when I started seeing advertisemants for Fallout 3, and I flipped out. In my memory, Fallout and Fallout 2 were so enjoyable that the bar was really high for Fallout 3, even though so many years and technology separated the titles. I wasn't disappointed. Fallout 3 kept the same spirit and was a blast to play, so much so that I thought, hell, let me see if I can find Fallout and Fallout 2 and play those again.

Yeah, I found them. I played them for 5 minutes and was like, oh god, this is just awful. My point is this, and this is to all of you afflicted by it: nostalgia is inherently rose-tinted. You're remembering the best parts and ignoring the parts you didn't like.

I know, believe me, I know. Like many of you, I've been playing these ridiculous games for years... (I still have fond memories of filling up the entire Ultima 3 map with treasure chests.) These games go through evolutionary cycles. Some cycles produce things you like, some don't, but be honest, would you even be on this site if you didn't enjoy the game and or series at least a little?

If you're looking for a more brutal, hard core "numbers-based" experience, Dark Souls is worth a look. I put over 200 hours and at least a couple of controllers into that game, and had a blast. Now I'm having a blast catching butterflies and killing dragons, occasionally simultaneously.

>F5 this page for 20 minutes, waiting for Shegorath88′s answer to end this argument peacefully
>Sheogorat88 leaves
?_?

The real sad part is how you could sit me down in front of any Elder Scrolls game and i'll think to myself...This isn't Fallout 3.

Character development to me is creating a uniquely defined character and progressing them through the game.

In Skyrim, this is completely lacking. I basically decide what my character looks like at the start (not who they actually are), then when I level up, I alternate between Health and Stamina... which really doesn't say much about who my character is at all compared to attributes like strength, intelligence, etc (aside from the fact that they don't use magic). There are fewer skills, and skill progression seems almost completely reliant on perks, which should really be there to compliment attributes and skills, not to define your character wholly. The whole thing just feels so simple, and insufficient.

Morrowind's system wasn't exactly great either to be fair (though nohwere near as lacking as Skyrim's). Daggerfall has the character development system in the series, in my opinion.

...and there he completely disregards my post and keeps trying to convince people that he is right and other people aren′t...

Okay, I′m leaving this thread for good.

So if I′l just say: "You are wrong. Skyrim is better, the character creation is way better suited and realistic as you level up the stuff that you actually practiced instead of putting yourself into a pre-defined character from the beginning, limiting your own options and the number of possible playstyles, while the new system lets you create exactly the character that you want to be and actually, there are MORE ways to customize your character than there were in Morrowind, and furthermore, the exploration is a billion times better in Skyrim, and even though there are less factions, they are better-thought through tan in Morrowind and you can actually spend more time with them without getting bored, and this ALL APPLIES GLOBALLY and everyone who thinks differently than me is supid and wrong!", maybe you′ll be satisfied?

Have a nice day anyway.

F3 was brilliant. So was Planescape: Torment. I'll take this nostalgia trip with ya. But I think we have to be ready to be dazzled by new things, too. The environments in Skyrim are breathtaking. Do I want more story connections to the various henchmen/companions? Yep. Do I want my character to have a voice instead of being the silent text protagonist? Yep. Lots of things I'd like to make better, including some obvious bug issues. But none of that is really stopping me from appreciating the game as it is, at the moment. In a few months, something new will come out, and we'll be dazzled by that one, and the cycle will continue.

I don't know about you all but I was more in awe of the opening of Skyrim than Oblivion or Morrowind combined. Waking up on a carriage about to get beheaded only to find a huge friggin dragon attacking me with that epic music going was a lot better than waking up in a jail cell or boat.

Honestly, I don't think that you are wrong or simply being nostalgic when you harken back to the feeling you got from Morrowind. It WAS better at bringing you in...Skyrim is SOOOOO close to having it right, thats what bugs me the most outside of the silly "streamlining" of the UI, character system...There are real tangible reasons that classic novels or movies seem better somehow, timeless...and it's not necessarily nostalgia. The same is true for games. Also, Morrowind was not a first...just the best. Skyrim...come on, you're almost there...just a...little ...bit ....

Pretty much.

My character is an advlt when I start playing the game. They should be "pre-defined" to some extent. To me, that's far more realistic.

I could create the character I wanted to be in previous TES games. You know... there's that useful feature that lets you create your own class. And with more skills and attributes, it was much easier to get the exact character I wanted.




...

Well everyone has an opinion.
That being said, I do think Morrowind is a better game in some aspects.

I feel the same way. After a few hours of Skyrim I already felt like I had been there and done that already. I've played Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. From a technical standpoint Skyrim is a huge improvement over Morrowind, but then again, it's nearly 10 years newer. When I judge Morrowind by my standards of 2002 and Skyrim by my standards of 2011, Morrowind comes out ahead. It helps that I went into Morrowind without any expectations, but for me it's mostly about originality. Bethesda's later games pretty much just rehash the same formula.

Skyrim is a great game, but with so many other great games out I do sometimes wonder if my time would be better spent playing something that actually feels new to me.

See? The same way I react when reading YOUR arguments. Why can′t we simply have our opinions without shoving them up other peoples a??es?

Not quite, there's been plenty of single player RPGs but BGS rapidly became a large name. Morrowind was one of the top RPGs ever made at the time and a commercial/mainsteam success upon release both on PC and Xbox.

JRPGs are mostly the fault of WRPGs thankfully. As the easier to make and quicker cash in of the genre started killing off wRPG devs powerhouses like Interplay and studios under it's arsenal ala Black Isle and also people they published such as Bioware and Blizzard quickly charged forward with memorable games we know today and hail as classics.

Others such as the Eidos studios, Looking Glass, etc. also brung back wRPG interest in the 90s and insured the WRPG genre would thrive today and make JRPGs try to copy the western game flagships which in turn seems to of been their undoing.

Fallout was the hallmark title that single handedly saved the WRPG genre and profoundly brought back interest to developers even if selling a measily sum.

As for Morrowind, I consider it a sub-par RPG other than its world which was depicted fine enough and quite a bit mainstream give away to Daggerfall. MW to Oblivion was the progression of a road set by MW.

I do think it excells in a few things Skyrim didn't reach, most of them not even statistic/mechanic related but altogether I consider Skyrim BGS's best developed game since Daggerfall.

As a pure RPG Daggerfall stands though.

And when I mention Morrowind I compare it to Bethesda works only. I consider Morrowind largely a carrying on of the innovations of Ultima.

Bethesda is far from the legacy of Black Isle's works, far far away.

But I do believe they could of done worse from Morrowind so I'm content in their direction and hope criticizers and fans alike make them improve.

...because i'm right and you're wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJTBPdVpdMc

Try Dark Souls if you want a fantasy RPG experience that's TOTALLY different from Skyrim. It'll kick your teeth in for the first few hours, but once you get the hang of it, it's hellafun. It's a beast though, you've been warned.

This feeling is nothing new. I agree with your statement, but it's not the first time it's happened and it sure as hell wont be the last.

nothing new will ever replace an original. and 99% of the time it's not as good either. There is many good reasons for this theory.

people get irrationally attached to the first game in the series no matter what, even if the sequel is better in every way.
that is probably why most people like morrowind so much, for many it was probably the first in the series, and if it wasnt its so different then daggerdale and arena that its like a whole new game. people will most likely complain ( like it or not) if they remade morrowind with updated graphics and added voice acting, someone would complain that things look wrong, or sound wrong.
this is why remakes never seem to capture the original awesomeness
perfect dark remake is a good example, and recently the golden eye remake

If you don't like this thread, you didn't have to post in it. And, yes, how DARE someone have an opinion! We should all be mindless, soulless machines!

Anyway, OP, I totally get what you're saying. Morrowind was what really got me into gaming, and because of that I'll never feel the same way about another game. Even though it is better than Skyrim.

I am interested in what we may believe it to be changing into.

The RPG definition hasn't changed at all. The games have. Morrowind was, and still is, more of an RPG than Skyrim. I think the video gaming industry has realized that action-adventure games are what sell, so they're skewing the lines between other types of genres in order to put out unique action-adventure titles in the hopes that they'll gain mainstream popularity.

You can try to take the blame off Bethesda all you'd like, they're still entirely to blame. Instead of continuing to develop vast, complex RPGs, they're "streamlining" their games and limiting the amount of freedom we can enjoy. And they'll continue to do it, because that's what makes them money. Doesn't mean they're innocent though. They're were able to develop Oblivion with the money they made off Morrowind, so the RPG games we know and love certainly can grab them a nice profit -- it just isn't enough, apparently.

Morrowind fits into exactly what you stated and was created on the onset for everything you described. Conflict of interest in exactly what you'd like to believe while trying to defend a title you genuinly enjoy it honestly seems.

Refer to my previous posts for if you'd like to know my stance on the opinion and also my Skyrim initial impressions link in forewarn as I don't enjoy repeating things over and over as I have since Skyrim's announcement(At the time I quickly bashed everything other than Morrowind to get my point across. Was strange to everyone when I let my full opinion out of how Morrowind also fits the bill but lesser so than OB and F3) because I'm sure you'll expect me to back up my opinions.

I can think of plenty of game series where the first game I played isn't the one I consider to be best. GTA is a good example. I've played every GTA game since the first one came out in 1997, yet San Andreas is both my personal favourite and the one I consider to be the best.

The fact that Morrowind happens to be my first TES game really doesn't have much bearing at all on how I rank it among other TES games. It's number one because I consider it to be the better game. Daggerfall is number two even though I played it after Oblivion. If I genuinely thought Skyrim was a better game, then it would've gone above them all.

When I recall the TES games that I've played (which is all of them), the thing that rings true through most of them is that they do better replicating a classic RPG game system and environment than they do in creating an interesting story. I've never really been svcked into a TES *story*. Sure, there are lots of plots to explore, but I've never really connected deeply with them. The stories in Skyrim are occasionally entertaining, but not *riveting*. I don't even know if I know what the Oblivion story was about... there were an endless number of hell gates to close, but gawd, what a chore that ended up being. I don't honestly remember the stories for Daggerfall or Morrowind, or Arena.

But, I can tell you in detail the story behind Ultima 4, 5, (later ones were forgettable), Fallout 1 and 2, (and three, but that's recent)-- PS:T and the Nameless One, man, great story. A really interesting story makes a *huge* difference to a RPG's legacy. If you liked the story, you probably liked the game and may have been willing to overlook its flaws.