Alas, I will never be able to experience TES again for the first time. The sense of freedom I experienced when I played Oblivion for the first time, I can never get it again. Oh, woe be mine.

As I notice post 200 approaching I want to thank everyone for participating in what was largely a constructive and insightful conversation. To everyone who provided thoughtful and flame free commentary, I applaud you.

Age definitely takes its toll. No matter which generation of gamer you are, those years when all these things were still new evokes a sense of the magic it all seemed to contain. Then we got used to it, and the shine went away. And so did childhood. Sigh.

Please excuse my poor english and grammar.

I started out with Daggerfall myself being 33.

I think the reason why many prefer Morrowind and others prefer Oblivion is that they are two completely different games the only thing they have in common is TES.

Morrowind being more rpg pen and paper game while Oblivion and especially Skyrim is more of a action fps game.

I know nobody plays Morrowind for the visuals or the combat system as it is simply terrible, even modded it would not be enough to make me play it again, however the fact that you HAVE to read the dialogue and books to have any clue whats going on around you, is what makes Morrowind terrific for me, some might find it as a major annoyance because theres no quest marker pointing to every single destination, but that is what you get for being raised with a Computer.

As vanilla Morrowind still takes the prize.

Modded Oblivion is my favorite as all the poor console design and flaws has been replaced by mods, i consider playing Oblivion with mods a must to fully enjoy it.

I fully agree with the OP , started video games on sega master system 2 and saw the industry evolve since , Morrowind was indeed immense in term of originality and freedom in an open environment when it came out compared to other games of the time , its complexity and impressive content really set this game apart ( aside from the excellent screenplay/writing and atmosphere of the game and of course the music of J.Soule ) .

I think that if we ever get to have a "Morrowind" impression again , it will be a game that will dwarf the current games on the market in term of quantity and quality of the content , not the just the technical aspects like graphics .


Beyond the nostalgia , if we anolyze the evolution between the latest Elder scrolls titles , apart from the graphics (since obviously , a newer game will always look better ) , what has remained is the concept of letting the player immerse in a fantasy environment and live his own life and what is new compared to Morrowind , is the emphasis on action and dungeons

However speaking about immersion , if we compare Morrowind with Skyrim on a few elements that influence immersion we can still note that :


- For the number of objects , weapons , books , items in general : Skyrim has not been an improvement in this matter compared to Morrowind , and in such an open world game , the greater the complexity and amount of objects , the better the immersion in this world is ( other factors influence immersion but this one is important )

- Large cities and population of the world : Skyrim has lots of very well designed dungeons , but even 10 years later , we are yet to see even a single large city (remember Vivec ) , which is really lacking IMHO , instead Skyrim like the FallOut series has "hamlet" sized locations with on average no more npc than in Morrowind . Locations like Solitude should be the smallest "city" you could visit in an "ideal" TES title IMHO .

- Complexity of the magic system and alchemy : Let's face it , Magic is a very important part of the elder scrolls world ("at the beggining of the world , there was magic ..." ) , and i think we can only notice that the magic system has been simplified compared to previous title instead of being expanded , however it is more fun to fight with since Oblivion

- RPG content : The guilds in Skyrim still have a couple of quest and the radiant quest system adds to the lifespan of the game , however here again , the Guilds quest lines are still far , far shorter than in Morrowind , some concepts like Vampires and Werewolf for example could have been so much more (they could have added clans , with long quest lines , for instance say in Blackreach which is a vast underground area in Skyrim ) , somehow there is a sense of the game not being finished in this regard , but objectively there has not been an improvement from Morrowind in this regard , more like a regression to be honest (less stuffs to do to put it bluntly , less guilds/clans , less unique quests )


But it's just a few aspects of the game , there are others and Skyrim 's emphasis obviously was on action and visuals , Skyrim is massively superior to Morrowind (logically ) in this regard , the dungeons and art design is first class and the gameplay more fluid , but in my opinion if the Next Elder scrolls title wants to recapture the "Morrowind " feeling and set a new standard , it will have to work on the aspects i described , cause so since Morrowind , the "formula" of Bethesda has not changed , they tried their best to make the game sells better and thus more appealing to the console market (fluid gameplay , action , simplicity , good graphics ) , but hopefully Bethesda ( or another developper ? ) will produce a game that will be a "revolution" in RPG games like Morrowind was in its day

Couldn't have stated it better myself

Vivec isn't even a city, it's a large plain area with few caves.

I honestly don't see what all the hype is about with Morrowind. Im 32 years old and have been gaming since atari/commodore 64, I have played many games good and bad, my resume ranges longer than 5 pages worth of games. Ultima Series was one of my favorites, specifically Ultima Online circa 1996 (before they crapped all over the game). Honestly, Im as cynical a person as they come when it goes down to anolyzing games and picking apart the crap from the good stuff. Morrowind was a great game for me but it wasn't any better than Daggerfall, Oblivion or Skyrim but thats my opinion. Morrowind was an easy game, you could basically level all of your skills to 100 without having to leave the starting area, some skills you could simply train up to 100 without having to spend much gold on. Once you had 100 in a few skills there was very little challenge to the game at all, no real nostalgia to discovering new places because the odds were that I could finish them without taking a single point of damage. The game was more linear too unless you had levitate the game tried to funnel you through a series of mountain ranges that were all progressive in how the difficulty scaled, almost like Legend of Zelda in terms of linearity. Worst of all, the UI was horrible, you had to click and drag stuff around your inventory just to organize it and the icons were so small at high resolution that it hurt my eyes.

Sure, Morrowind was revolutionary at the time in terms of the graphic and enviornments it offered, very unique and very well done. The music score was also great, one of the greatest of any game I have played. But when it came down to gameplay, combat, predictabilty, bad UI (Morrowind used the same UI that games in the 90's used), easy leveling, easy to get rich quick, millions of ways to break the game (people think Skyrim is bad, but its not nearly as bad as Morrowind when it comes to breaking the game), etc.

I guess if you like pretty graphics and unique, almost sci-fi looking enviornments then Morrowind was probably a game you would rate highly. For me, it doesn't crack my top 15 best games ever played. Skyrim has already cracked this and I currently have it at number 6 all time, as far as my tastes go. And im an old man, the nostalgia factors simply do not work on me.

It's not just your generation. I'm ten years older and I truly believe that 10-12 years ago was the golden age of PC gaming. There was so much innovation and creativity - so many good ideas that failed because of bugs or poor execution, so many great games that have since been watered down and given prettier graphics.

Morrowind,
Rogue Spear
Ghost Recon
GTA3
Black and White
American McGee's Alice
Shogun: Total War
Homeworld
Baldur's Gate
Omikron
Tropico
Operation Flashpoint

I truly believe it's not just my age that makes me less excited about newer games. I feel that in spirit, Beth is still aiming for the high bar set by its predecessors while other makers are just looking to make a quick buck off recent trends.

There is definately alot more crap being made these days but there are also tons more companies making games than there was in the 90's. In the 90's we still had the same rate of good games coming out as we do today, the difference is that back then we didn't have to sift through all the garbage to get to the good ones.

Personally, I think that any gamer who has been at it for more than a decade should have a pretty good sense of which titles are going to be good and which one's won't be before even buying the game. The only thing keeping some of these companies in business today is the compulsive buying that is going on, gamers who feel like they must have every title even if said title is simply a rehash of 10 other games; or worse, a rehash of the exact same game made 1 year prior.

Games are still as great as they were even 20 years ago, hell, I think they're better now than ever.

Haha I'm only 18 but Morrowind was definately the game that drew me into the series. xD The depth, the insane lore and how it was presented (numerous books and views having to be pieced together rather than just "back 200 years ago" etc.), being able to go and do what I pleased. The fact almost every NPC had a name, the ability to leap from building to building, I dunno...

It was the most magical, perfect game I ever played.

Since then, I've bought every Bethesda made game to date. :3 Oblivion was great as well I thought, just not as in-depth lore wise. I had many many hours of fun with it, but it felt like a new experience rather than a sequel. Skyrim to me feels like both the sequel of Morrowind and Oblivion combining the great parts of both. :3

Have a beer, bro.

It's like you're speaking my thoughts exactly! I have brushed on this subject in another topic (best TES game, but topics go fast here). While i thoroughly enjoy Skyrim and i love every second of it, it didn't have that magical spark that Morrowind had. Delving into that, it's not so much the graphics (wich were good at the time), the characters or the story of Morrowind, but it was the right game, for the right person at the right time (that goes for alot of TES fans i know in the same age group).

The boundaries, all gone! I remember that i loaded up a save, planned out something i had to do with the interactive Morrowind map i got from the Interwebz and really geared up for travel. Remembering that i came across a quiet and seemingly peaceful farming land after having a harrasing and tough journey through the utterly alien landscape that is Vvardenfell. Just looking for something to loot. The joy of finding a new backwater far-away village.

Also, this might be going on a limp here, there is a certain elitism about being a Morrowind fan at the time. I recommended this game to every game fan i knew then and most of them, and i really do mean most, didn't like it. The levelling system was 'weird', there is no 'main quest', it's too overwhelming/vague, can't figure out what to do. The people who actually spend some time and effort knew these problems not to be, it was eerily similar to a test of will and endurance. If you got over the beginning part of the game you're in for a great experience (hence, us still talking about it today). Those who didn't like it went out and did something else. They never found their 'hatch'.

Cheers for Morrowind!

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