Having recently reinstalled Morrowind for the like, tenth time over the years, I was going back and fourth between the two games trying to see what exactly it was that made Morrowind feel like such a more innovative game, and when I was in a cornerclub in Balmora, I finally realized it. Perhaps I'm crazy, but this is my theory.

Let me start by saying this is not designed to bash people that don't like Morrowind. This is all opinionated on my point of view, and nothing is to put anybody down. I believe Morrowind and Skyrim are both great games.

Anyway, I've been going back and fourth comparing many game aspects, most notably NPC interaction and immersion. Upon speaking to a woman in the Balmora Cornerclub, she spoke to me saying something along the lines of "The Commona Tong doesn't like outlanders." *hint hint*. This is one of the lines, as well as many others, that made me think one thing. The thing that made Morrowind 'feel' so much more expansive and immense is a simple thing.

Morrowind's factions and politics are much more expansive, powerful, influential, and diversified.

Concept:

What does this mean? Well, think about your experience in Skyrim. How many NPCs have you 'not' met? Could you honestly say you've met pretty much every NPC in the game? Also, think about how many people are in each faction. As well, think about Skyrim's political makeup. Now let me compare this to Morrowind.

Skyrim is made up of Jarls within cities governing their holds, under the direction of a High King.

Morrowind is a political landmass made up of several different great houses and factions, each governing a great part of the province with several council positions, leaders, members, and influential powers, divided by the great houses and the influence of the Temple, led under the direction of the Tribunal, the three Demi-gods, Vivec, Almalexia, and Sotha Sil.

From these descriptions alone, Morrowind's political power standpoint is already much more varied and diverse. Which also makes it harder to grasp as a concept. There's a key term to this argument. Grasping a concept. Skyrim, as a province depicted in the fifth game of the installment, is easy to understand. There's nothing in the game that really makes you scratch your head and go "Wha? Wow." Each faction, group, and installment is fairly easy to understand. Greybeards, old men that shout and meditate with a history of past dragonborn. Blades, old group that used to protect the dragonborns and fight dragons. Stormcloaks, rebels against the Empire. All of these concepts are simple, and easy to get.

Now think of Morrowind. House Hlaalu. What's that? What do they stand for? Oh, they're in political standing with Telvanni and Redoran? What are they? The more I play Morrowind, I get a better understanding of these great houses, but I still feel like there's so much more to understand from them. While in Skyrim, all of the main groups are easily understood and grasped as concepts.

Power:

Now let's talk about political power. Anybody who has played Morrowind remembers the good old Ordinators. Warriors of House Indoril sent from the mainlands to protect the interests of the Temple. But nobody gets this impression at first glance. They give off an eerie presence and demeanor, and may even be considered 'sinister' at first glance. And this is a very small part of what can be considered political power.

Now I'm talking about power as an impression. How powerful does a group or individual 'feel', based on their actions and expansiveness? Think of Skyrim's Jarls. Now this is mainly in part due to Skyrim's inability to house more NPCs, but think about a Jarl's court. You have a Jarl, their Steward, their Bodyguard, their Thane, their Thane's housecarl, the Court Wizard, and the Captain of the Guard. That's literally 7 people that govern an entire city. Now add that along with the number of holds in Skyrim, 9. That's literally 72 people, governing an entire province.

Now think of Morrowind. Each great house has a great number of people involved within the organization. Let's talk about Telvanni for this example. The Telvanni branch in Vvardenfell had several councilors, along with an Arch Magister. Now each of them had about 20 people employed in their service. Then you have the citizens living in their hold. Then you have the people within other cities associated with their organization. This can easily equate to around 60-80 NPCS. The list of Telvanni members in Morrowind is...immense. This can be seen here. http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Morrowind:House_Telvanni#House_Telvanni_Members

Now that's one great house. You have 3 of those that are joinable, as well as 2 others in Lore, being Indoril and Dres. Add onto that the Temple and Empire. Being a player in morrowind, these organizations feel immense, powerful, and intimidating. If one were to make a rough estimate, that's at least 600 in-game NPCs you interact with, that govern the province of Morrowind.

So what am I getting at? Skyrim's political power feels so weak and unimportant because there's so few people associated with it. As well, those small political leading groups govern towns with very small populations. It feels more like a community group than a great city.

Conclusion (Or tl;dr)

In very, 'very', simplistic terms, Skyrim doesn't feel like a epic game because there's so few NPCs, with so little power. The thing, to me at least, that made Morrowind feel so immense was just the amount of information, people, and influences that were included with Morrowind's politics. In fact, I wager the writing for Morrowind took WAY longer than the writing for Skyrim, in terms of how politics work. Skyrim just feels like it's lacking in this field, because with so few NPCs and groups, it just feels small and unimportant. What good is being Dragonborn and saving the world if you're literally saving a world of...what, 150 people?

And I know it's hard for a game like Skyrim to include more NPCs and not suffer from preformance drops. But it's not just the NPCs, it's the number of people involved in the major groups of Skyrim. I guarantee if you ask most people who played both Skyrim and Morrowind which game was bigger, they'd tell you Morrowind 'felt' bigger, even if Skyrim's landmass was greater.

So how can this be fixed?

That's what still puzzles me. The increase in graphics is obviously what takes away from this key factor of immersion, as more npcs = more lag. Perhaps there is no real way to fix this, but this is just what I've observed going back and fourth from the games. So now I ask you guys, do you agree that this was a key factor to Morrowind's success? And what could we do to help Skyrim and later TES games improve on this?

you talk about morrowind a lot.

Morrowind, Morrowind, Morrowind.

Which makes sense because if people reading it in this forum aren't familiar with Skyrim, why are they even here?

Lol at the two post above your right about everything you said.

Morrowind had far better writing and quest. House Telvanni is by far the best quest line in this series.

Also your forgetting spell creation and far more spells.

That has nothing to do with the political powers in the games.



Thank you for the irrelevant posts.

How many copies of Morrowind sold?

How many copies of Skyrim sold?

Why would you think Beth would see any need to improve anything?

And as you can see by numerous comments in the threads, many people don't see much that needs to be improved.

And to be honest, if you're just looking for a game to relax with and you're into lightweight action, adventure and hiking ... Skyrim is a great game.

I know I still enjoy wandering around the world because Beth did, in my view, create a beautiful world to wander around in.

Each game has its flaws and its moments of triumph.

Another important aspect missing from the game, that is the point.

But regarding the political powers Morrowind gar the three great houses with all differnt quest and experiences they was all three vastly differnt in what you did not a copy pasted situation like the civil war quest.

Then there was the Tribunal Temple and the Ashlanders. Then there was Bloodmoon and he settlers that built Raven Rock. There was far more going on, and in Skyrim there is just the civil war two sides like I ass aid copy and lasted and the quest was very short and not very memorable at all.

Considering Morrowind's fanbase back then was much smaller...and a different generation...




Each game has room for improvement. I'm more curious on the things that made people like me love Morrowind so much, and how those features can be incorporated into newer games to make them even better.

< Not missing Morrowind at all personally. I'm enjoying Skyrim tons, and if I did want Morrowind, why I would simply just go play Morrowind.

Three reasons Skyrim sold better than Morrowind, Oblivion brought the series mainstream, then the hype of Skyrim was immense, the last reason is people was like oh dragons!

Things can always be improved Skyrim is lacking on content that was in past games, you improve things in a series not gut what needs to be fixed and cut features.

People are amazed by fluff graphical and otherwise.

I'm not saying turn Skyrim into Morrowind. I'm merely stressing a immersion factor that 'could' be implemented into Skyrim.

I feel like half of you missed the point of my rant.

This is why the Elder Scrolls is now about hiking simulation and less about depth or any kind of mechanical balance whatsoever. As the OP points out, Morrowind also had a more believable world, I think, because of all the underlying political machinations and what not.

I get what you are saying, I just don't agree with you.

You folks really don't read do you >_>

I mean, what doesn't click for you that the threads like these are to magnify and bring to attention strengths from past games so that they can be repeated rather than simply serve as a this is better than this?

He's correct, there was faaaaaaaaaaaaar more thought put into the array of Morrowind than Skyrim, and part of the reason of course is Like Star Trek before the new millennium had alot of talking a fluff BECAUSE they couldn't have space battles every other episode, same applies to the TES series. as Graphics goes up Writing goes down

Yes politically Morrowind is far more interesting.

But that's because Nords are dumb, and don't care for politics

So you don't think Skyrim needs to feel bigger and more powerful? You like the 8 man factions and leaderships? I wouldn't mind hearing your argument for this.

Skyrim has the best politics in TES EVER! The civil war and grey vs grey conflicts are way better then morrowinds, the proof is people debate 10 TIMES more about the civil war then the morrowind house conflicts.

If you haven't read this post, you should probably read it.

EDIT: Just making sure it's there for those of you who don't read.

.... ....

No.

Their debate and reasons come from them, none of the indept conversations stem from actual snippets from the game, all you hear in the game is don't confuse personal machinations born of the forum as reasons portrayed in the game that incite discussion.

...Uh, no, they really don't. The majority of Skyrim's civil war was "Ulfric doesn't like the empire. Ulric and his friends make a group to overthrow the Empire occupying Skyrim. They fight. One side wins."

Morrowind's house conflicts are much more in-depth, with leader corruption, house spies, Morag Tong influences, etc. Dunno where you're getting that debate thing from.

The motivateion and ideology, pros and cons to each side. Morrowind had these, yes I admit this, but It was generic, For example a great house that open to outsiders but corrupt.

Thats a completely biased statement, Thalmor playing both sides, Ulfric possibly being a Thalmor asset, Its actually a plot by the Thalmor to destroy nirn, its very complex.