Arcanum and Morrowind are still unsurpassed

[vota DC]

Never played arcanum but being half Ogre because half orcs aren't huge enough seems a very interesting concept, I mean half orcs are just humans with more muscles.

OpenMW > Morrowind

Can you side with Dagoth Ur?

 

[Ol' Willy]

For healing just use Virgil

Well if you play a tech dwarf build (which you probably should if you want to go tech), then you soon reach a very high tech-aptitude and Virgil will stop trying to heal you (and even if he does it has a high chance of failure). I'd say molotovs are not that reliable if you don't invest in throwing, but salves are very good, the ingredients are cheap and widely available.

When I played dwarf gunslinger I just invested one point into the healing spell and healed myself. Self-healing worked even with 100% technical aptitude

 

[jackofshadows]

Well if you play a tech dwarf build (which you probably should if you want to go tech), then you soon reach a very high tech-aptitude and Virgil will stop trying to heal you (and even if he does it has a high chance of failure). I'd say molotovs are not that reliable if you don't invest in throwing, but salves are very good, the ingredients are cheap and widely available.

That's why I said "worthless intellect": combat stats first, 2 points in gunsmith + 5 firearms - way less than Virgil's healing won't work and by then it's not a problem anyway but char points are saved. He can also heal with bandages, even it's not quite effective w/o apprentice perk.

 

[Molina]

Thank you JarlFrank. You understand my curse.

 

[JarlFrank]

I like how this thread devolved into BG1 vs BG2 arguments because nobody can prove my thesis wrong

 

[Hag]

Hitler.

Better or worse than BG1 ?

 

[Demo.Graph]

I like how this thread devolved into BG1 vs BG2 arguments because nobody can prove my thesis wrong

These two games have been sitting on their throne for twenty years, and in all that time nobody has even attempted to dethrone them. Pretty much every RPG released since offers less than these two games, rather than more.

Actually, there were Bloodlines. They're smaller, more American and at least as flawed as the other two. And they've managed to give me the same sense of wonder. That was a "social" wonder, not an explorer one. And there were less secrets. But still... I still remember my first walkthrough, where I've managed to get possibility to choose from all endings.

 

[zool]

No game has done guilds better than Morrowind.

There are 16 joinable guilds (20+ in total) with detailed backgrounds and conflicts between them...

...and the fact that you can collect head titles like stamps basically abolishes everything good about them. At least the devs were bold (I guess, or should I say smart?) to separate the joinable great houses.

Fortunately, because this is Morrowind, mods fixed it (18 years later).

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/another-morrowind-mod-list-rp-and-content-mods.131433/

More Exclusive Factions by AliceL93 and Lucevar: seriously restricts faction membership, taking into account lore and common sense, so that you can't join (and become leader of) nearly every faction of Vvardenfell. Making many of the factions mutually exclusive forces you to choose more carefully where your allegiances lie, and adds more roleplay flavour to a playthrough. Are you a common sellsword, a loyal citizen doing your duty to the Empire, or an honorable warrior seeking to prove yourself and gain glory for your House? Do you believe in the Three, or in the Nine? Will your partake in political life as a member of one of the native Dunmer factions, or help regulate it as an assassin for the Morag Tong? Also include flavorful dialogue for faction refusals.

Note: check the mod page and comments for a list of mutually exclusive factions and reasoning behind it. This mod will seriously restrict the number of quests that are available to the player but 1. there are still tons of quests in the game and 2. this mod does a wonderful job at forcing you to roleplay your character in a believable way rather than joining every faction for loot.

 

[luj1]

mods fixed it (18 years later).

There was probably at least one mod that does this for every year since release.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Will there ever be something to surpass them?

Well, there's sex. Now if you mean in the CRPG department, I wouldn't hold my breath.

 

[Funposter]

The time has come.

Hitler.

Right idea, but an underachiever.

 

[honko]

In my opinion, Morrowind is a very poor RPG

 

[jackofshadows]

I like how this thread devolved into BG1 vs BG2 arguments because nobody can prove my thesis wrong

Alright, instead of more angry shitposting I will try to address some of your points based on personal experience with RPGs.

Both games offer a huge amount of freedom in character building, and allow you to fuck it up without artificially safeguarding you from bad choices.

It's not the case in Morrowind. You can always grind and "fix" your build at least to a high degree. The only two major choices at start are the race and the sign. So, you can still gimp your mage-type char by not choosing atronach/altmer for example but that's the extend of it. Level scaling which is suppose to punish you for your mistakes can only make your life harder so much an even become obsolete since 23lvl or so in theory but in practice it's barely matter at all. Especially since you can always raise and use "misc" skills and don't even care about level scaling. Also those two major choices at start are barely matter because the game is very easy in general. Moreover, it's true for Arcanum as well mostly thanks to possibility of raising attributes along the way but to a far lesser degree due to race limitations and mentioned in OP tech/magic aptitude. To summarize, there's much harsher RPGs in this regard nowadays and the prime examples are very well known around here: UnderRail and The Age of Decadence.

There hasn't been any RPG since Arcanum that has NPCs react to your character's race/attributes/sex so consistently as Arcanum. Nowhere else do your character creation choices make such a clear difference as in Arcanum.

There was an RPG which could easily challenge Arcanum in that regard but it was made by the same people and called Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines.

You can kill EVERY essential questgiver NPC

The Outer Worlds gives this opportunity as well. Does it make the game better? Hardly. In Arcanum, even if the ability to go full murder hobo was nice, the brilliance of this design manifested itself because the key characters were so well written and fleshed out. And the possibility of summoning their spirits and get your answers through torture was truly something else. Ironically, the other game in question, fails at this miserably. At least plot NPCs weren't immortal yet.

Nobody else has even attempted to go anywhere near Arcanum's quality in this aspect.

Arguably, UnderRail. I take it you haven't played it. As in Arcanum, most of quests are straightforward there but few are truly amazing and inherit that very design. More related to the set of skills since there's no races but more than just that. Unexpected reaction on having quest item already is there for certain, acknowledgement of the chosen sex is there as well.

And then there's the secrets. Arcanum has so much hidden content, that isn't impossible to find because there's enough hints for it, but it never holds your hand. Dialogue options that result from a high INT or CHA score aren't tagged as such! You have to realize that this is a smart thing to say by yourself!

This, to be honest, sounds pretty outdated. Even Pillars of Eternity (or was it only the sequel?) had the option to hide the tags already and what's more important, counting it as a clear advantage is controversial. It's a RPG we're talking about after all: how much do you want to hand over to the player himself and what to strictly tie to your char's progression system? As for hidden content, UnderRail once again. You'd be amazed to what extremes the devs went with that one (even involvement of random and ties to the highest difficulty aside).

The Imperial Cult questline even has some "oracle quests" where you are sent to retrieve artifacts, and their location is described to you in vague descriptions of the surrounding landscape. There are, of course, no quest markers for anything in this game. Only descriptions of how to get there: follow this road, take a right after the bridge, etc etc. You have to actually look at your surroundings to find your way, and the game allows you to get lost in the wilderness. Modern games don't allow you to get lost, they always put some markers into your interface to point the way. When I replayed Morrowind years after last playing it, it felt so incredibly refreshing to just be lost with only a vague idea on how to get where I wanted to be.

Guess which game comes to mind? Yes, UnderRail yet again. Even, I repeat, EVEN with the auto-map sometimes it's a real jorney just to get somewhere remote. But the game hasn't had the map on release and long time after while being huge. Reading through various complains about it was amusing as fuck back then. And some still consider that introducing auto-map made the game worse. Personally I would even tend to agree with them if expansion wouldn't be so damn big on its own.

Morrowind's equipment system is awesome, too, and apart from very few exceptions I can count on half a hand (Kingdom Come Deliverance, Neo Scavenger) no other RPG has ever implemented anything like it. Armor is split into different parts and can be layered with clothing. There are 16 individiual equipment slots in this game. 16.

Well, there was also Rage of Mages (1998!) which featured double-layered armor and it was beyond cool. It's also worth mentioning that in WoW there's 16 slots counting 2 weapon slots and not counting 2 optional cosmetic ones. I wonder if it was inspired by TES in any degree or not. But what's important is that in WoW and I'm sure other MMOs which was inspired by it that's matter while in Morrowind - not really. Due to difficulty issue. What's the point of gathering full daedric armor (even if it was indeed a cool journey on its own) and then enchant all of it?

As for the lore/immersion - highly subjective, I'd say we rather suffered from too many bland uninspired fantasy-like settings (essentially thanks to one thing: motherfucking DnD). And genre being half-dead in general. See also: TESO. Something tells me you haven't played Morrowind expansion despite it takes place guess where. And lastly, UnderRail has pretty fascinating lore and it takes some effort to actually reveal its details.

 

[Harthwain]

As for the lore/immersion - highly subjective, I'd say we rather suffered from too many bland uninspired fantasy-like settings (essentially thanks to one thing: motherfucking DnD). And genre being half-dead in general.

This is easy to explain: by trying to copy the most popular thing you hope people will be more likely to pick your game up as a good enough substitute in place of the real thing. Making something of your own takes time, effort and creativity.

Great thing about Morrowind was that its lore reinforced its narrative, with you being a stranger in a strange land (or, to be more precise; an outlander). And the natives were always keen to remind you of that by dropping various remarks. I know it was automated and essentially meaningless, but little things like that really added up to make the whole experience more immersive. Another good example is Gothic - the premise is very simple (even stupidly so), but it's really well executed: the Barrier acts like a natural limit to where you can go, the ore is a currency, etc. Again you can see how lore is reinforcing narrative.

 

[Lacrymas]

Unsurpassed in being overrated.

 

[Shaki]

Arcanum is never going to be surpassed, even back then Troika was something special, but in current times and going forward, there is absolutely no way that someone can get a team as talented and as passionate about their work at the same time, and have them work at such ambitious projects. Demand for great RPG games is simply too low to justify that, it can only end up in financial failure.

There is space in the market for smaller studios, to make good games, don't be too ambitious, focus only on the most important parts, keep the costs low. It can be sustainable and produce enjoyable games. But if you want to go bigger, you have to sacrifice quality and cater to the mass market, become one of the soulless corporate machines, pumping garbage for casuals, that's the only way to stay afloat.

We were given some true gems in the past, when studios still were led by dreamers, when they thought by creating truly outstanding games, they could achieve financial success, which would let them create even better games... They were able to make those masterpieces, because they believed that whatever sacrifice they made in the process, it would turn out to be worth it. But they were proven wrong. Now we know, it just doesn't work like that, and to achieve greatness similar to some of those oldschool games, a studio would have to consciously put itself on a road to failure, which is not going to happen. We had one Golden Age, we're never going to get another. Now the only way forward for RPG fans is to either accept that, and be content with simply good, less ambitious games that small devs can still produce, or keep hopelessly looking for that greatness that we experienced in the past, forever unsatisfied.

 

[Bigg Boss]

Arcanum is never going to be surpassed, even back then Troika was something special, but in current times and going forward, there is absolutely no way that someone can get a team as talented and as passionate about their work at the same time, and have them work at such ambitious projects. Demand for great RPG games is simply too low to justify that, it can only end up in financial failure.

There is space in the market for smaller studios, to make good games, don't be too ambitious, focus only on the most important parts, keep the costs low. It can be sustainable and produce enjoyable games. But if you want to go bigger, you have to sacrifice quality and cater to the mass market, become one of the soulless corporate machines, pumping garbage for casuals, that's the only way to stay afloat.

We were given some true gems in the past, when studios still were led by dreamers, when they thought by creating truly outstanding games, they could achieve financial success, which would let them create even better games... They were able to make those masterpieces, because they believed that whatever sacrifice they made in the process, it would turn out to be worth it. But they were proven wrong. Now we know, it just doesn't work like that, and to achieve greatness similar to some of those oldschool games, a studio would have to consciously put itself on a road to failure, which is not going to happen. We had one Golden Age, we're never going to get another. Now the only way forward for RPG fans is to either accept that, and be content with simply good, less ambitious games that small devs can still produce, or keep hopelessly looking for that greatness that we experienced in the past, forever unsatisfied.

This is bullshit. Studios are still led by dreamers they are just broke and usually make one or two games then go bankrupt. They aren't at Bioware, Bethesda, EA, Ubisoft, Activision, Konami, Capcom, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo...the people that make things like UnderRail exist. All the classic games did not come at once. It took time. I am shocked UnderRail and AoD and Atom even exist but they do. Basically you are wrong. You are in the bubble. The greatness was due to the era we lived in being the foundation of the genre we like. Creative people did not vanish off the Earth. Starting a company is expensive and basically 90 percent of the people that try fail.

 

[Shaki]

Arcanum is never going to be surpassed, even back then Troika was something special, but in current times and going forward, there is absolutely no way that someone can get a team as talented and as passionate about their work at the same time, and have them work at such ambitious projects. Demand for great RPG games is simply too low to justify that, it can only end up in financial failure.

There is space in the market for smaller studios, to make good games, don't be too ambitious, focus only on the most important parts, keep the costs low. It can be sustainable and produce enjoyable games. But if you want to go bigger, you have to sacrifice quality and cater to the mass market, become one of the soulless corporate machines, pumping garbage for casuals, that's the only way to stay afloat.

We were given some true gems in the past, when studios still were led by dreamers, when they thought by creating truly outstanding games, they could achieve financial success, which would let them create even better games... They were able to make those masterpieces, because they believed that whatever sacrifice they made in the process, it would turn out to be worth it. But they were proven wrong. Now we know, it just doesn't work like that, and to achieve greatness similar to some of those oldschool games, a studio would have to consciously put itself on a road to failure, which is not going to happen. We had one Golden Age, we're never going to get another. Now the only way forward for RPG fans is to either accept that, and be content with simply good, less ambitious games that small devs can still produce, or keep hopelessly looking for that greatness that we experienced in the past, forever unsatisfied.

This is bullshit. Studios are still led by dreamers they are just broke and usually make one or two games then go bankrupt. They aren't at Bioware, Bethesda, EA, Ubisoft, Activision, Konami, Capcom, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo...the people that make things like UnderRail exist. All the classic games did not come at once. It took time. I am shocked UnderRail and AoD and Atom even exist but they do. Basically you are wrong. You are in the bubble. The greatness was due to the era we lived in being the foundation of the genre we like. Creative people did not vanish off the Earth. Starting a company is expensive and basically 90 percent of the people that try fail.

Games like Underrail, AOD are Atom are some of the best RPGs in recent times (Underrail is imho THE best modern RPG), but they still aren't even close in scope and ambition to projects like Arcanum - which is not a bad thing, since this is how they can survive and keep producing good games. They are primes examples of those smaller studios that I talked about in my post - "There is space in the market for smaller studios, to make good games, don't be too ambitious, focus only on the most important parts, keep the costs low. It can be sustainable and produce enjoyable games.".

 

[Bigg Boss]

Arcanum is never going to be surpassed, even back then Troika was something special, but in current times and going forward, there is absolutely no way that someone can get a team as talented and as passionate about their work at the same time, and have them work at such ambitious projects. Demand for great RPG games is simply too low to justify that, it can only end up in financial failure.

There is space in the market for smaller studios, to make good games, don't be too ambitious, focus only on the most important parts, keep the costs low. It can be sustainable and produce enjoyable games. But if you want to go bigger, you have to sacrifice quality and cater to the mass market, become one of the soulless corporate machines, pumping garbage for casuals, that's the only way to stay afloat.

We were given some true gems in the past, when studios still were led by dreamers, when they thought by creating truly outstanding games, they could achieve financial success, which would let them create even better games... They were able to make those masterpieces, because they believed that whatever sacrifice they made in the process, it would turn out to be worth it. But they were proven wrong. Now we know, it just doesn't work like that, and to achieve greatness similar to some of those oldschool games, a studio would have to consciously put itself on a road to failure, which is not going to happen. We had one Golden Age, we're never going to get another. Now the only way forward for RPG fans is to either accept that, and be content with simply good, less ambitious games that small devs can still produce, or keep hopelessly looking for that greatness that we experienced in the past, forever unsatisfied.

This is bullshit. Studios are still led by dreamers they are just broke and usually make one or two games then go bankrupt. They aren't at Bioware, Bethesda, EA, Ubisoft, Activision, Konami, Capcom, Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo...the people that make things like UnderRail exist. All the classic games did not come at once. It took time. I am shocked UnderRail and AoD and Atom even exist but they do. Basically you are wrong. You are in the bubble. The greatness was due to the era we lived in being the foundation of the genre we like. Creative people did not vanish off the Earth. Starting a company is expensive and basically 90 percent of the people that try fail.

Games like Underrail, AOD are Atom are some of the best RPGs in recent times (Underrail is imho THE best modern RPG), but they still aren't even close in scope and ambition to projects like Arcanum - which is not a bad thing, since this is how they can survive and keep producing good games. They are primes examples of those smaller studios that I talked about in my post - "There is space in the market for smaller studios, to make good games, don't be too ambitious, focus only on the most important parts, keep the costs low. It can be sustainable and produce enjoyable games.".

That scope made Arcanum review like shit, sell like shit, and everyone went out of business. I just think the comment that these people suddenly stopped being passionate after the 90's is based on nostalgia. No, the price suddenly skyrocketed to develop software after the 90's. All of a sudden you needed 200 people to make a shitty game.

Arcanum still sells like shit.

 

[Shaki]

That scope made Arcanum review like shit, sell like shit, and everyone went out of business. I just think the comment that these people suddenly stopped being passionate after the 90's is based on nostalgia. No, the price suddenly skyrocketed to develop software after the 90's. All of a sudden you needed 200 people to make a shitty game.

Arcanum still sells like shit.

I never said that people stopped being passionate. My argument was never about it. Passionate devs simply learned from the mistakes of studios like Troika - because, like you said, being too ambitious made them go out of business. That's why successful devs these days, who are passionate and want to keep producing good games, stay small and more focused. They abandoned the idea of growing bigger and bigger, and creating better and better games, pushing boundaries. They don't reach for greatness, they're content with their games being just good, as they learned that's the only viable way to survive in this market, without selling your soul.

Studios like Troika would go wild with their passion. New generation of devs simply keeps it in check.

But yeah, while this will let them produce good rpgs for a long time, and let us enjoy good rpgs for a long time, it also means that they will not reach the same highs, and old games will remain forever unsurpassed.

 

[Kainan]

So in other words, everything is shit and decline.

 

[Darth Canoli]

There is nothing more important for a game than good quest and encounter design, both of these go hand in hand.

And that's why you put Morrowind and Arcanum on a pedestal...

Arcanum: Good quest design, no encounter design (average combat system overall)

Morrowind ... There's absolutely nothing there...

 

[Ravielsk]

Arcanum is never going to be surpassed, even back then Troika was something special, but in current times and going forward, there is absolutely no way that someone can get a team as talented and as passionate about their work at the same time, and have them work at such ambitious projects. Demand for great RPG games is simply too low to justify that, it can only end up in financial failure.

There is space in the market for smaller studios, to make good games, don't be too ambitious, focus only on the most important parts, keep the costs low. It can be sustainable and produce enjoyable games. But if you want to go bigger, you have to sacrifice quality and cater to the mass market, become one of the soulless corporate machines, pumping garbage for casuals, that's the only way to stay afloat.

We were given some true gems in the past, when studios still were led by dreamers, when they thought by creating truly outstanding games, they could achieve financial success, which would let them create even better games... They were able to make those masterpieces, because they believed that whatever sacrifice they made in the process, it would turn out to be worth it. But they were proven wrong. Now we know, it just doesn't work like that, and to achieve greatness similar to some of those oldschool games, a studio would have to consciously put itself on a road to failure, which is not going to happen. We had one Golden Age, we're never going to get another. Now the only way forward for RPG fans is to either accept that, and be content with simply good, less ambitious games that small devs can still produce, or keep hopelessly looking for that greatness that we experienced in the past, forever unsatisfied.

Thing is Troika was sabotaged from outside. Its first two games (Arcanum and Temple of elemental evil) both received so little marketing that they were obscure pretty much from day one which naturally sabotaged their sales. I myself learned of their existence only years later when Arcanum was packaged with a gaming magazine I was subscribed to at the time. You could argue that it was partially Troikas fault for trying to make CRPGS just when they were going out of style but the same definitely does not apply to VTMB.

Being their last game VTMB was sabotage entirely by Activision. At the time Activision was already huge and they were very much aware that the game was not ready for launch but forced it out because of "muh quarters". Worse yet they forced it out to compete with Half-life 2. They did not even wait a week or so, no they forced it out shoulder to shoulder with Half-life 2. Even if VTMB was a bug free experience on launch that alone would have rendered it a complete failure. Meaning that Activision consciously burned whatever their investment into the game was with absolutely no chance of recuperation. From the info I could find Troika needed like a month or so to fix up the game and maybe in that time HL2 hype would have died down enough for the game to have a chance, it could have in fact worked in its favor as people might have been more interested in more source games after finishing HL2. Instead the early launch sank both the game and Troika. The actual quality of the(ir) game(s) had little to do with their failure as a company.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

I've returned to Arcanum recently after nearly 10 years. I didn't finish it at the time, now I want to. Although the game clearly feels unfinished at times, I don't remember any RPG that gave you such a breadth of options for your character.

Because I'm a compulsive tinkerer, I'm also looking into changing some things that clearly hinder the experience. I've looked at the description of a couple of "rebalancing" mods, but they seem to go into a different direction than I was expecting(longer combat, changing mechanics). This is the reason for this post, as I didn't want to make a second different Arcanum thread on the first General RPG section while I got nothing to show for it. Most importantly, I'd appreciate advice.

In a couple of hours works, these are the things I've changed so far:

- Harm costs 2x fatigue, damage range has been reduced and it's now useless against undead and machines.
- Agility of Fire, Strength of Earth, Vitality of Air, Purity of Water had their effects halved. Purity of water can't be stacked (I didn't even know these could be stacked until I looked into the files).
- The "identify" spell, Divine Magic, is now the second spell of its school. I think putting it first would be too much.
- Modified the experience tables for slightly less XP for killing monsters (you shouldn't go up 5 levels for clearing the Tarant Sewers, lol)

Obviously, guns need to be buffed up. I have little experience with gunslinger characters (and various others), but I think it's logical for them to be strong in the beginning (if not slightly OP), then less comparatively advantageous but still versatile later. That is, if you don't know how to fight, a gun should be better than a sword. If you're an expert, they should be about the same. I haven't begun doing this, but I think it'd be pretty trivial with the right approach. Input would be appreciated.

I haven't messed around with the World Editor much yet, but I think it'd also be trivial (although time consuming) to remove some of the trash mobs from some areas. I'm looking at a 40% reduction of mobs in the Tarant Sewers and some later areas (that I don't remember anymore). I'm not sure if it's possible to tinker with the random encounter frequency, I'd like that toned down a little, although not removed.

I'll try to make traps stronger, which should also help rehabilitate Detect Traps a little bit. I'm not sure how to balance Prowling or Backstab, as I think most properties for those are hardcoded. I've never played a backstab character in Arcanum because backstab is already broken in every game that isn't nearly as broken as Arcanum, so why bother?

Another one of my gripes is the >= 20 stat bonuses for things like Strength which are completely ridiculous, destroy challenge and make you deal more damage with a dagger than with anything else (for the sole reason that it's faster). This is hardcoded and I don't think I can modify it in particular ways, but I've looked up some threads on Terra-Arcanum and I'm fairly sure I can remove it with some hexediting. I'd also remove all the >= 20 stat bonuses for symmetry, but I'm unsure, as some of those are cool from a RP perspective. For reference:

Strength -- Double damage bonus
Dexterity -- Speed is 25 (+1 per point over 20)
Constitution -- Poison Immunity
Beauty -- Reaction Modifier is +100% (+10% over 20)
Intelligence -- +10% to the success rate of every Skill
Perception -- Sense invisible
Willpower -- Immune to any Spell resisted by Willpower
Charisma -- 100% loyalty: followers will never flee from your side and will only leave if you ask them to, never on their own accord

Only ST really breaks the game. CHA too, but in a cool way. I think the problem with DEX is that you can stack it with other bonuses, so you'll have even higher values that shouldn't be possible. So maybe I just remove ST and look for a way to cap DEX?

I'm not looking into AI, quests and whatnot, I'm a busy man with 10 baby mamas and I want to keep things simple. At least for now. What else needs to be changed?

 

[Sigourn]

And Morrowind was even worse. Another terrible combat system, boring dialogues and NPCs, dead-feeling world, exploration that should've been good due to what the OP described, but actually was far worse because of location copy-pasta.

Morrowind is the most overrated RPG of all time (short of Skyrim, but that one don't count).
For every praise one has for Morrowind, there's a negative that casts a shadow of a doubt on that positive. People talk wonders about many RPGs I haven't played, but when I see them talk wonders about Morrowind I really have to doubt how great those RPGs I haven't played actually are.

Morrowind's combat is bad, Morrowind's dialogue is awful, Morrowind's exploration is rather mediocre, particularly compared to Gothic. In Gothic, finding a potion lying around was great. In Morrowind, finding a dungeon (with "finding" being a grandiose word for "running into one of those dungeons lying every step of the way") and looting the entirety of it doesn't give off the same feeling of achievement.

Advancing through a faction in Morrowind was never as satisfying as advancing through a faction in Gothic. Getting better armor? A joke. Getting better weapons? Also a joke. Saying Morrowind does a lot of things "well" is like saying a game featuring pissing and shitting does it "well": just because it's one of the only games that does it, doesn't mean it does it well.

It's incredible how Gothic pulled the blinds off my eyes. Back when I returned to Morrowind, I couldn't believe the game was SO. SHIT. Gothic really is what Morrowind is described to be, minus the lore aspect (then again, who cares about lore when in Morrowind 95% of the quests have nothing to do with the game's setting itself; just the usual "go here, kill/retrieve this mundane enemy/item").



Now some may know, or remember, or reading my signature, that I maintain a Morrowind modding guide. And yet, my Morrowind guide is the most latent reminder that Morrowind is not really a good game to begin with. Because as extensive my guide is, and even when I just account for the gameplay mods (removing all visual/audio shit), none of them actually turn Morrowind into a great game. That's because, much like Skyrim, the negative aspects of Morrowind required a complete overhaul of the game.