Elder Scrolls Why Morrowind is a bad RPG

[jackofshadows]

Not autistically completing every shred of content on a single character? That's LARPing, pal.

Amount of content which might be necessary to complete in order to finish the game refers to its difficulty, not to what I was talking about. What I meant was that character in RPGs should be defined according to game's systems, not just by player's whim. Zed Duke of Banville hasn't had a whim to develop his chars beyond straightforward archetypes so it all probably looked plausible enough but the game easily allows much, much more than that which makes it a very good sandbox but barely an RPG.

 

[Funposter]

and the systems are obviously there to encourage certain things while not outright limiting them. this isn't taking into account the actual limits which do exist (great house membership, thieves guild code book quest). also take into account faction reputation bonuses and negatives, which makes members of other factions like or dislike you depending on your faction reputation. as an example:

Imperial Legion characters are heavily encouraged to join the Imperial Cult, because they have a +2 bonus to relations with them. The Fighters Guild, Mages Guild, House Hlaalu and House Redoran are also incentivized to a lesser extent, with a +1 bonus. House Telvanni, the Thieves Guild and the Tribunal Temple all have a -1 detriment to relations. This is the game's way of communicating that maybe your character shouldn't bother joining those factions - they don't like you!

 

[Rincewind]

Gothic is the stronger game. Even thought it's an action RPG. Even though it has gay voice acting. Even though the game is quite simplistic and the story is much, much simpler. We rate games by gameplay, not by now how many daydreams you had when you read a few in game stories about Vivec. Wankery over lore ( it has great lore ) and intellectual pretensions is not enough to make a good game.

Yep, I personally agree with that, and actually the whole debate is kinda pointless because you either enjoy game X for whatever reasons, or don't. I get it that some people are really into lore stuff and reading ingame books etc, but I'm not one of them. I personally dislike games that require me to do lots of in-game reading but have very little to offer in the interesting gameplay department. And it's not because I don't like reading, on the contrary, I am a big sci-fi/fantasy fan and I love reading good novels, plus I'm not exactly a dumbfuck either (I work as a software engineer on some pretty complicated stuff). But I just need to have good and interesting gameplay in a video game to enjoy it, and I just prefer learning the story through the environment and things happening in-game. Some notes or letters or whatever are fine now and then, but please, just don't dump huge monologues or tons of books on me...

To cite some other examples, I kinda battled through Disco Elysium but found it a bit boring in the second half. Also gave up playing Planescape Torment after about 20 hours (I was like, ok when is the good part gonna come finally, it felt like to me like the game hasn't really started yet... then when I realised that this is the game, I just stopped... it just wasn't too enjoyable for me having to read that much in-game text, it started to feel like a chore and I don't think the writing was really that good). Now that I think about it, I found these two games quite pretentious too, as if the writer tried to impress people with their intellect or something. Good authors don't do that, in my opinion, they put the story first and don't ramble and don't let the style get in the way (I'm thinking of the Vivec books here, which I personally find annoying pretentious nonsense).

I just prefer games with strong gameplay elements and minimal "compulsory reading materials", e.g. Gothic and ELEX, or games with turn based combat, or exploration/puzzle solving (e.g. oldschool blobbers or Grimrock). Betrayal at Krondor is a good example for high-quality no-nonsense writing in just the right dose. It's not overdone and it serves the game well. Another game where I enjoyed the lore and didn't think it was too overbearing was the Banner Saga. So there you go, I just think different types of people need different things from a game to trigger their endorphin reactions, and that's all there is to it.

 

[MWaser]

(I'm thinking of the Vivec books here, which I personally find annoying pretentious nonsense).

I'm pretty sure "pretentious unreadable mostly-nonsense" was most of the intention, even. There are bits of meaning that can be derived but it's as much "lore expansion" as it is "crazy rambling" in the exact same time.

Of course now I'll be sitting here waiting for someone to come in and tell me that every single line makes a lot of sense and I'm just not CHIM enough to get it.

The ending of the words was Almsivi.

 

[Garyxeao88]

I looove morrowind but I also understand it's not for everyone. Like the combat for instance. I love tabletop rpgs and that does a really good job of simulating that feeling of combat. But I also understand if you want a more straight up method of combat like the later games. (Man crazy for this "circlejerker" to have an opinion you can probably understand?)

Moreover, in my opinion, the order of how good the games are as ~RPGS~ is Morrowind, Oblivion, skyrim. But as ~VIDEO GAMES~, by that I mean how good combat works(although I like morrowind from a tabletop RPG type perspective), graphics, system design, etc, skyrim oblivion then morrowind is the order i would go in.

 

[Raskens]

I looove morrowind but I also understand it's not for everyone. Like the combat for instance. I love tabletop rpgs and that does a really good job of simulating that feeling of combat. But I also understand if you want a more straight up method of combat like the later games. (Man crazy for this "circlejerker" to have an opinion you can probably understand?)

Moreover, in my opinion, the order of how good the games are as ~RPGS~ is Morrowind, Oblivion, skyrim. But as ~VIDEO GAMES~, by that I mean how good combat works(although I like morrowind from a tabletop RPG type perspective), graphics, system design, etc, skyrim oblivion then morrowind is the order i would go in.

Morrowind is better than Skyrim as a video game. The better setting, story, quest design (no enforced quest marks + journal) etc outweighs the benefits received from the improvement in combat, graphics and the AI in Skyrim.

Skyrim doesn't excel in anything as far as I can see. The combat still sucks for example. However, Morrowind excels in it's overall world design imo.

 

[a Goat]

as a video game. The better setting, story

read a fucking book

 

[4r14dn3]

as a video game. The better setting, story

read a fucking book

Play an abstract boardgame.

 

[Raskens]

as a video game. The better setting, story

read a fucking book

Even if you ignore the story the game is better due to quest design, exploration etc. The story itself isn't the major factor if that's what you think I meant.

 

[a Goat]

quest design

Go grab X bring to Y quests are a quest design indeed, but I fail to see how they'er any better than Skyrim's/.

 

[MWaser]

Skyrim sucks as an RPG. It has really bad itemization, quest design, progression, and structure. Its lategame progression is based entirely on self-forged and self-enchanted items, with pre-made artifacts and other unique magical apparel being generally non-competitive. On this basis alone it already loses out to Morrowind which sees plenty of uses both in the early game and lategame of both generic and unique magic apparel (for ease of accessibility for cast-on-use items, and offering quick and valuable utility with those - utility spells being mostly gone in of themselves by the time of Skyrim), unique magic items and artifacts of powers that overreach anything you can enchant on your own, while still leaving space for your own both Constant Effect and Cast-On-Use/Hit items as needed depending on circumstance.

Defending Skyrim as having "better gameplay" just because "lol see I can hit enemies with my sword and my arrows" while ignoring all the other glaring issues that make it a really lackluster action RPG is just really ignorant. There's plenty of genuine reasons to prefer Morrowind, and if the only argument you can give is "well, it suits my preferences" while cucking under the peer-induced pressure ideology that Skyrim is somehow a better game, then you should probably rethink the reasons for why you even hold these opinions in the first place

 

[Morality Games]

Morrowind is a game about exploring and find things and admiring the complexity of the interrelations of different parts of the world and setting. Exploring and filling out your map and journal is almost literally like putting together a jigsaw puzzle on the kitchen table. The fundamental appeal is almost identical; the more pieces I put together in a puzzle, the more I see a picture form on my kitchen table, the more I explore and find in Morrowind, the more the setting and its mysteries come together for me.

As with most utilizations of the term, "Bad RPG" is a misnomer. It's a different, setting intensive approach to creating an RPG that may or may not speak to your tastes and interests.

 

[Jugashvili]

(I'm thinking of the Vivec books here, which I personally find annoying pretentious nonsense).

I'm pretty sure "pretentious unreadable mostly-nonsense" was most of the intention, even. There are bits of meaning that can be derived but it's as much "lore expansion" as it is "crazy rambling" in the exact same time.

Of course now I'll be sitting here waiting for someone to come in and tell me that every single line makes a lot of sense and I'm just not CHIM enough to get it.

The ending of the words was Almsivi.

The fact that the whole CHIM/c0da thing is cancerous redditard circlejerk bullshit doesn't detract from the fact that many of the people who worked on MW (not only MK) not only were very passionate, they also really knew their stuff. The game, not only in its writing but also in its graphic design, is peppered with erudite and obscure references that show that this wasn't your usual hollow boilerplate by the kind of creative writing workshop blowhards the industry hires nowadays. The problem, as always, is when fanboys who don't get the references behind these things start venerating the derivative product rather than going to the source. Much of the first part of the "Lessons of Vivec" is ripped straight out of Crowley's Book of the Law, but instead of developing an interest in, say, comparative religion, CHIMtard fanboys start wasting their lives writing exegesis on video game books and fawning over anything that sounds vaguely "Kirkbridian". MK himself is largely responsible for this as he has been fostering his little personality cult by playing mind games with nerds ever since back when he posted on the official TES forums and now he's got a small legion of imitators who think they're being deep with their c0das and headcanons when in reality they're just painting by numbers.

 

[RNGsus]

(I'm thinking of the Vivec books here, which I personally find annoying pretentious nonsense).

I'm pretty sure "pretentious unreadable mostly-nonsense" was most of the intention, even. There are bits of meaning that can be derived but it's as much "lore expansion" as it is "crazy rambling" in the exact same time.

Of course now I'll be sitting here waiting for someone to come in and tell me that every single line makes a lot of sense and I'm just not CHIM enough to get it.

The ending of the words was Almsivi.

The fact that the whole CHIM/c0da thing is cancerous redditard circlejerk bullshit doesn't detract from the fact that many of the people who worked on MW (not only MK) not only were very passionate, they also really knew their stuff. The game, not only in its writing but also in its graphic design, is peppered with erudite and obscure references that show that this wasn't your usual hollow boilerplate by the kind of creative writing workshop blowhards the industry hires nowadays. The problem, as always, is when fanboys who don't get the references behind these things start venerating the derivative product rather than going to the source. Much of the first part of the "Lessons of Vivec" is ripped straight out of Crowley's Book of the Law, but instead of developing an interest in, say, comparative religion, CHIMtard fanboys start wasting their lives writing exegesis on video game books and fawning over anything that sounds vaguely "Kirkbridian". MK himself is largely responsible for this as he has been fostering his little personality cult by playing mind games with nerds ever since back when he posted on the official TES forums and now he's got a small legion of imitators who think they're being deep with their c0das and headcanons when in reality they're just painting by numbers.

A poet makes himself a visionary through a long, boundless, and systematized disorganization of all the senses. All forms of love, of suffering, of madness; he searches himself, he exhausts within himself all poisons, and preserves their quintessences. Unspeakable torment, where he will need the greatest faith, a superhuman strength, where he becomes all men the great invalid, the great criminal, the great accursed--and the Supreme Scientist! For he attains the unknown! Because he has cultivated his soul, already rich, more than anyone! He attains the unknown, and if, demented, he finally loses the understanding of his visions, he will at least have seen them! So what if he is destroyed in his ecstatic flight through things unheard of, unnameable: other horrible workers will come; they will begin at the horizons where the first one has fallen!

He definitely nurtured the Kult.

 

[[UCHIHA]XxDarkSasuke420xX]

Any of u try this mod?
https://www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mods/47768

looks epic

 

[[UCHIHA]XxDarkSasuke420xX]

no really the mod isn't a fucKing joke so take your prosper buttons back yo

prolly better than the base morrowind game at this point

Spoiler

am pissed that he chose to do starwind instead of narutowind tbh

 

[deadmeme]

Why is Morrowind a good game.
If you are tone-deaf, and don't like that glorious music, you most likely listen to degenerate modern western farting sounds. There lot of cool characters like Creeper, Talking Mudcrap (More intelligent than FEAR npcs, and you), Cassius Curio and his porn fiction, a Mormon Dunmer wizard who has clones of himself which are his wives and daughters, and many others. You can buy slaves in the game. I never actually role played in any game except for Morrowind. I roleplayed as a Racist Dunmer Telvanni War Wizard, who was hellbent on eliminating all of Lizards and Furries he saw (which he did). When I acquired property I also acquired slaves as well. There I put The Head of Scourge, for my slave to see.
The Head Of Scourge is an Easter egg dedicated to the character used by developer Steve Meister for testing the game and presumably what gives the inn where it can be found its name.
Play Morrowind!

 

[Molina]

https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/The_Head_Of_Scourge

Spoiler

The Head Of Scourge is an Easter egg dedicated to the character used by developer Steve Meister for testing the game and presumably what gives the inn where it can be found its name.

You have copied and pasted this sentence. Your life is a plagiarism.

 

[deadmeme]

https://elderscrolls.fandom.com/wiki/The_Head_Of_Scourge

Spoiler

The Head Of Scourge is an Easter egg dedicated to the character used by developer Steve Meister for testing the game and presumably what gives the inn where it can be found its name.

You have copied and pasted this sentence. Your life is a plagiarism.

I did not have sexual relations with that woman

 

[RNGsus]

If you are using MUSE, you'll also want to convert The Dark Corners of the Earth ost to mp3, and distribute them as you hear fit.

 

[luj1]

Morrowind is better than Skyrim as a video game.

Almost anything is, because Skyrim is a sloppily coded half product that couldn't even use 2 CPU threads. Still can't fix z-fighting in 2020.

 

[Rincewind]

Morrowind is better than Skyrim as a video game.

Almost anything is, because Skyrim is a sloppily coded half product that couldn't even use 2 CPU threads. Still can't fix z-fighting in 2020.

Not "defending" Skyrim as I've never played it, but the comparison regarding multithreading with Morrowind is probably off the mark. One big source of performance problems of Morrowind is the engine being essentially single-threaded. That's why the OpenMW guys had to write a new engine because you can't easily retrofit multithreading into such an old engine (well, and there's no source code either).

I imagine Skyrim would be better at multithreading than Morrowind, being the newer enginer (but definitely not worse).

 

[laclongquan]

Let's start with the replay value term: I thought 'replay' implies completeness, no?

No, replay doesnt imply completeness. Some does try to link the two together but they dont have to be.

Examples: I replayed Baldur Gate 1 several times. Mostly when we are outside of the temple.

Or Fallout New Vegas. I used to have a 18 month-long run with it, replay I dont know how many times, mostly around the time visit Caesar. I completed 4 DLCs multiple times.

 

[DalekFlay]

Why is Morrowind a good game.

31fps in Morrowind in 2020, eh Slav?

 

[Cyril]

This is why: