Elder Scrolls Why Morrowind is a bad RPG

[Old Hans]

I just picked up morrowind the other day & I totally forgot it has static characters that don't have routines and the shopkeeper couldn't care less if you wander upstairs and steal all his crap

 

[janior]

glad they fixed it with oblivion

 

[Shadenuat]

Morrowind has enough space to pack 10 RPGs. And that's where its problem begin and end.

 

[The Avatar]

I didn't mind the quests in Morrowind. Maybe not the best compared to some earlier games like Fallout 2 and Planescape Torment, but better some of its contemporaries like the awful Neverwinter Nights OC. Early 2000's were a challenging time for CRPGs.

Admittedly, some of the quests were kind of boring like the early fighters guild quest- "Find this Kwama egg mine and kill these people in it". But then you have some more engaging quests like trying to find out what happened to the Dwarves why they just vanished from the world one day. Well, all except one.

As for the main quest, that was quite engaging, trying to find out what being the Nerevarine actually means. Oh, it just so happens you're the reincarnation of a god, and you have to stop a giant mechanical Dwemer god from being reactivated and taking over the world. That's all. There's a lot more to it, but it sure beats Oblivion, where the main quest consists of you do doing fetch quests for an NPC is who is actually the hero of the game.

 

[Poseidon00]

Admittedly, some of the quests were kind of boring like the early fighters guild quest- "Find this Kwama egg mine and kill these people in it"

All in all, the Fighters Guild quests were really cool, but yeah most guilds start with a few generic fluff. You had choice who to work for, and your choices changed actual policy within the Fighters Guild in a meaningful way.

 

[Jaedar]

There are many words in this thread, and many more to come.

But the final word is ALMSIVI

 

[Shadenuat]

quests that are rarely unrelated to everything around, and usually not dumb fetch tasks

http://www.worldofgothic.com/gothic2/?go=g2komplettloesung
Playing G2 atm, in Chapter 3 and yeah... you don't need to scroll for long before you realise that many quests are nothing to talk about. the lack of any dialogue skills/stats also mean that too many quests are linear and straightforward and have no checks ie sometimes you just speak to npc 1 2 3 end. like getting money for mercenaries is just press dialogue line 1 a few times until npc gives it.

in ch3 I just finished "a quest", let's call it that, where mercenary says there is a dangerous gathering of Seekers near old bandit lair. I arrived there to find 1 (one) Seeker clipping through the bridge, and shot him for 300 xp. then returned to bandit for 200 xp.
I wonder, if greatgold version still have translation errors in it because journal states instead about something like seeker burning mercenaries face, so maybe there was supposed to be just one.
I am puzzled why PB likes to give so much xp for just lawnmowering all monsters in map but so pathetic rewards for quests, both xp and loot or gear.

Also, the famous PB design doesn't hold up everywhere as much as I wanted to. There are actually a lot of places with crap loot and absurd monsters guarding bunch of hp potions and chest (locked) with 50 crossbow bolts. This is all much more obvious in old colony.

To an extent Gothics also work purely on their mood and dark german forests and such. But nothing feels like Khorinis (harbor city) after it to me. Then again game becoming old after ~40 hours is not bad.
and I liked NOTR area wilderness/npc balance, +- few tombs for the sake of tombs. PB games can't be big. Which is why I like G1 more than any other of their game.

active combat

gothic, in particular g2 is an era where I remember also playing Jedi Outcast, Rune and Severance. ima sure there are other contemporary games we can compare it to. certainly being more than a LKM and actually giving player some new moves if their skill is high is something action RPGs should do (if you can call Gothic one with its noscope press LKM to shoot everything with guided missiles or 2-shot everything because your strength/damage on weapon > their armor then heal your 500 hp).
but when it comes to moving and controlling your character, it still feels like you're playing some disabled person, when compared to proper action games with swords.

 

[Delicieuxz]

Morrowind's a good game, though. But Oblivion and Skyrim are garbage.

Since after Morrowind, Bethesda doesn't make RPGs. They make low-mental-complexity Action-Adventures.

 

[TheDiceMustRoll]

i dunno where else to post this, but someone's been dumping screenshots of Michael Kirkbride being a fucking idiot online in his private cult leader facebook group and
laugh
my
fucking
ass
off.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

creators being allowed to converse regularly on the internet was a mistake

 

[Latro]

michael kirkbride has herpes?

 

[prengle]

SNIBBITY SNAP :DDD

lol i hadn't seen these. i don't think anyone expected the guy who helped write the trial of vivec to be sane and i don't think anyone ever wanted him to be, he has a history of doing this shit

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

michael kirkbride has herpes?

According to the CDC, 12% of the United States population aged 14-49 has Herpes Simplex Type 2 and 48% has Herpes Simplex Type 1: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db304.htm

 

[V_K]

michael kirkbride has herpes?

According to the CDC, 12% of the United States population aged 14-49 has Herpes Simplex Type 2 and 48% has Herpes Simplex Type 1: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db304.htm

...which is a very conservative assessment, probably not taking into account asymptomatic carriers.

 

[TheDiceMustRoll]

SNIBBITY SNAP :DDD

lol i hadn't seen these. i don't think anyone expected the guy who helped write the trial of vivec to be sane and i don't think anyone ever wanted him to be, he has a history of doing this shit

I am passing no judgments on the man, I liked his contributions to the lore. Watching him have meltdowns and threaten "legal" actions on people over being trolled a bit on facebook is also something I like.

 

[TheDiceMustRoll]

Roguey you like to chuckle at developer shenanigans, so here, i dunno if you've seen these

 

[Roguey]

Still the same crazy prima donna he was 15+ years ago.

 

[Carpincho Pampeano]

I really like Morrowind dungeons, the perfect balance between the long ass mazes of Daggerfall and the simplistic made for nigger cattle that gets lost easily of Skyrim. There's NOTHING like the setting of Morrowing, there's a timeline were Todd didn't choose the generic as fuck LOTR setting for Oblivion and we actually had a jungle with weird shit.

 

[TheDiceMustRoll]

I really like Morrowind dungeons, the perfect balance between the long ass mazes of Daggerfall and the simplistic made for nigger cattle that gets lost easily of Skyrim. There's NOTHING like the setting of Morrowing, there's a timeline were Todd didn't choose the generic as fuck LOTR setting for Oblivion and we actually had a jungle with weird shit.

ignoring all the tiny morrowind dungeons that are literally just tubes lmao

anyone who pretends that morrowind was good for its dungeoneering or that it was any better than any other elder scrolls games is a morrowboomer with their head jammed up their ass.

Morrowind has:
- unique setting
- mechanics that are fun to exploit
- good music
- memorable villians and npcs and landmarks on the map

If you want to be a dishonest racist loser, then it's tit for tat. Here's a completely random sampling of morrowind "dungeons".

Wow so complex with 2-4 rooms! There's not enough soy milk in the world to get someone through something this complex. Unlike Skyrim, which as nothing but shitty linear rooms:

A wide open space with several minidungeons? Wow, that's so simplistic and boring!

Multiple entrances and exits? What is this shit? lmao what a joke. only a toddler would think this is complex.

Not that any of this matters, because dungeons like the shit below:

Are really only appropriate for certain types of role playing games you do in tabletop. Barrowmaze there is explicitly designed to be something that takes months and months (or years) to "clear". Elder Scrolls games outside of ES1(shit) and Daggerfall(based) are simple, linear affairs meant to be cleared in under an hour, with very few exceptions. Go be stupid somewhere else.

 

[Bigg Boss]

There were a few really good dungeons but they were more of an exception.

 

[Jaedar]

I really like Morrowind dungeons, the perfect balance between the long ass mazes of Daggerfall and the simplistic made for nigger cattle that gets lost easily of Skyrim. There's NOTHING like the setting of Morrowing, there's a timeline were Todd didn't choose the generic as fuck LOTR setting for Oblivion and we actually had a jungle with weird shit.

ignoring all the tiny morrowind dungeons that are literally just tubes lmao

anyone who pretends that morrowind was good for its dungeoneering or that it was any better than any other elder scrolls games is a morrowboomer with their head jammed up their ass.

Morrowind has:
- unique setting
- mechanics that are fun to exploit
- good music
- memorable villians and npcs and landmarks on the map

If you want to be a dishonest racist loser, then it's tit for tat. Here's a completely random sampling of morrowind "dungeons".








Wow so complex with 2-4 rooms! There's not enough soy milk in the world to get someone through something this complex. Unlike Skyrim, which as nothing but shitty linear rooms:


A wide open space with several minidungeons? Wow, that's so simplistic and boring!



Multiple entrances and exits? What is this shit? lmao what a joke. only a toddler would think this is complex.

Not that any of this matters, because dungeons like the shit below:



Are really only appropriate for certain types of role playing games you do in tabletop. Barrowmaze there is explicitly designed to be something that takes months and months (or years) to "clear". Elder Scrolls games outside of ES1(shit) and Daggerfall(based) are simple, linear affairs meant to be cleared in under an hour, with very few exceptions. Go be stupid somewhere else.

Very true that most MW dungeons have a handful of rooms. But there are some "real" dungeons as well:

But they are in the minority. Personally I don't mind that most dungeons are short, but I can see how it might upset some people.

 

[TheDiceMustRoll]

I really like Morrowind dungeons, the perfect balance between the long ass mazes of Daggerfall and the simplistic made for nigger cattle that gets lost easily of Skyrim. There's NOTHING like the setting of Morrowing, there's a timeline were Todd didn't choose the generic as fuck LOTR setting for Oblivion and we actually had a jungle with weird shit.

ignoring all the tiny morrowind dungeons that are literally just tubes lmao

anyone who pretends that morrowind was good for its dungeoneering or that it was any better than any other elder scrolls games is a morrowboomer with their head jammed up their ass.

Morrowind has:
- unique setting
- mechanics that are fun to exploit
- good music
- memorable villians and npcs and landmarks on the map

If you want to be a dishonest racist loser, then it's tit for tat. Here's a completely random sampling of morrowind "dungeons".








Wow so complex with 2-4 rooms! There's not enough soy milk in the world to get someone through something this complex. Unlike Skyrim, which as nothing but shitty linear rooms:


A wide open space with several minidungeons? Wow, that's so simplistic and boring!



Multiple entrances and exits? What is this shit? lmao what a joke. only a toddler would think this is complex.

Not that any of this matters, because dungeons like the shit below:



Are really only appropriate for certain types of role playing games you do in tabletop. Barrowmaze there is explicitly designed to be something that takes months and months (or years) to "clear". Elder Scrolls games outside of ES1(shit) and Daggerfall(based) are simple, linear affairs meant to be cleared in under an hour, with very few exceptions. Go be stupid somewhere else.

Very true that most MW dungeons have a handful of rooms. But there are some "real" dungeons as well:

But they are in the minority. Personally I don't mind that most dungeons are short, but I can see how it might upset some people.

I just dislike Morrowboomers, that's all. This whole "TES peaked with III, please ignore the save files breaking after enough playtime, the unengaging, easily broken gameplay, the terrible quests, the ugly graphics, it's amazing because I can cheese it."

I usually max out my primary attribute score for attacking on the way to balmora (I always walk) and it's a good game with a great setting, unique monsters, etc, but if you think it's a better video game, or even a better RPG than skyrim* then you have the rose tinted classes of a dumbfuck.

*I don't personally think RPG quality is dictated on how easily you can exploit the mechanics to turn the game into a joke

 

[Sjukob]

Morrowind has enough space to pack 10 RPGs. And that's where its problem begin and end.

To very honest, Morrowind has the second worst combat system I've ever experienced in a game, only RtWP is worse

 

[Jaedar]

"TES peaked with III, please ignore the save files breaking after enough playtime, the unengaging, easily broken gameplay, the terrible quests, the ugly graphics, it's amazing because I can cheese it."

Meh. If you play an RPG for 300+ hours with the same character, you are imo doing something wrong. Gameplay is easily broken but imo not unengaging. Quests are fine, graphics have some truly awful low poly stuff but overall the art style carries it and some things are really atmospheric (like ash storms).

Morrowind is kind of an outlier in the TES series, in that 1 and 2 had a heavy focus on procedural content while 4 and 5 have a heavy focus on the lowest common denominator. Hard to call it a peak when the series is so uneven, but I do think it is a better RPG than skyrim.

 

[Sigourn]

Skyrim had better dungeons than Morrowind, this much I can agree with and I can't see why anyone would think differently. It does help that Skyrim's graphics were much more advanced and thus led to more visually interesting dungeons.
The issue with Skyrim's dungeons wasn't dungeon design, but leveled loot and enemies. This means that even though each dungeon may be interesting to go through, the rewards for going through them aren't so.

And I agree with Shadenuat about Morrowind's biggest issue is the amount of content it has. A lot of it is filler. Half the amount of content would have made Morrowind a much better experience, and even so it would have still dwarfed most RPGs at the time.