Yet Another Morrowind Thread

[Surf Solar]

I also remember there being a quest in Skyrim where I had to turn the quest compass on because I got no directions

That is true for a lot of Skyrim's quests. Unless you're into mindless sweeping of general areas to find stuff, you're going to have to turn it on. Unless you use Better Quest Objectives of course.

Yup. Honestly I've been having more fun with the journey to the quest location than with the quests themselves. And while Morrowind is not a hard game by any measure, I really appreciate that some dungeons are "high level" and that you will occasionally have cause to back off and try again some other time.

That, or at least forcing you to use your racial power to overcome your foes, like when I had to use Adrenaline Rush to defeat the bandits in that pylon stronghold outside Balmora. And in Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul, Star of the West was the only thing that made some of my low level victories possible.

In fact that's what I'm having to do right now, as the Fighter's guild quest I'm currently on is probably doable for me if I've got my gear repaired and a full stock of potions, but I burned through the later and wore out the former on the several hour, detour filled journey to the quest location. Now I'm having to back off, return to civilization, repair and restock before trying again. Imagine requiring that of players in a modern RPG!

Repairing weapons is not heroic. Wait this isn't The Old Republic

Also Morrowind art!!

http://lelek1980.deviantart.com/art/Balmora-Aerial-view-291703424

http://lelek1980.deviantart.com/art/Telvanni-tower-297403383

http://lelek1980.deviantart.com/art/Ald-ruhn-Silt-strider-port-277483327

That guy does some good stuff, thanks for linking!"

 

[DosBuster]

Ah, my first RPG looking back it's not THAT deep in the quest area to be honest. The quests are very much your usual FedEx quest and although the nostalgia still drives me to the doorstep begging... I can't help but feel like I see the cracks in this large, great game.

 

[Daemongar]

I go back and play it from time to time, but there is one thing I just can't abide: the slow mana regen. That I just can't leave alone. It makes playing a caster at early levels so horrible.

 

[Turisas]

I go back and play it from time to time, but there is one thing I just can't abide: the slow mana regen. That I just can't leave alone. It makes playing a caster at early levels so horrible.

Just abuse the Atronach sign, then.

 

[Daemongar]

I go back and play it from time to time, but there is one thing I just can't abide: the slow mana regen. That I just can't leave alone. It makes playing a caster at early levels so horrible.

Just abuse the Atronach sign, then.

Ah, this is just like the Deus Ex threads where every time I read one of these threads I have to reinstall Morrowind again and spend two weeks playing this when I could be playing something new.

 

[DalekFlay]

It's definitely exploration that suffers in the newer games, because the hand-holding removes it. Also the world being less interesting to some degree, though I think Skyrim improved on that dramatically over Oblivion.

 

[Turisas]

Also the world being less interesting to some degree, though I think Skyrim improved on that dramatically over Oblivion.

Skyrim and lorelol Cyrodiil are probably the least original provinces, so they've a chance with TES 6 to do something more outlandish. Unless Zionmax marketing dept. thinks that's too risky and they just go with High Rock again with same old human architecture.

 

[DalekFlay]

Skyrim and lorelol Cyrodiil are probably the least original provinces, so they've a chance with TES 6 to do something more outlandish. Unless Zionmax marketing dept. thinks that's too risky and they just go with High Rock again with same old human architecture.

There were rumors of Hammerfell a while back, which wouldn't surprise me. They have said bluntly the "weird" stuff turns casuals away. I don't know why they think that, but pretty much every corporation does.

I thought they did a decent job of making Skyrim feel alien and interesting though, for being basically Vikings.

 

[Carrion]

I thought they did a decent job of making Skyrim feel alien and interesting though, for being basically Vikings.

And how exactly did they do this? Although Skyrim stands head and shoulders above Oblivion as far as the lore goes, pretty much all of the interesting stuff is leftover from Morrowind. The TES universe has some rather unusual stuff which adds its own spice to Skyrim's world and separates it from your average viking fantasy, but surely that can't be considered "alien" by anyone who's played a TES game before. On its own, Skyrim doesn't really offer that much. Nords are braindead vikings with an obsession over mead and fighting, nothing else. Thu'um are just collectable spells. The wildlife is probably more generic than Oblivion's. I don't even have to say anything about dragons. There are some pretty nice locations but most of them are just "epic" rather than alien, although there are a few examples of the latter (Blackreach being one). All in all, it's a pretty boring world, but that's probably what they were aiming for anyway.

 

[DalekFlay]

And how exactly did they do this? Although Skyrim stands head and shoulders above Oblivion as far as the lore goes, pretty much all of the interesting stuff is leftover from Morrowind.

I'm speaking purely of world design. And I think it's pretty obvious how Skyrim is much more unique looking than Oblivion, but you seemed to take my "decent job" comment as me saying "most unique fantasy world ever just as good as Morrowind!" which I did not say.

The architecture, environment design, enemy clothing, dungeons and stuff look more distinct and flavorful than Oblivion's band as bland can be standard fantasy.

 

[Carrion]

And I think it's pretty obvious how Skyrim is much more unique looking than Oblivion, but you seemed to take my "decent job" comment as me saying "most unique fantasy world ever just as good as Morrowind!" which I did not say.

No, but I took it as something else than just "it's better than Oblivion", because you'd have to do a pretty atrocious job to end up worse. Skyrim looks fine, but it's about as safe as it gets.

 

[DalekFlay]

Skyrim looks fine, but it's about as safe as it gets.

No, Oblivion is, Skyrim is much better.

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

Skyrim and lorelol Cyrodiil are probably the least original provinces, so they've a chance with TES 6 to do something more outlandish. Unless Zionmax marketing dept. thinks that's too risky and they just go with High Rock again with same old human architecture.

There were rumors of Hammerfell a while back, which wouldn't surprise me. They have said bluntly the "weird" stuff turns casuals away. I don't know why they think that, but pretty much every corporation does.

While the province is engulfed in a stalemate Civil War between Crowns and Forebears, an ancient, prophesised menace appears. Fortunately, prisoner of uncertain birth appears in right time to save the world and become BFF with a Daedric Lord in a second DLC. Landfall is coming very soon, as the HoonDing join a guild or four in the meanwhile!

 

[baturinsky]

Funny thing is that there is a divination spell (classified as either Illusion or alteration, I think) that paints a shining trail to your current objective. It is useless since you already have the quest compass. It's as if they implemented that spell just for the PC players who would be turning the compass off in the INI.

I use Clairvoyance spell a lot. Helps in mountains and non-trivial dungeons, such as Markath dungeon. Actually, Markath itself too, getting to temple of Dibella is not that trivial.

Thrilling exploration? Nope, replaced with quest arrow.

There are treasure maps in Skyrim.

 

[Bahamut]

There are treasure maps in Skyrim.

Containing nothing of real value

 

[Borelli]

Skyrim and lorelol Cyrodiil are probably the least original provinces, so they've a chance with TES 6 to do something more outlandish. Unless Zionmax marketing dept. thinks that's too risky and they just go with High Rock again with same old human architecture.

There were rumors of Hammerfell a while back, which wouldn't surprise me. They have said bluntly the "weird" stuff turns casuals away. I don't know why they think that, but pretty much every corporation does.

I thought they did a decent job of making Skyrim feel alien and interesting though, for being basically Vikings.

Looking back at Daggerfall, it had 2 of Tamriel's provinces, Hammerfell and High Rock + Orsimer, however the game was too old make use of it and create several unique cultures like Morrowind did it with imperials/immigrants/dunmer/ashlanders/telvanni so instead every town looks the same.
Imagine if it had been made today it would have been a wonderful cocktail of cultures, pseudo moors/black arabs to the south, generic medievals to the north (or indigenous britons depending on the lore), orcs in orsimer ... one can only dream.

 

[Grimlorn]

Skyrim's character system/development was shit. I hated the fact they removed stats. The perk system would have been fine with the special abilities, just give the player a perk every 3 levels, and remove the 20% bonuses and keep the stat system. I thought that was the worst aspect of the entire game after the quest compass that reveals everything around you. Also the shitty main quest.

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

I don't really get what people see in Daggerfall so much. While it had a lot of interesting ideas, Morrowind was a much more powerful, creative statement, a strange, unorthodox mix of the most foreign cultures and metaphysical concepts a western mind could think of. Also lol @ jaesun moving Morrowind threads to popamole decline shit because randomized labyrinths and rows of houses and a separate skill for every activity is the essence of

 

[DraQ]

This was fine at the beginning when it took 5-10 hits to kill an enemy, but by the end of the game mobs had 20-50+ hits to kill.

The fuck are you doing wrong?

High end MW weapons are doing between 12 and 80 damage per pop at 50 str (sans enchantments), 1.5x this at str 100. Enemies generally don't have more than 300, occasionally 400 HP, and that's the highest level ones.
That's vanilla, in expansions you get some extra bloat, but other than some boss characters you won't see HP in high hundreds in the expansions either, and even those high level enemies tend to lack in armour department.

I don't know how difficulty slider works exactly in MW but I don't recall enemies becoming bloaty at max difficulty in the unmodded game (I do recall them inflicting gigahurts of damage) so I don't know what the fuck would you need to hit 50x.

Creating an A.I. capable of doing what you suggest would be far more difficult than revamping the combat system so you can't spam click attack and possibly having enemies attack right after you attack or drink a potion, cast a spell etc.

Ok, einstein, how would you implement that?

Weapons have different ranges, different speeds, and require different amounts of time to wind up for full damage.
There are no turns, no tiles, and characters tend to move around during combat.

I don't say that AI programming is a breeze, or that Morrowind's combat system is perfect.
However, Morrowind combat, after some cosmetic touches (animation reactivity, mostly), tweaking (spell speed++) and dekludging (for example, there should be no explicit to-hit roll for ranged weapons in a game that already tracks individual projectiles) is generally sound - you can trade off damage for attack speed, you have stagger and knockdown mechanics dependent on multiple factors including weapon type, weight, stats and damage dealt, you have KOs, you have reach, you have decent, non-linear damage reduction formula, you have movement skills that can influence combat flow etc.

The first and foremost problem of Morrowind combat isn't Morrowind combat, it's NPCs being completely and utterly incapable of dealing with actual human. They can't detect if the player is reachable, they can't jump across gaps, they can't retreat or find cover when attacked by unreachable player, they can't prioritize spells, they don't have any melee tactics, they don't have good spellbooks and so on.
Morrowind AI is decent in that it is an incremental improvement over Daggerfall's. The problem is that all it took to stop Daggerfall AI was a table in the middle of an empty room.

You don't fix moronic AI by piling kludges on top of the combat system, and forcing player and enemy to stand there trading blows in tit-for-tat manner like morons until one runs out of HP in particular isn't going to fix Morrowind's combat or anything else for that matter.

Funny thing is that there is a divination spell (classified as either Illusion or alteration, I think) that paints a shining trail to your current objective.

It's called Clairvoyance and belongs to Illusion. You trick yourself into believing you're smart, which makes you pass the INT check of 2 and find your target.

The spell itself is kind of cool (although it would be better to have the same mechanics used for tracking 'unknowns' as high level spell, rather than just current quest goal), but the classification is just derp.

Even destruction would fit better because it destroys any semblance of sense spell classification might have.

I also remember there being a quest in Skyrim where I had to turn the quest compass on because I got no directions

That is true for a lot of Skyrim's quests. Unless you're into mindless sweeping of general areas to find stuff, you're going to have to turn it on.

Disagreed. You can always track objectives using map. Since you have no automap nor pinning feature from Morrowind, paying attention to environment to minimize map lookups pays off.

Also Morrowind art!!

http://lelek1980.deviantart.com/art/Balmora-Aerial-view-291703424

http://lelek1980.deviantart.com/art/Telvanni-tower-297403383

http://lelek1980.deviantart.com/art/Ald-ruhn-Silt-strider-port-277483327

Skyrim and lorelol Cyrodiil are probably the least original provinces

Read PGE1 you n'wah.

Skyrim's character system/development was shit. I hated the fact they removed stats. The perk system would have been fine with the special abilities, just give the player a perk every 3 levels, and remove the 20% bonuses and keep the stat system. I thought that was the worst aspect of the entire game after the quest compass that reveals everything around you. Also the shitty main quest.

Removal of attributes was indeed retarded and completely unnecessary, so was skill reduction, but perk trees and having to allocate points in one area at the expense of others at each level up (as opposed to allocation that eventually caps out so everyone is 100/100/100/100/100/100/100/100 anyway) are genuine improvements.

I don't really get what people see in Daggerfall so much. While it had a lot of interesting ideas, Morrowind was a much more powerful, creative statement, a strange, unorthodox mix of the most foreign cultures and metaphysical concepts a western mind could think of. Also lol @ jaesun moving Morrowind threads to popamole decline shit because randomized labyrinths and rows of houses and a separate skill for every activity is the essence of

Well, yeah.

Daggerfall had perhaps the most potential of the entire series, but was also the game which realized the least portion of it.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

The spell itself is kind of cool (although it would be better to have the same mechanics used for tracking 'unknowns' as high level spell, rather than just current quest goal), but the classification is just derp.

Even destruction would fit better because it destroys any semblance of sense spell classification might have.

It would be a perfect fit for Mysticism, but since that's gone I don't see where else it could fit. Conjuration? That's already useful enough. Illusion has the "discerning the truth from the false" thing going for it, so I imagine the meaning here is that the spell helps you see the path tthat will lead you to your objective.

 

[DalekFlay]

Illusion is kind of shit at high levels, so pile it on.

 

[AW8]

Disagreed. You can always track objectives using map. Since you have no automap nor pinning feature from Morrowind, paying attention to environment to minimize map lookups pays off.

Well, there are definitely quests where you're not told where to go, either by NPC's or in the journal. For example, the quest Kyne's Sacred Trials. Unless you want to sweep every inch of Skyrim, you're going to have to turn quest markers on.

Although I am confused by your reply and I haven't slept for a long time, so I'm probably misunderstanding something here.

Speaking of Mysticism, that was my favourite spell school in Oblivion. I am, based fully on fanboyism and not a single ounce of logical reason, kind of angry that it got axed in Skyrim.

 

[DalekFlay]

Well, there are definitely quests where you're not told where to go, either by NPC's or in the journal. For example, the quest Kyne's Sacred Trials. Unless you want to sweep every inch of Skyrim, you're going to have to turn quest markers on.

Although I am confused by your reply and I haven't slept for a long time, so I'm probably misunderstanding something here.

You turn markers off the compass (or even turn the compass off, or make it a toggle) but you keep them on the map. Then you can check where quests are, since the game makes you, but it doesn't feel like you're playing follow-the-arrow.

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

Speaking of Mysticism, that was my favourite spell school in Oblivion. I am, based fully on fanboyism and not a single ounce of logical reason, kind of angry that it got axed in Skyrim.

It is telling of casualization and retardation how the game rejects the intellectuality of Psijic's approach to magic in favor of "hurr durr Destruction".

 

[Manjuice Nutella]

Skyrim and lorelol Cyrodiil are probably the least original provinces

Read PGE1 you n'wah.

Isn't the Stormcloak's "kill the ice wraith" a tribute to it? I think the originality in Skyrim lies mostly in a small, but significant twists underlying a seemingly mundane world, and the fact TES5 adheres to the lore confirms it.