I've been thinking it is.
I've started Morrowind 3 or 4 times. I always seem to get to about the same spot and then get distracted by some flashy thing in the corner. And then I never go back.
I bought it on Steam a while ago during a sale, summer or Xmas sale I'm sure, and just finally installed it tonight. I had previously installed the Morrowind Graphics and Sound Overhaul mod for a normal install, but somehow it's been corrupted and so I'm going to re-download and re-install that mod on my Steam install and go from there.
Everyone talks about how much Morrowind is than Oblivion and even Skyrim. Speaking for myself, Skyrim sucked me in like few games ever had, although I'm a rookie compared to most at a mere 175 hours of gameplay. Something about Morrowind has just always failed to grab me in the same way. But I'm hoping I'm mature enough now, and seasoned enough in how TES games work, that I'll finally get sucked in and stick with it a while. Because I do want to see what all the fuss is about.
Know what I mean?
I have 450 hours logged playing Skyrim, and I'm a rookie compared to some on here 8) I'm probably not the right person to answer your question, because while I played Morrowind and enjoyed it very much, it never engulfed me like Skyrim does. I've actually been feeling the pull to return to Skyrim again and it gets stronger each time I see the icon on my computer. When I was done with Morrowind, I was done, I put it away and never thought of it again until Skyrim showed up. Skyrim....damn, it's almost a lifestyle.
I feel so inadequate, like I just took a really cold shower. I completed the main quest in Skyrim but only logged in about 125 hours. I bought a boxed version of Morrowind years ago but have yet to open it up...and i dabbled in Oblivion but it never really grabbed me either, don't know why.
Of the three.....I put more time into Skyrim than the other two combined. For me, it was far and away the most immersive and fun to play. Morrowind was a distant second but much better than Oblivion. The level scaling ruined Oblivion for me. There were videos of players beating the game at 4th level...defeating the all powerful Daedra Lords because when you attacked them at level 4 they were scaled back to a similar level. A mind boggling design decision...at least to me it was. But Morrowind is worth some time and effort...it has a deep, long and compelling story and I very much enjoyed how you advanced in skills.
As much as I love Morrowind, I don't think I could go back to it. Skyrims graphics and mechanics are far to superior. There was a new texture pack for it that was released a year or so ago, but the in game character models look atrocious now. I'm sure not being able to manually block would drive me crazy too.
I'm really hoping the Skywind team succeeds. Porting older TES games to a newer engine has been tried before. I think Skywind stands a good chance though. And unlike the others they haven't been shutdown by Bethesda.
I loved Morrowind. But the Morrowind I loved and played to death was heavily modded. Modders made the original Morrowind much, much better.
But at this point I don't know which mods are still available. You also had to pick and choose to get compatable mods with morrowind. Morrowind was graphically far behind today's Skyrim. But Morrowind was also the most engrossing, truly alien game environment that I ever played.
Morrowind was my first delve into the Elder Scrolls universe. I remember some of the awe in my first hours of play. Swimming into a river, searching clamshells and finding jewels. A magic user falls out of the sky and dies at my feet. A freaking SANDSTORM. There are still only a very short number of games that have managed to produce the same sense of exploration and discovery. (Oblivion and Skyrim are two of them, although the feeling quickly passed in Oblivion, because you couldn't walk two feet without finding the equivalent of a cul de sac around which were parked a Keep on the Borderlands, a Pool of Radiance, and a Tomb of Horrors.)
I also remember being extremely frustrated at the combat system. I remember feeling surprisingly constrained in movement from place to place because of map design. And I really remember the tediousness of the constant flying stingray fights.
I agree that Morrowind is one of the best, most immersively-different rpgs I've ever played. I would love to return to that setting, but only with the game and world design experience of Skyrim.
YES - it is! :D
I've been waiting for OpenMW (http://openmw.org/en/) to get to a point that makes Morrowind playable since it's the only way I can play on Linux. While it has yet to reach 1.0, I've heard lately that it's pretty much 1:1 already, so I downloaded it last night and gave it a go.
It worked perfectly! Everything is just there and you wouldn't even know you weren't playing the original version. Oh, happy day! I'm going to be putting some serious time into this one.
I've been dabbling in Oblivion and it's pretty meh compared to Skyrim.
Morrowind, I never really got into. I tried several times like you, Toonces, to get into it, but I'd get to a certain point and it just wouldn't draw me in anymore.
I'm actually suffering from game paralysis right now...I have so many of them and not enough free time to really delve into something deeply, so games like Wasteland 2 sit played for but 1 hour or so total. I guess I'm reluctant now to sink time into a game and think 5 minutes have passed, only to discover that more like six hours have gone by.
Dragon Age: Inquisition, to me, does the same thing better.
Echo the opinions about Oblivion, couldn't get into it though it was beautiful. There are still on-going projects to bring Morrowind into the Skyrim world: Skywind. There was even an update last week at RPG.com. It's mostly finished and looks to be a huge effort.
Quote from: glen55 on February 19, 2015, 10:48:18 AM
Dragon Age: Inquisition, to me, does the same thing better.
Well, they're very different games. I couldn't get into Dragon Age at all and it became one of the last games I ever bought at full price.
Quote from: Sir Slash on February 19, 2015, 11:52:41 AM
Echo the opinions about Oblivion, couldn't get into it though it was beautiful. There are still on-going projects to bring Morrowind into the Skyrim world: Skywind. There was even an update last week at RPG.com. It's mostly finished and looks to be a huge effort.
Is this one different than the one Huw the Poo posted about?
Quote from: Rayfer on February 19, 2015, 01:53:53 PM
Is this one different than the one Huw the Poo posted about?
Yeah, Sir Slash is talking about an effort to recreate Morrowind as a total conversion mod for Skyrim. The software I'm using, OpenMW, is an open source reimplementation of the original Morrowind engine.
Well Huw, I've found that Morrowind is indeed a fantastic game. It took me a while to get into. I had another thread somewhere talking about it I thought...I think it really didn't open up until I hit about level 5 or so. But once I got there and was strong enough that every little thing killed me, I enjoyed the game much more. Also, the story gets kind of engaging once you get into a bit.
With the Morrowind Complete Overhaul mod the graphics are servicable, although not as pretty as Skyrim. But they work well enough.
At the risk of sounding snobby, I can see after playing the game a while now how it can be considered better than Skyrim. I love Skyrim and if I could only play one I'd probably still go with it. But Morrowind is really a deeper game. I'm posting a pretty good video I found online that discusses some of the things that make Morrowind such a good game (it spends a bit of time talking about Skywind prior to the start point I'm putting at 9 minutes). The way I found to enjoy Morrowind the most is to approach it not as Skyrim, but as a tabletop RPG brought to life with graphics. If you can wrap your head around the tabletop root mechanics, and if you can create a mindset where you stop focusing on the fact that the characters don't act as lifelike as in Skyrim but, rather, just focus on the story they're telling and your part in it, I think it will draw you in.
Anyway, I absolutely think it's worth getting into. It is much harder than Skyrim, I can tell you that. And the lack of fast travel means you really need to put some thought into how you're going to go adventuring...it rewards having a plan before starting out.
Good luck!
Edit: Well the embed doesn't start at 9:00 like I thought I put in there. At any rate, if you start zoning just skip ahead to 9:00 because that's when he gets to the meat of his thesis.
That was a
great video Toonces, thanks for posting it! That guy sure does love Morrowind! He says the same things I've been saying for years to anyone who cared to listen. Morrowind
is a masterpiece and totally unique, and that's why I'm so excited to finally be able to play it again; there's nothing else like it available on Windows, let alone Linux. I'm really glad you're enjoying it again.
Back when I first played it I actually kept an alchemy journal. I went out and bought a suitably olde-worlde notebook and wrote down all my observations about the reagents in the front, and all my precious recipes in the back. I wish I knew what happened to it.
Quote from: Toonces on February 19, 2015, 10:20:43 PM
At the risk of sounding snobby, I can see after playing the game a while now how it can be considered better than Skyrim.
I will argue this until the heat death of the universe. In fact I'll go one level snobbier and say that Morrowind is
demonstrably a better game than the rest. I mean, take the interface as a single example. In Morrowind you just right-click, and it's all just
there, everything you need, and even customisable too. The interfaces of Oblivion and Skyrim seem almost designed to get in your way and hinder gameplay. Sometimes I'll watch my lady playing Skyrim and shake my head in disbelief at the hoops it makes her jump through just to equip a sword or drink a potion.
Morrowind is a stunning accomplishment and represents Bethesda at the height of their powers. They've done nothing so impressive in the years since, in fact no developer has. It's one of the best games I've ever played and one of only a handful I keep going back to.
Okay, you guys make some compelling arguments. I put Morrowind on my wishlist...it's rather telling, too, that a 13-year-old game is $20 (though this IS Steam we're talking about, here, so it shouldn't be surprising).
Once I grab it on sale sometime I'll probably hit you guys up for what mods/updates I should apply to it.
Can you find a boxed copy anywhere Banzai? Cheaper than Steam. For example the GOTY edition is less than £5 on the UK Amazon.
toonces.....thanks for that video, it was quite excellent. I have Morrowind sitting in my Steam library...just might fire it up this weekend.
Quote from: Banzai_Cat on February 20, 2015, 07:23:02 AM
Okay, you guys make some compelling arguments. I put Morrowind on my wishlist...it's rather telling, too, that a 13-year-old game is $20 (though this IS Steam we're talking about, here, so it shouldn't be surprising).
Once I grab it on sale sometime I'll probably hit you guys up for what mods/updates I should apply to it.
Amazon has the boxed GOTY version for $9.49 with free shipping.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Elder-Scrolls-III-Morrowind-Pc/dp/B0000CNUUP (http://www.amazon.com/The-Elder-Scrolls-III-Morrowind-Pc/dp/B0000CNUUP)
Unfortunately, CDs and DVDs aren't an option. My PC is going on 8 years old and the DVD drive crapped out about 3 years ago. I've survived thanks to downloadable games.
However, once my bonus hits my account March 6, I'm going to get a new rig...I found one at Sam's Club that's a package deal, a 27" monitor with a desktop that has 12GB of RAM and a 1TB HD, and a 3.4GHz processor (currently I have 2GHz). This PC has seen me through some awesome gaming times since 2007, but it's time for an upgrade! I might grab a boxed version then. :)
Quote from: Banzai_Cat on February 20, 2015, 09:19:50 AM
Unfortunately, CDs and DVDs aren't an option. My PC is going on 8 years old and the DVD drive crapped out about 3 years ago. I've survived thanks to downloadable games.
However, once my bonus hits my account March 6, I'm going to get a new rig...I found one at Sam's Club that's a package deal, a 27" monitor with a desktop that has 12GB of RAM and a 1TB HD, and a 3.4GHz processor (currently I have 2GHz). This PC has seen me through some awesome gaming times since 2007, but it's time for an upgrade! I might grab a boxed version then. :)
I hope this isn't an inappropriate question....but, what's the price range of that pc at Sam's Club. I have 7 year old rig that is limiting my play to older titles. I got TW: Rome II in the last sales but can barely get it to run, and even with that the battles look awful.
Rayfer, no problem. It's $899. Here's the link:
http://www.samsclub.com/sams/hp-27-desktop-bndl-core-i7-4770/prod12560239.ip?navAction=push
My local Sam's Clubs don't have it, but it looks like they have one in a ghetto SC that's relatively nearby. Not sure I want it that bad to go do that. I might just order it online.
I'm looking at Sam's Club because I got this rig I have now (a Gateway FX) from Costco. It was a bundle with monitor/keyboard/mouse etc. and was $1700. That's probably one reason why it's lasted me so long, because it was an investment. I think the $899 price tag is pretty good for everything it's including, and the reviews are good (just one bad out of 24 or so reviews).
Morrowind routinely goes on sale for pennies on Steam. Just be patient.
After watching that video I really feel compelled to go back to Morrowind. To me the game was nothing less than magic. No game since has given me such immersion. I had no previous computer gaming experience to compare Morrowind to when I started playing, my first machine was 2 months old. My wife literally had to sit on my lap naked to get my attention. I loved the map sold with the game, you can locate different kinds of sites such as caves or shrines on it and I would explore and log in a notebook each one I came across. It was so easy to get your butt kicked to begin with and I quickly developed my favorite Elder Scrolls strategy of sneaking and sniping my way through dungeons that I use to this day in Skyrim. Morrowind had a way of humbling me as well: I had just finished the main quest and started the Tribunal expansion, feeling fully secure in my greatness and supreme power with my daedric waraxe of life stealing, I came across a character in Mournhold who attacked me and I promptly swung my axe a total of three times before I realized I was nearly dead. Wow, what a wake up call.
Great game, many aspects that I miss such as trying to maximize my attributes when leveling up. I loved flying, miss it.
Well, while I agree that TES has been dumbed down since Morrowind, I think it's for different reasons and I didn't always agree with the points being made in the first video. That said, I don't think the second video properly addressed the issues either. For example, I don't recall an accusation of dumbing down the games in a deliberate attempt to make them appeal more to casual players - nevertheless I think that did happen for precisely that reason. The second video was wrong to call it an immature conspiracy theory and was also wrong to point out that different people worked on Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim; in a company like Bethesda (which was acquired by Zenimax, lest we forget) it's the people at the top who make that kind of decision, not the coders themselves.
Anyway. For me personally, both videos miss some of the main points. There's a raft of accusations that can be levelled at Oblivion and Skyrim. To name just a few examples:
Oblivion introduced automatic scaling. I understand the reasons why, but I don't agree with them at all. I remember when I first played Oblivion I quickly realised that there's no need to explore all those lovely caves, ruins and other dungeon-like places. You can just return to the same cave whenever you level up and hey presto - there's more loot and now it's better than what you found before! That's astonishingly immersion-breaking.
Lots of skills and associated items/weapons were removed during the transition from Morrowind to Oblivion, and more still were removed from Oblivion to Skyrim.
You're forced to focus on combat. This is a consequence of the auto-scaling. In Morrowind it's perfectly viable to play any kind of character you like. In Oblivion and Skyrim, though, monsters level up as you do so if you haven't been focusing on combat skills the game just gets tougher and tougher. I usually play a paladin-like character so it isn't a big deal for me, but is endlessly frustrating for my lady who always prefers to play thief-like characters.
The quest system (which is mentioned in the videos). This is partially down to personal preference but it can definitely illustrate the dumbing-down of the series. Oblivion and Skyrim give you lovely big pointers to everything you need to do, while Morrowind much more immersively records everything sequentially in a journal. One of the best illustrations of why this is good comes very early in the mage guild quest line. You're given the task of collecting some alchemical reagents for a mage. Instead of just pointing to each reagent with a bloody great arrow, a verbose description of the area in which they grow is written in your journal, along with written directions. Not only is this much more realistic, but it really involves you in the world. It's the mark of a design team who are immensely proud of the world they've created and want to show it off. It's a simple quest, but one of the best parts of the game in my opinion.
I could go on for ages, but essentially my point is yes, the TES series has absolutely been dumbed down since Morrowind. The intentions and reasoning don't really matter as far as I'm concerned, and I am aware that many people prefer the way Oblivion and Skyrim do certain things. That's fine. But for me personally, Morrowind is by far the superior game.