Fenixp: Hey Johnmourby, you've grown :-P
Right, let's do this shiz!
I don't think anybody is defending Morrowind by mods per se; it's more of the case of "Oh right, that bit of the game I disliked, here's what you can use to fix it". At any rate, Morrowind is the only game out of the entirety of The Elder Scrolls series where I don't need any actual gameplay improvemnts to enjoy it, I only install graphics stuff and fan patches. Oh, and turn down Cliff Racer agressiveness. Bloody Cliff Racers...
Yeah, the difficulty curve is shit, and highly dependant on what you're playing. On the plus side, whatever you pick to play, fighting abilities of the game world will never outlevel you so you can take as much time as you want to train. At any rate, what I really hate are the difficulty spikes: Other things aside, Tribunal just shoots difficulty over the roof for no particular reason, and Bloodmoon has a level wall which has prevented me from ever actually playing it which sort of makes me sad.
Morrowind is actually THE game if you want to feel like a god when picking a spellcaster. If you play it clever, during the endgame, you will be oneshotting absolutely everything with your magic, you will be able to jump across the entire island, you will be able to fly anywhere, do just about anything, survive any hit (while reflecting its damage back at your opponent) and sneak past anybody you don't want to murder. Morrowind is a perfect example of a difficult start when playing a mage and extremely rewarding endgame. As for savescumming, you don't have to - you just need to play systematically and reatreat a lot. Not the best option, yeah, still... It's quite playable, until you get some items to increase your max magica and raise your alchemy so you can brew pretty damn powerful restore magica potions (you get a fair bit free if you join the mage's guild tho)
Another thing to remember about Morrowind is that magic skills, as opposed to weapons, raise on successful use, not on successful hit. While you're exploring, you can just toss fireballs around and your magic skills will raise while doing so - of course, this is dependent on how much you're willing to invest into roleplaying.
Johnmourby: But it doesn't seem to function as more than window dressing.
Fenixp: With complexity comes less content, and the reason why TES games work at all is the amount of content. This comes with staticness and shalowness in all there is - on the other hand, it gives crazy freedom and complexity. Frankly, I wouldn't have it any other way - there are loads of RPGs which don't have as many options, but are very thought out in the consequences department.
Johnmourby: I'm sad to say this but most of Vvardenfell is a boring, ugly, featureless wasteland.
Fenixp: Strongly disagree. Morrowind is absolutely stuffed with interesting content - you just have to look. It's one of the most prized features of the game and if you don't see it, I suppose you're not looking very much. It's definitely not 'filled with stories' - unless you're enchanted with the land itself, you probably ... Well, won't like it. Just as you don't.
Johnmourby: When it works it feels extremely immersive and give real satisfaction having gotten to the right place without the game holding your hand at all. But the Problem is that half the time the instructions are misleading, overcomplicated, horribly vague (Go west or go north east. That seriously happens), Non-existent sometimes, and worst of all sometimes straight up wrong!
Fenixp: True, sometimes, instructions are flatout wrong - and those bits are terrible. Then again, I've encountered about 1 quest in 20 where that happened, and even then I have managed to find my bearings eventually. We've had this discussion already and the points I have made previously still apply, so I'm just going to skip it.
Johnmourby: I loved Morrowind for the first 80 hours, hated it for the next 40, and spent the remaining 200
Fenixp: Yup. Most of the time, when you play for that long, it means it's a game that has sucked you in. Are there issues? Oh yeah, sure. Can you like Oblivion more? Sure, I can definitely see why, there's a bunch of things that Oblivion just does flatout better. And if you like what Oblivion does more than what Morrowind does, inevitably, you will like Oblivion more.
Johnmourby: Don't shit on games people like to make them play your old favourites. All it does it hype your game up to a point were it can only be a disappointment!
Fenixp: Oh god, agreed so much!
Don't think I'd forgotten about you my old friend :) Here goes.
I seem to be in the minority on mods. I want people to respect my opinions so I should start by respecting other peoples. And I'll admit that I use Z-Doom when playing Doom and Heretic (Not quite a mod but still) But beyond something like that having to use mods feels like using a walkthrough only worse, it's a mark against the game. I Know Half-life 2 has a huge modding community. But to me it doesn't matter as there isn't one thing I would change about it :D
Still I guess I should be surprised the folks 'round here don't agree with me.
Oh Bloodmoon. That part nearly beat my too. And because I was playing the GOTY
ition I had to go to Mournhold right at the start of the game to get the dark brotherhood off my back. Remember trying to fight a goblin and dying so quickly I thought I'd hit a glitch.
Oh the magic. Comparing note on magic with others here it seems I just had rotten luck. All the sound cool but I feel my question stands. Why use magic when steel never lets a weary Orc down?
And yes I did figure it out about free magicka potions at the Mages guild. But it was a long time before I used them because the people or Vvardenfel hate it when you take stuff out of creates. I nearly got thrown out of the fighters guild several times for stealing
my own stuff.
And I also knew about the "on successful use, not successful hit" rule of magic. I think I did do some "practise" spell casting. But it feel like a waste of magickia potions sometimes. For me the "Failed spell" mechanic added nothing good to the game.
"With complexity comes less content, and the reason why TES games work at all is the amount of content..... .......there are loads of RPGs which don't have as many options, but are very thought out in the consequences department"
While don't think I totally agree I defiantly see your points. Maybe it's about time I played The Witcher games....
When I said the land is a "boring, ugly, featureless wasteland" I meant that most up the map is taken up with a ash covered mountain range. Ugly to look at. No people living there. Not even much in the dungeons. Everyone remembers Morrowind for the Giant Mushrooms and swamps. But only have to look at a map of Vvarednfel to see that stuff only cover a small amount of the map I don't know how you can disagree with me here :/
Like I said the game seems to what you to fast-travel. I don't know why they'd make the game like that.
As to path-finding and navigation. I don't remember your points from last time (it was last year after all) But I guess neither of us is going to sway the other one on this. For me it will always be one of the worst things about Morrowind. That's life I guess.
"when you play for that long, it means it's a game that has sucked you in" You missed a key point there around the 150 mark it largely became a background game for me. Something to play while chatting on Skype or listening to Audio books ( Pandora's Star By Peter F Hamilton, Hell House by Richard Matheson and I even got a large put of the way through Les Miserables).
I kept going. Mostly to try and figure out what's so special about the game. (That's me for you. I watched Platoon three times to try to see why it's so highly regarded.... I don't do that with films anymore). I kept On hoping the game I loved would come back. It never did.
But let's not end this on a sour note. This started off as a even handed essay on the good and bad. When I realised that a full review of the game would be longer than the Bible I cut out most of the positive stuff and focussed on the stuff I wanted to talk about. So let me talk about something good.
The most fun I had with the game strangely was near the end of my playthrough. At the end of Bloodmoon you get the power to become a werewolf. I love werewolves. and having maxed out jumping years ago (an I the only one who jumps around like a frog everywhere when playing TES) In werewolf form I could jump 20 feet in the air. I loved bouncing around on mushrooms like a naked, furry Mario. First person plaforming is often seen as the pits but I know it can be absurd fun.
The fun highlight of the whole game was scaling Ebbonheart castle just by jumping with many (totally unharmed) citizens below running in panic :D
So While Morrowind will never be "my" Elder scrolls game I did have plenty of good times with it. I didn't find what I was looking for but perhaps all the grey environments, lame directions and bloody, ****ing Cliff Racers were worth it after all.
You said I've grown. I think it's truer to say that You caught me in a good mood this time. But I hope I've acquitted myself better this time.
Thank you for reading. And thanks to everyone who commented on this thread.
