Does Morrowind hold up?

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Darkmantle

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urprobablyright said:
Shim3d said:
Well I just bought the GOTY edition on Steam so I guess I can judge for myself!
EDIT: BTW, when you said fantastic I hope that was a reference to my avatar! (if you didn't get that, fantastic was his catchphrase)
Lol one of the better Doctors.

I've got the steam GOTY, too. If you've got a good computer and such try the Morrowind Modding Guide. . It's a long process but is worth it if your computer can handle it.

Anyway, and this is important, if you're playing Morrowind then you're going to be disappointed if you look for it to be a technological improvement on the later games. It is down to the gameplay, etc.
I dunno, I found the inabilty to manually block a large detriment to my survival and fun in morrowind.
 

Daniel_Rosamilia

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It's alright.
I've been replaying it recently, and there's a few problems:
1. Your character starts off with a speed somewhere between snail-pace and a fucking glacier.
2. Combat is horrible. Most attacks LOOK like they hit, but miss. So be prepared for a lot of attack-spamming.
3. Fatigue doesn't regenerate when you're running which means you'll run out fairly quickly.
4. Magic is horribly underpowered at the start of the game, which means that if you want to try and play a pure mage (or as close to), be prepared to run like a coward if there's more than one or two enemies within a 50-foot circle around you.
There's good bits, especially the main story, the massive amounts of other storylines (Thieves Guild, Great Houses, Morag Tong) and the brilliant lore, but the 4 problems above can kill some people's interest.
 

Talux

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Darkmantle said:
I don't know what everyone else is playing , but I found morrowind fucking awful, to the point where it was unplayable to me after about 30 minutes. And believe me, I tried.

The last straw came when my sword and shield fighter lost to the pack of rats from the first thieves guild mision. A nord fighter. axe and shield. losing to rats.
Yeah it's a bit of a tough game like that. You kind of have to do some exploring around the first town or run along the eastern coast to get some levels and gear. I remember dying to rats in Balmora as well.

Skyrim is basically a better game all around. Not that Morrowind is bad, really. The island it's set on is really imaginative, the dungeons are pretty cool and the leveling scaling/system is better than Oblivion. For its time it was pretty revolutionary but of course it's a bit outdated these days.
 

Darkmantle

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Talux said:
Darkmantle said:
I don't know what everyone else is playing , but I found morrowind fucking awful, to the point where it was unplayable to me after about 30 minutes. And believe me, I tried.

The last straw came when my sword and shield fighter lost to the pack of rats from the first thieves guild mision. A nord fighter. axe and shield. losing to rats.
Yeah it's a bit of a tough game like that. You kind of have to do some exploring around the first town or run along the eastern coast to get some levels and gear. I remember dying to rats in Balmora as well.

Skyrim is basically a better game all around. Not that Morrowind is bad, really. The island it's set on is really imaginative, the dungeons are pretty cool and the leveling scaling/system is better than Oblivion. For it's time it was pretty revolutionary but of course it's a bit outdated these days.
don't get me wrong, I like a hard game. But I just found morrowind bordered on artificially hard. If it were some bandits, yeah, I could see it. If it was some goblins, alright, I know in D&D and such a low-level warrior can be killed by goblins fairly easily, but rats? I was just too insulted to continue :p

Theres starting from the bottom, and there is having to dig your way up through the earth :p
 

Giant Space Hamster

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I personally have just restarted playing Morrowind and although I haven't played skyrim I can tell you Morrowind is better than oblivion in almost every way. every where felt unique. every dungeon, every room felt it had a perpuos. you didn't feel like you where the only thing happening in the world but rather you felt you where exploring a world much bigger than yourself. i'll give you that the combats clunky but any first person combat game is going to be, even in modern games(and if you talking about the "stay still to chop" you can just set it to automaticly use the best move).
 

Talux

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:/ actually the bandits in the first cave are much easier than the rats for some reason. It was kind of an odd game like that. You could go anywhere but there were only a couple of ways to approach the first few hours without getting horribly murdered over and over.
 

Zeh Don

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Morrowind was good... for it's day.
The setting is still better than even Skyrim, because it's so alien and yet interesting. The political stuff was also pretty cool if you delved into it. There was just a lot more stuff to dig into that made Vvardenfell one of the most memorable settings in gaming. It exceeds Rapture in terms of scale and sheer quality of thought, it exceeds basically everything is sheer depth, and yet it's really quite beautiful (again, for it's day).

In terms of actual moment-to-moment gameplay, frankly no, it doesn't hold up that well. And this is coming from a massive Elder Scrolls fan.
The stealth mechanics, the combat (swing, bater bater bater), the magic system, the act of simple exploration - it feels like an inferior title in basically every regard. If you played Skyrim first, and then played Morrowind - and could ignore the visuals - you'd want to go right back to Skyrim because it's simple better to play.
 

FirmartheTrilby

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Morrowind > Oblivion, for sure. I installed Morrowind not long ago and this time really got into the whole RP thing. It's hell of a fun. So yes, Morrowind does hold up pretty well.
 

teebeeohh

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not liking morrowind without having modded the shit out of it is like saying you don't like pie because the crust is so dry without actual cake.
also: painkiller sucks and deus ex is less nostalgia driven than a lot of other games(ocarina of time)
 

AWAR

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I've been thinking about it, the best thing about Skyrim so far is that it made me appreciate Morrowind and Oblivion more..
 

varulfic

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Honestly, I don't think it holds up. The combat is just atrocious. The setting and feel is still fantastic, but combat is what you'll spend most of your time doing anyway, and it's so damn basic and uninvolving.
 

Shirastro

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Whether Morrowind "holds up" or not is very subjective. All i can do is tell you my own story and explain why I like it so much.

I started playing Morrowind shortly after it came out. I remember all the video game magazines were raving about how great it was so i thought i give it a try.
Prior to Morrowind i never really played RPGs at all. Sure there was the inevitable FF7 and i did play Diablo (if we can call it an RPG) but a proper western RPG, never.

Soon enough i found my self on that ship heading for Vvanderfell and was immediately surprised by just how much options you have when customizing your character. It probably took me an hour just to decide what race i wanted to play, let alone what class, sign and everything.
Once i got out the census office i remember being amazed by just how many NPC were around (which by my today's standards isn't really all that much) and especially by the fact that you could talk to any of them, and each one had many different things to talk about.
First i thought that all those things they had to say were very important and relevant to the main quest so i read and read and read some more. Sure enough i got bored by it soon and tried to actually focus on the quest.
All i knew was that i had to go to some place called Balmora and speak with some dude. I bring up my map and ofc there was nothing there. So i start talking to villagers once again and i think one of them pointed out that the best way to get to Balmora is to use the Silt strider and that there is one just outside the village.
Since i somehow managed not to notice the giant bug, i wondered WTF was a Silt and where was it.
I left the village, crossing that little bridge trying to find the Silt (which is funny cause it's right there), naturally walked right passed it and instead stumbled upon a door, leading to a cave.
Thinking that this cave is somehow related to the main quest and this mythical Silt i entered and was immediately greeted by a slaver trying to kill me.
"Finally some action" i thought, i readied up my sword and began the epic fight.....

So after i died, i realized i haven't saved once since the beginning of the game and i had to do it all over again.

This time i decided to make a mage-like char. I go through the whole initial thing, through the census office, spoke with some villagers and off to the epic cave!!
This time i was ready! I bought some armor, some potions, and had my mighty fireball ready.
After missing or failing to cast most of my spells i finally managed to kill that first slaver.
I loot her and found nothing but a dagger and some crappy sloths, and than i realize i was almost dead, had no mana left, no potions and nothing to recover (at the time i didn't know you could sleep).
So i thought screw this game. It way to hard and confusing for me. I un-installed it and just forgot about it for the next few months.

Than, i don't know why, i felt the urge to try it again, but this time properly. I read some guides on how the game actually worked, figured out the confusing leveling system, realized that not everything is related to the main quest (in fact very little is), learned a little about the clumsy combat system, and on just how much freedom you have.
Made a new char, went through the whole initial village entered the cave of DOOM and sure enough after a little bit of struggle i cleared it, whole 3 slavers of it.
I felt good, i felt like i actually managed to accomplish something, even thou this cave is completely irrelevant.
So after making the quick trip back to the trader and selling most of junk i found, i went to the Silt strider and made my way to Balmora.
I was amazed right away by the sheer size of the place. All those houses, traders, different NPCs i could talk to....
After finally managing to find the guy i was looking for, and he telling me some mumbo jumbo about some "Nerevarin" business, he tells me that before i start my epic jurney i should go and join a guild and do some freelance work.
So i did. I joined the fighters guild, and was given a quest, to kill some rats in a basement, which i did pretty easily.
Than i was given the following quest, and this one was just a little bit more complicated.
I was to exit the town, follow a very clear set of directions enter some Dwemer ruin (ofc i had no idea what Dwermer were) and get some item.

So i left, exited the town from the south and checked the directions once again. They seemed clear enough and i surely wouldn't have any problem finding this place.
So after 3 hours of wondering around i finally manage to find this god damn place and entered expecting some relatively straight forward dungeon and the loot at the end.
So after 6 hours of wondering around that god damn ruin i finally managed to find this artifact that ,to my surprise, looked just as slightly different random crap in a sea of all the other random crap that was laying around.
But i did it, i had the artifact, and it felt epic. I felt as if i accomplished a major task and thought that i finished a major portion of the game.....only to realize later that was just a mere side-quest, completely skipable and unrelated to the main quest.

And than something clicked. Something just felt right about this game. I finally started to realize just how big this game actually is. So i played through,, learning more and more about what was actually going on, reading all the different books i found on the way, learning more and more about the complicated lore of this world.
I found out who the Dwemer were, all the different gods and different cults in Tamriel, the difference between Aedra and Daedra, the complicated and yet fascinating Dunmer people, the 3 false gods and the 4 houses of trouble......

The more i learned the more i wanted to know, and little by little i fell in love with this game.
I realize this a major reason why i love this game so much is cause it was the first one for my of this kind, and i probably would have the patients to play such a game today, but still i think Morrowind is one of the best games ever made, and while i find Skyrim to be really good, Oblivion is just pure undiluted shit compared to it.


That said, i think Morrowind doesn't hold up......gamers today are too lazy.
 

Watchmacallit

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The thing I remember about Morrowind was loving how big and amazing it was...
I also remember not giving two flying fucks about the main story.

Oblivion improved the gameplay by simply getting rid of 'dodge' and 'miss' and the storyline was way easier to follow and gave more benefits but at the same time, after the 50th gate to Oblivion you just didn't want to anymore.
 

Darkmantle

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urprobablyright said:
Darkmantle said:
but rats? I was just too insulted to continue :p

Theres starting from the bottom, and there is having to dig your way up through the earth :p
Well, you may be making a good point but you cannot be forgiven for thinking rats are too hard :p you can kill a rat right off the boat pretty easily. If you didn't, you're doing something way wrong.
I just got into a shitty spot, I opened the door to the celler they were in, stopped and looked around, and then all three of them started attacking me at once. It's been a while, but IIRC I died because they kept interrupting my attack animation or something, all I remember is not being able to land a good hit.
 

Kitten DeLux

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Nov 20, 2009
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Morrowind was amazing, and still is amazing.
i didn't like how the marksman works
still my favorite game
 

Eddy-16

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I gave up after half an hour. Let me say I researched the game first found how to make an awesome character, then I made some gold and bought a few things. Then while walking down the road I had my arse handed to me on a silver platter by a mud crab, WHICH I COULDN'T HIT.

I heard its awesome if you get into it, buts a bastard to start, Oblivion and Skyrim are a lot easier to follow as well.
 

Zaik

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It held up to Oblivion because for everything Oblivion fixed that Morrowind did very wrong, it did something awful itself.

Against Skyrim though? Hell no, there's no way i could even go back and play it at this point.

I'd say my favorite fuckup from Morrowind was all the quest givers that had no idea where you were supposed to go to complete their quest, or gave you completely incorrect directions. I didn't mind being given a general area to look for something, but when someone tells you "go west" when the objective is to the east, what the hell?