Does Morrowind hold up?

[Kotaro]

Compared to Oblivion at least, there is a ton of depth to Morrowind. There's also an insane amount of content, even without the thousands upon thousands of mods that have been made.
The game came out in 2001, and I'm still playing it. So it's really good, yeah.

 

[The Madman]

Combat is pretty bad, even as a huge fan of Morrowind I'd have to be either blind or cruel not to mention that. That said the world, the setting, the people and quests you'll find in Morrowind are easily some of the most imaginative and interesting in Bethesda's many games. It feels like you're exploring a strange new world and as a result is an extremely compelling and atmospheric experience. The world also has a loving hand-crafted feel to it because... well, it was. No procedural generation here, every little detail was hand placed by some skilled developer or artist out there and it shows.

Despite Morrowind being smaller in scale than Oblivion I always felt like Morrowind was the bigger world simply by merit of being more interesting and full of some many interesting details.

And while this might be a negative for some, it's a positive for me: The quest design. No hand-holding or quick-travel, instead the game demands you actually pay attention and read everything, explore, ask directions if you must, and find your own way. Secret society and factions are genuinely secret and damned hard to find, meanwhile joining one house over another has honest repercussions throughout the game as opposed to Oblivions 'join every guild without trouble' system. Magic is also much more free-form, allowing the player to experiment and do crazy things with potentially deadly but nevertheless hilarious results.

So if you're willing to put up with some tedious and frustrating combat mechanics the experience is definitely worth it. But if you're more of a gameplay person then you might want to steer clear. It's not a forgiving experience especially by todays standards.

Summary: Combat doesn't hold up so well, but everything else does if you're willing to look past that!

 

[DEAD34345]

Uh, I know for a fact that nostalgia isn't the only thing holding Deus Ex up, because I played it for the first time a few months ago and thought it was great.

I also first played Morrowind after I played Oblivion (though this was still a good few years ago), and thought it was the far superior game. Honestly though, I'm not sure if I would be able to go back to it any more after Skyrim. It has everything that I loved about Morrowind, without the god-awful levelling system and awful combat and magic-systems.

 

[Mediteral]

It depends, its an old school RPG where the amount of freedom you're given at the start is ironically nearly crippling.

I played Oblivion at a friend's house a while ago and when I got out of the sewer I was just like "omg what do I do"

It's worse with Morrowind. In Oblivion, you saw the Emperor get assassinated, and right before he told you to go do something. In Morrowind, you get off a prison boat and go through customs, then get a paper telling you to talk to some dude in a town.

Without ANY directions no less. Unless you asked around, you would pretty much have to find Balmora on your own. That's one thing I kinda like about Morrowind is that nothing wasa pre-marked on the map, you had to find all the cites/towns on your own

 

[Darkmantle]

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.

Ah! Was that the rat-catching mission in Balmora? Yeah that one was a bit of a *****. Forgiven.

lol, yeah I think it was balmora, it was the town you are supposed to head towards to advance the main quest, but then I found a fighters guild ... and got gang-raped by rats D:

 

[imnot]

The setting was amazing, but the gameplay is all done with arbitry stats that make combat a bore and magic more boring, but thats just my math hating opinion.

 

[hazabaza1]

Personally, I cannot get past the shit combat in Morrowind. That type of game really shouldn't be based on a dice roll hit/miss system, and it becomes annoying when I'm standing next to a scaly thing with a massive greatsword and missing 99% of my hits because my skill isn't high enough.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

The story and the characters and the themes are all very good. The setting is the primary reason to play it. The main storyline is great, the organizations all intersect in interesting ways rather than being largely separate (you can't reasonably do all of them on one character, which is something you have to get over), and the political and religious themes are very interesting (Skyrim continues a lot of these, while Oblivion dropped most of them).

The gameplay is neat in that you have options allowing you to do effectively anything. The gameplay is terrible in that it doesn't allow you to do anything in a compelling way.

The mod community is also awesome. I highly highly recommend The Lighting Mod (TLM).

 

[Isalan]

Never really got on with Morrowind or Oblivion, but I'm getting on fine with Skyrim cept the clunky interface and companions walking in front of my paralyzing bow and spending entire fights lying on their faces.

So, I'm gonna say No. Morrowind doesn't hold up compared to new games. But then, I am missing the story so my opinion probably doesn't count for squat.

 

[Lyri]

I'm not talking about graphics as they don't matter too much to me, but is Morrowind so highly praised in a Deus Ex kinda way where it's mostly nostalgia holding it up, or a Painkiller kinda way where it actually is fun compared to modern games?

EDIT: OH GOD I'm not saying Deus Ex isn't fun!

Morrowind fan here.

Morrowind is a great adventure and it was the game that brought me into the Elder Scrolls series.
One poster said that the start is ironically crippling and whilst I agree in one sense it's better than Oblivions by a large margin. You're basically dumped in a tutorial village and one that isn't done in the traditional sense where NPCs will spout the control system to you but one that gives you a basic understanding of things to come without breaking the 4th wall.

You'll also discover fairly quickly that there is no fast travel system like in Oblivion and Skyrim where the player would open the map and click a location to be instantly transported. In Morrowind players use Silt striders, each one will go to a set amount of locations and you basically pay a small sum to go there. Shorter version is basically it's an Elder Scrolls Cab system.
It's a neat little system that I'd never thought I would miss when I played Oblivion, I was surprised when I found myself disliking that travel system and wanting to be able to explore the world one location at a time.
True later on you may find it a bit of a nuisance when you want to go to certain locations and you have to take two or three silts but it makes the majority of the game much more engaging.

The combat is what you'd expect I suppose from a melee perspective at least, get a sword and bash. The block is completely RNG based and leveling up your skills will increase the % of block you'll get but it's not controllable.
There's no fancy visual animations either for killing guys so just get used to watching that sword swing away.
Speaking of swinging, at the start you're likely to die to rats. It happens, don't worry.

This part of the combat was removed in Oblivion but I again surprisingly really missed this part.
When you first pick up a weapon (including magic), expect to miss. It's supposed to give your character a sense of progression in the early stages. As you've been playing with swords for a while, when you pick up that new mace you want to use you will weigh up the odds of the coming fight as you're not going to be as successful with your attacks.
Personally I liked it but people did say that they spent a while just grinding their spells so that they could do damage when they wanted too and they found it annoying, but each to their own.

Magic is magic, nothing different from this to any other Elder Scrolls game really. It's weak to start with and then it just gets stronger and stronger. You can also use the crafting section to make your own spells which if you look online you can find how to make certain interesting spells.
There are many schools of magic and they all have interesting effects so none really feel like they're overlapping in usefulness.
Personally I found magic a little too strong and it dulled the game, floating over a village and dropping atronauchs on people is all fun and games for a while but eventually you'll find something that will take care of your problems and that'll be your bread and butter for the game.

The story line is great and it will take you all across the globe and with game of the year edition being super cheap now you should really pick it up.
The expansions are fantastic, well worth the price you'll pay for the game.

 

[legend forge]

I played morrowind, and I hate it. I like skyrim ALOT, and liked oblivion well enough though it is flawed in many ways. Morrowind is a little bit too incomprehensible as far as mechanics to actual story goes for me, and its too easy to break the system.

 

[Continuity]

I'm not talking about graphics as they don't matter too much to me, but is Morrowind so highly praised in a Deus Ex kinda way where it's mostly nostalgia holding it up, or a Painkiller kinda way where it actually is fun compared to modern games?

EDIT: OH GOD I'm not saying Deus Ex isn't fun!

Morrowind was good, it had atmosphere and created a world that I wanted to play in, a huge and detailed world at that. It felt more crafted than Oblivion, more attention to detail perhaps, but Oblivion was better at grabbing the player and thrusting quests in their face, where as Morrowind was the sort of game where you could forget what the hell you were supposed to be doing and then wander round for 30 hours trying to find out again, an RPG really ought to be more engaging than that IMO.

To sum up, both Morrowind and Oblivion are great RPGs mainly due to the scope and detail of their worlds, but both have grievous flaws. Oblivion does a reasonable job of engaging with the player compared to Morrowind, but both have the hideously retarded TES leveling system which has marred the series from the start, ultimately despite spending upwards of 100 hours on each I didn't finish either.

So in answer to your question, Morrowind is a genuinely good game but in terms of playability at least it was surpassed by Oblivion, which has in turn been surpassed by Skyrim. Only the most dedicated RPG fan would have any reason to go back and play Morrowind at this point.

 

[The-Epicly-Named-Man]

Not really (strictly from a gameplay perspective). It's still great, and I prefer it to Oblivion, but the combat is absolutely terrible.

 

[A Free Man]

I'm not talking about graphics as they don't matter too much to me, but is Morrowind so highly praised in a Deus Ex kinda way where it's mostly nostalgia holding it up, or a Painkiller kinda way where it actually is fun compared to modern games?

EDIT: OH GOD I'm not saying Deus Ex isn't fun!

Hmm good question, it has actually been a while since I last got into Morrowind. I think Morrowind could easily hold it's own with Oblivion, but I am not sure about Skyrim. I think Skyrim just might beat it. Then again I am one of those extreme minority hated ones who actually likes good graphics in games.

 

[zxvcasdfqwerzxcv]

I loved Morrowind, I've probably put more hours into that game than I will with Skyrim (maybe...)!
The setting was fantastic; Morrowind gave a real sense exploration and discovery. The fact you could stumble into a cave at level 5 and be horrifically destroyed by something 10 times your power was great. Oblivion's level scaling was nasty, though I'm liking Skyrim's thus far.
Gameplay-wise, contrary to the popular opinion, I found it amazing! Morrowind was a game where you had to train. I spent countless hours beating mudcrabs with my fists to level up hand-to-hand, or picking as many ingredients as possible and constantly failing to make potions. The game was unforgiving, and I liked that! There was no instant gratification. You were not a great warrior at level 1 or even at level 10. Morrowind was a game that took time and planning to make a good character.
I think of it as one of my favourite RPGs and probably that last truly great one IMO; modern RPGs have largely been about instant gratification and not a real challenge.

 

[Starke]

Honestly, as a whole, the TES games are kinda dicey on the gameplay front. Even Skyrim is a really simple ARPG if you're going by just combat. Morrowind was the last before the shift off the heavy dice rolling focus that dominated the series before that, so you get a lot of attacks not hitting their target, and a lot of abilities simply randomly failing.

That said, Morrowind has one of the best settings of any of the TES games, and, to me, it has always felt the most fleshed out. The gameplay is slightly above meh. It isn't terrible, if you don't mind random dice rolls for every action, but it doesn't hold up to Oblivion. I think there are combat overhaul mods that do actually put Morrowind in the general range of Oblivion, but I never used them myself.

 

[Continuity]

Then again I am one of those extreme minority hated ones who actually likes good graphics in games.

I note the sarcasm but of course you realise its not liking good graphics that is the problem right? its placing graphics before gameplay that stokes the wrath of the nerd gamer.

Not really (strictly from a gameplay perspective). It's still great, and I prefer it to Oblivion, but the combat is absolutely terrible.

Nevertheless, the combat doesn't hold up in the fucking slightest. That includes the magic, which you can't mix with combat in any convenient way. I still love the game though, just because I'm the kind of RPG-fag that will forgive any game that gives me an adventure.

I'd just like to point out that a good RPG doesnt stand on its combat so combat alone should never be a reason to disregard an RPG. Too many gamers these days are weaned on bastard (in the literal sense) action-RPG hybrids (thanks Bioware) that they unfairly expect all RPGs to have a solid action core... thats just not what RPG is about.

But then i'm a crusty old-school gamer so just get off my lawn and all that...