Does Morrowind hold up?

[Starke]

I'm not saying RPG doesnt need combat, or that FPS doesnt need story (though both are perfectly viable without those elements), all I'm trying to point out is that although these may be important elements of the game they are not the most important element, not the defining element in the context of the genre.

That isn't to say that combat is irrelevant to RPG, thats not what i'm trying to say at all, what i'm trying to say is that its not the most important aspect. That is something that many many gamers just plain don't get. Combat is part of the RPG experience but its not the part that is important, i.e. great combat does not make a great RPG, combat can only be incidental to how good the game is as an RPG, be it good or bad, combat makes not an ounce of difference to the quality of an RPG as an RPG (of course as a game it does make a difference but thats not my point).

We can say the witcher or Morrowind lack solid combat, and we would be right, but at the same time we would be slightly missing the point, just as if we were to say that counter strike lacks a solid story. Its true, it may even be worth observing, but its doesnt really change whether or not Morrowind is a good RPG or counter strike a good FPS.

Honestly, the combat in The Witcher never bothered me, and it was a step up from Neverwinter Nights or the like. Anyway...

I don't think anyone was arguing that the combat made Morrowind a bad RPG, I'd have to go digging to find that. I think to an extent everyone in here who spent enough time with the game to really evaluate it has been saying "Morrowind is a good/excellent RPG with terrible combat." Intentionally or not you keep sounding like you're trying to say "you can't judge an RPG on its combat", and really, quite frankly, you can. When you're recommending a game to someone, you really need to drag everything out into the light, look at it all, and explain what works and what doesn't. Fair or not, people did walk away from Morrowind because of the combat. Does it make it a worse RPG? Not really, but, does it diminish the game as a whole? Yes, it actually does. There's an element in this game, at the core of its mechanical structure that just isn't engaging.

I keep dragging up Planescape Torment as the real example of your argument and you keep ignoring it. Torment has terrible combat, but, remains one of the high water marks for RPGs, and may well be the best thing Black Isle ever released. In that case, and to an extent, The Witcher don't place a premium on combat. Torment includes a talked to death boss, and while the Witcher doesn't, the combat is never the focus of the game. In the case of Morrowind, and really any TES game, it is.

Morrowind breaks gameplay down into three pieces, and any problem should be approachable with one of (or a combination of) these three: Combat, Stealth, and Magic. You need to get someplace, sneak there, fight your way there, or consult your map and use a divine intervention to get right next to it. Need to clear out a cave? Kill them, kill them quietly, or set them all on fire.

Now, we've been conflating all of this together as "combat", but in point of fact, none of these three systems are really top flight in Morrowind. While spell failure, or chance to miss can make gameplay more tense in certain circumstances most of the time they fail at that and make combat more tedious.

Really, when people are saying that combat in Morrowind doesn't work, it's not the gameplay as a whole, it's certain minor elements in gameplay that really do not work. Chance to miss and spell failure are right up there, though they're not the only ones. So in that sense, we're conflating an entire system as a failure when in point of fact it's only a handful of design elements that are really unforgivable.

Does this mean Morrowind is a bad RPG? No, but it does mean that for many it's an unplayable one, and the difference between a bad game and an unplayable game is just semantics.

 

[ResonanceGames]

Morrowind sucks until you're about a level 8. Then you're strong enough that you can really start to explore without dying every other minute. When you're talking about a 200+ hour game, it's definitely worth it to put in the effort.

My main problem with the game isn't actually the combat. It's the pathetically laughable joke of a journal. Bethesda apparently forgot that they were making a game, not a journal simulator, so it places every quest you do in chronological order. So if you do the first part of the main quest, then dick around for 50 hours, you'll have 300 pages of journal to sort through to figure out what you need to do.

 

[MrBenSampson]

I had over 200 hours spent in Oblivion before I tried Morrowind. It was quite astonishing seeing just how different it was. I played for a few hours, and got my ass kicked by rats. Once I got used to the game, I made a decent character, and had a lot of fun.

The diversity in the geography is wonderful. You could walk a kilometre, and pass through a swamp, a mushroom forest and a barren wasteland.

The amount of guilds you can join, and the fact that the guilds have rivalries impressed me. You could do a mission for the fighters guild, and anger the thieves guild.

What I don't like is that there are no essential characters, so you can unknowingly ruin a quest. I botched a robbery for the thieves guild by killing a man. Much later I learned that he was important for the quest-line of another guild I was in. I was quite upset when I returned to that house, prepared to challenge him to a duel.

One thing in Morrowind that is much better than Oblivion is the enchanting. It is overpowered when you make a ring that gives you regenerating health, but that's not what I love about it. You can enchant items with spells that you need to cast. For example, you can enchant a shirt with a fireball spell. You can't actually make a constant-effect enchantment without a soul that is worth at least 400 points, which only a few characters have.

 

[Continuity]

Honestly, the combat in The Witcher never bothered me, and it was a step up from Neverwinter Nights or the like. Anyway...

I don't think anyone was arguing that the combat made Morrowind a bad RPG, I'd have to go digging to find that. I think to an extent everyone in here who spent enough time with the game to really evaluate it has been saying "Morrowind is a good/excellent RPG with terrible combat." Intentionally or not you keep sounding like you're trying to say "you can't judge an RPG on its combat", and really, quite frankly, you can. When you're recommending a game to someone, you really need to drag everything out into the light, look at it all, and explain what works and what doesn't. Fair or not, people did walk away from Morrowind because of the combat. Does it make it a worse RPG? Not really, but, does it diminish the game as a whole? Yes, it actually does. There's an element in this game, at the core of its mechanical structure that just isn't engaging.

I keep dragging up Planescape Torment as the real example of your argument and you keep ignoring it. Torment has terrible combat, but, remains one of the high water marks for RPGs, and may well be the best thing Black Isle ever released. In that case, and to an extent, The Witcher don't place a premium on combat. Torment includes a talked to death boss, and while the Witcher doesn't, the combat is never the focus of the game. In the case of Morrowind, and really any TES game, it is.

Morrowind breaks gameplay down into three pieces, and any problem should be approachable with one of (or a combination of) these three: Combat, Stealth, and Magic. You need to get someplace, sneak there, fight your way there, or consult your map and use a divine intervention to get right next to it. Need to clear out a cave? Kill them, kill them quietly, or set them all on fire.

Now, we've been conflating all of this together as "combat", but in point of fact, none of these three systems are really top flight in Morrowind. While spell failure, or chance to miss can make gameplay more tense in certain circumstances most of the time they fail at that and make combat more tedious.

Really, when people are saying that combat in Morrowind doesn't work, it's not the gameplay as a whole, it's certain minor elements in gameplay that really do not work. Chance to miss and spell failure are right up there, though they're not the only ones. So in that sense, we're conflating an entire system as a failure when in point of fact it's only a handful of design elements that are really unforgivable.

Does this mean Morrowind is a bad RPG? No, but it does mean that for many it's an unplayable one, and the difference between a bad game and an unplayable game is just semantics.

I still feel that we are perhaps skirting round the point, your Planescape Torment example is fine and I don't really have anything to add to it so that's why I haven't picked up on it, however its not unique, its simply an RPG and any arguments that I can make about it I can equally make about any other RPG as, being RPGs, they share the same fundamental underpinning of gameplay.

At the end of the day we're not evaluating "a game" here, we are evaluating "a RPG"... whats the difference? well an RPG is inherently a somewhat niche product, not everyone wants or enjoys RPG. So really coming to an RPG and complaining about the combat is like a wine buff drinking the finest wine and complaining about the glass... its trivial to the essence of why you are there i.e. for the RPG/wine.

So long as the combat doesn't actually get in the way of the RPG aspect of the game then its doing it job, just as you can drink the finest wine out of a mug. If you're really there for the RPG you wont care too much, and if you're there for the combat then you're simply barking up the wrong tree and would probably be better off playing an Action adventure like Arkham city... that's my contention anyway.

Sure, good combat isn't going to hurt an RPG, but if you need the combat to be good in order for the game to be playable for you then you're simply in the wrong genre.

Finally:

"the difference between a bad game and an unplayable game is just semantics."

Absolutely not, many many people say that they find games like the witcher, planscape torment, fallout 1+2, baldurs gate, morrowind unplayable. That clearly does not mean that they games are bad as these are some of the best RPGs ever made (by popular consensus among RPG buffs)... all it means is that they are playing the wrong game, not every game should suit every player, we need different products for different tastes.

 

[Starke]

I still feel that we are perhaps skirting round the point, your Planescape Torment example is fine and I don't really have anything to add to it so that's why I haven't picked up on it, however its not unique, its simply an RPG and any arguments that I can make about it I can equally make about any other RPG as, being RPGs, they share the same fundamental underpinning of gameplay.

The Torment thing comes up because, I don't really accept your statement that The Witcher had bad combat, or for that matter bad gameplay.

At the end of the day we're not evaluating "a game" here, we are evaluating "a RPG"... whats the difference? well an RPG is inherently a somewhat niche product, not everyone wants or enjoys RPG. So really coming to an RPG and complaining about the combat is like a wine buff drinking the finest wine and complaining about the glass... its trivial to the essence of why you are there i.e. for the RPG/wine.

Honestly, no offense, but this statement sounds like self delusion, and here's why: Gaming, as a whole is infamous for bad storytelling. With a handful of exceptions, the bulk of games, including RPGs have terrible stories.

When you look at the story from, really, any Bioware game, or any Bethesda game, the story itself will be cliche crap. The Witcher isn't really an exception to this, because the entire point of the novels was poking fantasy cliches, and mocking them viciously, and that carries over. Unfortunately you can tell from the way Bioware and Bethesda present their settings they're intended to be played straight.

The thing is, Bethesda and Bioware are really the core of good RPGs these days. On one hand we have Bioware talking up their writing as the second coming, and boatloads of fans agreeing, when any professional writer will look at that and then slap you silly for making them suffer through it, and on the other we have Bethesda and Fallout 3's... everything.

The Elder Scrolls series as a whole fall into the same trap. Morrowind is as good as the setting gets. I really like it. It does some interesting things with fantasy cliches. But, god knows it is not good storytelling. Good world building, sure, but not good storytelling.

So saying that RPG players are somehow the connoisseurs of video game narratives is a bit like claiming to be a connoisseur of fast food. Yeah, sure, you can do that, but expect to be looked down upon for that.

I'm talking about this, and I'm not even thinking about the RPGs out there that cross into genuinely awful writing. The original Neverwinter Nights comes to mind immediately, as does every incarnation of Dungeon Siege I ever touched, Space Siege while we're on the subject. Two Worlds' storytelling was actually slightly above par (for games), but the dialog was so hilariously bad... (and oddly consistent) well, at least there were redeeming qualities there.

So long as the combat doesn't actually get in the way of the RPG aspect of the game then its doing it job, just as you can drink the finest wine out of a mug. If you're really there for the RPG you wont care too much, and if you're there for the combat then you're simply barking up the wrong tree and would probably be better off playing an Action adventure like Arkham city... that's my contention anyway.

Sure, good combat isn't going to hurt an RPG, but if you need the combat to be good in order for the game to be playable for you then you're simply in the wrong genre.

Again with the wine analogy. The funny thing about that is, wine is a terribly finicky beverage. While the shape of the glass' stem is probably pretty much irrelevant, to actual connoisseur, the difference between glass and glazed ceramics are probably pretty important to the flavor.

By the same measure if such a connoisseur actually did exist for RPGs, you'd better believe that combat, and gameplay in general, would be up on the block as relevant criteria. Remember that G actually does stand for "game".

Finally:

"the difference between a bad game and an unplayable game is just semantics."

Absolutely not, many many people say that they find games like the witcher, planscape torment, fallout 1+2, baldurs gate, morrowind unplayable. That clearly does not mean that they games are bad as these are some of the best RPGs ever made (by popular consensus among RPG buffs)... all it means is that they are playing the wrong game, not every game should suit every player, we need different products for different tastes.

No, you're right, that was poorly phrased. It should have been: from a practical standpoint, the difference between a bad game and an unplayable game is irrelevant.

It is true as well. Deus Ex, for instance, is a fantastic experience IF you can get past the dated graphics, and poor combat. In the case of Deus Ex you can say the poor combat was a deliberate design decision, to encourage you to find alternate methods of problem solving, but for someone who can't get past the graphics and the controls, that's really irrelevant, it is "just semantics", because either way the experience is out of their reach.

 

[Continuity]

The Torment thing comes up because, I don't really accept your statement that The Witcher had bad combat, or for that matter bad gameplay.

The Witcher absolutely doesn't have bad gameplay, however the combat, taken purely as an element by itself, its pretty unimaginative and to be frank smacks of QTE. Of course its not that simple, you do have potions, combat styles, your spells... but basically the "action" part of the combat boils down to clicking the mouse button when the sword icon flames.
Its perfectly adequate for an RPG but believe me you don't have to go far to find hordes of gamers complaining about it, I've had and seen countless debates about the Witcher even just in these forums.

Honestly, no offense, but this statement sounds like self delusion, and here's why: Gaming, as a whole is infamous for bad storytelling. With a handful of exceptions, the bulk of games, including RPGs have terrible stories.

When you look at the story from, really, any Bioware game, or any Bethesda game, the story itself will be cliche crap. The Witcher isn't really an exception to this, because the entire point of the novels was poking fantasy cliches, and mocking them viciously, and that carries over. Unfortunately you can tell from the way Bioware and Bethesda present their settings they're intended to be played straight.

The thing is, Bethesda and Bioware are really the core of good RPGs these days. On one hand we have Bioware talking up their writing as the second coming, and boatloads of fans agreeing, when any professional writer will look at that and then slap you silly for making them suffer through it, and on the other we have Bethesda and Fallout 3's... everything.

The Elder Scrolls series as a whole fall into the same trap. Morrowind is as good as the setting gets. I really like it. It does some interesting things with fantasy cliches. But, god knows it is not good storytelling. Good world building, sure, but not good storytelling.

I'n not saying that the stories are great or that the storytelling is particularly good, I read a lot, mostly classics, so I know a good well written story when I see one. RPG isn't about that, story is just another element, a part from which a greater whole is assembled.
RPG in a nutshell is about creating a fantasy world that's engaging enough for you to escape to briefly and live vicariously though your character or characters. Its more about experiencing the game world as an escapist reality than having an impressive narrative.. that Is what we have literature and film for.

So saying that RPG players are somehow the connoisseurs of video game narratives is a bit like claiming to be a connoisseur of fast food. Yeah, sure, you can do that, but expect to be looked down upon for that.

I didn't claim anything about anyone being connoisseurs, that's something you've read into my bad analogy and certainly wasn't my intended message.

I'm talking about this, and I'm not even thinking about the RPGs out there that cross into genuinely awful writing. The original Neverwinter Nights comes to mind immediately, as does every incarnation of Dungeon Siege I ever touched, Space Siege while we're on the subject. Two Worlds' storytelling was actually slightly above par (for games), but the dialog was so hilariously bad... (and oddly consistent) well, at least there were redeeming qualities there.

Well you're certainly not alone in finding the original neverwinter yawn worthy, for me though that was mostly bad level design and just a poorly constructed adventure all round.

Again with the wine analogy. The funny thing about that is, wine is a terribly finicky beverage. While the shape of the glass' stem is probably pretty much irrelevant, to actual connoisseur, the difference between glass and glazed ceramics are probably pretty important to the flavor.

By the same measure if such a connoisseur actually did exist for RPGs, you'd better believe that combat, and gameplay in general, would be up on the block as relevant criteria. Remember that G actually does stand for "game".

Well I hope you can see past the analogy to the actual point I was making between the lines, after all, I'm not actually making any point about wine here... In fact forget the analogy, its clearly more trouble that its worth.

Yes RPGs are "games" but they are a certain type of game, one in which combat is almost universally present but at the same time almost universally not key to the game's subjective quality as an RPG. After all, if all RPGs had to have good combat to be considered good games there would be very very few RPGs that could be considered "good", where as to me and many other people RPGs form the backbone of any top 20 games of all time list.

No, you're right, that was poorly phrased. It should have been: from a practical standpoint, the difference between a bad game and an unplayable game is irrelevant.

Provided the game is universally considered unplayable, then yeah sure. However in the case of our discussion what qualifies as "unplayable" is clearly subjective. A game can't be objectively "bad" because its subjectively "unplayable".

It is true as well. Deus Ex, for instance, is a fantastic experience IF you can get past the dated graphics, and poor combat. In the case of Deus Ex you can say the poor combat was a deliberate design decision, to encourage you to find alternate methods of problem solving, but for someone who can't get past the graphics and the controls, that's really irrelevant, it is "just semantics", because either way the experience is out of their reach.

I think you mean its a moot point rather than semantics, and yeah for them it is a moot point... but screw them, like I say, every game doesn't have to cater to every gamer. Sometimes its ok to be a niche product.

 

[TheGreekGeekPrick]

It holds up. The biggest problem is with the visuals, but there are tons of mods to counter that. As for everything else, if you don't like it now, chances are you wouldn't have liked it back then either.

So, if your question is whether or not it has aged well, it has aged just fine; a hell of a lot better than either of its sequels will in ten years.

 

[GrandElemental]

Morrowind holds up for depth,story (much better than oblivion- its very lovecraftian in a way),and the amount of freedom you have (almost too much at times). Play if you want a game to sink over 100 hours into. and also the art direction was perfect!

I agree, completely. Morrowind does have its share of flaws, but it goes *unmatched* when looking for a free-roam with a huge, gorgeously designed high fantasy world with unbelievable amounts of quality content and places to visit. The art design is by far the best I've ever seen and the atmosphere... I'll keep going back to this game over and over, it just sucks me in at the very minute I step out of the prison ship.

I am really bad to describe how much I love this game, as it is my favourite game of all time. The amount of freedom, while one of my favourite aspects in games, can be overwhelming to others. Morrowind isn't really your typical, linear RPG, which is also a genre I love very much, but a complete fantasy experience, where YOU decide what to do.

Does Oblivion come even close? No. Oblivion is such a casual, cliché experience with deeply flawed leveling system, which completely ruins the game for me. What is the point of leveling up, if you don't become any more powerful? In Morrowind, you are going to lose some fights, in which you are simply too weak to manage, and I consider that fair. It feels great when you do some free-roaming for a while, build up your strength, and just then defeat your foe. That is far more satisfying than killing rats and final bosses with similar effort.

As for Skyrim, I don't know, I haven't played it yet. But the fact, that it doesn't have a proper PC UI doesn't make it too attractive.

 

[Eccentric_Jon]

Grab a cheap copy of Daggerfall.....

 

[MysticToast]

First of all, I only played the first Deus Ex about a year ago and it's one of my favorite games. So, no nostalgia there.

Second, from what I did play of Morrowind (which isn't much), it was just not that fun. And the combat sucked.....

 

[PatrickXD]

The combat is a bit awkward, the music library is painfully small and the voice acting is pitiful.
But goddamn if that game isn't fantastic. The setting and plot completely make up for it and then some. There's so much variation in scenery when compared with not only Skyrim and oblivion, but any other game I've played! I just can't get enough of it.

 

[Signa]

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

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

Well, it was a mission for the FIGHTERS guild, not the PUSSY guild (Sorry about that one). Oblivion scales and levels your enemies with your own level, so most creatures and enemies are as "difficult" or "easy" to tackle at level 1 as level 13. Morrowind doesn't do that, it sets a static level for all creatures, and then it's up to you and your own levels and skills to defeat it. Found out those rats were too hard? Come back later after earning some levels. But yeah, it can be hard to get into the game, especially after what the last 10 years of games have been like and the streamlining of Oblivion.

what do you propose I kill? Grass? small weeds? rabbits? there is nothing lower on the scale than rats. and if there is, there is something terribly terribly wrong

Well, those were Cave Rats, which were a little harder. Also, Kwama Foragers and Scribs are easier targets than rats. Keep in mind, you can also gain levels though non-combat, since you don't get XP for kills like you do in other RPGs.

I remember being annihilated by those rats on multiple playthroughs, but advanced fighting tactics always allowed me to win in the end. And by "advanced" I mean instead of running in and swinging constantly, I'd duck out of the room, heal, and then return at full strength after putting a few small gashes in the rat each time. Almost no battles were like that in Morrowind, but it was what you had to resort to when you were that low of a level.

As weak as that all probably sounds to you, I find it refreshing in today's gaming atmosphere. I started playing Skyward Sword last night, and the ridiculous amount of hand-holding the game was doing almost caused me to turn it off before it really started. I've played all the Zelda titles ever made. I know how to talk to people, I know how to swing my sword. DON'T FORCE ME TO DO IT IF I DON'T WANT TO! See, that rat quest in Morrowind was optional, and if you didn't like what avoiding it did, you could still come back to it when you were ready, not when the game says so.

 

[neonsword13-ops]

I've never played Morrowind before but I had the chance to try at a friend's house not too long ago (For Xbox, no less).

I found it to more enjoyable than Oblivion. The landscape was beautiful and marsh-y. For my whole 15 minutes of gameplay, it was more eventful than Oblivion in every way.

I walk out of the starting town and see a person fall from the sky.
I take his clothing and his lightning sword.
I come across a slug and it beats the living hell out of me.
I run away from the slug and I spot a cave. I enter the cave and see a man standing right in the center of the path.
Assuming he was friendly, I walk up to him.
He pulls out his sword and kills me.

It was fun. So yes, the game holds up just fine, even though the characters walk around as if they have saddle rash.

 

[Isaac_GS]

I bought the Morrowind Game of the Year Edition about a year or two before oblivion came out, and I had no problems with it except I recall getting lost in Balmora at night, and I went to sleep in the mountains only to wake up to a Dark Brotherhood Assassin trying to kill me in a blight storm. After some initiation time spent wandering and a murder spree in Balmora and the surrounding plantations, I declared it the best game I had ever played. And that's BEFORE I discovered the mods!

 

[Krakamaka]

Morrowind is a lot more fun if you just want to run around and steal stuff from NPCs, which is mainly what I do. The quests are a bit hard to figure out, and I keep forgetting stuff and getting attacked.

 

[Gutkrusha]

Back when Morrowind was fairly new, I loved it, I played the everloving shit out of it.

Then, about a month ago, I picked up the GOTY edition at a store and thought 'Man this is going to be awesome!' I was so wrong. The game hasn't held up at all. The combat is terrible(Which is what the game makes you do for the majority of it, at least if you do quests and the like.) There is a rather large amount of freedom, but I couldn't last longer than a half hour this last time I tried... My nostalgia glasses shattered.. =(

 

[Mariakko]

Morrowind is awesome, I can still play it and find weeks of enjoyment from it even after playing Oblivion for 6 months. The combat is difficult and that's why I love the it. There were more spells than the others such as Levitate, and Mark and Recall. Best of all once you get good enough you find ways to break the game.

 

[Darkmantle]

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

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

Well, it was a mission for the FIGHTERS guild, not the PUSSY guild (Sorry about that one). Oblivion scales and levels your enemies with your own level, so most creatures and enemies are as "difficult" or "easy" to tackle at level 1 as level 13. Morrowind doesn't do that, it sets a static level for all creatures, and then it's up to you and your own levels and skills to defeat it. Found out those rats were too hard? Come back later after earning some levels. But yeah, it can be hard to get into the game, especially after what the last 10 years of games have been like and the streamlining of Oblivion.

what do you propose I kill? Grass? small weeds? rabbits? there is nothing lower on the scale than rats. and if there is, there is something terribly terribly wrong

Well, those were Cave Rats, which were a little harder. Also, Kwama Foragers and Scribs are easier targets than rats. Keep in mind, you can also gain levels though non-combat, since you don't get XP for kills like you do in other RPGs.

I remember being annihilated by those rats on multiple playthroughs, but advanced fighting tactics always allowed me to win in the end. And by "advanced" I mean instead of running in and swinging constantly, I'd duck out of the room, heal, and then return at full strength after putting a few small gashes in the rat each time. Almost no battles were like that in Morrowind, but it was what you had to resort to when you were that low of a level.

As weak as that all probably sounds to you, I find it refreshing in today's gaming atmosphere. I started playing Skyward Sword last night, and the ridiculous amount of hand-holding the game was doing almost caused me to turn it off before it really started. I've played all the Zelda titles ever made. I know how to talk to people, I know how to swing my sword. DON'T FORCE ME TO DO IT IF I DON'T WANT TO! See, that rat quest in Morrowind was optional, and if you didn't like what avoiding it did, you could still come back to it when you were ready, not when the game says so.

But isn't that worse? Because I wanted to, but I couldn't because of balance issues. I actually killed the people in the smugglers cave, mage and all, only to die to rats in the next town. That almost insults me. I don't think a rat should ever be harder to kill than a mage (extreme size and templates non-withstanding)

And it's not like I haven't played old games and gotten used to the kind of difficulty they present. I played BG 1 + 2 + ToB on d&d difficulty, and there were plenty of places that if you went too early or unprepared you would die.I remember finding a secret door somewhere in AMN in BG2, and when I opened it up a lich spawned and party wiped me. I tried it a few times but always to the same effect, so I decided to come back to it later. That I find reasonable. powerful enemy, I'm not strong enough, etc etc, that's okay. What's not okay is when an early quest to clear out a basement full of rats is a feat of extreme skill. there is no way to discern that these rats are any tougher than you would expect them to be.

It would be like if you were given a quest to go help some one farm and the hoe kicked your ass for not being at least level 5 when you touched it.

Also, your solution to that mission reminds me of an interesting point. What you did to beat those rats was essentially abusing the mechanics of the game. you used the limitation that monsters can't go through doors so that you could defeat the rats. An obvious abuse of game mechanics but no doubt a common one.

My point being that everyone I've ever talked to about morrowind seems to say the same thing when I say I don't like it, It's always some variation of "But you can break that game sssssoooooooo easily!!!!!" One of my friends tried to convince me it was a good game by saying "but you could make your acrobatics skill so high you could jump over mountains!!!" another said "but If you combine X, Y, and Z you can become an invincible god of destruction!!!!". Great, so the balance issues are so glaring that you can literally break the game over your knee, and that is somehow a point in it's favour? yeah right.

 

[franconbean]

Yeah, morrowind's setting is way more varied and full of wonder than Skyrim or oblivion. People complain about some of the pointless/broken mechanics of it, but for me that added to the charm. To be honest though, it hasn't aged well, and when i started it up earlier today, full of nostalgia, i suddenly went "urgh, cba with this right now".