Morrowind, Good RPG?
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Sorry, man. The term 'RPG' is about as vague as you can get, and most people taking issue with your idea of Morrowind holding any sort of glory in that field are less hacked off about your opinion and more hacked off that you weren't talking specifically about their kind of RPG.FalloutForever said:
Let me take a moment to say something that will elicit a long, puzzled blink from a few readers: the 'RPG' genre is a colossal putrid tumor, pulsating on the gut of gaming culture. Let me elicit another long slow blink by saying RPG's of all stripes are about my favorite games out there, and always have been.
See, the 'RPG' clot is exactly like a tumor: it should have split years and years ago into smaller sections, and then split again, and then maybe once again for good measure. There are probably anywhere from four to eight kinds of RPG's in video gaming that could easily be considered their own genre. Is Diablo in the same genre as Final Fantasy? Are either in the same genre as the Elder Scrolls? Are any of them in the same genre as Zelda? No on all counts, but if you claim that any of them wasn't or isn't an RPG you will instantly invite the scorn of one sect while simultaneously drawing the admiration of another for telling it like it is.
As things stand, RPG's, like a tumorous mass, grow ever larger and ever more malignant to itself while becoming more and more insular and resistant to the rest of the 'body's' attempt to fix it, much less get any sort of use out of it. Fans of each subgenre hate the idea of sharing billing with the other subgenres, and often the very idea that the other subgenres even exist seems irrational to them, eg, the pointless, asinine bickering about WRPG's versus JRPG's.
It wouldn't be half as imbecilic as it is if it weren't all done for the reason I suspect it is: everyone wants the coveted genre's name. For years, the term 'RPG' stood for something that was at least perceived to occupy a higher, more intelligent, more artistically important seat than other genres. Platformers? You jump on shit. Shooters? Self explanatory. Role-playing games? Vast, developed settings, deep casts, and intricate plots. Merely being called an RPG, even today, is held to mean something by genre devotees, and to be called something other than an RPG is to be known as something less than an RPG. The arguments are invariably, therefore, about what kind of game gets to wear the crown of 'true' RPG-dom, with everyone else getting to fall in line behind or beneath it.
This is, naturally, something that will never resolve itself. So, rather than splitting as it should have, its necessary mitosis fell all over itself indignantly, and now more than a decade later we have the 'tumor.'
So when you show up and ask a simple yet bold question, the usual suspects inevitably toe the party line to back a horse that's not even running the same race, if you'll forgive me for mixing turns of phrase.
I feel compelled to say this because it seems like you honestly didn't know things were like this, or you earnestly thought things wouldn't boil down to a sub-sub-genre slap-fight if you did. Either way, I regret to see your idealism so predictably subverted.
Possibly, but only once it was modded out to such an extent that it was barely the original game any more. Stacks of re-textures were needed, as was a mod that removed the 100 skill limit and was allowed for more progressive level growth was vital (getting a point of long blade skill may also increase your strength and speed, for example), dozens of little bug fixes and convenience upgrades later and it was one of the best RPGs on the planet.
I got it for 3 euro's (GOTY, so with both expansions), 4 years ago... it's really cheap, manMagic Hobo said:
This is a good insight into the topic. With all the different RPG's out there, how do you know what is better than what if they all have their unique attributes? With all this it's incredibly hard to tell and comes down to who what you like in an RPG.TheRocketeer said:
Well the title and the poll kinda ask different questions so ..
Is Morrowind a good RPG ? - Yes, it is in my top 10 and was one of the RPGs that really sucked me in and in which I spent weeks.
Is Morrowind the best RPG EVER ? - No, and really it isn't even close. It is great, has a lot of good things about it but it has a bunch of problems as well and all in all it could have been much better.
Is Morrowind a good RPG ? - Yes, it is in my top 10 and was one of the RPGs that really sucked me in and in which I spent weeks.
Is Morrowind the best RPG EVER ? - No, and really it isn't even close. It is great, has a lot of good things about it but it has a bunch of problems as well and all in all it could have been much better.
Sounds like a full complaint on RPG's by a FPS Lover.TheRocketeer said:
Im not going to pursue this anymore to just say.
I dont think this is the best RPG ever.
I was just asking your god damn oppinion.
If your going to keep crying about, Boo Hoo.
Also, Oblivion was a pile of shit compared to Morrowind.
Morrowind had more freedom involved.
Your only talking graphics and the fact that you missed the opponent alot.
If you had only just seen the greatness Morrowind was and is, You wouldn't be sitting there attacking me about "Final Fantasy" and "Zelda"
Honestly I think this a bad idea, And I would appreciate it if everybody would stop posting.
If the posting does not stop, I will alert a moderator to block this thread.
Better yet, If a mod is reading this, PLEASE block this thread, It was a bad idea and I regret it.
Mark my words: it will get worse before it gets better. It always does.OmegaCheese said:
It happened to survival horror. Resident Evil burst onto the scene and created a new genre overnight, bringing with it a wave of enthusiasts with no preconceptions of what it meant to be a 'survival horror' game and a love of pants-wetting terror and zombie intestines. Less than a decade later the genre was a smoking ruin of me-too titles packed with sickeningly overused and objectively terrible and predictable plots stitched to some of the most countereffective, obsolete mechanics in any genre which deliberately existed to be as hostile as possible to the player and the subject matter alike. For a while, the genre sat profitless, rudderless, and without any attention given to it by anyone except the paltry mass of imbecile players who had demanded the genre destroy itself in the first place.
Fast forward to 2005, and Resident Evil claws its way back to cultural and critical relevance and success by dumping scorn on its insane moon plot and forsaking nearly every absurd and hateful mechanical convention it had imposed upon the genre in the first place, setting the stage for some of the greatest and most widely-enjoyed unSurvival Horror titles since the genre's creation like Condemned and Dead Space, games despised by gray-pube purist holdouts for their contempt of the genre's roots and embraced by practically everyone else for the same reason.
Now while you have that idea of the rocky course of a relatively small and recent niche genre taken over by purist xeno- and neophobia precipitating mechanical and essential stagnation, consider that the RPG clot is a chimera of as many as eight different niche genres in one, while collectively making up a heroic proportion of the industry's output and made up almost without exception by longtime, totally ingrained fans that cling vehemently to mehcanical and tonal archetypes that are often more than twenty years old. The implosion and reimagining of the quivering pustule that is the genre cluster may or may not happen as it did with survival horror or other dead-and-back-again genres, but if and when this happens, its going to be brutal.
I think if you had paid a scrap of attention to anything at all I had said, I was entirely on your side, man. Sorry it blew up in your face.FalloutForever said:
[sup]FPS lover? What the hell?[/sup]
Why was it a bad idea? Because not everybody fell into magical lockstep with what you wanted them to believe? For a 15-year-old you sure have a penchant for acting like a petulant preschooler. I think this thread has plenty of lively debate about the comparative merits of Morrowind vs. the other RPGs mentioned. (and as I said, I enjoyed Oblivion just a wittle-bitty-bit more than I enjoyed Morrowind, but I don't go around calling anything inferior to my favorite "a pile of shit".)FalloutForever said:
Morrowind kicked all sorts of ass, It was one of the first games I got for my xbox and I loved it. For me it rates right up there with KOTOR and FFIX for favorite RPGs.
Planescape: Torment. End of story.
Morrowind is good, with some severe flaws. Oblivion fixed those flaws, and then threw out a lot of what made Morrowind good. Fallout 3 found a nice middle ground, with good gameplay and environments, but the main story was still a little lackluster. The environmental and side stories were far superior. Nobody that has been into Dunwich Building will forget how awesome and creepy it was.
And no JRPG belongs in this discussion, because they are literally the furthest thing from an RPG, the JRPG 'genre' makes me crazy. They're fantasy games VERY loosely based on the stat concepts of D&D, little to no actual role playing goes on. While in nearly every western RPG, YOU ARE THE HERO. You're called something different, but you make choices on how things go down, JRPGs just lead you down a preordained path with no outside influence. I like 'JRPG' games fine in many cases, like Shadow Hearts 2 and nearly every Shin Megami Tensei game, but they need to stop putting the RPG part in there. You're fantasy games dammit.
[edit] Forgot to amend this: Anyone that uses Zelda and RPG in the same sentence and isn't refering to the awful second game on the NES is a mental case. Zelda games are ADVENTURE games. That's the genre you'd put Okami and Brave Fencer Musashi, why do some crazy people think Zelda is special?
Morrowind is good, with some severe flaws. Oblivion fixed those flaws, and then threw out a lot of what made Morrowind good. Fallout 3 found a nice middle ground, with good gameplay and environments, but the main story was still a little lackluster. The environmental and side stories were far superior. Nobody that has been into Dunwich Building will forget how awesome and creepy it was.
And no JRPG belongs in this discussion, because they are literally the furthest thing from an RPG, the JRPG 'genre' makes me crazy. They're fantasy games VERY loosely based on the stat concepts of D&D, little to no actual role playing goes on. While in nearly every western RPG, YOU ARE THE HERO. You're called something different, but you make choices on how things go down, JRPGs just lead you down a preordained path with no outside influence. I like 'JRPG' games fine in many cases, like Shadow Hearts 2 and nearly every Shin Megami Tensei game, but they need to stop putting the RPG part in there. You're fantasy games dammit.
[edit] Forgot to amend this: Anyone that uses Zelda and RPG in the same sentence and isn't refering to the awful second game on the NES is a mental case. Zelda games are ADVENTURE games. That's the genre you'd put Okami and Brave Fencer Musashi, why do some crazy people think Zelda is special?
Beats me, I was never able to play Morrowind for more than 30 minutes before I got fed up with the annoying combat system and uninstalled the game.
No it is not the best RPG ever. The format is nice (huge world, unique leveling system, good depth of lore) but the story lines get a bit jumbled in the huge expansive world. The leveling system can make you godlike or a mouse. Which is fine for a table-top pen and paper RPG, but given that Morrowind is combat centric, non-combat skills level up your character, and all the monsters the world over level with you, your skill choices can gimp you later in the game.
You've asked that I not compare it to other RPGs so I won't. 80/100
You've asked that I not compare it to other RPGs so I won't. 80/100
I tried it on Xbox, couldn't get into it at all, no idea why I just found the world fairly bland and lifeless.
Then I got Oblivion, loved it! Played it for hours!
Tried Morrowind again on PC and still couldn't get into it.
It seems to have a lot more features than Oblivion but there's just something about it I can't enjoy.
Then I got Oblivion, loved it! Played it for hours!
Tried Morrowind again on PC and still couldn't get into it.
It seems to have a lot more features than Oblivion but there's just something about it I can't enjoy.
Morrowind is a fantastic game. But is it the best RPG ever? No, but it's extremely difficulty to give any game the title of "best game in this genre." Personal preferences way too heavily in the idea of 'best game ever.' In my humble opinion, Morrowind is a far superior game than Oblivion, but I know a multitude of people who would blow a gasket at the mere thought that anything was better than Oblivion. I know just as many would blow a gasket at the mere thought that people even like Oblivion.
Personally, I like every game in the Elder Scrolls series, with Morrowind and Daggerfall being the top two for me (although Daggerfall being up there might just be nostalgia since I haven't played in over ten years). I thoroughly enjoyed Oblivion as well, spending hundreds of hours through multiple playthroughs.
So is Morrowind good? Yes. I would even go as far to say that it's great. But is it the best RPG in my opinion? No, but that doesn't make it any less of a game.
Personally, I like every game in the Elder Scrolls series, with Morrowind and Daggerfall being the top two for me (although Daggerfall being up there might just be nostalgia since I haven't played in over ten years). I thoroughly enjoyed Oblivion as well, spending hundreds of hours through multiple playthroughs.
So is Morrowind good? Yes. I would even go as far to say that it's great. But is it the best RPG in my opinion? No, but that doesn't make it any less of a game.