Skyrim vs Morrowind

[Shaewaros]

I'm actually currently playing both Morrowind and Skyrim at the same time. Actually I have been pretty surprised about all the things how Bethesda has improved the series after Oblivion - NPC interaction is much better and overall the world is much more interesting and immersive. But... it isn't nearly as good as Morrowind. The way how the main story evolves in Morrowind is just so unique and amazing, you really feel like you are just a tiny piece in this huge event and there was FAR more important people in Morrowind than you. That I really love. In Skyrim straight from the beginning everything is about you - you are the dragonborn, you are the hero blah blah... How boring. In Morrowind you really had to earn your place in the world.

 

[kyogen]

I like both games and view Skyrim as an excellent, more dynamic evolution of Morrowind for the current gen. I don't really have a problem with its main quest, especially since it integrates so well with the civil war storyline. I'm mostly just relieved that Bethesda kept its sense of humor without continuing Oblivion's relentless cheerfulness. Cyrodiil is ok, but it's an oddly happy place even when horrible things are occurring.

 

[Matthew Maloney]

I got bored of the main quest line in skyrim early on, so I got involved in the civil war questline, try that, far more interesting I found!

 

[jonass]

I haven't beat the main quest yet but I was disappointed in the ending to the companions and the rebellion quest lines.

SPOILERS

I mean when you finish the companions and you become the harbringer, and all thats left to do is accept lvl 1 quests of go kill this for me. That's it?! Let me give quests or at least some nice weapons or something.

Then the rebellion. I just won this guy the crown of all skyrim and I get a pat on the back. That's it and an ok one handed sword. It seems like he could've made me jarl of solitude since we just deposed the current one.


I just remember sinking so much time into one of the Houses in Morrowind and then when all was said and done they built me my own mansion filled with guards. Awesome

It seems to me like those were both very major quest lines with really no reward for completing them.

edit: I am not saying that I thought the stories were bad, for clarification, I really enjoyed the story's and the actual quest lines, just a terrible ending

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

I love Skyrim but Morrowind takes the cake.

 

[StereoMike]

I felt like nothing I did in Skyrim mattered. In Oblivion I would walk around and people would yell things at me like "You're the hero of Kvatch!" or "It's you! The Champion of the Arena!"

In Skyrim it was pretty public knowledge that I was dragonborn throughout the main quest, but no one seemed to care. I was leader of the companions and no one seemed to care, I destroyed the dark brotherhood, and subdued the Stormcloak rebellion and no one seemed to care. That last one no one even seemed to know about. What people did say to me as I strolled through the streets of Whiterun was "You look diseased."

Basically, the setting of Skyrim and what was going on in the rest of Tamriel made the game feel post-apocalyptic, the apocalypse being the Oblivion crisis. Everything seemed to just be wearing down and stopping, with no one really caring about what happened next.

And Alduin was a piss-poor villain. His motives were totally vague and it seemed the writers just thought that him being a dragon was sufficient to making him feel like a threatening villain. But since I never understood what the hell he was trying to do (end the world? Eat all the dead people? Enslave humanity?) I never really cared whether he died or not, and didn't feel like I had accomplished anything by the end. It just kind of...ended.

In Oblivion I felt like there was a major threat to all of Tamriel. The emperor was murdered and it was up to me to gather armies to go and defeat the deadric lord of destruction, the biggest most powerful daedra there is, Mehrunes Dagon.

In Morrowind there was an ancient mysterious prophecy that apparently I was destined to fulfill, and I had to unravel the culture and history of this unique and strange land.

In Skyrim, I had to go and put down what was a pretty insignificant rebellion, and then I had to kill a dragon I had never heard of in any of the other games. And at the end, no one seemed to recognize that anything had happened.

 

[StereoMike]

Was he though? Because all the dragons talk about him wanting to rule the world because he thought it was his birthright, and all the humans say he's the harbinger of the end times or whatever. Even looking up stuff in the wiki doesn't fully explain it, and even at the end of the game it's a toss-up as to whether or not he's even really dead.

They seemed to just bring this new villain out of nowhere and claim he was always a part of tamrielic lore, but they really don't pull it off correctly.

And even if his motivation is that he wants to destroy the world, that is not clear at all throughout the main plot-line.

 

[Terminate421]

The build up is what made Skyrim great

Spoiler

After learning a shout from people thousands of years before you, you set a truce for a war, ride a dragon, fight a dragon priest, go to heaven, meet up with heros of skyrim, see Ysgramor, and kill Alduin in Sovengarde. That alone is a great build up to:

Dragons "Worshipping" you, you are seen to have the strongest Thu'um from the Dragons. They join with Paarthurnax to create a peaceful legion of Dragons.

 

[shrimpcel]

Spoiler

You saved Skyrim, the world, or even existence, from the all-devouring Alduin. I would say that's a pretty big accomplishment.

 

[Epona]

Skyrim IS NOT Morrowind. Stop comparing them.

Agreed! If they were in the same series then may...oh wait!

Well, if they were both in the same genr....oh wait!

Why can't they be compared? Is it because Skyrim can't stand up to that comparison?

 

[ResonanceGames]

Spoilers.

First off, even as a resident angry "pining for the good ol' days" guy, I have to say that Skyrim is a really excellent game. I look at TES games as immersive sims with light RPG elements rather than RPGs, and by that metric Skyrim is a home run.

That said, I agree with the OP that at the end of the day, Morrowind left much more of an impression on me than Skyrim did. I think its because in Morrowind I made a much more tangible mark on the world. I never felt restricted to not kill someone or do something because it would affect a questline somewhere. I actually changed the world in ways that weren't hard-coded in ala Skyrim (like siding with the Stormcloaks or killing Parthurnaax), but were simply the natural outcome of my actions. If I disagreed with something a quest giver did or said, I could kill them. That kind of thing.

Also, Skyrim and Oblivion both suffered from the feeling that the world was just a puppet show being put on to please me, which is a little too solipsistic for me to get into. I like becoming awesome due to the sweat of my brow, which is the feeling I got from leading a guild or solving the main quest in Morrowind, because those things required so much work and the payoff was so grand. Skyrim just kind of beat me over the head with how great I was from the word go. You're the dragonborn! You rule! You can kill dragons at level 2! You're so awesome! Blech.

Still, I gotta say, Skyrim was a lot of fun.

 

[kadum]

I personally love every aspect of morrowind except the combat but other wise and amazing game no fast travel or map markers made it the hardest game and there are more factions then just 4 and to become the leader of a faction you had to do at least 30 quests unlike skyrim or oblivion and it had way more weapons and armor and unique weapons and armor too and i hope the next elder scrolls is morrowind renewed exactly the same but with better graphics

 

[3ntropy775]

I actually wish I never played Morrowind because none of it's successors made much of an impression on me...Sure Skyrim and Oblivion was a huge improvement with fancy graphics,speech and animation,but it lacks the depth and mystery of Morrowind.It's difficult to describe what the newer Elder Scrolls games lack.

Morrowind was a very broken game actually but personally I liked it the most.Hell the most powerful skill was alchemy lol(Higher intelligence=stronger potions to no limit).Too bad there can't be a Morrowind revamp that would agree with the elder scrolls timeline since Morrowind was destroyed by the red mountain erruption and the black marsh invasion.

If Morrowind didnt feel so old and overplayed I would've given it another go!Three great houses are the best.