What makes Morrowind so great?

[Zero-Sum]

Everytime I think about Morrowind, I am sorely tempted to reinstall it again. Nostalgic tears fill my eyes. I think of all the great adventures I had just roaming around Vvardenfell, killing cliffracers and doing this and that. And reading books, books stuffed with amazing lore. And the Dunmeri chainsmoker voices. The gritty landscapes. EVERYTHING.

I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE. I HAVE TO REINSTALL IT. WITH LOTS OF MODS.

[Wolfie]

ok, guys. I don't want to see this degenerate into a fanboy flame war any more than anyone else, but several responses were posted in the time I was composing my first reply. in the sake of FAIRNESS, let's be HONEST. I have to take exception to a few claims made disparaging Morrowind, because frankly, they seemed pretty biased in spite of claims to the bias residing with the Morrowind fans. that's simply not a true statement.

I disagre.

wolfie, you cite "logic" and then make a completely subjective observation. "annoyance" at Morrowind's combat system is not based on "logic". the combat system was different, yes, but whether a person finds it "annoying" or not is completely subjective. I found it was actually more "logical" and realistic in that sometimes you simply miss, and the unskilled combatant misses a LOT, as compared to always hitting your target no matter what your skill level is in the subsequent games.

But its not realistic that you swing at a mud crab that is not moving and still miss, no one is that bad, yes I relize thats not the type of game that morrowind is but he asked for my ophion and in my ophion that was a fatal flaw, not cause you missed but the sheer amount of times you would.

again, I think your own bias is coming through and showing itself so again, let's be fair and honest. "a way to get around whem your in the middle of no where". simply not true

key word middle of no where. I.E not in town, in a doungeon and have to go to one far away not near a city.

if anything, Morrowind had MORE ways to "fast travel" and get around. they just didn't involve horses. they were more magic-based. there was Mark and Recall, Almsivi and Divine intervention, boats and silt-strider services,

and none of them let you go anywhere but
A. one place you alredy been (mark)
B. another city that odds are was no where near where you wanted to go.
so yes no way to travle when your in the middle of no where. with out adding a lot more toruble, morrowind was big, it should of had something to speed it up. evrey other game did.

and the one single thing I absolutely missed the most was the ability to Levitate and fly

yeah but no way to turn it off so if you had it see for so lopng you where stuck till it weard off.

in morrowind, you had flying creatures in the way of cliff racers, as annoying as they could be, they were kinda cool. I can't recall a single flying creature in Oblivion, with the possible exception of the will-o-wisps

Imp's "fly" and there may be more.

as far as "houses you could buy", no, you couldn't "buy" a house, but there were more than enough places one could take up residence, so that's really a non sequitur, unless you simply found the lack of an actual purchasing mechanic to be a drawback. as for the rest of your complaints, all the same could just as easily be said for Oblivion. the fact is, as I previously stated, morrowind had MORE of everything, factions, quests, etc. so again, let's be fair and honest here.

It had more quest but I preferd the quest in oblvion More quest dose not = better
Factions, yes they did, I never denied it had more, but again to me the oblvion factions had better storys, while morrowind had better ranking.

*edit*
oh, and almost forgot to mention the Mage guild guides offering teleportation services between almost all the major cities in Morrowind. wtf happened to THAT in Oblivion?

[/quote]
The wizsard tower did that.

[scribbane]

I loved Oblivion, I LOVE, LOVE Skyrim so in short, do you guys whom have played Morrowind think it would be worth getting Morrowind for the Xbox 360?

Elegost, I have mostly skimmed through this thread, as I don't have time to give it a full read right now, but I noticed you seemed to have some concern with the graphics. If that is the case, and you are truly looking into getting the game, I would advise you to get it for PC if you can. I myself enjoy the graphics (though that is probably more nostalgia than anything), but there are plenty of great mods that can improve the graphics, as well as stuff like the combat as I understand it. But if you do not have a PC that can run it, I would still advise you to invest in the game.

I have a literal textwall on the subject of Morrowind vs Oblivion vs Skyrim (2.5 pages in a Word document, single spaced) that I am revising as I just beat Skyrim's MQ, and in that paper, Morrowind comes out on top. Though I do primarly talk about the longevity of the questlines in the game, I do touch upon the worlds present in each installment, as it is hard to fairly discuss the MQ without talking about the rest of the game. Once I've edited it, I'm going to post it on the forums, but I can certainly send it to you as is if you would really like to see it.

[AddictedtoMorrowind]

But the wizard's tower is a DLC, I think.

Also, on the subject of traveling from the middle of nowhere, you could just bring a Scroll or amulet of Divine/Almsivi Intervention. BOOM, now you're in a city. Then you can practically go most other cities from there.

[Wolfie]

But the wizard's tower is a DLC, I think.

Also, on the subject of traveling from the middle of nowhere, you could just bring a Scroll or amulet of Divine/Almsivi Intervention. BOOM, now you're in a city. Then you can practically go most other cities from there.

But you cant pick and often dont know which one you go to, and again how many times is the doungeon near that city, as for paying to the next city, yes it often will but the fact still remains odds are the place you have to go is far away form the city.

Also I got the game with the Add on's


is it to much to ask for something all the other games had? a way to get some where fast?
Morrowind is a great game, but oblvion had most of its things and then some, and a way to play real quick.
the things it did not have I dont need, flying in morrowind could last a long time, the faction requements I do not need, I'd preferd the storys of the guilds in oblivion


now morrowind is a great great great game, but its age is showing, just like Arena, some would say it was better then morrowind, had way more factions, magic, and it was huge, then you had daggerfall which making a carcther had AMAZING choices to make one, but they are not even compared, why? cause there age is showing.

[AddictedtoMorrowind]

But the wizard's tower is a DLC, I think.

Also, on the subject of traveling from the middle of nowhere, you could just bring a Scroll or amulet of Divine/Almsivi Intervention. BOOM, now you're in a city. Then you can practically go most other cities from there.

But you cant pick and often dont know which one you go to, and again how many times is the doungeon near that city, as for paying to the next city, yes it often will but the fact still remains odds are the place you have to go is far away form the city.

Well, if you were going near the dungeon, chances are you'd be in the city nearest the dungeon. And that's part of the fun in Morrowind. Traveling far to reach your destination. Exploring as you go.

[Wolfie]

Well, if you were going near the dungeon, chances are you'd be in the city nearest the dungeon. And that's part of the fun in Morrowind. Traveling far to reach your destination. Exploring as you go.

Yes it can be fun but many times it can be down right anoying and no real way to get there, more so with bad directions, I do like morrowind but it would be way better if you could travle to places that where not citys, it did not help that you had to walk evrey well or eles you would die, no running, flying required you to wait till it ran out, and no horses.

And I'm talking of going to a dungeon then going to another one thats most likely far away form any city, as most are.

[AddictedtoMorrowind]

'Tis the joy of exploring new things.

I mean, with bad directions, all I can do is laugh at the confusion of the direction giver. It's not that annoying, especially when you've gone through a bunch of fights with random creatures, you've most likely raised a skill, and such. Also, if you needed to go to a city after you're halfway to the dungeon, you can place a Mark spell, use Intervention, and then use Recall. There's also potions and Scrolls of those spells, if I recall.

Lulz, recall.

[Ragnarok]

sorry wolfie, but you're simply twisting the facts. I don't know if you're just romanticizing your memories of Oblivion, but the reality of the situation was not how you express it at all, in any way, shape or form. here's the reality. no matter whether you play Morrowind or Oblivion, when you got a new quest, location, map marker, etc. you could not just instantly hop on your horse and fast travel to that location like you make it sound. you had to hoof it the first time, THEN and ONLY then could you "fast travel" back to that spot, and even that took time, in game. now, the way I remember it, most loot was actually IN "Oblivion", i.e. in an Oblivion plane that you had to travel to and through an Oblivion Gate to reach. I remember going in, clearing one and having piles of loot and having to make several trips back and forth lugging and hauling loot out as much as I could carry at a time, usually taking several trips back and forth, so the tedium to me was Oblivion compared to Morrowind, where, like I said, I could Mark Creeper or Mudcrab, make my way where I needed to go the first time, (and you're also wrong about Almsivi and Divine Intervention. once I learned the "lay of the land" I could pretty much determine where I would end up and had a travel system worked out where I could get just about anywhere on Vvardenfell in minutes) load up my loot, and it didn't matter whether I was over encumbered or not because I would simply Recall to my Mark and sell all my loot in one fell swoop. one trip and done. now be honest, if you can do that, how many times do you ever return to one of these locations once you've completed your objective, other than for loot? Oblivion was the only time I ever HAD to go back, several times and make several trips in fact, to recover all my loot. oh, and you can't "fast travel" IN Oblivion, i.e. no horses through the gate. in Morrowind, this was a non-issue making return trips unnecessary. like I already pointed out, that's what added to the tedium level in Oblivion, much more so than Morrowind. if you're referring to the speed of traveling by horse vs. on foot, there were plenty of ways to speed that up in Morrowind as well, even surpassing the speed of horse travel in Oblivion (boots of blinding speed, anyone?), not to mention the fact that teleportation in Morrowind was INSTANT (no time lapse), so sorry, I still have to regard your comparison as seriously flawed.

[Frost Mage]

I agree with AtoM, Morrowind is truly it's own TES game, and can't really be compared to Oblivion or especially Skyrim fairly. It works so much differently that it simply isn't much fun to people who can't appreciate it. Like I said, IMO Morrowind is the best TES game at the moment, and until Skyrim's newness wears off, I have yet to decide which is better.

[Wolfie]

First off so no one pulls the "stop going for pages already, if you disagree with me and don’t wish to go on then don’t reply. Not saying you will just have had quite a few pull the “You just arguing” when they quote me just as many times as I quote them.

sorry wolfie, but you're simply twisting the facts. I don't know if your just romanticizing your memories of Oblivion, but the reality of the situation was not how you express it at all, in any way, shape or form. here's the reality. no matter whether you play Morrowind or Oblivion, when you got a new quest, location, map marker, etc. you could not just instantly hop on your horse and fast travel to that location like you make it sound.

I'd say it's you romanticizing your memories of Morrowind as well, we both are when we come down to it. No, you could not. But you could fast travel to somewhere you already been which was odds are LOADS closer than the nearest city, you could use horses to speed up, AND you could run fast while in morrowind you could not.

you had to hoof it the first time, THEN and ONLY then could you "fast travel" back to that spot, and even that took time, in game. now, the way I remember it, most loot was actually IN "Oblivion", i.e. in an Oblivion plane that you had to travel to and through an Oblivion Gate to reach. I remember going in, clearing one and having piles of loot and having to make several trips back and forth lugging and hauling loot out as much as I could carry at a time, usually taking several trips back and forth, so the tedium to me was Oblivion

I never had this problem, even so I could fast travel to the nearest city unload and fast travel right back to the gate, or anywhere else I wanted to go or nearby, at any time form almost anywhere. Safes me the pointless #500 walk that I've done times before in to the "marsh" region.

compared to Morrowind, where, like I said, I could Mark Creeper or Mudcrab, make my way where I needed to go the first time, (and you're also wrong about Almsivi and Divine Intervention. once I learned the "lay of the land" I could pretty much determine where I would end up and had a travel system worked out where I could get just about anywhere on Vvardenfell in minutes)

Uh huh and how long did this take For you to learn? and even then, you could not go to a dungeon you already been to, which would suck when you go in to town and hear there is another quest on the other side, and its not near the city’s but right next to the places you've been to before long ago many times, and once again another long walk past all to familiar places.

load up my loot, and it didn't matter whether I was over encumbered or not because I would simply Recall to my Mark and sell all my loot in one fell swoop. one trip and done. now be honest, if you can do that, how many times do you ever return to one of these locations once you've completed your objective, other than for loot? Oblivion was the only time I ever HAD to go back, several times and make several trips in fact, to recover all my loot. in Morrowind, this was a non-issue making return trips unnecessary.

I've never had the problem of having to much loot form one places, but I don’t keep a lot of stuff in inventory form one place to the other.

if you're referring to the speed of traveling by horse vs. on foot, there were plenty of ways to speed that up in Morrowind as well, even surpassing the speed of horse travel in Oblivion (boots of blinding speed, anyone?), not to mention the fact that teleportation in Morrowind was INSTANT (no time lapse), so sorry, I still have to regard your comparison as seriously flawed.

I'd say yours is TBH but then again that’s why we are here in the first place talking about it.

# 1 boots blinded you, and with out using bugs you could not see with them and even then it require you to find 1 person in the middle of nowhere (IIRC)
#2 AFAIK it still lowered your stamina
#3 instant teleportation is not the problem, I have no problem with game time being taken up I have problem with MY time, when I have to walk to every dungeon even when I've been to five that where RIGHT there, every time unless I have foresight and know a quest or whatever would be there, and even then unless I wanted to get lost, I'd best attempt to follow their directions as best as I can, (there where some exceptions to this rule)

[Frost Mage]

It's its own game, and should be respected for what it is, not criticized like you guys have been doing. I'm all for talking of how the game could have been better, but nitpicking features that made the game unique is going to be controversial.

[Wolfie]

It's its own game, and should be respected for what it is, not criticized like you guys have been doing. I'm all for talking of how the game could have been better, but nitpicking features that made the game unique is going to be controversial.

I'd agree its it's own game, but he asked me what I thgout and I have him my awnser, also I've seen you many times point out oblvions flaws comapred to morrowind.

its nothing wrong with saying a game has flaws, and I dont call it nitpicking I call it spending years on a game I loved but wished to God there was a way to get past walk #500

And your right its a good game, I do not deny this, I loved the game I had found memorys but it did have many problems that IMO oblvion fixed.

[Drakling]

Well if worse came to worst and one was semi-lazy they could rely on enchants, enchant some rings with spells-items in Morrowind recharged naturally overtime, you could just wait an hour and then the enchanted item would fill itself up again. Casting from enchanted items was the only combat thing in the game that didn't have a failure rate.
The failrate is a big turnoff to casual gamers, because one can't even hit rats or leeches consistently unless your skill is near 50. Once one got their weapon skill to 80 they'd be able to hit pretty much everything in the game that didn't have high luck/speed or debuffs. One can say it makes it more realistic but..arrows shouldn't have a hit/miss ratio calculation after hitting something, y'know? You just about literally -had- to pick a class for its bonuses because if you didn't you'd fail up to 100x if you had really bad luck.

Mm. Most people describe it as a gem in the rough, you simply have to take the time to get used to it then it can be enjoyable. It has re playability value due to guild restrictions-and you actually had to up your skills when you wanted promotions in any of the factions, giving off a higher feel of accomplishment. There were cursed items at some shrines or a couple quests involving them-items which spawned a specter or daedra-and a lot more types of equipment. In addition to the types of equipment, there were also many more individual unique equipments. o-o The dialogue and quests included much lore and the dungeons were preset, npcs did not have to go through dicerolls which made it more challenging for some people. Though the world was somewhat static in the sense that npcs didn't really move often-and guards never reacted to cliffracers or hostile npcs that I can remember..the info that you get from doing the quests can counteract that in most opinions, whereas in Oblivion/Skyrim most quests are random errands for some guy, Morrowind's quests tend to ussually have the npcs explain what+why things are the way they are leading up to why you have to do what you have to do to progress. I'd say unique equipment slightly helped a lot; despite medium armor being the odd one out-I really miss spears personally. The different attacks (thrust/chop/etc) also each had different damage rates for weapons-some people found this interesting while some people found it annoying and then others simply spam the most effective attack for that weapon. Most of the creatures in Morrowind are very other-worldly, which also probably helped for some. A couple of the crypt/plague type enemies creeped me out a tad.

So, overall-one could say why most people love Morrowind is because it had tons of extra shiney buttons-and was thick in lore. Beyond (and even) that varies greatly, I personally miss Mark+recall a lot-though I can understand why levitation and most things ended up being scrapped or redone entirely in Oblivion. Some elements were partially re-incorporated in Skyrim, but I'd say the makers of TES are still trying to figure out a balance of all features while also putting in new things.

[Gideon Dragontongue]

I've played Morrowind for 500+ hours, and it was one of my favorite games. In fact, I was still finding new stuff to do after four years of playing it, right up to 11-11-11. However, Skyrim eclipses all others. What I would most like to happen would be Morrowind remade with Skyrim's engine and graphics, but we all know that's not going to happen.

And I can't tell you how much I miss flying. I had a constant effect levitation amulet. I could go anywhere! Great way to stroke your wizardly ego.

[Lord Cattow]

# 1 boots blinded you, and with out using bugs you could not see with them and even then it require you to find 1 person in the middle of nowhere (IIRC)

You can see just fine with only a simple resist magic spell. Depending on how strong the resist spell is, it would be rather dark, but you can still see.

[Wolfie]

# 1 boots blinded you, and with out using bugs you could not see with them and even then it require you to find 1 person in the middle of nowhere (IIRC)

You can see just fine with only a simple resist magic spell. Depending on how strong the resist spell is, it would be rather dark, but you can still see.

Yes and that to me is a bug, I dont think a blind would be resited while the running would not, I could be wrong but do other enchamnets do that?
AFAIK its the only one

[Lord Cattow]

Yes and that to me is a bug, I dont think a blind would be resited while the running would not, I could be wrong but do other enchamnets do that?
AFAIK its the only one

Even if the speed would be lowered by 10% as well as blind, you'd still go relatively fast and be able to see (not that well, but you it does allow sight). So even if there's a slight bug in the boots, even without that one bug, the boots would still be a great means of fast transport.

[Cedric]

The overall game played has improved so much since Morrowind. I really liked Oblivion, but I believe Skyrim is a masterpiece. It's the best TES game, but Morrowind is special. Oblivion and even Skyrim didn't match the charm of Morrowind. I will list my favorite things about Morrowind and what I thought made it special.

1. The map/region. Huge, varied and amazing. Dark and depressing in some areas, pure eye candy in others.
2. Map layout. The way they laid out the various regions, cities, minor cities, roads and plantations. Very cool. In Morrowind you would find all kinds of intimate places to hang out that you didn't want to leave.
3. The great Houses were a wonderful addition to the factions.
4. Totally varied architecture from each region. A major difference and probably one reason why it was such a great game. You had it all and it made each region special.
5. An amazing amount of things to collect like Dwemer stuff, Limeware cup and plates. The awesome working candles, the pillows and things like that.
6. It had crossbows, darts and spears and you could enchant your own arrows.
7. Some cool spells like levitate.
8. You were so painfully gimped at first you had to do crazy things to get the resources to buy stuff or train or you would get killed. In Morrowind, travel really was dangerous, especially at early levels and the lack of fast travel, made each potential journey a long trip. I spent hours trying to steal and lie my way into better equipment,spells and skills, because real questing without it was hard.
9. It was setup in a way where you had to spend a long time at the earlier towns like Sedya Neen, Caldera,Pelgaid and Balmore. As a result, you end getting very attached and soaking up each town. Then you start to travel and places completely different appeared. I spent so many hours in Sedya Neen and Balmora its crazy.
10. Some great unique items.
11. Did I mention the amazing varied map and regions?
12. Ditto number 11.
13. Mages failing out of the sky

Morrowind also had horrible flaws that made it a serious pain, almost all of those things have been corrected with the newer games.

[Chaos the N'wah]

Yes, it makes so much sense to have resist magicka make any and all other enchantments useless...

I've seen so many of these threads to the point that I'll leave it to quip. Morrowind is a novel, Oblivion/Skyrim is a movie; preference of media.

[Cedric]

Yeah the Boots of blinding speed!!! I loved those considering how horribly slow the player was.

[Gideon Dragontongue]

The player literally sprinted at the expenditure of stamina at the speed the Dovahkiin jogs!

[Evil-i]

Whether or not Morrowind is "great" is, of course, an opinion, and thus, subjective. Personally, I grew to hate Morrowind; I just found the whole thing too busy, cluttered and silly.

A lot of the gushing Morrowind love expressed on this forum is really just a case of fond nostalgia. I suspect a lot of people here were of a certain impressionable age and cut their gaming teeth on Morrowind. As with so many things in life, you always remember the first one more fondly than the rest. A lot of people still look upon Zelda OoT as their favourite game of all time.

[Akiraka]

-Enormous map with varying geographical regions, dotted with even more varying towns and villages
-Completely unique fauna, and almost completely unique flora, breaking the mold of standard "high-fantasy"
-A dunmer nation, rather than a human-, or to boot, white-controlled nation, further distancing the game from standard fantasy, and even the other ES games
-The most expansive quest lines, almost all of which intertwine at some point, giving the entire game a feeling of cohesion
-Offered the most choices in terms of guilds and Houses, and forced the player to make decisions that had consequences
-The player was free to make decisions with game-breaking consequences
-The most expansive NPC dialogue. One could read pages and pages simply about the different weapons and armor
-Exhaustive menu of weapons, armor, and magical effects, at least the latter of which is the larger of the subsequent two TES games
-Unparallelled customization for enchantment and spell creation
-Absence of level-locking gave the player unhindered access to entire menu of weapons, armor, and magic
-Interaction between different cultures, from nomadic hunter-gatherers, covert operators, assassins, solitary mages, Imperial knights and more was integral to the plot
-Including the two expansions, Morrowind is quite possibly still the largest of the last three games.

[Ragnarok]

its nothing wrong with saying a game has flaws, and I dont call it nitpicking I call it spending years on a game I loved but wished to God there was a way to get past walk #500

see? this is EXACTLY what I was talking about and referring to in one of my posts. no imagination. no problem solving skills. everything has to be hand delivered on a silver platter and spoon fed. sorry wolfie, but some of us actually like being challenged and prefer having to think and use our brains.

And I can't tell you how much I miss flying. I had a constant effect levitation amulet. I could go anywhere! Great way to stroke your wizardly ego.

this man has the right idea.

# 1 boots blinded you, and with out using bugs you could not see with them and even then it require you to find 1 person in the middle of nowhere (IIRC)

unless, of course, if you're a Breton with 50% magic resistance wearing the Cuirass of the Savior's Hide adding another 60% magic resistance for a net total of 110% magic resistance. add in the Boots of Blinding Speed for full speed and no blindness. just to make it interesting, throw in a custom enchanted Expensive Ring with a 1 pt. CE Levitate effect and a custom enchanted Telvanni Cephalopod Helm with a CE Invisibility effect and you can literally fly anywhere in Vvardenfell unmolested in minutes. oh, and Levitate doesn't fatigue you and neither does walking, but even walking speed is enhanced far beyond that of any horse in Oblivion. on top of that no cheats and no console. it's all 100% legal and legit.

*edit*
gah! typos and more typos. think I got 'em all.