The Elder Scrolls -

[LORD IMPERATOR]

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It's kinda sad that we didn't see more of Yagrum Bagarn in other games. Or any other dwemer that could have been in other dimensions when the rest of their race disappeared.

 

[Admiral Mantoid]

It's kinda sad that we didn't see more of Yagrum Bagarn in other games. Or any other dwemer that could have been in other dimensions when the rest of their race disappeared.

I gotta admit, I was hoping he would appear in the Dragonborn DLC for Skyrim. Shame it never happened.

Also I find it odd how Morrowind had dwemer ghosts but no other game afterwards featured anything of the sort.

 

[FriendlyPrimarina]

Words words words

Personally, I started with Skyrim several years after its release and played Morrowind/Daggerfall a couple of years later. While I still like Skyrim, my opinion of it lessened after playing Morrowind. The only reason I'm telling everyone this is so my views can't just be put down to nostalgia.

The most valid point in this rant is the combat. Yes the combat is bullshit but not insurmountable. If the character has even a half-decent skill level for a weapon they can pretty much hit all the time. If you're willing to suffer through the bullshit it's not a huge problem. I'll admit that's a big if, though.

I disagree about the Dunmer all being the same. Four thousand years ago the Tribunal made themselves gods, possibly through nefarious means, and the Dunmer who found this sacrilegious went into the mountains and spitefully observe the ancient traditions. Now the empire is colonizing VVardenfell with their Nine Divines, causing the rest of the Dunmer to worship the Tribunal out of spite. Three different religions, and they all hate one another. Not all Dunmer are OK with slavery either. There is a slave-freeing faction, but they're so secretive that you won't even find out about them until you've freed ten slaves of your own volition. Because this incredibly shallow game trusts the player to recognize the horrors of slavery and act of their own accord without lecturing them.

Not all games need to have multiple endings. They are great for giving the player agency, but terrible for setting up a continuous narrative through multiple games. Oblivion and Skyrim could reference the events of Morrowind because you have to kill Dagoth-Ur. Skyrim could refer to the events of Oblivion because you have to let Martin Septim/Akatosh beat Mehrunes Dagon (I think. I've never played Oblivion). There will never be a sequel referring to the events of Skyrim because it would be impossible to come down on one side of the civil war without pissing off half the fanbase. The only game that could get away with that was Daggerfall, and that was only because a Dragon Break (you know, the reason it's really important to stop Dagoth before he starts Numidium up again) happened, making all the ending "canon."

As for your claim that we don't see any devastation caused by Dagoth - did you miss the fact that the inside of the Ghostfence is covered in a horrifying pestilence that turns people into gibbering zombies if they're lucky? And that the pestilence is slowly spreading throughout Vvardenfell because the Ghostfence is weakening? If Dagoth starts up Numidium and destroys the Ghostfence, he'll make all of Tamriel like the inside of the Ghostfence at best. At worst he'll trigger another Dragon Break and who knows what would happen?

There are plenty of other reasons I prefer Morrowind to Skyrim, but this post is long enough already. I just thought a lot of your points were kind of unfair.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Personally, I started with Skyrim several years after its release and played Morrowind/Daggerfall a couple of years later. While I still like Skyrim, my opinion of it lessened after playing Morrowind. The only reason I'm telling everyone this is so my views can't just be put down to nostalgia.

I did the opposite. I started with Morrowind, hated the shit out of it, kept myself out of Elder Scrolls stuff for over a decade, and only picked up Skyrim later on at the insistence of a friend. I liked it, wanted more, and bought Oblivion. Morrowind lessened my opinion of Elder Scrolls, while Skyrim and Oblivion showed me that it could be fun.

The most valid point in this rant is the combat. Yes the combat is bullshit but not insurmountable. If the character has even a half-decent skill level for a weapon they can pretty much hit all the time. If you're willing to suffer through the bullshit it's not a huge problem. I'll admit that's a big if, though.

That's a big IF, indeed. Even KOTOR doesn't bullshit you in combat that much, while in other RPGs, like Paper Mario, Oblivion, Skyrim, Mass Effect, and Final Fantasy, the combat works fine. Even Mass Effect 1, which was considered clunky by many fans, did combat better, while Oblivion and Skyrim combat is easy to get into. Whereas in KOTOR, if you don't want your character to suck in combat during the first part of the story, then just pump your starting points in the right skills and attributes, and your character can start off as a meat grinder who eats Mandalorian generals for breakfast, and you can level up your other attributes or skills as time goes on.

I disagree about the Dunmer all being the same. Four thousand years ago the Tribunal made themselves gods, possibly through nefarious means, and the Dunmer who found this sacrilegious went into the mountains and spitefully observe the ancient traditions. Now the empire is colonizing VVardenfell with their Nine Divines, causing the rest of the Dunmer to worship the Tribunal out of spite. Three different religions, and they all hate one another. Not all Dunmer are OK with slavery either. There is a slave-freeing faction, but they're so secretive that you won't even find out about them until you've freed ten slaves of your own volition. Because this incredibly shallow game trusts the player to recognize the horrors of slavery and act of their own accord without lecturing them.

The abolitionist faction is so weak that they have to hide themselves. Meanwhile, the Empire is doing the right thing and trying to force reforms on the outside, as well as a more benevolent religion in the Nine Divines. The religious nonsense, I can barely care about, it's two sides of assholes. You got the false tribunal who made idols out of themselves, and the "true" Dunmer religion which worships Azura, Boethiah, and Mephala, and two out of three of those Daedra are evil. Mephala's sphere concerns lies, murder, and secrets, while Boethiah's sphere covers treachery and deceit. Boethiah is violent, enjoying the murder of mortals, while Mephala delights in turning people against each other and getting people to betray their friends. One is Palpatine in Daedric form, the other is everything wrong with the real-life Spartans.

As I said, it's hard to sympathize with either side in the "False Tribunal vs. True Tribunal" shit when they're both assholes. At most, the Azura worshipers may be seen as benevolent, but that's one out of three Daedra that the "true" religion of Morrowind worships.

Fallout 3 handles slavery better, since you can actually ENSLAVE people and make money out of it. You can decide whether or not slavery is right, and you can decide whether or not to support the system or support the anti-slavery forces instead. In Morrowind, you can either just let it exist or fight it, whereas in Fallout 3, you can actually engage in the enterprise of slavery and enslave people for money, or you can show up at the slavers' headquarters equipped with a flamethrower and some power armor and burn the the whole place down while freeing their slaves.

Not all games need to have multiple endings. They are great for giving the player agency, but terrible for setting up a continuous narrative through multiple games. Oblivion and Skyrim could reference the events of Morrowind because you have to kill Dagoth-Ur. Skyrim could refer to the events of Oblivion because you have to let Martin Septim/Akatosh beat Mehrunes Dagon (I think. I've never played Oblivion). There will never be a sequel referring to the events of Skyrim because it would be impossible to come down on one side of the civil war without pissing off half the fanbase. The only game that could get away with that was Daggerfall, and that was only because a Dragon Break (you know, the reason it's really important to stop Dagoth before he starts Numidium up again) happened, making all the ending "canon."

Yeah, no. This actually will be part of my criticism for Oblivion and Skyrim: there's not enough options for the story. What if I want to help the Daedra overrun Cyrodiil? What if I want to help the Thalmor fuck over Skyrim? What if I want to free Miraak? Morrowind fans claiming that their game is one of the best RPG games of that era rings hollow when other games of that era gave more choice and agency for the story. At least Skyrim's Dawnguard DLC allowed you to betray the Dawnguard and become a vampire lord who blacks out the sun. Other great RPGs also allow such choices: Mass Effect allows you to eradicate the multiracial Council and install a human-led dictatorship. KOTOR lets you become the new Sith ruler. Heck, even the first Fallout game allowed you to join the Super Mutants and watch as they massacred the humans.

You can have the canon ending be the good ending and entertain other evil endings as non-canon, but fun distractions that live up to the role-playing system. The old Star Wars Expanded Universe had a continuous narrative through tons of games, and yet they still had endings where the bad guys won. It's just that they made the canonical ending the one where the good guys win, but they gave you the evil ending to give you a true role-playing experience, even in games that aren't RPGs.

Unless it's a kid's game like Super Mario where you HAVE to be the good guys and the good guys HAVE to win, forcing you to go through the same path for the story is bullshit, especially when even Dagoth Ur asks you what you would do in his place. What if I was a Dunmer Supremacist who wants to use Akulakhan to run the Empire out of Morrowind and make myself its new god-ruler? What if I was an Imperial lackey who wants to bring the Second Numidium to the Septims? There's so many possibilities that could have been done with Morrowind's story, and they instead opt to just shoe-horn you into the path of the Dunmer Messiah. People complain about Skyrim forcing you to become the Dragonborn, but Morrowind did the same exact thing.

As for your claim that we don't see any devastation caused by Dagoth - did you miss the fact that the inside of the Ghostfence is covered in a horrifying pestilence that turns people into gibbering zombies if they're lucky? And that the pestilence is slowly spreading throughout Vvardenfell because the Ghostfence is weakening? If Dagoth starts up Numidium and destroys the Ghostfence, he'll make all of Tamriel like the inside of the Ghostfence at best. At worst he'll trigger another Dragon Break and who knows what would happen?

That's cute, but it's just behind the Ghostfence, and it doesn't go anywhere since the plot ends before Dagoth Ur can wreak havoc on Morrowind. Oblivion's guild quest for the Mages' Guild did that plot better by having an army of necromancers running around and even going to war with a government agency-and they're winning.

Meanwhile, in the main campaigns for Oblivion and Skyrim, Oblivion has demonic armies stationed right outside the major cities, while Skyrim ups the ante by having dragons and vampires assaulting towns and cities in public. You actually feel the threat that the bad guys pose; in Oblivion, you can run across an Oblivion gate as you travel the country and end up having to fight Daedric minions, in Skyrim, the townspeople whom you rely on for services could get killed if a vampire or a dragon kills them. It makes the threat more realistic when it actually hits you in the face instead of just being a hidden thing that you have to investigate to discover.

At one point, I came back home to Whiterun after pilfering a tomb, just to sell some stuff I bought, when a dragon attacked, and I had to protect the townspeople from it. In another instance, I was coming back to Solitude after doing some odd jobs for the Jarl, when I saw the castle guard dogpiling a dragon. Then, in another instance, I was off going to Windhelm to rob the city blind, only for a dragon to attack the city gates, and I had to defend the people there because there could be NPCs whose services could be useful to me in the future that the dragon might kill.

That's one thing Skyrim has in spades that far outclasses Morrowind: the threats feel real because the populace is in actual danger that you can see with your own two eyes, and if you get complacent, PEOPLE DIE. Your favorite blacksmith could get killed by a vampire. Your contacts in a city could get killed by a dragon. It makes the game feel more real than if the threat was consigned to a corner and not allowed to blossom and affect the countryside as a whole.

There are plenty of other reasons I prefer Morrowind to Skyrim, but this post is long enough already. I just thought a lot of your points were kind of unfair.

And I thought a lot of points Morrowind fans throw against Skyrim and Oblivion is unfair, so it seems that we're even.

 

[FriendlyPrimarina]

The abolitionist faction is so weak that they have to hide themselves. Meanwhile, the Empire is doing the right thing and trying to force reforms on the outside, as well as a more benevolent religion in the Nine Divines. The religious nonsense, I can barely care about, it's two sides of assholes. You got the false tribunal who made idols out of themselves, and the "true" Dunmer religion which worships Azura, Boethiah, and Mephala, and two out of three of those Daedra are evil. Mephala's sphere concerns lies, murder, and secrets, while Boethiah's sphere covers treachery and deceit. Boethiah is violent, enjoying the murder of mortals, while Mephala delights in turning people against each other and getting people to betray their friends. One is Palpatine in Daedric form, the other is everything wrong with the real-life Spartans.

As I said, it's hard to sympathize with either side in the "False Tribunal vs. True Tribunal" shit when they're both assholes. At most, the Azura worshipers may be seen as benevolent, but that's one out of three Daedra that the "true" religion of Morrowind worships.

Fallout 3 handles slavery better, since you can actually ENSLAVE people and make money out of it. You can decide whether or not slavery is right, and you can decide whether or not to support the system. In Morrowind, you can either just let it exist or fight it, whereas in Fallout 3, you can actually engage in the enterprise of slavery and enslave people for money.

You initially called them "50 shades of the same idiot race that thinks slavery is OK and they're hot shit." When I showed that they're deeper than that you shifted the goalposts to "I can't sympathize with them." I'm not trying to convince you to sympathize with them, because you've made it quite clear that you never will, I'm just illustrating that there's more to them than you gave them credit for.

For what it's worth, you CAN buy slaves in Morrowind. They don't do anything except wander around your house, provided you have one, but if you're into roleplaying you can be "part of the problem."

Yeah, no. This actually will be part of my criticism for Oblivion and Skyrim: there's not enough options for the story. What if I want to help the Daedra overrun Cyrodiil? What if I want to help the Thalmor fuck over Skyrim? What if I want to free Miraak? Morrowind fans claiming that their game is one of the best RPG games of that era rings hollow when other games of that era gave more choice and agency for the story. At least Skyrim's Dawnguard DLC allowed you to betray the Dawnguard and become a vampire lord who blacks out the sun. Other great RPGs also allow such choices: Mass Effect allows you to eradicate the multiracial Council and install a human-led dictatorship. KOTOR lets you become the new Sith ruler. Heck, even the first Fallout game allowed you to join the Super Mutants and watch as they massacred the humans.

You can have the canon ending be the good ending and entertain other evil endings as non-canon, but fun distractions that live up to the role-playing system. The old Star Wars Expanded Universe had a continuous narrative through tons of games, and yet they still had endings where the bad guys won. It's just that they made the canonical ending the one where the good guys win, but they gave you the evil ending to give you a true role-playing experience, even in games that aren't RPGs.

Unless it's a kid's game like Super Mario where you HAVE to be the good guys and the good guys HAVE to win, forcing you to go through the same path for the story is bullshit, especially when even Dagoth Ur asks you what you would do in his place. What if I was a Dunmer Supremacist who wants to use Akulakhan to run the Empire out of Morrowind and make myself its new god-ruler? What if I was an Imperial lackey who wants to bring the Second Numidium to the Septims? There's so many possibilities that could have been done with Morrowind's story, and they instead opt to just shoe-horn you into the path of the Dunmer Messiah. People complain about Skyrim forcing you to become the Dragonborn, but Morrowind did the same exact thing.

I think calling Morrowind the best RPG ever is retarded too but where did you say that in your original post? You said you can't understand why Morrowind is so beloved. More goalpost-shifting.

To answer your point about multiple endings, though. Oblivion and Skyrim are both fully voice acted (well, voice "acted," at least). Do you really think that predicting so many possible player choices and writing and recording them all is practical? There's a reason the faction quests in Skyrim are so limited and you become leader in like a week.

You absolutely could not make one side of the war non-canon without pissing people off. Even today, almost a decade after Skyrim came out, people are still getting into debates over which side is right. I typed "stormcloak" into plebbit and the first thread that came up is only a month old.

That's cute, but it's just behind the Ghostfence, and it doesn't go anywhere since the plot ends before Dagoth Ur can wreak havoc on Morrowind. Oblivion's guild quest for the Mages' Guild did that plot better by having an army of necromancers running around and even going to war with a government agency-and they're winning.

Meanwhile, in the main campaigns for Oblivion and Skyrim, Oblivion has demonic armies stationed right outside the major cities, while Skyrim ups the ante by having dragons and vampires assaulting towns and cities in public. You actually feel the threat that the bad guys pose; in Oblivion, you can run across an Oblivion gate as you travel the country and end up having to fight Daedric minions, in Skyrim, the townspeople whom you rely on for services could get killed if a vampire or a dragon kills them. It makes the threat more realistic when it actually hits you in the face instead of just being a hidden thing that you have to investigate to discover.

At one point, I came back home to Whiterun after pilfering a tomb, just to sell some stuff I bought, when a dragon attacked, and I had to protect the townspeople from it. In another instance, I was coming back to Solitude after doing some odd jobs for the Jarl, when I saw the castle guard dogpiling a dragon. Then, in another instance, I was off going to Windhelm to rob the city blind, only for a dragon to attack the city gates, and I had to defend the people there because there could be NPCs whose services could be useful to me in the future that the dragon might kill.

That's one thing Skyrim has in spades that far outclasses Morrowind: the threats feel real because the populace is in actual danger that you can see with your own two eyes, and if you get complacent, PEOPLE DIE. Your favorite blacksmith could get killed by a vampire. Your contacts in a city could get killed by a dragon. It makes the game feel more real than if the threat was consigned to a corner and not allowed to blossom and affect the countryside as a whole.

The blight is a looming threat. It isn't in your face like Skyrim, but the god-forsaken zombies shambling around inside the fence, the blight storms that show it is slowly spreading outside the fence. Also, there are insane people walking the street, driven mad by Dagoth, who will attack you if you wait long enough. After a while, Dagoth starts affecting the player's dreams.

Let me introduce an analogy. It's long, so I've put it in a spoiler for people who don't want to read it.

Spoiler: Metroid Fusion

For those unfamiliar, Metroid Fusion has the main character, Samus, fighting through a research space station that had been invaded by a parasite simply called X. The X parasite floats around and when it invades an organism it kills it while absorbing its knowledge and it can mimic its prey afterwards, often changing its appearance to be more fearsome than the original e.g. bigger in size, larger claws/teeth etc.

The station is just full of death. There are corpses everywhere, with only twisted X copies in their place. Samus has to play cat and mouse with them, slowly regaining abilities in the process. To make matters worse, Samus' suit was infected at the start of the game and, as a result, there is an X mimicking her at full power (actually 10 such X by the end of the game thanks to asexual reproduction).

The Metroid series has your bog-standard Galactic Federation™. Towards the end of the game they foolishly decide to detain Samus (or they try to) and send their own people to capture the X for their own purposes. Samus is distraught at hearing this. She is the greatest warrior in her universe and she is just barely surviving. The Federation is wholly unprepared to face them. When they arrive, the X will kill them and steal their forms and knowledge so they can spread through the universe.

Rather than let this happen, Samus alters the station's course to impact the planet below. Destroying both while giving her time to escape. This completely eradicates the X both on the station and on the planet.

What does this have to do with anything? By the reasoning you are applying to Morrowind this is a terrible ending because the X never leave the station. We don't see them escape and take over the universe.

And I thought a lot of points Morrowind fans throw against Skyrim and Oblivion is unfair, so it seems that we're even.

OK? Good for you, I guess, but this isn't a competition.

Apart from your criticism of the combat and N64-tier graphics, which are fair, a lot of your issues with this game sound like a personal problem. Just bear in mind that because people like things you don't like, doesn't mean they are nostalgia-blind. That's DSP-level thinking.

 

[Neo-Holstien]

What factions? Outside of House Hlaalu and the Empire, none of the factions in Morrowind are even slightly as compelling as the factions in other games. The whole fucking country is just 50 shades of the same idiot race that thinks slavery is OK and that they're hot shit. If the whole country got destroyed, I wouldn't give a damn. Compare them to Caesar's Legion in Fallout: New Vegas, or the Stormcloaks in Skyrim. They're both morally wrong, (one faction is full of slavers, the other is full of traitors) but they still have compelling stories behind them and their leaders. Caesar is a man who sees the flaws in democracy and sees the need for a strong, unified state to help society rebuild after the bombs fall, Ulfric Stormcloak fights for both god and country after seeing his fellow man bend over backwards for the Elves, who took away their right to worship the god of their forefathers. Compared to that, every other faction leader in Morrowind could all go die in a fire and I wouldn't give a shit.

You obviously didn't play any other Elder Scrolls game before 3. 2 even had you go to trial when you get caught, and your sentence depends on how you handle your accusers and the court. (You can get a lower sentence if you plead guilty, and you can even get free if you know how to BS your way through.) Also, Morrowind's plot is about as deep as a puddle, considering that all roads lead to the same dickhead building a robot underground, getting killed before he gets to stomp around in Morrowind. Again, it's the equivalent of the Death Star being destroyed before it even gets to fire on Alderaan.

KOTOR actually has the enemies EVADE FIRE when your dice-roll fails. That way, it's nowhere near as unrealistic as seeing your knife connect with the enemy's body yet the game registering it as a miss. In KOTOR, if you miss, you either see your shot go wide, or the enemy blocks or dodges your sword slashes. THAT is how you implement a dice-roll combat system in a video game, not give it FPS-style aiming and yet register a miss despite the player hitting the enemy dead-center with a knife.

Morrowind's dice-roll combat is bullshit because a real-time first/third person system means that hit chance should be dictated by your skill as a human with a controller/keyboard & mouse. With this system, you are the character. You hit or miss depending on how good your aim is with the keyboard and mouse or with the controller, like in FPS games such as Halo or Call of Duty. A stats and dice-roll based combat system is designed primarily to compensate for limited control and a total lack of visual cues. It's a layer of abstraction between you and the player character. Kind of like KOTOR, where you don't AIM at the enemy character, you toggle the cursor at them and then select an attack to hit them with, and whether or not you hit or miss depends on your stats, because you're not relying on your aiming skills for this system.

Mixing them both is what makes the design of the Morrowind combat system objectively bad as they are two diametrically opposing systems. It's like if I had an FPS game where even if you hit the enemy dead-center in the face, your shot doesn't register as a hit because you don't have the right stats. That's the very definition of bullshit gameplay. The only thing dice-roll combat is good for in a real-time, first or third person system in a game is deciding whether or not you get critical hits. Otherwise, it should just rely on whether or not you actually hit the guy by aiming, not by stats. Stats are for turn-based combat games like KOTOR and Final Fantasy.

Also, as an RPG, KOTOR kicks Morrowind's ass hard. Not only are the graphics nicer to look at, not only is the story a well-layered tale full of themes and secrets that you can only truly grasp on your second or third playthrough, not only is the gameplay better, but it has more than one ending. If you want to go full evil, you can do that and become an even bigger threat than the big bad. In Morrowind, you have no choice but to destroy the Numidium, you can't just use it and take over Morrowind the way Dagoth Ur wanted to do. Shit, one of Skyrim's DLCs even let you become the new big bad by taking out Harkon and becoming the new lord of Castle Volkihar while you black out the sun yourself.

oh your just a nigger loving faggot. The starwars make sense now

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

You initially called them "50 shades of the same idiot race that thinks slavery is OK and they're hot shit." When I showed that they're deeper than that you shifted the goalposts to "I can't sympathize with them." I'm not trying to convince you to sympathize with them, because you've made it quite clear that you never will, I'm just illustrating that there's more to them than you gave them credit for.

My general thrust is still sound. Outside of a few parts of Morrowind, most of the Dunmer are open slavers who think they're the superior race. The Dunmer abolitionists are the exceptions that prove the rule-they have to hide their faces because Dunmer society openly revels in slavery and believes themselves to be the superior species. Which is fucking hilarious when one considers that Azura cursed them all.

For what it's worth, you CAN buy slaves in Morrowind. They don't do anything except wander around your house, provided you have one, but if you're into roleplaying you can be "part of the problem."

Yeah, and Fallout 3 does it better by letting you kidnap and sell people into slavery. That's how being "part of the problem" should be like.

I think calling Morrowind the best RPG ever is retarded too but where did you say that in your original post? You said you can't understand why Morrowind is so beloved. More goalpost-shifting.

I've seen many Morrowind fans say that it was the best RPG of that time. Which always makes me laugh. Even the fact that it's so beloved confuses me, considering that at best, it's a so-so game.

To answer your point about multiple endings, though. Oblivion and Skyrim are both fully voice acted (well, voice "acted," at least). Do you really think that predicting so many possible player choices and writing and recording them all is practical? There's a reason the faction quests in Skyrim are so limited and you become leader in like a week.

So? You can at least have two endings and go with that. Morrowind doesn't even let you have the freedom that Dawnguard offered where you can totally join the bad guys and be just as much an asshole as the main villain. The fact that Dagoth Ur even asks you what you would have done in his place makes it worse-it means that the devs might have considered different endings where the Nerevarine took control of the Second Numidium and used it for their own purposes, but then scrapped the idea. The fact that they dangle that possibility in your face only to not give it to you is one of the most cruel jokes I've ever seen in gaming, right next to Halo 2 teasing Scarab-driving in the last level only to have Sergeant Johnson steal it before you can use it.

You absolutely could not make one side of the war non-canon without pissing people off. Even today, almost a decade after Skyrim came out, people are still getting into debates over which side is right. I typed "stormcloak" into plebbit and the first thread that came up is only a month old.

It's obvious that Elder Scrolls will have to pick a winner for the Skyrim Civil War. My money's on the Empire, but they will obviously have to pick a winning side. Ditto for the Dawnguard DLC. Still, for roleplaying purposes, even non-canon "bad" endings should be on the table, so that the full spectrum of roleplaying could be realized. I mean, heck, even Fallout 3 did it, so why can't Elder Scrolls? By the time of Fallout 4, the Capital Wasteland's water supply isn't tainted, and the Brotherhood of Steel is still around, so Fallout 3's canonical choices were obviously to fix the water supply and keep the Brotherhood alive, but at least the option to taint the water supply and destroy the Brotherhood is still there for people who want to roleplay as assholes.

It makes no sense for an asshole to save Morrowind from the Second Numidium when any asshole version of the Nerevarine would totally take the giant robot and stomp around Morrowind for shits and giggles. Pro-Imperial Nerevarines would give Akulakhan to the Septims, while Dunmer nationalist Nerevarines would do what Dagoth Ur wanted to do and use the giant robot to run the Empire out of Morrowind.

The blight is a looming threat. It isn't in your face like Skyrim, but the god-forsaken zombies shambling around inside the fence, the blight storms that show it is slowly spreading outside the fence. Also, there are insane people walking the street, driven mad by Dagoth, who will attack you if you wait long enough. After a while, Dagoth starts affecting the player's dreams.

So? That's pedestrian compared to Oblivion's Mages plotline where fucking Mannimarco and his army of zombies and necromancers are waging a successful war against a whole arm of the government. If they won, Cyrodiil would get swamped with undead and the necromancers would rule the capital. There's people left and right who are in cahoots with the Cult of Worms, and even some mages are in on Mannimarco's plot.

If Elder Scrolls 4 didn't have the Daedra plotline, the Mannimarco quest could have easily become the main questline due to the sheer gravity and the story elements that plotline had.

Let me introduce an analogy. It's long, so I've put it in a spoiler for people who don't want to read it.

Spoiler: Metroid Fusion

For those unfamiliar, Metroid Fusion has the main character, Samus, fighting through a research space station that had been invaded by a parasite simply called X. The X parasite floats around and when it invades an organism it kills it while absorbing its knowledge and it can mimic its prey afterwards, often changing its appearance to be more fearsome than the original e.g. bigger in size, larger claws/teeth etc.

The station is just full of death. There are corpses everywhere, with only twisted X copies in their place. Samus has to play cat and mouse with them, slowly regaining abilities in the process. To make matters worse, Samus' suit was infected at the start of the game and, as a result, there is an X mimicking her at full power (actually 10 such X by the end of the game thanks to asexual reproduction).

The Metroid series has your bog-standard Galactic Federation™. Towards the end of the game they foolishly decide to detain Samus (or they try to) and send their own people to capture the X for their own purposes. Samus is distraught at hearing this. She is the greatest warrior in her universe and she is just barely surviving. The Federation is wholly unprepared to face them. When they arrive, the X will kill them and steal their forms and knowledge so they can spread through the universe.

Rather than let this happen, Samus alters the station's course to impact the planet below. Destroying both while giving her time to escape. This completely eradicates the X both on the station and on the planet.

What does this have to do with anything? By the reasoning you are applying to Morrowind this is a terrible ending because the X never leave the station. We don't see them escape and take over the universe.

At least the Galactic Federation got involved. The X Parasite became enough of a threat to warrant a galactic power getting involved, whereas the whole Second Numidium thing doesn't even end up being a blip on the Empire's radar.

Also, the X Parasite has been going around and killing and impersonating people all over in the galaxy even before the first Metroid game began, which is why the Chozo created the Metroids to deal with them. The X Parasite is more comparable to the Volkihar vampires who are running around killing people, which caused other groups like the Dawnguard to counter them.

Apart from your criticism of the combat and N64-tier graphics, which are fair, a lot of your issues with this game sound like a personal problem. Just bear in mind that because people like things you don't like, doesn't mean they are nostalgia-blind. That's DSP-level thinking.

No it isn't. People say Morrowind is a great RPG, I compare it with other great RPGs, and I found it lacking in so many ways. Morrowind fans love to shit on Skyrim and Oblivion, but as a veteran RPG player, I consider those two games to be far superior to Morrowind. At most, Morrowind is just a so-so game with a somewhat decent story and some cool ideas, but compared to the other RPGs out at the time, heck, compared to other games in the same franchise, it barely even reaches the levels of how good other Elder Scrolls games were.

oh your just a nigger loving faggot. The starwars make sense now

Better a nigger-lover than a nostalgia fag shitting on better games while jacking off to a mediocre game in the early 2000s that got left behind the dust when other games like KOTOR and Final Fantasy were dominating the sales charts.

 

[Neo-Holstien]

final fantasy has the lamest most cape shit plots I have ever seen, even among JRPGs. I am sorry you cried when the mean elf called you the N-word. Go drink your corn syrup and shit up a different thread queermosexual.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

final fantasy has the lamest most cape shit plots I have ever seen, even among JRPGs. I am sorry you cried when the mean elf called you the N-word. Go drink your corn syrup and shit up a different thread queermosexual.

At least they look good and play better than mediocre Morrowind. The plots are trash, sure, but as games, they're at least somewhat fun.

Also, I played as an Altmer, so if anything, the grey-skinned elves would be beneath me in the pecking order.

 

[Mnutu]

Lol imagine actually playing the game.
-TES Arena, the best Elder Scrolls experience

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Lol imagine actually playing the game.
-TES Arena, the best Elder Scrolls experience

Wasn't that the one where you can explore all of Tamriel? I admit, I'd love to have that in a modern ES title that's not an MMO.

 

[X Pac Heat]

Wasn't that the one where you can explore all of Tamriel? I admit, I'd love to have that in a modern ES title that's not an MMO.

Isn't it more empty than Breath of the Wild tho?

 

[Marcus the Mong]

Last TES game I played was the one on N-Gage.

 

[Mnutu]

Wasn't that the one where you can explore all of Tamriel? I admit, I'd love to have that in a modern ES title that's not an MMO.

You can certainly imagine doing just that, good luck getting out of the sewers without a guide. It’s a missed opportunity for Bethesda, the game is perfect for a remake.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

You can certainly imagine doing just that, good luck getting out of the sewers without a guide. It’s a missed opportunity for Bethesda, the game is perfect for a remake.

In the modern age of YouTube guides, I don't think it will be a problem. In the age back when strategy guides were rare, however, such challening games were a nightmare to beat for many players. I heard that the lead designer for Morrowind beat the starting dungeon only once. Out of 20 tries, no less.

 

[scathefire]

So? That's pedestrian compared to Oblivion's Mages plotline where fucking Mannimarco and his army of zombies and necromancers are waging a successful war against a whole arm of the government. If they won, Cyrodiil would get swamped with undead and the necromancers would rule the capital. There's people left and right who are in cahoots with the Cult of Worms, and even some mages are in on Mannimarco's plot.

If Elder Scrolls 4 didn't have the Daedra plotline, the Mannimarco quest could have easily become the main questline due to the sheer gravity and the story elements that plotline had.

Holy shit, imagine unironically defending the Oblivion Mages' Guild questline as an example of good writing. I tip my hat to you, good sir

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Holy shit, imagine unironically defending the Oblivion Mages' Guild questline as an example of good writing. I tip my hat to you, good sir

Compared to Morrowind's so-so questline, it might as well be the Mona Lisa. The Mannimarco questline in Oblivion was rushed, it certainly didn't live up to the full potential that it could have realized if it was given more development time, but it's far better than the Morrowind plotline where it ends before the threat could even be realized. At least Mannimarco was already giving the Mages' Guild and the Battlemages a boot in the ass before he went down.

 

[HeyYou]

Morrowind dicksuckers are obnoxious and rarely seem to enjoy any game in the series that isn't Morrowind, but saying Morrowind is a joke compared to Oblivion and Skyrim, calling its story "the narrative equivalent of premature ejaculation", and saying that Dagoth fucking Ur is a weak antagonist is so stupid and reactionary it makes everyone immediately think you're a contrarian.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

Morrowind dicksuckers are obnoxious and rarely seem to enjoy any game in the series that isn't Morrowind, but saying Morrowind is a joke compared to Oblivion and Skyrim, calling its story "the narrative equivalent of premature ejaculation", and saying that Dagoth fucking Ur is a weak antagonist is so stupid and reactionary it makes everyone immediately think you're a contrarian.

I'm sorry, but that's how it looks to me. Especially when I compare Morrowind to other RPG games.

Morrowind's story is the equivalent of what if Princess Leia escaped the grasp of Grand Moff Tarkin and activated the Death Star's self-destruct switch before it destroyed Alderaan. Or what if someone killed Alduin before he besieged Helgen. Or what if Yoda figured out that Palpatine was a Sith and killed him in the end of Phantom Menace.

Dagoth Ur just reeks of the same stereotype that Isildur had-of a once-noble man who's gone off the deep edge. At most, he's a Dunmeri Ulfric Stormcloak with better weapons and sorcery, except even less compelling, since at least Ulfric had PTSD from his war experiences and his religion was quite literally under attack, whereas the Empire in Morrowind didn't give less of a shit if the Dunmer worshiped the true Tribunal or the False one, they just offered the Nine Divines as an alternative. Dagoth Ur, or Voryn, was just greedy for more and sought divine power and to create a new god with himself as a god-priest. In essence, he's just as greedy for power as the Dwemer were, which makes him just as basic as Harkon or Miraak.

Nobody's claiming that Alduin, Harkon, or Miraak were great, compelling villains. Indeed, they were rather shallow, as they just sought dominion on their own, although Alduin didn't feel the need to seek divine power because he himself was already a god, and at least, both Alduin and Harkon were able to do damage in the world before they went down, and Miraak was able to give the Dragon Cult hell before they took him down the first time.

Ulfric Stormcloak was a more compelling villain whose cause could be reasonable or evil depending on your point of view. From a nationalist perspective, he's trying to save Skyrim from a weak Empire that allowed Elves to drag Talos-worshipers away into the night. From a global perspective, he's a dagger in the back of humanity when it needs to be strong after a big war. In the end, he's just some yahoo who can use the Voice, but his reasons for rebelling, and his story overall, was more compelling than Dagoth Ur's was. People are still debating whether or not Ulfric Stormcloak was right-which goes to show how much his story resonated with others.

Both Ulfric and Voryn sought to free their people from the Empire and preserve their cultures-the difference was, Ulfric's people were being hounded for simply practicing their faith, and he had PTSD after failing and getting tortured in the war, whereas Dagoth Ur was just a greedy shit who tried to gain more power, while during the events of the Morrowind game, Dunmer society was in no way under attack, since the Empire just wants to get rid of slavery and offered an alternative to the religious split between the True Tribunal and the False Tribunal. They couldn't give less of a shit if people worshiped Azura or Vivec, whereas Ulfric's people were being dragged away by the Thalmor for the simple act of praying to Talos.

Ulfric was motivated by vengeance, loss, and revenge. Dagoth Ur was motivated by simple greed and lust for power. Compared to Ulfric Stormcloak, Dagoth Ur is just the magic Dunmer equivalent of Mr. Krabs.

 

[Titos]

At least they look good and play better than mediocre Morrowind. The plots are trash, sure, but as games, they're at least somewhat fun.

Also, I played as an Altmer, so if anything, the grey-skinned elves would be beneath me in the pecking order.

Clicking the confirm button over and over to watch the same animation play out 10 trillion times isn't exactly what I would call thrilling gameplay, or even gameplay at all.