@Mechfan XIII How old are you traveler ? Im 34 born under the Steed. Morrowind came out when I was a teenager and it was and still is one of my favorite games of all time. Its the totally chill game and some of the tombs can accutaly scare me. I never get scared in movies no more ... im a adult lol but these games were scary. I dont want to give it away AND you can use SPEARS ! I recomend them ! With high speed I can go on. Play morrowind you will love it. just be sure to use a weapon you are skilled at and potions for fatigue your good to go.
I think it’s beautiful that the main theme of Morrowind has become the Main Theme for the series, it saved Bethesda, Morrowind’s importance cannot be understated.
I feel that the game being text based is a net positive, due to the cost of voice acting we probably would have a much reduced experience overall and the lore wouldn't take the forefront imo.
Agreed, makes it easier for fans to contribute, the voiced greetings were really all I needed in the game. As we learned the Oblivion npc conversations didn't really add much to immersion. You only need schedules and greetings and you have the illusion of life
Same! Heck, I always have dialogue subtitles on in Oblivion and Skyrim and NEVER listen to a full line of dialogue. I read and move on. There's adventuring to be done.
I'd love to see a return to the text dialogue in the next Elder Scrolls game! I feel as though even with the tech we have now voice acting comes at too high cost on many levels. 🤷♂️ Gimme Less flashy gimmics and more attention to story/lore/quests/setting. you know, all of those things that fell by the way side in later games.
@@breendart134 Skipping the slow line delivery of the 5 people who voice every NPC? Not hearing the sudden shift in voice for the same character presumably stemming from Bethesda still sorting the lines alphabetically and the actors just forgot who had the different voices? Madness
I love how in the late stages of the main quest, morrowind turns into a pseudo horror game with all the ash creatures. I actually got startled a few times while going through some of the dungeons with them.
Oh frrr, I first played this game when I was like 13 and I have a very vivid memory of wandering into some crypt that was flooded in ankle-deep water, lit by candles. Thought I was just in for some bandit camp UNTIL I saw an Ascended Sleeper and a couple of ash zombies emerging from the shadows and chugging toward me from across the chamber. Just about shit my real-life pants. Still don't think I've ever been as vividly frightened by a video game as I was that night lol
A long time ago, my buddy and i were pulling an all nigher with soda and pizza, because we finally got our hands on the Bloodmoon expansion, and we really wanted to find a werewolf. Our character walked around Solstheim for a few hours. Around 5am, just before the sun came up (in real life) we decided to give up. AT THAT EXACT MOMENT the music switched to combat. We thought it was just a reikling or something, but we turned around, and standing directly behind us was a werewolf. it played its roar sound, slapped our character to death, and then promptly fucked off. it was terrifying..
My favorite thing in Morrowind that I miss in modern RPG, is the travel system. As seemly frustrating as it was to lack a fast travel system and lack a quest arrow to point you to your destination, overall it was a much more interesting and rewarding experience to plan a route using the strider system and encounter cool side quests along the way.
It's the opposite in late game. I use a Jump 100 points for 2 seconds amulet to basically fly everywhere. Makes Oblivion feel downright slow in comparison. I love how absolutely broken Morrowind can be.
honestly, playing skyrim without a compass or fast travel really makes the game that more alive imo. i got inspired to play like that after I gave morrowind a try
I feel like people don't understand what fast travel actually is....they keep saying Morrowind doesn't have it yet as mentioned before there's mark/recall, there is also the silt strider travel network, and the mage guild teleport vendors. What are they then if not fast travel?
It’s worth noting for any new players that any class you make that’s thought out decently will become powerful with enough time. No matter how counterintuitive like Orc mage and Altmer warrior, you can still make it work with enough time.
That's not really true sadly, there are certain ways the game has to be played in order to min-max your health, it's really the draw back to your creative freedom That's probably my only criticism of morrowind is that health was such a fickle stat to increase, all my playthoughs I would just end up becoming a master armourer and running around in heavy armour to start off, even as a mage if you do that early on, you are set for the rest of your playthrough
@@okeyhehe1728 health wasn't really a problem, at least for me on my mage character. By cranking up intelligence, speed, and strength. I could simply outrun spells and stagger lock anything in arms reach with a bound dagger. Although I've recently started up a blunt melee build, gotta see how that'll go.
yah I played an orc mage once, if you're patient it can be a very overpowered build, actually going the opposite of skill bonuses for major and minor skills for any race can yield more level-ups before you cap out on attributes, which can be very beneficial in the late game giving you more health than your typical build would have once you hit the level cap.
i actually really enjoy the aspect of having a journal where directions on how to do the quest and how to get there are written down, i think having to look at your journal to figure out where to go and what to do next can be tedious but it also adds a lot to the immersion of the game even without good graphics and voiced lines, the one thing i hate is the slow walk speed but with the right build and a little patience that isn't much of a problem after a few levels. infact i think the immersion factor is the main reason i love this game, the fact that the only limits to what you can do are tangible things that make sense like "oh this place has too many high level enemies" or "oh this guild won't let me rank up cause i suck shit at the thing the guild specializes in" or "oh i can't join this guild cause i'm in another guild and they hate eachother" and things like that really make me feel like i'm actually going on an adventure in a living, breathing world that goes on without me (even though it doesn't, the NPC's don't go to bed or anything) and just walking around and questing gives me this amazing feeling in my opinion, morrowind is great cause it isn't scared to give the player consequences for their actions, and also give them the freedom to do whatever they like, creating the ultimate immersive experience
Check out the mod "LCV Schedules". With a bell tone it closes houses and shops at certain hours (also good for alteration/security training), teleports crowds of NPCs and shop owners into taverns in the evening and empties streets at night. Combined with some random encounters, this makes for a pretty immersive addition to the game.
Agree, and especially on that point that you have to figure out so much for yourself by reading in your journal. That was a huge brick in immersion for me. And the fact, that you could if you had the power to e. g. fly to the highest hower in the game and access "end game" content, or unlocking doors or chests or kill people with "end game" stuff. And all the details, it all felt so natural, even though the voice actors were very much the same. The hidden things, the all made by hand dungeons and all the characters with names and some with deeper stories. So in love with this game.
With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed. Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world you have created. In my childhood this text was pretty scary for me despite having all main quests done. It was like even If it seems like everything is done there's still something important left and sometimes it clashed with my tendencies to have something unique and explore the game.
Morrowind was my first game ever. I'll never forget the excilerating feeling walking through Morrowind and forgetting about anything around me. It was magical.
Oh I bet this game ruined so many games for you. For me after morrowind almost nothing else was impressive until oblivion. But I am just a console gamer who casually games.
I was 15 when this game came out, and it revolutionised the way many of us saw immersion in video games. That gentle transition to full freedom in Balmora was one of the sweetest things ever, perhaps only matched by the first two Fallout games. We then waited years to build computers that could run Morrowind with pixel shaded water enabled!
All of your negatives were positives for me but I'm a hopeless fanboy. I believe Morrowind has the best feeling of progression of any game ever made (at least for the first few playthroughs until you learn all the exploits). You go from molasses slow to levitating/jumping your way across the map at super speeds. Not hitting with an iron dagger to massacring villages and killing multiple gods. From feeling like an ignorant outlander to an encyclopedia of Vvardenfell and the Dunmer.
It's kind of hilarious how they created Fortify potions....and then they allowed the potions to stack. Just imagine some random prisoner put away for a few years gets imported into town, takes a giant bug up the road, and within a few months, has hundreds of thousands of gold and has more stats than every single other person in the entire region combined fifty times over.
I would also add travel to this list. The feeling of going from fumbling around with a map to figure out which Strider to take to memorizing most of the routes and combining them with Recall, interventions and pylons to cut a few days of in-game travel time to minutes is really neat.
@Alexandry Dumass lol at trusting reviewers they a bought and paid for have been for years and the ones that aren't bought are bullied into going with the group think
@@MrIcenice44 Morrowind and No Man's Sky (recent state of the game after countless updates) are literally the only two games that have made me feel that way. I've remember when Morrowind came out, I put like 6,000 hrs into it on my original Xbox when I was but a wee lad. I've never been more in awe as a 11 year old. 😭👌🏼 Then NMS is the only other game, nearly 20 yrs later that made me feel that way. Another game that comes close is DayZ.
I actually missed the fatigue system in Skyrim and Oblivion. I think a neat solution, would just be to have a "exhaustion" and "stamina" system. One for combat, which is quickly restored, and then another for out-of-combat, which you have to manage by either sleeping or eating, and where the effects of a high(?) exhaustion would be all the morrowind negative effects, like less chance of hitting and succeding at spell casting.
I dunno I’m fond of the ESO stamina and magicka system I think if the implemented the regen from heavy attacks into the Elder Scrolls 6 aswell as implementing weapon skills that would greatly diversify combat as opposed to left click right click to block left click hold to heavy right click hold left click to shield bash and then you have an active spell with Z.
I love the fatigue system, it really tied together immersion into the whole game, and forced you as the player to find creative ways to overcome it. Want to run as much as you want without consequences? Craft a constant effect restore fatigue ring equal to the drain rate.
Morrowind on the Xbox was amazing because it was a PC game running on a console that wasn’t a downgraded port. That had never been done before. Xbox was truly the next generation console that began bridging the gap between console and PC graphical capabilities.
For a 2002 game, Morrowind's water was amazing. I recently started a new vanilla 360 Oblivion playthrough and was struck by how bad the water looks, but Morrowind's water still holds up for its age
Seriously, what is up with this sudden burst in popularity for Morrowind? Afaik Bethesda didn't do anything much related to it (besides the expansion for ESO), but now there are tons of reviews, playthroughs, lore discussions, and memes up the ass. Hell, there's even a completely playable Morrowind port for Android. I'm not complaining though, just wondering. I guess people have much more free time due to the UNSPECIFIED VIRUS OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN.
@@alesin1992 The unearthing of the best game in the series. People yearn for the successor of Morrowind and its nothing new... Id assume you just fell down the rabbit hole and got recommended more and more, as I did.
I never got the whole reading thing and why people use it as an excuse to not play. You READ poorly written social media posts almost every single day so I don't get why its so hard to read some legitimately good writing in game like Morrowind. It was a breath of fresh air for me.
@Isaac Glen compare that to todays rpg-s system. Cutscenes, endless cringe dialogues and so on. Most of NPC even without any background. I prefer Morrowind system, where NPC has some dialogues, some description of himself and so on - it is still better. Depends what you prefer. If you lack of imagination than yeah - you will play same games with max 40hrs playtime. I probably spent few hundreds of hrs in the morrowind. Never been that immersed. I compared the Morrowind and Skyrim few weeks ago - Skyrim felt empty to me. Morrowind felt as an RPG. If game more than decade older is better to some players than this shows how good the Skyrim could be.
@Isaac Glen ...So we are in agreement that per definition, synonyms describe words of the same language with the same or almost the same meaning. Why are you even trying to argue then with your whole reading comprehension schtick? Especially since you perfectly understood my first comment despite me not quoting you literally? Are you that bored?
I love that Morrowind is free, but also doesn't allow fast travel like Skyrim and Oblivion. It forces you to explore. Some reasons I like Morrowind, even now, is that you have to explore and take your time. I feel it teaches a person patience. I love Morrowind, always will, and I don't care what anyone says.
And it has well designed dungeons that don't just serve as quest locations. I feel like most Skyrim dungeons are used for quest locations. I like how in Morrowind, many dungeons just exist for immersion and world building. Like smuggler caves near the coasts and whatnot
I disagree, unfortunately. It forces you not to explore. I explain why. I recently played this game, and I accidentally did parts of quests I've yet to accept, and some of them absolutely bugged out because of that, and the only solution was console commands. It also gave me an unnecessary amount of "item paranoia," as I call it. I sold (or threw away) quest items, like a random book, so I became a hoarder because of that.
Morrowind hit a perfect balance for moddability. You didn't have to find voice actors (who would then stick out in Oblivion anyway), and you could realistically learn to model and texture new assets that would blend in. Your quest objectives and directions could be as vague or exact as needed, because the game itself varied in that. Even the map, by virtue of being an island and containing you with a endless sea rather than an invisible wall, let people smoothly add new areas that you could see and swim to. For a series that I've always viewed more as modding platforms than self-contained games, this all makes Morrowind the clear winner.
Ah yes. I love Morrowind for adding spears, and it truly is the bridge between modern and oldschool elderscrolls, But this was the start of todds downward spiral into simplicity for the franchise imo.
@@ShadowSonic2 But it's not really the same audience anymore. If people want to play a good action adventure game, they can get Breath of the Wild or Elden Ring
Text-based speech is not a flaw, voice acting and facial animation are massive contributors to development time and budget bloat. also reading is active while listening is passive and we all skip through the dialogue as fast as we can anyway.
Yup. It’s only a flaw if the full voice acting of the next games was good. It isn’t. Text based>Mid voice acting you skip anyways once you’ve read the subtitles by the time they read half of their lime.
Also text based can literally let you unleash your sickest fantasies as a writer, not bound to if actual people could really pronounce or speak it loudly.
The bit about their complacency with engine bugs is part of why I think that the Bethesda main studio taking a few years to iron out their engine was probably the right call. They finally came to realize that they had let it slide too far, even before Fallout 76. They set the new side studio on developing 76 as an in-between game while the main studio was focusing on optimizing and streamlining their engine before starting work on Starfield, and I hope it's paid off. Obviously, the main studio got dragged into trying to fix 76 because of how monumentally bad it was, and I think the hope is that the main studio's preliminary work on fixing the engine is what enabled them to fix 76, and is also probably why Starfield and TES 6 got pushed back as far as they did. I guess we'll see soon enough if it was all worth it. Edit: These points were gone over in a recent-ish interview Todd Howard did with IGN, if you're curious. But he pretty much comes right out and says that what they've been working on the last several years was fixing the engine.
I always thought the early game combat made sense. It did give a point to the Warrior Star Sign being an option, since if you double checked, you would've noticed no attack stat in your starting menu. Even without knowing the math behind it, I always noticed combat was a lot more in my favor with that 10% bonus after calculations. And it never hurt to actually pick up The Steed, that +25 to speed is great, so that could mitigate running issues. Morrowind is definitely a game that will punish you if you build your character incorrectly, but rewards those who paid careful attention to their choices.
I would use the lady for the endurance and personality boost and a pilgrim for the favorite attributes of personality and endurance huge health points at high level and no one calling my character scum
I love Oblivion but once you get past level 25 and goblins and undead life bars become eternal I find myself just running through dungeons because I don't have the patience to attack the same enemy for 5 minutes a piece
I actually didn't like the speed of Skyrim's Melee Combat. a actual Dagger is swung alot faster than in Skyrim, especially in the hands of a person who knows how to use one.
@@magesticalmysterium6856 It also felt like you had to get way close to connect with large weapons, which kind of defeats the purpose of large weapons. They may hit harder but the reach isn't there. Now archery is where that game shines (relatively). Too bad you can't snipe light-sources.
21 is a carryover from Germanic roots. Even during the Christianized middle ages, 21 signified the end of knight training and full maturity. 18 is actually a number of Jewish significance and is part of the colonization through Abrahamism. It stands for 'chai'/'chaim' which basically means "life". Germanic people (note, that means not just Germans) used age brackets of 7. The first seven years were considered a pseudo second pregnancy since even though you're out of the womb, you still need to be cared for quite a bit. The second seven years were considered the beginning of your merging with your ancestor (skipping one generation), the fact that you lose your milk teeth and gain your permanent ones was seen as of of the chief signs of that. Lastly, the third seven years, until 21 was maturation and at 21 you were fully formed, reincarnated so to speak, and inherited everything from your previous life, including virtue and badness (which was an engine to keep people on the good path of life because your wrongdoings would transfer over, too. So, it's better to carry over glory) The US is mainly comprised of Germanic people, and English is also a Germanic language, even with all the Greek, French and Latin tacked on it. In fact, with some adjustments that cropped up over time, similarities get more and more apparent. The Y in you for example, used to be equivalent to þ, which is the 'th', meaning 'ye olde' means 'the olde', and you means thou, which is close to the German Du (which also changed into this new form). Or Dein (yours) == thine. Just to name a few. Being Christianized changed many a thing, but in the end, Germanic people are quite the big family. Still a global ethnic minority, but, still big.
Back when I played this game, as a young freshman in high school, I will freely admit that I read almost all the books and fell in love with the Lore. But I also first whetted my RPG appetite on the likes of Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (I was a bit too young to start with the first one, which I came back to later) and Icewind Dale. Honestly, I love the voice acting in games, it allows for a lot more passive gaming (which can be very relaxing), but damn, did I enjoy using my imagination back then. In fact, I'd love to see you review Baldur's Gate II.
As someone who started with Skyrim, I’ve actually had even more fun going backwards in the games and tend to enjoy it the most. Playing oblivion then morrowind really showed me how great this franchise is and what Bethesda really could be doing now, instead we just get Anniversary edition Skyrim :/
Kinda the same thing happened to me but in a weird way. Started with oblivion, loved that game, even though it wasn't my first open world game the moment I got out of the sewers and that feeling of awe hit me with the horizon in front of me and the walls of the city at my back made it feel like a truly different world to me, got to skyrim and loved it but as a kid i thought oblivion was better, then I went to daggerfall and morrowind and respect and like skyrim more than oblivion in retrospect. To me TES is all about the world, making you feel like you've stepped into one with its own history, culture and reactions to these mythic fantasy tropes that make them seem normal and in some ways mundane, and daggerfall, morrowind, and skyrim despite continuity issues between all 3 feel like it's set in the same world and the characters and issues going on in each games setting are just gray and thought through enough that it immerses me. Oblivions world is the worst out of all of them due to how almost every place is inhabited by the same people with the same problems who aren't reacting to the world ending thing going on outside their gates, the only thing that really changes is architecture, lore background about these places and how some regions have longstanding fueds with one another is just ignored in the game, which is a shame because that could've done the heavy lifting for making places really feel unique. As it stands outside of the imperial city only skingrad, bruma and kvatch are unique to me and one of them is unique cause it got fucked up.
I got introduced to the elder scrolls series through Skyrim in 2018 but Morrowind will always be my absolute favourite game. The depth of the story and lore was an amazing experience, and I honestly really enjoy the combat system and text based speech system. Morrowind felt like a REAL role playing game, whereas Skyrim and even Oblivion were both like taking a calculated ride at the amusement park, I do not think TES will ever really give in and let players fail, or not be the absolute best chad hero right off the bat like they did in Skyrim, which is really sad
I played skyrim in 2019 and then played morrowind about 2 months later. Morrowind not only is my favorite elder scrolls, it is one of my all time favorite games ever! I love almost every aspects of it, and though there a small things that bother me in the game, the more I play, the more I fall in love with it. I still come back to it every couple months to start a fresh playthrough whereas I've only ever done a single playthrough of skyrim and moved on. As for Oblivion, I'm yet to actually enjoy this damn game, I've started 3 characters and played for more than 20 hours and still can't find the fun in it, sad.
@@sugoha_2548 I have the same feeling about Oblivion, even when heavily modded it just feels... very goofy? It lacks the feeling of being a serious game with the way characters talk and how almost all of the quests have some kind of ”funny” twist :D
@@shreksleftknee Oblivion is definitely a bit on the goofier side. My friend and I are doing a tandem playthrough, he controls keyboard and I'm on the mouse, and we're having a blast. Leaning into the goof makes it better.
The fatigue is actually realistic. Even If you are a great archer or have steady hands. Try to shoot or lockpick while Out of breath after jogging around the block.
I'll always love the expanded lore and topics of morrowind, even if a lot (A LOT) of it is just reused copy and paste from one npc to the next, there's still so much to ask about and learn about from NPCs that was lost in later titles.
The Quest about the Disappearing of the Dwarves, one of the best quests in any game. Such a satisfaction when you proceeded in it, since you did not get so much information. I WoW, I ignored most quest story content, I did not read it, just EXP (for example WoW), but here, I fell in love with them, with going through my journal, reading books to get clooser to the Quests ending. I mean, if I remember correctly, the quest is given to you in a subordinate clause of another quest line (mages guild) and in an cryptic way, with not much details and you have to figure it out by yourself in this huge world People oftne say "I wish I could feel as if I am 12 again playing video games, best feeling ever." I had this exact feeling with this game and with the lore and the immersive gameplay at age 29. Wonderful. And then there is so much "hidden" content, and when you don't find it, the game just does not care. They put so much effort into this game and all the details and give a f**k if people even find it, since many hidden quests or things are not required for the story. For example this women who were in this cave on an elevated place, I totally did not see when I first entered that place, only found it through a thread in a forum. And there is so much of it in this game. And the horror feeling this game makes you feel. The super creepy temple areas with psycho monster things, unreal.
Played Morrowind on the OG Xbox, but eventually dropped it due to the issues you mentioned (plus nasty load times). Picked up Oblivion on release for the 360 and loved it. Same with Skyrim (although oblivion was nicer in some ways). After quitting consoles (bought no further consoles after the 360 rrod fiasco), I started playing modded skyrim, and am now revisiting oblivion (also heavily modded) and loving it. New rpgs don't emerse me as much in the role playing as the Elser scrolls. I already have close to 100h in oblivion and haven't done a single main quest. No oblivion gates are open, and I'm just enjoying the guilds and wondering about.
That game solidified my English as 15 years old, that probably helped me to get my job in USA company later in life and even later to migrate to New Zealand. Who would have known? I was just happy that my GF2 MX G400 could render that absolutely mind blowing water at that time :) Also had to start the game 30 times before it didn't crash in first 4 minutes :D Oh what a memories....probably last game where your quest mark was a text saying how many steps southwest you have to go before turning left at a tree to try locate a cave entrance in like 500m diameter :D
Yeah, it apparently it goes Forager > Scrib > Worker > Warrior. Which I also found odd because the Forager always seemed more powerful than Scribs to me.
Love the breakdown of Morrowind. It's a shame that this game is not as accessible but it is a good reminder to why Bethesda has drastically simplified later titles. I am a strong advocate for text based speech in RPGs as it allows the developers to go absolutely wild with lore without the burden of expensive voice actors. I find myself spending entire hours chatting to the NPCs in Balmora and I wouldn't have it any other way. My biggest gripe with Morrowind is the fatigue mechanic, as you explained in the video it effects basically everything. It truly feels like its the first mechanic in the game they designed and whole rest of the game was built around it. If I had a single modding bone in my body I would code fatigue out of the game altogether. Again, great video!
By the way, did you use the gem soundbite from the old Spyro games? I think you may have triggered some childhood PTSD of Moneybags extorting me for money lol.
Thanks for watching! Glad you liked it :) I agree that by turning to voice acting, they have sadly had to cut a lot of the dialogue, which is one of the many reasons Morrowind stands so unique against its sequels.
No need for any pro modding skills, altering the fatigue to your liking takes roughly 2 minutes: -Install the Construction Set -Open the Morrowind esm (top left corner) -Go to "Gameplay" -> "Settings..." -> "Gameplay" -Find the entry fFatigueReturnBase -Change the value from 1.5 to 10 -Save as an esp -Enable it in the launcher and start the game ...and you're good to go - problem solved. -[If you want the walking speed to be faster in general, change the value under fMinWalkSpeed] I myself use a value of 5 which drains stamina slowly while running, keeps restoration magic and potions valuable and useful (especially during combat), but the bar refills quickly when walking or standing still.
Morrowind...the last Elder Scrolls game for RPG players more than action players. Alas...once you know how to break the game over your knee, it can never provide the expererience it once had again. I love roll-to-hit...it makes me keep that division between me the player and the character and helps me immerse myself in the character. Also, as someone who reads many times quicker than most people can speak, I rarely listen to all the voice acted lines in modern games...why would I spend 30 seconds listening to information I can absorb through my eyes in less than 5 seconds?
Exactly. That's why some only recommend MW to those with good real life reading skill. But on the other hand, playing it automatically raises that skill, so those learning to read English (sadly, like appx. 60% of Americans) would obviously benefit from this, because "fun" helps us learn better than memorization, right?
It occurs to me that I may have sounded, to some, as if I were referring to immigrants. I wasn't. I was talking about Americans, which is exactly what I said.
@@mattfabz That's because Oblivion chose to compensate for difficulty when they overhauled combat by turning everything into sponges, including you. Button mash simulator
I remember being 16 when I got this for xbox, and completely fell in love wit the series. I went back and played all the classic titles, but never got to play Morrowind on PC. I finally have a PC capable of playing anything I want now, with the RAM to match my modding desires. But after being so entrenched in creating a proper mod lists for every game i the Stalker series, including anomaly, all in the past few months - I'm burned out on figuring out what mods to get. I really wish there was a standalone download that had all the good parts so I dont have to spend an entire day staring at mod managers and file folders.
Morrowind was released a full console generation before games stopped including comprehensive manuals, and several years before PC games moved to primarily digital download. In its era, it was assumed that players would read the instructions before they played, and games were not expected to do your homework for you. That's why so many players who came to the game late can't come to grips with the combat. The combat is explained perfectly well in the manual, and experienced RPG players had no issues with it. I'm not criticizing modern game tutorials or suggesting that things were better when games assigned you homework before you could play - it's just the way it was.
I think you're undervaluing the integral part Toonami Tom played in promoting Morrowind to us teenagers. I kid, but I only heard of any of the elder scrolls games because of that one spot. I couldn't buy the game at the time, but it definitely got my attention ("three days to walk across the game world without fast traveling, holy cow!"), and by the time oblivion rolled around I didn't miss my chance to dive in, and ended up a hardcore Bethesda fanboy for the entirety of Oblivion and Fallout 3, all dlc included. I've long since had the entirety of Morrowind spoiled for me, but I'm watching this before I commit to my first real play through.
Morrowind being text based, gave me the ultimate rpg experience. Because I had to pay attention in order to understand wtf was going on, my experience felt way more enveloping
"With good class-making & as little as two hours of playing, your character will be proficient enough to use your weapon of choice with little mishap...unless you're using a bow. If that's the case, suck it up until you reach 70-75 with your marksman skill." Fixed it for ya. 🤣
Shoot mudcrabs with a chitin bow drawn back as least as possible until your skill is about 50 or 55. Use chitin throwing stars. Boost you up quick. Marksman is crammed once it's high easily the best combat skill
Awesome video. First played Morrowind back in 2003 or 2004 on PC, I was 13 and it blew my mind. It was my introduction to the Elder Scrolls Series and It's one of my favorite games ever, I got sucked into that universe and lore to the point I've never been so hyped for a sequel, I bought every game magazine that had news about the then upcoming TES IV Oblivion. Then when Oblivion launched in 2006 was 16 that game blew my mind away too, the graphics upgrade and combat overhaul at the time was unreal, night and day compared to Morrowind. Then it all went downhill with Skyrim, no graphical leap, hell it feels like a downgrade with that rubbish drabbed tone color mapping and dumbed down gameplay/mechanics. So now I'm not even hyped for The Elder Scrolls 6. It still replay Morrowind now and then on OpenMW but that damn combat is too awkward by today standards, but never a full play through cuz once the nostalgia goggles fall off it's hard to keep going once I satisfied my wanderlust. Thus TES IV Oblivion is my favourite, by a slight margin just because of better gameplay but the world building, atmosphere and lore of Morrowind is unmatched.
Morrowind is still the better Elder Scrolls game ever made, at least for me. The others lack that sense of fulfilment Morrowind gave when finding places simply with directions or encountering a good enchanted item. The journal was a natural way of registering important info without being too obvious, and it made the experience more inmersive, the same with traveling. The map is so well hand crafted that (even if you feel lost sometime) you actually enjoy the trip as you find abandoned daedric altars, high elf towns, dwemer ruins and such. I actually insisted so much to a friend (who started with oblivion) to play it that after a few years he actually did, and was mind blown. Oblivion's main quest is the most boring elder scrolls experience I had ever (shivering isles on the other hand was really fun). Skyrim is... Alright. I like the perk sistem but....this feels less free, also the enemy level scaling system (also present in oblivion but a little more subtle) makes you feel like you never progress further.
Agreed just set up my openmw set up with some bug fixes and graphics mods, and weapon expansions, but left the core of the game alone.. The only real tweak is you don't miss on a bad roll, just do 1 damage instead. Makes it feel smother
Wow! An Amazing Tribute to an Awesome game. Very well done and very well presented. I played Morrowind from the start for nearly 13 years before going on to other games like Gothic, DeusX, and others. Now I'm gaming Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen. Liked and subed!
The thing that annoys me the most about fatigue in Morrowind isn't the way it works in gameplay, no. It's that the developers apparently thought the word "fatigue" meant the opposite of what it does. Running doesn't DRAIN fatigue, it builds it. Resting doesn't REPLENISH fatigue, it abates it.
The fixes you stated are great, I remember when my friend told me how the system works, I made a Redguard, skilled with Long Blades, with very high Strength and Agility and boooy, I was SLICING through the content, I was absolutely amazed by how fun the game felt compared to my first attempt.
Part of the problem is you can grab a dagger in the census office, but no other weapons. So a new player with skill in long blade or blunt immediately starts wielding a dagger they have no skill in. Still love Morrowind to this day though.
I'd like to say that when getting this game. The text-bssed speech was very pleasant. I - for once - liked reading. And now it got me into reading again
Jiub is 'Elder Scrolls' equivalent of the Doom Marine (circa. 1993) Thanks for the video, Jwlar!! The editing and memes were gr8. Good job o7 I saw your video on r/Morrowind, and I'm glad I did. :D It wasn't my first ES game, but it is one of my favorite games of all time. It has its flaws and can be completely broken at times, but it is paradoxically beautifully detailed, somber, and very well-written. Those servants of the Sharmat are *perfect* SCPs. Horrifying creatures. Imho, besides the Flood from Halo and the Necromorphs from Dead Space, these things are SO scary. Fallout 76's launch was understandably the last nail in BGS's coffin for many people, but it has gotten much better since it's release (and has a very wholesome community as well, from what I've heard). I hope BGS doesn't mess up like this again... (edit: I miss the old video stores and game manuals... 😂) Thanks for reading this, and stay safe out there o7
Best game ever, you can fly, you can swim, craft your own spells, enchant your own gear, you can kill almost everything, no hand-holding, no direction/quest arrows, no stupid highlighted items or people, total freedom, etc. The music is also the best.
Wow, you deserve a few more zeros after that subscriber count. Really great content, and super well done. High quality, polished stuff. Definitely subbed now, and about to dig into some of these other videos too.
Morrowind changed my life. What I mean by that is I dont think I would have become an artist or a writer without its influence xD I remember my older brother bought a graphics card and Morrowind came with it. We couldn't stop playing it. I feel like that kind of magic can rarely be captured in todays games - maybe it was just because I was a kid. but it felt like this game was made with passion compared to 95% of games nowadays.
I rarely have the time or attention available to watch longer format videos. But I sat in my office, drank my coffee and enjoyed the entire video. Well done good sir :) I remember playing this game on the original xbox as a child, walking around clueless in the wilderness haha
my biggest hurdle was getting lost at first, but once i learned to actually read my journal it wasnt as much of an issue one of my favorite parts of morrowind is all the different weather & their effects. like how in sandstorms your walking is sped up or slowed down based on what way youre walking also the thunderstorms. i keep jumping when i see lighting but its still really cool
The lore is the number 1 reason why I love Morrowind. They really deep-dove into it, in so many different ways. I mean...the background to the disappearance of the Dwemer and Vivec's attainment of CHIM alone is totally engrossing. Also, what's genius about Dagoth Ur as a villain is that you can absolutely see from his perspective why he's justified in his actions, in some kind of twisted way. Mods that ad the ability to join House Dagoth make sense.
Even though I'm a seriously old gamer (first game played at home was on my uncle's pong machine) I somehow missed TES series until Morrowind. I was immediately blown away and hold it up as a nearly perfect rpg. It's awesome that newer generations are being afforded the opportunity to experience it! Thanks for keeping the torch burning!
Playing through the game on my Xbox One and really loving it. It’s very unique in a lot of ways and quite fun. Took me a while to get past it’s movement speed, fatigue system, combat, and getting my strength drained to 0, but I think I’m going to end up liking it just as much as Skyrim by the end. Would’ve played the PC version, but I really couldn’t get past how terrible that version is to play on a controller. Maybe there were mods I could’ve added to aid that, but aside from the view distance it plays just fine on my Xbox and I’m having a ball with it on there.
Fantastic retrospective! I got stuck in hospital for about 6 months about 12 years ago and all i had was a laptop and a copy of Morrowind and honestly it was an amazing experience getting immersed in that world. Still go back to play it every now and then, what a a game!
When the game released I was 13 years old, my older brother built me a great PC with a nVidia GeForce 3 Ti 200, it had Pixel Shader support and I was amazed by the water. It was like today's Ray Tracing back in 2002. It is amazing that the game is 20 years old and it is still on my PC. I use the OpenMW project, but I don't mod the game, I love the Vanila experience, though the OpenMW makes the game more fluid and enhance the game's graphics. I don't know how many hours could be in the game, several years... :D
Maybe it's because I started gaming when all games looked like this aka 6th gen as a kid , plus handheld gaming a lot with Nintendo handheld games . I fell in love with morrowind before I even had a chance to play it by watching UA-cam , this was my first game I owned on my potato laptop I got in 2016 and loved it. I finally made it far in the game just recently for the first time but I'm only a level 10 and I'm so surprised how this game didn't get a "m" rating for how adult this game is compared to the later games , I love this game .
I liked the video before even finishing it. Can tell already that it has that touch of quality and love put into it. Got up to the fatigue argument and I understand full well as to why many players do not like that stat being so important. I on the other hand, like it. It feels realistic to me. Imagine trying to swing an axe or do anything at all, after sprinting and hopping around from town to town. You would simply not have the energy for it. 1st rule of morrowind is that you need to be jumping at all times to level up your acrobatics. :D
Fantastic game. I played it about half the year, day by day. My hero went 96 level with godlike abilities and ton of adventures to remember. He was thief, warrior, mage, knight, monk ... But I’ve finished maybe 30% of main story. I explored only west part of the island imagined that my hero irrationally afraid to go east(barely explored the rest). It was so exhausting experience that I never started another big RPG since then. I think key to understanding and appreciating Morrowind is knowing that the Game is only platform for Your imagination. You don’t play it like any game (especially modern) , but imagine it. Without imagining Morrowind is empty and boring. But if You use imagination it can lifelike experience.
the barrier to entry is WHY Morrowind remains such a beloved game and why more "modern" Bethesda titles have earned such scorn. Making a game for everyone is effectively making a game for no one.
I love Morrowinds theme music, but I remember being disappointed that other than battle music changes it didn't change when you entered one of the typically small dungeons, which could result in some soothing, calm tunes as you entered somewhere that should have been foreboding. Daggerfall's atmosphere really made you feel isolated and was perfect for the setting. Oblivion and Skyrim managed to capture some of this ambience, though their main themes weren't quite as strong as Morrowind's.
I often imagine how good later titles would have been had Bethsoft stayed with the concepts of MW and only refined questing, combat, and graphics. Dumbing down the systems and god awful all knowing quest markers are the downfall of such amazing potential of the ES series.
man what a great channel, the way you structure your Videos is perfect. Easy to follow but still dense and deep. You earned yourself a new sub, im gooing to binge the other Videos. Greetings from Germany. (Furthermore your smooth way of talking is great for learning englisch hehe)
In 2002, the barrier to entry was really low. This was one of the most accessible crpgs ever made at the time it came out. It only feels like a high barrier now because newer games are so super mega hand-holdy 100% of the time that you barely have to play the game.
Thank you for this vid, I loved it! I played this game 20 years ago and replayed it now. I personally don't think that better open world RPG's were made since. I have no hopes for Starfield, it will probably be an action game with RPG elements, more dumbed down than Skyrim and focused on "the game play loop". For me it's ironic that this was the first game I ever played on my own PC when I was 15 and up to this point is the best. Let me tell you, I didn't have a lot of experience with video games then, but I played this game for a year and didn't feel the need to have 300 new games every year. I might be blinded by nostalgia but this is objectively better than the next games in the series or in the genre. There is only one point I don't agree with you on. Why should offensive spell casting level up only when you hit a target? You are getting better specifically at spell casting not at precision. Also it is immersive that you get better at acrobatics if you jump around like a crazy person or running around aimlessly. The combat is good if you think about it like this: it is a graphic representation of what happens in the world. IRL do you think that you perceive reality as is? No, it is filtered trough your senses.
Of course there were fully voiced rpg-s in 2002! For example Gothic 1. One of my favorite rpgs of all time. Have a look at it :) Controls are a bit clunky, but the atmosphere is superb.
@@Jwlar I have not played with morrowind yet, so I cannot compare them. However, based on knowledge I collected from third parties (such as your video) I agree with you. The only thing I would add is that Gothic is a more compact, a more focused product, which makes it a little bit easier to have an objectivly better game at the end.
I would say unvoiced characters are better because it makes modding easier. Also when something is fully voiced a lot of time is taken from lore-writing, coding, bug fixing and takes away disk space for quests and other more important things. Plus, when you play oblivion you probably have noticed that dialogue is shorter in order not to take too much space on the disk and to not bore the players to death. So yes, I would very much welcome an unvoiced TES6. Maybe some sort of hybrid arrangement which works for both voiced and text based dialogue.
Very true. While it may not be as accessible as voices NPCs, the dialogue suffered so bad because of it. The writing really shines in Morrowind’s text, and I can’t say the same for the later titles, except in some minor instances.
Skyrim was my first Elder Scrolls game but I tried Morrowind soon after playing Skyrim and fell in love with the game. I love the freedom you have in this game and that you actually have to search for your objectives instead of a compass that shows the way. Nowadays Morrowind has become one of my favourite games.
TES: III feels so Alien and has the best art style in an TES game to date. I wish they would have stuck with this design philosophy, rather than diverting to more traditional fantasy settings for the latter games.
@Isaac Glen skyrim literally cut out the massive Celtic influence the Nords were written for in earlier games. They weren’t “just Nordic,” they were a mix of multiple European cultures. Dudes even wore kilts.
so many memories. fun fact, i was able to finish that game just a year ago, 'cause everytime i didn't had the skills to fully understand what really morrowind was about. So glad i didn't missed that call, at last. Love from Italy!
The fact that the Todd Howard ASMR roleplay is a real video from 2018 is probably the best part about this video. Probably. I dunno I'm only at 2:53 because I couldnt get past that point without googling the ASMR video.
The problem isn’t hit chance, the problem is there are too many people who play rpg games who have no idea what an rpg is and expect it to be an action game with choice. That is placidly false and smooth brain normies have ruined the elder scrolls series, fallout series and the rpg genre as a whole. I refuse to change my stance on it because no one has been able to disprove it.
if you look steam store page by categories and choose RPG you will get all sorts of games that have nothing to do with RPG's it seems game is considered rpg nowdays if its singleplayer.
It's good to remember that any resources devoted to making changes to the engine means time away from somewhere else. So if you say they're lazy or whatever about the engine code (being good enough to launch a billion dollar series btw), you might want to suggest features they'd have to cut to make up that time you want them to spend. Fantastic video, thanks for uploading!
I honestly don't understand what's the problem with combat. Keeping at full stamina isn't that hard, and after 30 skill you hit easily, just don't forget to hold down for longer to get more damage. When you want to train a new weapon skill, just use trainers to get to 15 (or 25 if you are richer) and use bound weapons to train (they give a +10 bonus to the skill)
Forgive my absolute necropost here, but I believe those mechanics aren't understood by new players just starting up, which was the crux of the issue with it making combat seem confusing/broken. It's not that combat is broken, it's that the way it works isn't obvious which adds difficulty that pushes away more of the general playerbase before they figure it out. It's fine if a game requires research and experience to become fun or understandable, but it WILL make it less appealing to general (casual) players - especially those that don't want to ruin the magic of a new experience.
@Isaac Glen TL;DR: Casual = Playing for luls and fun; Hardcore = Playing as skillfully as you can, often researching and planning strategies. I don't know if I'd personally say a game is Casual or Hardcore, rather that games are created to cater to one side or another. It's about how it's played, and this game with great potential for both playstyles simply failed to account for casual players in this case.
Great video! I remember playing this for the original Xbox when I was super young and all I remembered was getting super lost lol! I downloaded it to my Xbox one and ironically experienced the exact same feeling again after all these years.
The combat in Morrowind is largely why I hate it. I died to one of those little worms by the side of the road because I couldn’t hit it, even though I’m pretty sure I had Major in light blades.
Great video I love Morrowind!! After playing many RPGs over the years I can still definitely say this is my favorite, and that is probably in part due to nostalgia (great memories of playing it on Xbox when I was 9 in 2004), but the sheer openness to what you can do is unmatched. It’s true Bethesda had a chance to really iron out its weaknesses with Oblivion and Skyrim, and while some things are better, however, they’re both great but inferior games. My standards aren’t set too high for TES VI, but one can still hope. Keep up the great work though, it’s always good to find players who enjoy Morrowind as much as me and still play it today!
But what if I wanted to roleplay as myself? There's the German word "Tausendsassa" that describes someone who is literally talented in everything and can learn any skill almost instantly, the ultimate all-rounder so to speak, which describes me perfectly. I liked the multi-class leveling system in Skyrim because that's exactly how my life works, and when I'm forced to choose a class in a game, it doesn't feel like roleplaying as myself.
I played Morrowind around release and completely acknowledge it as the best Bethesda game but still find it too dated to play now, even modded. Here's hoping we get Skywind one day (and some subsequent companion mods for it so I don't feel too scared to leave town without levitate). ...also not gonna lie, you're pretty darn cute.
27:40 I love the sound of the siltstrider. i was so jazzed when dusty was in the dragonborn expansion. I love morrowind, if I could get a morrowind like CRPG with Daggerfall's world simulation.. I could be happy :)
You can watch my near 4-hour retrospective of Daggerfall here :)
ua-cam.com/video/16YEMiNxNCs/v-deo.html
I realize Im kind of randomly asking but does anybody know of a good website to stream new movies online ?
Incredible video. The daggerfall retrospective as well!
@Mechfan XIII How old are you traveler ? Im 34 born under the Steed. Morrowind came out when I was a teenager and it was and still is one of my favorite games of all time. Its the totally chill game and some of the tombs can accutaly scare me. I never get scared in movies no more ... im a adult lol but these games were scary. I dont want to give it away AND you can use SPEARS ! I recomend them ! With high speed I can go on. Play morrowind you will love it. just be sure to use a weapon you are skilled at and potions for fatigue your good to go.
KISS is also generally used in programming
Ah, here are my hours of listening xD
I think it’s beautiful that the main theme of Morrowind has become the Main Theme for the series, it saved Bethesda, Morrowind’s importance cannot be understated.
I feel that the game being text based is a net positive, due to the cost of voice acting we probably would have a much reduced experience overall and the lore wouldn't take the forefront imo.
Agreed, makes it easier for fans to contribute, the voiced greetings were really all I needed in the game. As we learned the Oblivion npc conversations didn't really add much to immersion. You only need schedules and greetings and you have the illusion of life
It also make you more invested rather than just listening on autopilot
Same! Heck, I always have dialogue subtitles on in Oblivion and Skyrim and NEVER listen to a full line of dialogue. I read and move on. There's adventuring to be done.
I'd love to see a return to the text dialogue in the next Elder Scrolls game!
I feel as though even with the tech we have now voice acting comes at too high cost on many levels. 🤷♂️
Gimme Less flashy gimmics and more attention to story/lore/quests/setting.
you know, all of those things that fell by the way side in later games.
@@breendart134 Skipping the slow line delivery of the 5 people who voice every NPC? Not hearing the sudden shift in voice for the same character presumably stemming from Bethesda still sorting the lines alphabetically and the actors just forgot who had the different voices?
Madness
I love how in the late stages of the main quest, morrowind turns into a pseudo horror game with all the ash creatures. I actually got startled a few times while going through some of the dungeons with them.
Oh frrr, I first played this game when I was like 13 and I have a very vivid memory of wandering into some crypt that was flooded in ankle-deep water, lit by candles. Thought I was just in for some bandit camp UNTIL I saw an Ascended Sleeper and a couple of ash zombies emerging from the shadows and chugging toward me from across the chamber. Just about shit my real-life pants.
Still don't think I've ever been as vividly frightened by a video game as I was that night lol
A long time ago, my buddy and i were pulling an all nigher with soda and pizza, because we finally got our hands on the Bloodmoon expansion, and we really wanted to find a werewolf. Our character walked around Solstheim for a few hours. Around 5am, just before the sun came up (in real life) we decided to give up. AT THAT EXACT MOMENT the music switched to combat. We thought it was just a reikling or something, but we turned around, and standing directly behind us was a werewolf. it played its roar sound, slapped our character to death, and then promptly fucked off. it was terrifying..
Now I think it's a good thing I didn't bother with ash creatures' origins back then! For me they were all separate mobs, not stages. D:
Could be scary. More an unsettling feeling.
I was always happy when I was out of the dungeon and saw the light.
You should play Daggerfall on very high reflexes mode if you liked this side of Morrowind. I get jumpscared a lot in the dungeons lmao
My favorite thing in Morrowind that I miss in modern RPG, is the travel system. As seemly frustrating as it was to lack a fast travel system and lack a quest arrow to point you to your destination, overall it was a much more interesting and rewarding experience to plan a route using the strider system and encounter cool side quests along the way.
It's the opposite in late game. I use a Jump 100 points for 2 seconds amulet to basically fly everywhere. Makes Oblivion feel downright slow in comparison. I love how absolutely broken Morrowind can be.
Mark and Recall is the ultimate fast travel.
honestly, playing skyrim without a compass or fast travel really makes the game that more alive imo. i got inspired to play like that after I gave morrowind a try
Survival mode in a Hudless run in Skyrim.
I feel like people don't understand what fast travel actually is....they keep saying Morrowind doesn't have it yet as mentioned before there's mark/recall, there is also the silt strider travel network, and the mage guild teleport vendors. What are they then if not fast travel?
It’s worth noting for any new players that any class you make that’s thought out decently will become powerful with enough time. No matter how counterintuitive like Orc mage and Altmer warrior, you can still make it work with enough time.
That's not really true sadly, there are certain ways the game has to be played in order to min-max your health, it's really the draw back to your creative freedom
That's probably my only criticism of morrowind is that health was such a fickle stat to increase, all my playthoughs I would just end up becoming a master armourer and running around in heavy armour to start off, even as a mage if you do that early on, you are set for the rest of your playthrough
@@okeyhehe1728 you can patch this via mcp
@@okeyhehe1728health doesn’t matter when you can kill everything before they can even touch you…..
@@okeyhehe1728 health wasn't really a problem, at least for me on my mage character. By cranking up intelligence, speed, and strength. I could simply outrun spells and stagger lock anything in arms reach with a bound dagger. Although I've recently started up a blunt melee build, gotta see how that'll go.
yah I played an orc mage once, if you're patient it can be a very overpowered build, actually going the opposite of skill bonuses for major and minor skills for any race can yield more level-ups before you cap out on attributes, which can be very beneficial in the late game giving you more health than your typical build would have once you hit the level cap.
All hail Young Scrolls for bringing us Dagothwave and its incredible contributions to the modern resurgence of Morrowind's popularity.
Let's not forget MickyD who did tons of well received Morrowind videos during the quarantine.
@@elha7982 💯
i actually really enjoy the aspect of having a journal where directions on how to do the quest and how to get there are written down, i think having to look at your journal to figure out where to go and what to do next can be tedious but it also adds a lot to the immersion of the game even without good graphics and voiced lines, the one thing i hate is the slow walk speed but with the right build and a little patience that isn't much of a problem after a few levels. infact i think the immersion factor is the main reason i love this game, the fact that the only limits to what you can do are tangible things that make sense like "oh this place has too many high level enemies" or "oh this guild won't let me rank up cause i suck shit at the thing the guild specializes in" or "oh i can't join this guild cause i'm in another guild and they hate eachother" and things like that really make me feel like i'm actually going on an adventure in a living, breathing world that goes on without me (even though it doesn't, the NPC's don't go to bed or anything) and just walking around and questing gives me this amazing feeling
in my opinion, morrowind is great cause it isn't scared to give the player consequences for their actions, and also give them the freedom to do whatever they like, creating the ultimate immersive experience
Check out the mod "LCV Schedules". With a bell tone it closes houses and shops at certain hours (also good for alteration/security training), teleports crowds of NPCs and shop owners into taverns in the evening and empties streets at night. Combined with some random encounters, this makes for a pretty immersive addition to the game.
Agree, and especially on that point that you have to figure out so much for yourself by reading in your journal. That was a huge brick in immersion for me. And the fact, that you could if you had the power to e. g. fly to the highest hower in the game and access "end game" content, or unlocking doors or chests or kill people with "end game" stuff. And all the details, it all felt so natural, even though the voice actors were very much the same. The hidden things, the all made by hand dungeons and all the characters with names and some with deeper stories. So in love with this game.
With this character's death, the thread of prophecy is severed. Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world you have created.
In my childhood this text was pretty scary for me despite having all main quests done. It was like even If it seems like everything is done there's still something important left and sometimes it clashed with my tendencies to have something unique and explore the game.
Morrowind was my first game ever. I'll never forget the excilerating feeling walking through Morrowind and forgetting about anything around me. It was magical.
Oh I bet this game ruined so many games for you. For me after morrowind almost nothing else was impressive until oblivion. But I am just a console gamer who casually games.
My girlfriend at the time had it. I bought an Xbox just to play it and later Halo. Played it endlessly/
I was 15 when this game came out, and it revolutionised the way many of us saw immersion in video games. That gentle transition to full freedom in Balmora was one of the sweetest things ever, perhaps only matched by the first two Fallout games. We then waited years to build computers that could run Morrowind with pixel shaded water enabled!
All of your negatives were positives for me but I'm a hopeless fanboy. I believe Morrowind has the best feeling of progression of any game ever made (at least for the first few playthroughs until you learn all the exploits). You go from molasses slow to levitating/jumping your way across the map at super speeds. Not hitting with an iron dagger to massacring villages and killing multiple gods. From feeling like an ignorant outlander to an encyclopedia of Vvardenfell and the Dunmer.
It's kind of hilarious how they created Fortify potions....and then they allowed the potions to stack. Just imagine some random prisoner put away for a few years gets imported into town, takes a giant bug up the road, and within a few months, has hundreds of thousands of gold and has more stats than every single other person in the entire region combined fifty times over.
I would also add travel to this list. The feeling of going from fumbling around with a map to figure out which Strider to take to memorizing most of the routes and combining them with Recall, interventions and pylons to cut a few days of in-game travel time to minutes is really neat.
It’s great that its your favorite, that’s something to cherish. I want to find a game that’s perfect for me like that I haven’t found it yet
@Alexandry Dumass lol at trusting reviewers they a bought and paid for have been for years and the ones that aren't bought are bullied into going with the group think
@@MrIcenice44 Morrowind and No Man's Sky (recent state of the game after countless updates) are literally the only two games that have made me feel that way.
I've remember when Morrowind came out, I put like 6,000 hrs into it on my original Xbox when I was but a wee lad. I've never been more in awe as a 11 year old. 😭👌🏼
Then NMS is the only other game, nearly 20 yrs later that made me feel that way. Another game that comes close is DayZ.
I actually missed the fatigue system in Skyrim and Oblivion.
I think a neat solution, would just be to have a "exhaustion" and "stamina" system. One for combat, which is quickly restored, and then another for out-of-combat, which you have to manage by either sleeping or eating, and where the effects of a high(?) exhaustion would be all the morrowind negative effects, like less chance of hitting and succeding at spell casting.
I dunno I’m fond of the ESO stamina and magicka system I think if the implemented the regen from heavy attacks into the Elder Scrolls 6 aswell as implementing weapon skills that would greatly diversify combat as opposed to left click right click to block left click hold to heavy right click hold left click to shield bash and then you have an active spell with Z.
Yup same with me
I love the fatigue system, it really tied together immersion into the whole game, and forced you as the player to find creative ways to overcome it. Want to run as much as you want without consequences? Craft a constant effect restore fatigue ring equal to the drain rate.
Actually think daggerfall's made the most sense where it went down over time and it made you have to have to rest to recover it
Morrowind was one of the first games I bought for my X-Box and I remember being amazed by how great the water looked.
I've played morrowind for the first time in 2019 and I'm still amazed at how good the water looks, it looks better than in Oblivion!
I was blown away for the game having a sky 🤣
Beautiful sky too ❤️
Me too fam. It made the differences between xbox and ps2 cl3qr.
Morrowind on the Xbox was amazing because it was a PC game running on a console that wasn’t a downgraded port. That had never been done before. Xbox was truly the next generation console that began bridging the gap between console and PC graphical capabilities.
For a 2002 game, Morrowind's water was amazing. I recently started a new vanilla 360 Oblivion playthrough and was struck by how bad the water looks, but Morrowind's water still holds up for its age
Morrowind reviews and retrospectives spring up everywhere.
Love to see it.
Thank you!
Seriously, what is up with this sudden burst in popularity for Morrowind? Afaik Bethesda didn't do anything much related to it (besides the expansion for ESO), but now there are tons of reviews, playthroughs, lore discussions, and memes up the ass. Hell, there's even a completely playable Morrowind port for Android. I'm not complaining though, just wondering. I guess people have much more free time due to the UNSPECIFIED VIRUS OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN.
@@alesin1992 The unearthing of the best game in the series. People yearn for the successor of Morrowind and its nothing new... Id assume you just fell down the rabbit hole and got recommended more and more, as I did.
@@alesin1992 Because the game is stupendous
@@alesin1992 times up with Xbox buying Bethesda and putting Morrowind on gamepass. That's my guess
I never got the whole reading thing and why people use it as an excuse to not play. You READ poorly written social media posts almost every single day so I don't get why its so hard to read some legitimately good writing in game like Morrowind. It was a breath of fresh air for me.
I read all the books, letters, notes, whatever in game. That's how you learn stuff, & helps the immersion.
@Isaac Glen If reading Morrowind dialogue striked you as tiresome as writing a thesis, you should probably read more in general.
@Isaac Glen compare that to todays rpg-s system. Cutscenes, endless cringe dialogues and so on. Most of NPC even without any background. I prefer Morrowind system, where NPC has some dialogues, some description of himself and so on - it is still better. Depends what you prefer. If you lack of imagination than yeah - you will play same games with max 40hrs playtime. I probably spent few hundreds of hrs in the morrowind. Never been that immersed. I compared the Morrowind and Skyrim few weeks ago - Skyrim felt empty to me. Morrowind felt as an RPG. If game more than decade older is better to some players than this shows how good the Skyrim could be.
@Isaac Glen Let me give you another one in return since you want to argue semantics: Tiresome and monotounus are synonyms.
@Isaac Glen ...So we are in agreement that per definition, synonyms describe words of the same language with the same or almost the same meaning. Why are you even trying to argue then with your whole reading comprehension schtick? Especially since you perfectly understood my first comment despite me not quoting you literally? Are you that bored?
I love that Morrowind is free, but also doesn't allow fast travel like Skyrim and Oblivion. It forces you to explore. Some reasons I like Morrowind, even now, is that you have to explore and take your time. I feel it teaches a person patience. I love Morrowind, always will, and I don't care what anyone says.
And it has well designed dungeons that don't just serve as quest locations. I feel like most Skyrim dungeons are used for quest locations. I like how in Morrowind, many dungeons just exist for immersion and world building. Like smuggler caves near the coasts and whatnot
I disagree, unfortunately. It forces you not to explore. I explain why.
I recently played this game, and I accidentally did parts of quests I've yet to accept, and some of them absolutely bugged out because of that, and the only solution was console commands. It also gave me an unnecessary amount of "item paranoia," as I call it. I sold (or threw away) quest items, like a random book, so I became a hoarder because of that.
@@CsubAzUrmedve u stupid
Morrowind hit a perfect balance for moddability. You didn't have to find voice actors (who would then stick out in Oblivion anyway), and you could realistically learn to model and texture new assets that would blend in. Your quest objectives and directions could be as vague or exact as needed, because the game itself varied in that. Even the map, by virtue of being an island and containing you with a endless sea rather than an invisible wall, let people smoothly add new areas that you could see and swim to.
For a series that I've always viewed more as modding platforms than self-contained games, this all makes Morrowind the clear winner.
Ah yes. I love Morrowind for adding spears, and it truly is the bridge between modern and oldschool elderscrolls, But this was the start of todds downward spiral into simplicity for the franchise imo.
Simple like the wider audience he wanted to target: Despite the marvels he's created, Todd is really driven by money and creating wide appeal
Bad elder scrolls is when spears
You can't really blame him, the audience made it clear they wanted stuff that was more accessible.
Todd = Entirety of Bethesda Game Studios
@@ShadowSonic2 But it's not really the same audience anymore. If people want to play a good action adventure game, they can get Breath of the Wild or Elden Ring
Text-based speech is not a flaw, voice acting and facial animation are massive contributors to development time and budget bloat. also reading is active while listening is passive and we all skip through the dialogue as fast as we can anyway.
Very true.
Depends do you like it don't. To him it's a flaw while to you it's not. I see people make the same argument you used (active passive) for listening :D
Fallout 4 is a good example for voice acting being a potential negative
Yup. It’s only a flaw if the full voice acting of the next games was good.
It isn’t. Text based>Mid voice acting you skip anyways once you’ve read the subtitles by the time they read half of their lime.
Also text based can literally let you unleash your sickest fantasies as a writer, not bound to if actual people could really pronounce or speak it loudly.
The bit about their complacency with engine bugs is part of why I think that the Bethesda main studio taking a few years to iron out their engine was probably the right call. They finally came to realize that they had let it slide too far, even before Fallout 76. They set the new side studio on developing 76 as an in-between game while the main studio was focusing on optimizing and streamlining their engine before starting work on Starfield, and I hope it's paid off. Obviously, the main studio got dragged into trying to fix 76 because of how monumentally bad it was, and I think the hope is that the main studio's preliminary work on fixing the engine is what enabled them to fix 76, and is also probably why Starfield and TES 6 got pushed back as far as they did. I guess we'll see soon enough if it was all worth it.
Edit: These points were gone over in a recent-ish interview Todd Howard did with IGN, if you're curious. But he pretty much comes right out and says that what they've been working on the last several years was fixing the engine.
I always thought the early game combat made sense. It did give a point to the Warrior Star Sign being an option, since if you double checked, you would've noticed no attack stat in your starting menu. Even without knowing the math behind it, I always noticed combat was a lot more in my favor with that 10% bonus after calculations. And it never hurt to actually pick up The Steed, that +25 to speed is great, so that could mitigate running issues. Morrowind is definitely a game that will punish you if you build your character incorrectly, but rewards those who paid careful attention to their choices.
I would use the lady for the endurance and personality boost and a pilgrim for the favorite attributes of personality and endurance huge health points at high level and no one calling my character scum
That's because morrowind was a rpg not the simple hack n slash garbage modern elder scrolls is
Atronach or lady. Atronach is so busted I won't pick it anymore unless I'm just looking to make a God character
MW's combat is hit-and-miss but I take that over Oblivion's blunt axes and pincushion enemies any day.
Very true. Oblivion's combat had no weight, which simply didn't work for a real-time action-based combat system.
I love Oblivion but once you get past level 25 and goblins and undead life bars become eternal I find myself just running through dungeons because I don't have the patience to attack the same enemy for 5 minutes a piece
I actually didn't like the speed of Skyrim's Melee Combat. a actual Dagger is swung alot faster than in Skyrim, especially in the hands of a person who knows how to use one.
@@magesticalmysterium6856
It also felt like you had to get way close to connect with large weapons, which kind of defeats the purpose of large weapons. They may hit harder but the reach isn't there.
Now archery is where that game shines (relatively). Too bad you can't snipe light-sources.
@Isaac Glen
Not if you use a weapon your character is actually good at using. Standard RPG stuff.
"18 years old, old enough to drink"!
*Laughs in American*
Bro you took my comment word for word.
You always were pussies. Laughs in freedom
Yeah gotta love Murica here. We can die for the government but can’t legally drink, or even smoke now!
Crazy how the euros have a way lower drinking age but less problem with underage drinking and fatalities
21 is a carryover from Germanic roots.
Even during the Christianized middle ages, 21 signified the end of knight training and full maturity.
18 is actually a number of Jewish significance and is part of the colonization through Abrahamism. It stands for 'chai'/'chaim' which basically means "life".
Germanic people (note, that means not just Germans) used age brackets of 7.
The first seven years were considered a pseudo second pregnancy since even though you're out of the womb, you still need to be cared for quite a bit.
The second seven years were considered the beginning of your merging with your ancestor (skipping one generation), the fact that you lose your milk teeth and gain your permanent ones was seen as of of the chief signs of that.
Lastly, the third seven years, until 21 was maturation and at 21 you were fully formed, reincarnated so to speak, and inherited everything from your previous life, including virtue and badness (which was an engine to keep people on the good path of life because your wrongdoings would transfer over, too. So, it's better to carry over glory)
The US is mainly comprised of Germanic people, and English is also a Germanic language, even with all the Greek, French and Latin tacked on it.
In fact, with some adjustments that cropped up over time, similarities get more and more apparent.
The Y in you for example, used to be equivalent to þ, which is the 'th', meaning 'ye olde' means 'the olde', and you means thou, which is close to the German Du (which also changed into this new form).
Or Dein (yours) == thine.
Just to name a few.
Being Christianized changed many a thing, but in the end, Germanic people are quite the big family. Still a global ethnic minority, but, still big.
Aaaaaaaah, I love the smell of fresh Morrowind content in the morning
Back when I played this game, as a young freshman in high school, I will freely admit that I read almost all the books and fell in love with the Lore.
But I also first whetted my RPG appetite on the likes of Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn (I was a bit too young to start with the first one, which I came back to later) and Icewind Dale.
Honestly, I love the voice acting in games, it allows for a lot more passive gaming (which can be very relaxing), but damn, did I enjoy using my imagination back then.
In fact, I'd love to see you review Baldur's Gate II.
As someone who started with Skyrim, I’ve actually had even more fun going backwards in the games and tend to enjoy it the most. Playing oblivion then morrowind really showed me how great this franchise is and what Bethesda really could be doing now, instead we just get Anniversary edition Skyrim :/
Yeah we’ll never see another game this interesting from Bethesda.
Same exact story for me! I can’t wait to play Unity Daggerfall! It looks great
@@sub-jec-tiv sadly, agreed...
@@michaaelallen6189 wait, wut?? Expected release?
Kinda the same thing happened to me but in a weird way. Started with oblivion, loved that game, even though it wasn't my first open world game the moment I got out of the sewers and that feeling of awe hit me with the horizon in front of me and the walls of the city at my back made it feel like a truly different world to me, got to skyrim and loved it but as a kid i thought oblivion was better, then I went to daggerfall and morrowind and respect and like skyrim more than oblivion in retrospect. To me TES is all about the world, making you feel like you've stepped into one with its own history, culture and reactions to these mythic fantasy tropes that make them seem normal and in some ways mundane, and daggerfall, morrowind, and skyrim despite continuity issues between all 3 feel like it's set in the same world and the characters and issues going on in each games setting are just gray and thought through enough that it immerses me. Oblivions world is the worst out of all of them due to how almost every place is inhabited by the same people with the same problems who aren't reacting to the world ending thing going on outside their gates, the only thing that really changes is architecture, lore background about these places and how some regions have longstanding fueds with one another is just ignored in the game, which is a shame because that could've done the heavy lifting for making places really feel unique. As it stands outside of the imperial city only skingrad, bruma and kvatch are unique to me and one of them is unique cause it got fucked up.
I got introduced to the elder scrolls series through Skyrim in 2018 but Morrowind will always be my absolute favourite game. The depth of the story and lore was an amazing experience, and I honestly really enjoy the combat system and text based speech system. Morrowind felt like a REAL role playing game, whereas Skyrim and even Oblivion were both like taking a calculated ride at the amusement park, I do not think TES will ever really give in and let players fail, or not be the absolute best chad hero right off the bat like they did in Skyrim, which is really sad
I played skyrim in 2019 and then played morrowind about 2 months later. Morrowind not only is my favorite elder scrolls, it is one of my all time favorite games ever! I love almost every aspects of it, and though there a small things that bother me in the game, the more I play, the more I fall in love with it. I still come back to it every couple months to start a fresh playthrough whereas I've only ever done a single playthrough of skyrim and moved on. As for Oblivion, I'm yet to actually enjoy this damn game, I've started 3 characters and played for more than 20 hours and still can't find the fun in it, sad.
@@sugoha_2548 I have the same feeling about Oblivion, even when heavily modded it just feels... very goofy? It lacks the feeling of being a serious game with the way characters talk and how almost all of the quests have some kind of ”funny” twist :D
@@shreksleftknee Oblivion is definitely a bit on the goofier side. My friend and I are doing a tandem playthrough, he controls keyboard and I'm on the mouse, and we're having a blast. Leaning into the goof makes it better.
*missed noise* and *WHACK noise* will always be funny. You stand in lava you are getting punched you flail you swing into air it's suprisingly deep.
The fatigue is actually realistic. Even If you are a great archer or have steady hands. Try to shoot or lockpick while Out of breath after jogging around the block.
I'll always love the expanded lore and topics of morrowind, even if a lot (A LOT) of it is just reused copy and paste from one npc to the next, there's still so much to ask about and learn about from NPCs that was lost in later titles.
The Quest about the Disappearing of the Dwarves, one of the best quests in any game. Such a satisfaction when you proceeded in it, since you did not get so much information. I WoW, I ignored most quest story content, I did not read it, just EXP (for example WoW), but here, I fell in love with them, with going through my journal, reading books to get clooser to the Quests ending. I mean, if I remember correctly, the quest is given to you in a subordinate clause of another quest line (mages guild) and in an cryptic way, with not much details and you have to figure it out by yourself in this huge world
People oftne say "I wish I could feel as if I am 12 again playing video games, best feeling ever." I had this exact feeling with this game and with the lore and the immersive gameplay at age 29. Wonderful.
And then there is so much "hidden" content, and when you don't find it, the game just does not care. They put so much effort into this game and all the details and give a f**k if people even find it, since many hidden quests or things are not required for the story. For example this women who were in this cave on an elevated place, I totally did not see when I first entered that place, only found it through a thread in a forum. And there is so much of it in this game.
And the horror feeling this game makes you feel. The super creepy temple areas with psycho monster things, unreal.
Played Morrowind on the OG Xbox, but eventually dropped it due to the issues you mentioned (plus nasty load times). Picked up Oblivion on release for the 360 and loved it. Same with Skyrim (although oblivion was nicer in some ways). After quitting consoles (bought no further consoles after the 360 rrod fiasco), I started playing modded skyrim, and am now revisiting oblivion (also heavily modded) and loving it. New rpgs don't emerse me as much in the role playing as the Elser scrolls. I already have close to 100h in oblivion and haven't done a single main quest. No oblivion gates are open, and I'm just enjoying the guilds and wondering about.
"Go here", I ask about "here", they explain. Then suddenly quests just stopped doing it. "Go to this camp", can't ask anyone where it is.
That game solidified my English as 15 years old, that probably helped me to get my job in USA company later in life and even later to migrate to New Zealand. Who would have known? I was just happy that my GF2 MX G400 could render that absolutely mind blowing water at that time :) Also had to start the game 30 times before it didn't crash in first 4 minutes :D Oh what a memories....probably last game where your quest mark was a text saying how many steps southwest you have to go before turning left at a tree to try locate a cave entrance in like 500m diameter :D
I swear i though scribs were their own species that had a parasitic relationship with Kwama and i thought kwama foragers were the larva form
Yeah, it apparently it goes Forager > Scrib > Worker > Warrior.
Which I also found odd because the Forager always seemed more powerful than Scribs to me.
So you've never had en egg mine worker in-game explain the Kwama Hive System to you? ;)
Love the breakdown of Morrowind. It's a shame that this game is not as accessible but it is a good reminder to why Bethesda has drastically simplified later titles. I am a strong advocate for text based speech in RPGs as it allows the developers to go absolutely wild with lore without the burden of expensive voice actors. I find myself spending entire hours chatting to the NPCs in Balmora and I wouldn't have it any other way. My biggest gripe with Morrowind is the fatigue mechanic, as you explained in the video it effects basically everything. It truly feels like its the first mechanic in the game they designed and whole rest of the game was built around it. If I had a single modding bone in my body I would code fatigue out of the game altogether. Again, great video!
By the way, did you use the gem soundbite from the old Spyro games? I think you may have triggered some childhood PTSD of Moneybags extorting me for money lol.
Yes I did! One of my favortie series growing up haha!
Thanks for watching! Glad you liked it :)
I agree that by turning to voice acting, they have sadly had to cut a lot of the dialogue, which is one of the many reasons Morrowind stands so unique against its sequels.
No need for any pro modding skills, altering the fatigue to your liking takes roughly 2 minutes:
-Install the Construction Set
-Open the Morrowind esm (top left corner)
-Go to "Gameplay" -> "Settings..." -> "Gameplay"
-Find the entry fFatigueReturnBase
-Change the value from 1.5 to 10
-Save as an esp
-Enable it in the launcher and start the game
...and you're good to go - problem solved.
-[If you want the walking speed to be faster in general, change the value under fMinWalkSpeed]
I myself use a value of 5 which drains stamina slowly while running, keeps restoration magic and potions valuable and useful (especially during combat), but the bar refills quickly when walking or standing still.
Morrowind...the last Elder Scrolls game for RPG players more than action players. Alas...once you know how to break the game over your knee, it can never provide the expererience it once had again.
I love roll-to-hit...it makes me keep that division between me the player and the character and helps me immerse myself in the character.
Also, as someone who reads many times quicker than most people can speak, I rarely listen to all the voice acted lines in modern games...why would I spend 30 seconds listening to information I can absorb through my eyes in less than 5 seconds?
Exactly. That's why some only recommend MW to those with good real life reading skill. But on the other hand, playing it automatically raises that skill, so those learning to read English (sadly, like appx. 60% of Americans) would obviously benefit from this, because "fun" helps us learn better than memorization, right?
If you play oblivion as an action title rather than an rpg then you’re gunna have a bad time.
It occurs to me that I may have sounded, to some, as if I were referring to immigrants. I wasn't. I was talking about Americans, which is exactly what I said.
@@mattfabz That's because Oblivion chose to compensate for difficulty when they overhauled combat by turning everything into sponges, including you. Button mash simulator
@@mattfabz That's not even what OP was saying..
I remember being 16 when I got this for xbox, and completely fell in love wit the series. I went back and played all the classic titles, but never got to play Morrowind on PC. I finally have a PC capable of playing anything I want now, with the RAM to match my modding desires. But after being so entrenched in creating a proper mod lists for every game i the Stalker series, including anomaly, all in the past few months - I'm burned out on figuring out what mods to get. I really wish there was a standalone download that had all the good parts so I dont have to spend an entire day staring at mod managers and file folders.
Morrowind was released a full console generation before games stopped including comprehensive manuals, and several years before PC games moved to primarily digital download. In its era, it was assumed that players would read the instructions before they played, and games were not expected to do your homework for you. That's why so many players who came to the game late can't come to grips with the combat. The combat is explained perfectly well in the manual, and experienced RPG players had no issues with it.
I'm not criticizing modern game tutorials or suggesting that things were better when games assigned you homework before you could play - it's just the way it was.
I think you're undervaluing the integral part Toonami Tom played in promoting Morrowind to us teenagers. I kid, but I only heard of any of the elder scrolls games because of that one spot. I couldn't buy the game at the time, but it definitely got my attention ("three days to walk across the game world without fast traveling, holy cow!"), and by the time oblivion rolled around I didn't miss my chance to dive in, and ended up a hardcore Bethesda fanboy for the entirety of Oblivion and Fallout 3, all dlc included. I've long since had the entirety of Morrowind spoiled for me, but I'm watching this before I commit to my first real play through.
Morrowind being text based, gave me the ultimate rpg experience. Because I had to pay attention in order to understand wtf was going on, my experience felt way more enveloping
"With good class-making & as little as two hours of playing, your character will be proficient enough to use your weapon of choice with little mishap...unless you're using a bow. If that's the case, suck it up until you reach 70-75 with your marksman skill."
Fixed it for ya. 🤣
Shoot mudcrabs with a chitin bow drawn back as least as possible until your skill is about 50 or 55. Use chitin throwing stars. Boost you up quick. Marksman is crammed once it's high easily the best combat skill
Omg 16:34 😂😂😂
Great video bro!
Edit: Wow, wasn't expecting that horror bit. Great addition given the subject matter 😳
Glad you liked it! Yeah, I felt a horror section was the best way to describe how those creatures terrified me as a kid lmao
Awesome video. First played Morrowind back in 2003 or 2004 on PC, I was 13 and it blew my mind. It was my introduction to the Elder Scrolls Series and It's one of my favorite games ever, I got sucked into that universe and lore to the point I've never been so hyped for a sequel, I bought every game magazine that had news about the then upcoming TES IV Oblivion. Then when Oblivion launched in 2006 was 16 that game blew my mind away too, the graphics upgrade and combat overhaul at the time was unreal, night and day compared to Morrowind. Then it all went downhill with Skyrim, no graphical leap, hell it feels like a downgrade with that rubbish drabbed tone color mapping and dumbed down gameplay/mechanics. So now I'm not even hyped for The Elder Scrolls 6. It still replay Morrowind now and then on OpenMW but that damn combat is too awkward by today standards, but never a full play through cuz once the nostalgia goggles fall off it's hard to keep going once I satisfied my wanderlust. Thus TES IV Oblivion is my favourite, by a slight margin just because of better gameplay but the world building, atmosphere and lore of Morrowind is unmatched.
same except oblivion was underwhelming for me. too much got simplified and cut back from Morrowind. felt like a step backwards
I can't imagine the amount of planning that went into this video, subed
Morrowind is still the better Elder Scrolls game ever made, at least for me. The others lack that sense of fulfilment Morrowind gave when finding places simply with directions or encountering a good enchanted item. The journal was a natural way of registering important info without being too obvious, and it made the experience more inmersive, the same with traveling. The map is so well hand crafted that (even if you feel lost sometime) you actually enjoy the trip as you find abandoned daedric altars, high elf towns, dwemer ruins and such. I actually insisted so much to a friend (who started with oblivion) to play it that after a few years he actually did, and was mind blown. Oblivion's main quest is the most boring elder scrolls experience I had ever (shivering isles on the other hand was really fun). Skyrim is... Alright. I like the perk sistem but....this feels less free, also the enemy level scaling system (also present in oblivion but a little more subtle) makes you feel like you never progress further.
Agreed just set up my openmw set up with some bug fixes and graphics mods, and weapon expansions, but left the core of the game alone.. The only real tweak is you don't miss on a bad roll, just do 1 damage instead. Makes it feel smother
Wow! An Amazing Tribute to an Awesome game. Very well done and very well presented. I played Morrowind from the start for nearly 13 years before going on to other games like Gothic, DeusX, and others. Now I'm gaming Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen. Liked and subed!
The thing that annoys me the most about fatigue in Morrowind isn't the way it works in gameplay, no. It's that the developers apparently thought the word "fatigue" meant the opposite of what it does.
Running doesn't DRAIN fatigue, it builds it. Resting doesn't REPLENISH fatigue, it abates it.
The fixes you stated are great, I remember when my friend told me how the system works, I made a Redguard, skilled with Long Blades, with very high Strength and Agility and boooy, I was SLICING through the content, I was absolutely amazed by how fun the game felt compared to my first attempt.
Part of the problem is you can grab a dagger in the census office, but no other weapons. So a new player with skill in long blade or blunt immediately starts wielding a dagger they have no skill in.
Still love Morrowind to this day though.
I'd like to say that when getting this game. The text-bssed speech was very pleasant. I - for once - liked reading. And now it got me into reading again
Jiub is 'Elder Scrolls' equivalent of the Doom Marine (circa. 1993)
Thanks for the video, Jwlar!! The editing and memes were gr8. Good job o7
I saw your video on r/Morrowind, and I'm glad I did. :D
It wasn't my first ES game, but it is one of my favorite games of all time. It has its flaws and can be completely broken at times, but it is paradoxically beautifully detailed, somber, and very well-written.
Those servants of the Sharmat are *perfect* SCPs. Horrifying creatures. Imho, besides the Flood from Halo and the Necromorphs from Dead Space, these things are SO scary.
Fallout 76's launch was understandably the last nail in BGS's coffin for many people, but it has gotten much better since it's release (and has a very wholesome community as well, from what I've heard). I hope BGS doesn't mess up like this again...
(edit: I miss the old video stores and game manuals... 😂)
Thanks for reading this, and stay safe out there o7
Best game ever, you can fly, you can swim, craft your own spells, enchant your own gear, you can kill almost everything, no hand-holding, no direction/quest arrows, no stupid highlighted items or people, total freedom, etc. The music is also the best.
Wow, you deserve a few more zeros after that subscriber count. Really great content, and super well done. High quality, polished stuff. Definitely subbed now, and about to dig into some of these other videos too.
Thank you!
You’ll notice I hit my stride after the Morrowind video, so don’t worry if the older ones are kinda meh in comparison 😂
Morrowind changed my life. What I mean by that is I dont think I would have become an artist or a writer without its influence xD I remember my older brother bought a graphics card and Morrowind came with it. We couldn't stop playing it. I feel like that kind of magic can rarely be captured in todays games - maybe it was just because I was a kid. but it felt like this game was made with passion compared to 95% of games nowadays.
10:20 Gothic by Piranha Bytes from 2001 was fully voiced (in a few languages too)
It also had better gameplay
I rarely have the time or attention available to watch longer format videos. But I sat in my office, drank my coffee and enjoyed the entire video. Well done good sir :) I remember playing this game on the original xbox as a child, walking around clueless in the wilderness haha
my biggest hurdle was getting lost at first, but once i learned to actually read my journal it wasnt as much of an issue
one of my favorite parts of morrowind is all the different weather & their effects. like how in sandstorms your walking is sped up or slowed down based on what way youre walking
also the thunderstorms. i keep jumping when i see lighting but its still really cool
The lore is the number 1 reason why I love Morrowind. They really deep-dove into it, in so many different ways. I mean...the background to the disappearance of the Dwemer and Vivec's attainment of CHIM alone is totally engrossing. Also, what's genius about Dagoth Ur as a villain is that you can absolutely see from his perspective why he's justified in his actions, in some kind of twisted way. Mods that ad the ability to join House Dagoth make sense.
Looks like the algorithim has struck your channel
Yep, feels pretty surreal.
Even though I'm a seriously old gamer (first game played at home was on my uncle's pong machine) I somehow missed TES series until Morrowind. I was immediately blown away and hold it up as a nearly perfect rpg. It's awesome that newer generations are being afforded the opportunity to experience it! Thanks for keeping the torch burning!
Playing through the game on my Xbox One and really loving it. It’s very unique in a lot of ways and quite fun. Took me a while to get past it’s movement speed, fatigue system, combat, and getting my strength drained to 0, but I think I’m going to end up liking it just as much as Skyrim by the end.
Would’ve played the PC version, but I really couldn’t get past how terrible that version is to play on a controller. Maybe there were mods I could’ve added to aid that, but aside from the view distance it plays just fine on my Xbox and I’m having a ball with it on there.
Fantastic retrospective! I got stuck in hospital for about 6 months about 12 years ago and all i had was a laptop and a copy of Morrowind and honestly it was an amazing experience getting immersed in that world. Still go back to play it every now and then, what a a game!
I remember getting this game for the original Xbox and I loved it.
If Starfield fails Morrowind will be the only game that might save them.
For some reason the thumbnail makes me want to play this whole game again. (Wish it was a steam banner though)
Dagoth Ur saves Bethesda studio from bankruptcy
*shame on you sweet Nerevar*
Great video You really do make a khajit proud!
Thank you! I appreciate it.
When the game released I was 13 years old, my older brother built me a great PC with a nVidia GeForce 3 Ti 200, it had Pixel Shader support and I was amazed by the water. It was like today's Ray Tracing back in 2002. It is amazing that the game is 20 years old and it is still on my PC. I use the OpenMW project, but I don't mod the game, I love the Vanila experience, though the OpenMW makes the game more fluid and enhance the game's graphics. I don't know how many hours could be in the game, several years... :D
Morrowind will always hold a special place in my heart. I love Oblivion and Skyrim, but Morrowind is my favorite.
Maybe it's because I started gaming when all games looked like this aka 6th gen as a kid , plus handheld gaming a lot with Nintendo handheld games .
I fell in love with morrowind before I even had a chance to play it by watching UA-cam , this was my first game I owned on my potato laptop I got in 2016 and loved it.
I finally made it far in the game just recently for the first time but I'm only a level 10 and I'm so surprised how this game didn't get a "m" rating for how adult this game is compared to the later games , I love this game .
I'm glad you're enjoying it! It's a great experience :)
And yeah, no idea how it only got a T, there is literally a Daedra that threatens to r*pe you.
I liked the video before even finishing it. Can tell already that it has that touch of quality and love put into it. Got up to the fatigue argument and I understand full well as to why many players do not like that stat being so important. I on the other hand, like it. It feels realistic to me. Imagine trying to swing an axe or do anything at all, after sprinting and hopping around from town to town. You would simply not have the energy for it. 1st rule of morrowind is that you need to be jumping at all times to level up your acrobatics. :D
I haven't gotten to play Morrowind yet, but I will remember that for when I can!
Fantastic game. I played it about half the year, day by day. My hero went 96 level with godlike abilities and ton of adventures to remember. He was thief, warrior, mage, knight, monk ... But I’ve finished maybe 30% of main story. I explored only west part of the island imagined that my hero irrationally afraid to go east(barely explored the rest). It was so exhausting experience that I never started another big RPG since then.
I think key to understanding and appreciating Morrowind is knowing that the Game is only platform for Your imagination. You don’t play it like any game (especially modern) , but imagine it. Without imagining Morrowind is empty and boring. But if You use imagination it can lifelike experience.
the barrier to entry is WHY Morrowind remains such a beloved game and why more "modern" Bethesda titles have earned such scorn. Making a game for everyone is effectively making a game for no one.
I love Morrowinds theme music, but I remember being disappointed that other than battle music changes it didn't change when you entered one of the typically small dungeons, which could result in some soothing, calm tunes as you entered somewhere that should have been foreboding. Daggerfall's atmosphere really made you feel isolated and was perfect for the setting. Oblivion and Skyrim managed to capture some of this ambience, though their main themes weren't quite as strong as Morrowind's.
I often imagine how good later titles would have been had Bethsoft stayed with the concepts of MW and only refined questing, combat, and graphics. Dumbing down the systems and god awful all knowing quest markers are the downfall of such amazing potential of the ES series.
man what a great channel, the way you structure your Videos is perfect. Easy to follow but still dense and deep. You earned yourself a new sub, im gooing to binge the other Videos. Greetings from Germany. (Furthermore your smooth way of talking is great for learning englisch hehe)
In 2002, the barrier to entry was really low. This was one of the most accessible crpgs ever made at the time it came out.
It only feels like a high barrier now because newer games are so super mega hand-holdy 100% of the time that you barely have to play the game.
Thank you for this vid, I loved it! I played this game 20 years ago and replayed it now. I personally don't think that better open world RPG's were made since. I have no hopes for Starfield, it will probably be an action game with RPG elements, more dumbed down than Skyrim and focused on "the game play loop". For me it's ironic that this was the first game I ever played on my own PC when I was 15 and up to this point is the best. Let me tell you, I didn't have a lot of experience with video games then, but I played this game for a year and didn't feel the need to have 300 new games every year. I might be blinded by nostalgia but this is objectively better than the next games in the series or in the genre. There is only one point I don't agree with you on. Why should offensive spell casting level up only when you hit a target? You are getting better specifically at spell casting not at precision. Also it is immersive that you get better at acrobatics if you jump around like a crazy person or running around aimlessly. The combat is good if you think about it like this: it is a graphic representation of what happens in the world. IRL do you think that you perceive reality as is? No, it is filtered trough your senses.
Of course there were fully voiced rpg-s in 2002! For example Gothic 1. One of my favorite rpgs of all time. Have a look at it :) Controls are a bit clunky, but the atmosphere is superb.
True about Gothic, but I'm not sure there were many more outside of that wit VO. Gothic 1 is arguably better than Morrowind too 👀
@@Jwlar I have not played with morrowind yet, so I cannot compare them. However, based on knowledge I collected from third parties (such as your video) I agree with you. The only thing I would add is that Gothic is a more compact, a more focused product, which makes it a little bit easier to have an objectivly better game at the end.
Between this and your Daggerfall videos, this was an incredibly easy subscribe. Really, really well done!
I would say unvoiced characters are better because it makes modding easier. Also when something is fully voiced a lot of time is taken from lore-writing, coding, bug fixing and takes away disk space for quests and other more important things. Plus, when you play oblivion you probably have noticed that dialogue is shorter in order not to take too much space on the disk and to not bore the players to death. So yes, I would very much welcome an unvoiced TES6. Maybe some sort of hybrid arrangement which works for both voiced and text based dialogue.
Very true. While it may not be as accessible as voices NPCs, the dialogue suffered so bad because of it. The writing really shines in Morrowind’s text, and I can’t say the same for the later titles, except in some minor instances.
Skyrim was my first Elder Scrolls game but I tried Morrowind soon after playing Skyrim and fell in love with the game. I love the freedom you have in this game and that you actually have to search for your objectives instead of a compass that shows the way. Nowadays Morrowind has become one of my favourite games.
TES: III feels so Alien and has the best art style in an TES game to date. I wish they would have stuck with this design philosophy, rather than diverting to more traditional fantasy settings for the latter games.
@Isaac Glen skyrim literally cut out the massive Celtic influence the Nords were written for in earlier games. They weren’t “just Nordic,” they were a mix of multiple European cultures. Dudes even wore kilts.
so many memories. fun fact, i was able to finish that game just a year ago, 'cause everytime i didn't had the skills to fully understand what really morrowind was about. So glad i didn't missed that call, at last. Love from Italy!
Cliff racers haunt my dreams... This was an excellent restrospective! Cheers
p.s. We'll always have Balmora =)
You and me both! Thanks!
The fact that the Todd Howard ASMR roleplay is a real video from 2018 is probably the best part about this video. Probably. I dunno I'm only at 2:53 because I couldnt get past that point without googling the ASMR video.
Still my all time favorite game. Morrowind music still tugs at my heart strings. 🙃☕❤❤❤❤
The best thing about Morrowind was that you can become a God and fly around just by jumping and blowing everything up with 1 hit
The problem isn’t hit chance, the problem is there are too many people who play rpg games who have no idea what an rpg is and expect it to be an action game with choice. That is placidly false and smooth brain normies have ruined the elder scrolls series, fallout series and the rpg genre as a whole. I refuse to change my stance on it because no one has been able to disprove it.
if you look steam store page by categories and choose RPG
you will get all sorts of games that have nothing to do with RPG's
it seems game is considered rpg nowdays if its singleplayer.
It's good to remember that any resources devoted to making changes to the engine means time away from somewhere else. So if you say they're lazy or whatever about the engine code (being good enough to launch a billion dollar series btw), you might want to suggest features they'd have to cut to make up that time you want them to spend.
Fantastic video, thanks for uploading!
I honestly don't understand what's the problem with combat. Keeping at full stamina isn't that hard, and after 30 skill you hit easily, just don't forget to hold down for longer to get more damage. When you want to train a new weapon skill, just use trainers to get to 15 (or 25 if you are richer) and use bound weapons to train (they give a +10 bonus to the skill)
Forgive my absolute necropost here, but I believe those mechanics aren't understood by new players just starting up, which was the crux of the issue with it making combat seem confusing/broken. It's not that combat is broken, it's that the way it works isn't obvious which adds difficulty that pushes away more of the general playerbase before they figure it out.
It's fine if a game requires research and experience to become fun or understandable, but it WILL make it less appealing to general (casual) players - especially those that don't want to ruin the magic of a new experience.
@Isaac Glen TL;DR: Casual = Playing for luls and fun; Hardcore = Playing as skillfully as you can, often researching and planning strategies.
I don't know if I'd personally say a game is Casual or Hardcore, rather that games are created to cater to one side or another. It's about how it's played, and this game with great potential for both playstyles simply failed to account for casual players in this case.
"what's the problem? It's just an obtuse system that requires in depth explanation and specific exploitative tactics to get around"
Great video! I remember playing this for the original Xbox when I was super young and all I remembered was getting super lost lol! I downloaded it to my Xbox one and ironically experienced the exact same feeling again after all these years.
The combat in Morrowind is largely why I hate it. I died to one of those little worms by the side of the road because I couldn’t hit it, even though I’m pretty sure I had Major in light blades.
Great video I love Morrowind!! After playing many RPGs over the years I can still definitely say this is my favorite, and that is probably in part due to nostalgia (great memories of playing it on Xbox when I was 9 in 2004), but the sheer openness to what you can do is unmatched. It’s true Bethesda had a chance to really iron out its weaknesses with Oblivion and Skyrim, and while some things are better, however, they’re both great but inferior games. My standards aren’t set too high for TES VI, but one can still hope. Keep up the great work though, it’s always good to find players who enjoy Morrowind as much as me and still play it today!
Thank you!
I have to agree, I'm keeping my expetations tempered for TES VI.
I am pretty excited to see what they have to offer with Starfield though.
I was excited about playing this again until you reminded me of the cliff racers ☠️
But what if I wanted to roleplay as myself? There's the German word "Tausendsassa" that describes someone who is literally talented in everything and can learn any skill almost instantly, the ultimate all-rounder so to speak, which describes me perfectly. I liked the multi-class leveling system in Skyrim because that's exactly how my life works, and when I'm forced to choose a class in a game, it doesn't feel like roleplaying as myself.
I played Morrowind around release and completely acknowledge it as the best Bethesda game but still find it too dated to play now, even modded. Here's hoping we get Skywind one day (and some subsequent companion mods for it so I don't feel too scared to leave town without levitate).
...also not gonna lie, you're pretty darn cute.
27:40 I love the sound of the siltstrider. i was so jazzed when dusty was in the dragonborn expansion. I love morrowind, if I could get a morrowind like CRPG with Daggerfall's world simulation.. I could be happy :)
10:20 Gothic series would like to have a word with you :v