Morrowind taught me English because with its 900.000 words of translation it took more than half a year before it was released in Germany in actual German. I was 15 and had a computer that would let me play it for about 20min before everything turned into a diashow or would just crash on exteriors which why I had to be a lot indoors for the first 1,5 years I play. Which led to the fact that I just read everything and tried every dialogue option. I played it until I was 20 years old. There is no other RPG and no other game but CIvilization that caught me as much as this game and it has become a part of my identity. Forever House Hlalu!
@@everettzarnick2323 his not alone, My English grade went up by 3 levels in the year i discovered Morrowind, and i give that improvement solely due to Morrowind.
kinda same. I was 14 when my older sister's bf showed me this game and played it for 2-ish years on sub 640 resolution, and then I moved on to manuals and howto's in linux for english. I did another play-through in 2016 and yet another one in 2019, lasting about 40 hours each. I name my computers after cities in that game :) Btw you're filthy politician, Telvanni is the true seat of power!
Yeah, just go Telvanni and be happy. The sooner you can mod over that shithole stronghold they give you, the sooner you have expanded quests and actually feel like you're interacting with a faction and then getting rewarded for it with an appropriate HQ with appropriate storage and appropriate convenience for having done all their crappy vanilla quests. Not really sure why they made them the "evil ones" when every house sucks in it's own way. Dunmer are more or less a trash race that brings about their own near extinction by the end of the game, so no one way of "doing business" is any more stupid than the last other than the first rule of Telvanni Club is "stay the fuck away from me, and I don't care who you are or what you do". They do have a lot of inept members with high eccentricity factor, making them highly useless such as the the all-female town that only exists as a boat ride destination to get to Ayron's tower. But for the most part their crazy is kept in bubbles without spreading, and the same can't be said for any other house that vies for power and expansion as the only way to do that is to efficiently abuse and take advantage of the weaknesses of other societies currently untouched by your stench.
Morrowind "in my opinion" is one of the best RPGs ever!!!!! It doesn't hold your hand and tell you where to go and exactly what to do thus making it great and punishing all at the same time. If you figure out what you are supposed to do you are greatly rewarded.
I remember the little trap the developers set at the start of the game with looting the guy with the levitation jump. Players will dress up like a clown, get tossed high in the air, and die like a clown.
I used to only use the scroll for getting to the Telvanni guy with the 4 wives until I learned he had levitation potions right next to his entrance 🤦♀️ I've never died to that scroll and was kinda shocked to find so many people online who had
I bought this at a pawn shop around 2010. I remember the employee there telling me I was about to have one heck of an experience. Boy was that and understatement. This game changed my life and inspired me to become a digital illustrator. I've now been a career artist and worked on dozens of my own video games.
I remember trying out Skyrim for the first time, which was also my first experience with an elder scrolls game. I could see why many people loved it, but I lost interest halfway. I thought about it and came to the realisation that for me, it was the immersion breaking. I was the legendary dragon born, and everyone praised me from day 1, even though the only thing I could was push people lightly over with my voice. This in a world where mages also existed; it seemed unrealistic to me. I played as a redguard carrying a big axe around, bothering with neither finesse or stealth, but I could join the thieves guild regardless. This apparently is an ancient organisation consisting of only the most trusted thieves. Despite this, three missions later, I found myself being the thief king while not in any way having a thief profile or having a clear idea who any of the thieves were. I know what the design idea behind this decision was: dont punish players for creating their own playstyle and just give them access to everything. But I felt like the game was essentially throwing participation awards at me: I could be the leader of the mages despite not knowing how to cast magic. I wanted the game to tell me: "No, you can't do this quest yet. Come back when you have appropriate magic/stealth/whatever skill." Turns out the game that I wanted existed: morrowind. After googling the reason why I couldn't hit anything and how levelling worked, it sucked me straight in, and I kept playing weeks on end. I love the world, the story, the creatures, the villain, the quests, the politics, the politics in the quests. I like how powerless you are at the start, and that slowly starts changing with every level, I like how the main quest giver just gives you some pocket change at the start and tells you to start freelancing before he gives you the quest because you are in no way ready yet. I like the absence of questmarkers: I have to frequently check my journal and go explore to find places without mindlessly following an objective on the map. I have to actually engage and think. All in all it's a very unique experience, and it kind of makes me sad that a lot of games nowadays streamline a lot of this quest design because you don't get to feel this very often.
Totally agree with this comment, only game I have played in the past decade that feels like it has the same freedom and depth if you choose to look for it is kenshi
Yeah, I held off on Skyrim (my first playthrough was this year lol) but ended up uninstalling without finishing most of it for similar reasons. I'm not much of a role player but I still want the world to have consequences for player decisions. - Guild membership should lock you out of other guilds. - Being a thane should lock you out of being a thane in other holds. - If there was more factional tension like in Fallout New Vegas so that you had to manage just who you're doing what for so that you don't accidentally (or do intentionally) antagonise one faction or another, that would be cool. You can kinda go on and on with this stuff but as you say, Bethesda very clearly designed this to be extremely accessible. I just kinda wish they'd been brave enough to design in the opposite direction. I'll probably have a go with Morrowind at some point (if I can get over the dice roll mechanic).
I first played the game around 2003-04, when the GOTY Edition came out. I was absolutely blown away. Wandering into Balmora for the first time felt like nothing I had experienced in a game before. I have replayed it many times since, and still feel like I have barely scratched the surface.
I'll never forget the feeling of being a kid and finding the Sword of White Woe and becoming instantly rich, or realizing Ra'viir's Katana casts bound weapon which chews through the early game, or that scrolls are a genuine get out of jail free card with the guaranteed damage they put out, not to mention stuff like the Boots of Blinding Speed and Creeper. It made you really feel like a resourceful adventurer, and everyone who played long enough got their wink from the designers of "I won't tell that this is totally overpowered if you won't". Any single player game with level-scaling or balance between playstyles is sucking a huge amount of joy out of their game, half the fun of RPGs is coming back and clobbering the bandits that kicked your ass 10 levels ago.
@@Kukaahi It's a shame that people write off the combat in Morrowind because you can beat people you're not really "supposed" to if you're clever. Stuff like getting Lord's Mail early, or fighting Gothren or Umbra at any point force you to prepare and strategize in a way that you really don't do in real time RPGs any more
I loved finding things in this game. The later games are kind of like, "Come over here to this map marker and you'll get the stuff." This game is like, "Who knows what you'll find?" Those speed boots were a godsend. I enchanted a shirt and pants with a permanent a night eye enchantment, so I get the speed with no drawback.
My favorite game of all time. I got lost, in Morrowind, in a way I didn't know was possible. After several builds I was still discovering things. Looking back...each of my characters are distinct and memorable.
Honestly I liked the dice roll combat mechanic of Morrowind. That first hit to connect on an annoying cliff racer right out of Seyda Neen was always a dopamine hit, and each skill level you could feel in real time your character improving as the success % went up gradually and the game could avoid saturating every mob as an hp sponge.
Have played morrowind since it was released. Best game of any genre of all time. I'm still finding new mini quests and tie-ins. The story and world is the most immersive thing around.
@@Tokey_The_Bear If on your way to kill Dagoth Ur you decide to search Ghost Gate for any new NPCs (he'll disappear when you beat Dagoth) you can meet a friendly guy named Wulf who will give you a coin for luck. Then if you mention the coin to a specific priest in Ebonheart she'll say, "A weird tale. And you say you have been marked by good fortune -- by 'the luck of the emperor' -- since you received the coin from the old veteran? Tell me -- did the face of the old veteran resemble the face on the coin? Did anyone else ever see this old man? I hesitate to suggest it. But I think you have been visited by an aspect of Tiber Septim. Surely this is a sign of a great doom laid upon you by the gods."
So true, the more you dive in is so rewarding. You'll find unbelievable surprises exploring. I went off once and got lost in a library and just picked out Dances In The Fire and ended up traveling across the whole map looking to finish reading a complete set. Then, robbed the Vaults in Vivec City Legit and locked all the Guards in the Vault 😂
12:36 that is how I like to play Skyrim. I play it basically like a walking simulator, where every quest is like a guided tour on my walk 😊 we go through a lot of haunted house theme parks 😅
It's pretty good I've owned it since the week it came out but I've never completed it. My issue is the interface sucks imo and I struggled to find a mod that makes it tolerable for me.
I loved having no "X marks the spot", just some vague words describing the path to get there. The joy of exploring and get lost, to eventualy reach the destination.... Diving far from shore to get to the sunken Daedra shrine... And, of course, flying (levitating)!
I got my first og xbox way back in the day from my uncle, i forget if it was a gift or if he just wanted to pass it on. Had all the classics you could ask for, kotor, star wars battlefront, halo...and this intriguing looking game called Morrowind. Never touched it for the longest time, until I decided to read the manual one day. Booted it up as soon as I was finished and it was over for me. Still one of the best (and most horrifyingly broken) games I've ever played.
Morrowind is pretty much the only game that made me read its in-game books with excitement. I tried reading them in Oblivion and Skyrim afterwards, but there just wasn't much reason to. Playing Morrowind feels like uncovering an ancient conspiracy. You sneak around, talk to people and read ancient books. Not because the game told you to, but because you as a player invested in it.
My best gaming experience so far. Probably played about 200 hours. I bounced of the game 2 or 3 times. That combat was horrible. But one day, I decided, I'm just going to break that 30-minute barrier and I got hooked. I think it was when I realized I could go anywhere and do anything.
I remember playing this back in 2003. To this day I have not experienced the joy and satisfaction that Morrowind provided. I loved leveling up the character and the story in this game is the best one of all the Elder Scroll games.
As an old timer, it is gratifying to know that people are still playing this game 22 years after its initial release. A colleague at work turned me on to this game, loaning me his XBox disc, which he had gotten from his older brother, along with a story worth telling. My colleague's brother had turned him on to the the game while still living at his parents' house, telling me he plugged the game in while lying in a hammock in the basement, and then did nothing for the next 12 hours except play Morrowind, only getting out of his hammock to urinate into a jar on the floor! Oh my God... I about bust a gut cracking up over this! My friend also loaned me his copy of Bloodrayne... great game. Morrowind is truly a work of art. I still have the XBox game booklet and map.
Wow, this was an amazing video. One of my favorite parts is how you described the growth a character can take in Morrowind by choosing to focus on new skills rather than grind the same skill tree like is necessary to keep up in Skyrim. I thought it was interesting and I feel like I haven't seen anyone mention it before.
Man i love Morrowind.. it was perfect.. i wasfacinayedfrom the start, the ambience, music, lore.. the animals, the chaging stars on the sky, the weird tombs, i was so confused.. so i started reading, started colecting books about the imperium, the religion, the story, the wars.. and started advancing.. i found the shrines of the pilgrimage described on the books about the tribunal and vivec and then.. after getting a potion and a master pick i was able to sneak on vivec's temple on the capital, i just wanted to know what was there.. imagine my surprise when i see Vivic in the flesh.. floating and meditating.. i was blown away, the tribunal gods are real? So many great moments, like finding the first sleepers and uncovering wtf these crazies were doing, or going out the ghost fence and face your first ash storm..
This was my first open world game back in the day. I played it back in 03 when I was eighteen having grown up on JRPGs this game first completely overwhelmed me then totally blew my mind. I still believe Morrowind was a masterpiece.
Was and is, James. Not without faults, Morrowind manages to really capture that lightning in a bottle that Bethesda seems chase after to varying levels of success. Here's to yet another decade of enjoyment with this game.
my gf is a big Elder Scrolls nerd, knows all the theories and lore and stuff. I had played skyrim on my ps3 back in the day and I think one of my brothers had Oblivion but I never beat it. she talked about Morrowind all the time and would make references that would go over my head. when i told her I wanted to play it to see what the big deal was, she had so many tips and things I should know going in like about agility making your attacks hit and you can totally fuck a save if you're not careful. When I DID finally start playing I really only stuck with it because A: it meant a lot to her, and B: she had given me enough info that I wouldn't fuck myself right out the gate, and by the time I got to Balmora I was actually getting the hang of things. beat the game a few weeks ago, and now on my replay of skyrim I literally did the fuckin Leo-pointing-at-the-screen meme when I went up north and that weird scroll wizard is TRYING TO GET INTO THE HEART CHAMBER AND HE'S TALKING ABOUT THE NEREVARINE, THAT'S ME WHAT THE HEELLLLLLL 10/10, play Morrowind N'wa
Great video! Scaling is the single biggest problem TES 4 and 5 have. Starting out the game and just deciding a direction and then coming across a mega sword that actually kills everything feels SO good. I don't know if it's just me having a god complex but if you can build towards being OP just works. Unlike with scaling every item you come across has the change to be great which feels like finding an actual treasure. Goldbrand is a beast.
For me, Oblivion was the best stock game experience. I thought it was the best blend of story (IMHO better than Skyrim) and game mechanics (IMHO better than Morrowind). I hope the remastered Oblivion comes into being. I am still playing a heavily modded Skyrim today.
All these years later, I'm still replaying it. My current character is an Alter historian who was studying the Velothi exodus, became enthralled by Velothi ideology, spurned Summerset, and renamed himself with a Chimeri variant of his birth name. He Champions Ashlander theology and is a reformer of the temple. Enjoying the Tamriel Rebuilt mod alongside it
I like to use the joy of painting mod and just go around painting landscapes and portraits to make money. My current character is a orc traveling artist and not the neverarine
@@DMIwriter if you complete your current character I highly recommend giving the code Patch/mgexe a shot. It has all game patches, comes with shaders and graphic enhancements like openmw and distant land generations I've never had a problem with it and I use an awful laptop lol
The algorithmic mechanics give devs the ability to make late game enemies that are more than just damage sponges high luck or agility characters/enemies can just "dodge" all your attacks
"more than just damage sponges" they're not entirely unlike sponges in that they ignore that damage entirely instead of just having a shitload of health, making for a more frustrating encounter. would be better if there was some indication of the miss, that would make it a lot easier to understand what's going on
@@vlim5601 There is an indication of misses, it's the "whoosh" sound effect. Also, you get a different hit sound depending on whether you hit flesh or different kinds of armor.
They should have mass effect 3 like option for playthrough next elder scroll. Like play game as action-adventure, modern rpg and traditional rpg. The traditional rog being an experience like morrowind.
As good as an idea as this is, balancing the game around all three options would probably keep the game in development for another 2 years. Or and additional two years, I mean.
you really gaslit the hell out of me. when you said dawnbreaker is leveled i thought "yeah that really is bummer... wait. no it isnt. am i crazy?" and yep, theres only one version of dawnbreaker. skyrim only has a handful of leveled rewards, and dawnbreaker's not one of them.
Holy fuck you're right. My point regarding leveled content as a whole still stands in reference to Dawnbreaker being out paced by leveled content, but I should have done better research there.
Great script! I wholly agree with your review. The story is the best part of the game and so many things prevent so many people from getting to experience it.
I feel like the biggest problem with TES games that followed Morrowind is the fact that Bethesda picked the most generic, boring and bland lands for setting. Think about it - Vvardenfell is one of the most interesting settings in games. On the other hand, Cyrodill or Skyrim are pretty much just another high fantasy setting which we already have a lot of. I also agree that Morrowind weird scaling (or lack thereof) is a cool feature. If you're bold or lucky enough, you can get the best items in game at level 1. In Skyrim you can do the same, but then you'll be stuck with a shitty version of the item
I understand the disdain towards the medieval English setting, but I actually enjoy it when its done right. The sounds alone; horses grazing, farm hoes digging into the earth, rain on cobblestone, clanging of swords, etc. The setting can be amazing when explored fully purely from an aesthetic standpoint. Oblivy n' Sky didn't really put many chips into that pot, instead opting to focus on gameplay, story, etc. Whether or not that's something that I should hold against them, I'm unsure. But there's a reason so many people reach out for sound and weather mods, right?
They were almost going bust so they had to put their all into what could've saved their company, a shame they seemed to have let that success get to their heads and have been making terrible decisions years afterwards.
Man i remember playing this for the first time and it was so fukin good, if i found something i really disliked a mod would fix it like the dice roll accuracy, the magic system world building was so good, love the biomes morrowind has and the dunmer culture, the fact they still have slaves was cool since it gave you a moral dilemma of the world and it was all so alien, its why oblivion and skyrim to me has a underwhelming world since it was fair more basic, especially when you figure out the lore in ES is wacky af too
The reason morrowind can afford to not tell the player about core mechanics in a slog of a tutorial in the same way modern games do, is simple. It's in the game-guide that came with the disc. Back in the day, installing a game took a lot of time, and in the meantime you would read through the pamphlet that came with the game, explaining mechanics, character-creation, major background-information or otherwise all the things needed to just get going. This means that when it became time to open the game, you could just go. Because the game had already explained all you needed to know in the pamphlet. And if you were experienced with the type of pen-and-paper systems Morrowind borrows from, then you didn't even need the pamphlet to go. This game was made with patient methodical pen-and-paper systems in mind, and expected the player to read and inform themselves. The pamphlet is available on the steam-page for Morrowind. I took the time to read through it quickly while it downloaded and installed as I hadn't played in a while, and it struck me as a very elegant solution in general.
This is a hugely important thing that everyone besides CIB retro game collectors overlook except when talking about the really obvious edge cases with stuff like adventure games (Monkey Island, Leisure Suit Larry, etc) where you could essentially softlock the game if you didn't read the manual, or games with antiquated oddball copy protection schemes where you could very literally softlock the game or erase your save if you didn't read the manual. I remember Morrowind GOTY edition came with a pretty thorough manual that explained a lot of the stats and various mechanics, and a pretty sweet map of Morrowind that I held onto for years.
@@shelltoe_soul Glad to hear I was not alone when it came to the map! I long for the time games go back to having in game repositories of information, like the Age-of games or the civilization games. That way, interested parties get lore-information, as well as mechanical explanations. And uninterested parties get a more streamlined experience.
Excellent video. I wish everyone would give it a shot or give it another shot if they've tried before. I'll admit it took me a few attempts to get into, but now it may very well be my favorite game of all time. I was able to beat and make several more characters to roleplay and have fun. This game changed my life forever
Morrowind was the first hard "easy RPG" made. By comparassions, Baldurs Gate is very easy. Just because you can save and heal anytime anywhere. One could try 90s RPGs, then 80s RPGs like Pool of Radiance, Ultima series or Wizardry
@@chrisnichols9014 True, that is true. I remember my little brother disintegrate the black dragon and bragged about it. Then I mentioned that he just lost the loot and a dragonscale armor. :) He played no more.
Weird thing I liked, the movement in morrowind felt a lot less floaty than oblivion and skyrim. oblivion was particularly bad. it felt like you barely weighed anything, sent flying by running over a particularly protruding part of the terrain. and the corpse rag dolls... so immersion breaking
I think skyrim introduced deceleration into the mechanics and oblivion combat and movement in general felt like fights with paper swords / hikes in a dream. Morrowind has a dated movement system but it does appeal to player by avoiding the downsides of these two other systems, so it's give n' take imo
Really missing the interactions between the guilds in the newer games. Becoming leader of Fighters and Thieves is very hard, if not impossible as one hsa you kill the leader of the other. Also the different houses, so much depth, and you can only join one or the other (even if you become speaker of all during the main quest). I also really like the requirements to get higher levels in Morrowind, that makes it more believable to become a high rank, you gotta have the proper skills! Meanwhile in Skyrim you can become the Archmage by casting no spell whatsoever. But I don't like the actual game play of Morrowind, I much prefer the more streamlined play of Skyrim. Gimme Skyrim's gameplay and Morrowind's roleplay and world building, that'd be awesome!
You didn't have to shit on Cyberpunk. It has many flaws, but still has nothing to even be compared to since Witcher 3, and is overall one of the best games of last years. And Morrowind is just magic. I am shocked that Skyrim is so popular and talked about, when it lost so much comparing to Morrowind.
CyP is a game that deserves its own review and has much to praise. It might be a tad rude to talk about it like I did, but I think it was important to reference CyP to explain the "frustration playthrough" concept without taking 10 extra minutes to do so. Perhaps ill have videos on both in the future to give them their due. Thanks for the comment.
🤦♂️ Jesus christ it is not rude. The internet is a fake digital world. Who is this psychopath who told you not to have an opinion? Who gives a shit. Jesus
I'm really glad to see more younger gamers (zoomers) getting into Morrowind in recent months and years, even though some of them weren't even born when it came out. I was only a few years out of college when it came out, and you have to remember that even though the game looks archaic now, it was advertised as having quite impressive graphics and world design for the time. The back of the box even advertised it as the most detailed game world ever created, with amazing locations and dungeons. Thousands of hours later, it's one of my comfort games I turn to when times are hard, and I've beaten it dozens of times.
there is now an AI voice acting mod on nexus, easy to install and nearly every line is voiced. It sounds so good you would think it was voice acting, each race has its own voice and the AI speaks with proper inflection and emphasis, it honestly sound better than oblivion voice acting imo😂. I think it adds so much ease of access to this game, now you just relax your eyes and listen to the dialog!
I can't hear that opening theme without just smiling and thinking back to like 6th grade playing on original xbox. The nostalgia is real and powerful. I can say with confidence i figured out the cuirass of saviors hide and boots of blinding speed trick that let you see 40% on your own. sadly this is one of my favorite and greatest achievements in gaming. It blew my mind as it should everyones who experienced it first hand subtle yet powerful complexities and nuance like this.
That one House Redoran Quest that depends on finding some random shack in the Ashlands where the quest giver just gives you wrong directions is sort of a problem with House Redoran. Along with them frowning on you fighting and killing people and giving garbage rewards, this is one more reason not to play House Redoran.
Definitely my favorite as well. It just feels so alien and familiar at the same time, yet it all feels like a real world with a long history. It all Adds up to a very immersive game and that ultimately is the number one requirement IMHO for a big Bethesda game. I do want to add that the original vanilla game is buggy and flawed in many ways, and I recommend that new players (and old ones as well) use OpenMW, and open source modern engine for Morrowind. It is amazing, efficient and stable. Also has tons of improvements like a far view distance that makes it so much more amazing. Especially cool if you have the mod Tamriel Rebuilt installed as you can see the outlying lands and mountains in the distance, really cool even if you are not Going there to play it’s worth it for the vistas. Also the combat system is messed up as even the biggest fans like me will concede though the miss issue can be fixed with mods. I would highly recommend the mod Morrowind Rebirth, it adds tons of stuff but stays true to the original game feel and intent, as well as some much needed rebalancing and fixes. If you are going for just one mod I would recommend that one. I played the latest version on OpenMW 0.47 and it is amazing, also very stable (zero crashes in 80 hours playing). I still play Morrowind like once a year. When I do I play it for 60-100 hours at least, usually in a single month. Then I am fed up with it for another year. So be warned - this thing is addictive, not at first but once it grows on you it won’t let go. It will probably stay with me the rest of my life. Caveat emptor!
oblivion was my favorite rpg ever, i know all the exploits and 100% the game 3 times in my life. skyrim was good, in its own way, but i never felt the need to do every single quest line present in the game. then i played morrowind. lightly modded (code patch, mgexe, patch for purists, etc.) morrowind made me question what kind of elder scrolls fan i really am...it ruined elder scrolls for me lol, cant even play oblivion or skyrim cuz i just hate it now. arguably the REAL value of a bethesda game is the mods anyways. thanks morrowind, thanks for opening my eyes to the garbage that is bethesda. morrowind creation club update when?? X D
I actually think a lot of people sleep on the dice roll system. It becomes magical when you go at it with the mentality that you are a character in the world, not a person playing a game.
As someone whose childhood is basically Morrowind, I can literally fire up Morrowind and create a gamebreaking character at level 1-2. But the only reason I can do that, is because I have 5000-6000 hours in the game and know where all of it is. What a great childhood I had. Never before has a game encouraged me to explore, discover and engage with the world like Morrowind did. ^^
I bought morrowind in around 2004 and I’ve played it ever since. I love it. I begged my sister for years to give it a go. She would always give up after a short time. By around 2010 I convinced her to at least persevere till level 10. She’s been hooked ever since. We both agree it’s the best game ever made. We love oblivion and Skyrim but they don’t come close to morrowind.
This was and is still one of my favourite games of all time. I completely fell in love with this game and is a 'Must Play' for those that love D&D RPG's. I was a little sad when the Elder Scrolls broke away from this classic role playing style with Oblivion and Skyrim.
and you didn't even mention the incredible DLC of bloodmoon (and yes, mournhold exists too) I bought this game before any of the DLC were even developed, right at the beginning. It's been one of my top 3 games (along with the original deus ex and the civ series) of all time. When the DLCs came out, they offered so much more, aside from the extra quest content and adding an entire 4th of the map to the game, it also patched up a lot of bugs, which made the game even less buggy (it is a bethesda game still). But the best part about this game is the freedom you have to play it the way you like, no handholding, no immortal NPCs, and gamebreaking spellcombo's, I never understand why they removed the magical aspect of the later games, because that was what made this game so incredible!
Look... I know for a lot of you out there 20 years ago is well, your life time.. but i was 21 when I got this game on the Xbox in 2004. That seems like a long time ago, but it really isn't.... and if you live in Florida and the majority of people you interact with on a daily basis are 65+, 20 years is nothing... Once you're out of high school and have a steady job and steady relationship time speeds up drastically,. that being said... It was an amazing looking game, and a deep rpg that made you feel like you were truly exploring an alternate world. It will always have a special place in my heart and my memories.
"Start off with questionable graphics?" Sorry, I don't agree at all. For 2002, after exiting the boat, you could breath Vvardenfell just looking at the (incredible for the time) water and the small settlement that was Seyda Neen. When I went out the boat, I was immediately captured by the atmospherical graphic of the game.
That comment is in regards to how people play NOW, not at all a comment on Bethesda's work for the time. I think the game is 8/10 if it was releases today, not just for the time.
Ehhh honestly morrowind was pretty behind in terms of graphics, in terms of 3d models & characters at least (no complaints on the world itself, looked great). They still built the characters with separated limbs which was kinda obsolete even at that point. Maybe they needed to for the armor customizability to work well. When considering games like Final Fantasy 10/11, MOH: Allied Assault, Mafia 1, Unreal Tournament 2003, BG Dark Alliance, and arguably Gothic 1-2 as well, it was pretty behind, in my eyes at least. Morrowinds art direction is incredible though. And the skyboxes. Damn, those skyboxes are better than most new AAA ones.
I started with skyrim and worked my way backwards and after a few attempts over the years i managed to get into morrowind. Morrowind kind of has the reputation of being a "hardcore rpg" that is "not accessible to *casual* gamers", but from my experience thats completely wrong, I believe morrowind to be a easily enjoyable game that really doesnt expect the player to invest that much more mental energy than other games. The problem with morrowind that the game frontloads all of its worst qualities without explaining how 99% of the systems work or how the player can overcome difficulties or what the player "should" do to "make progress". The start was kept me from enjoying the game and by the time my character started becoming moderately powerful and spent time looking up how mechanics like leveling up, combat, skills, attributes etc actually worked it just felt like i was playing a more sandboxy version of skyrim (i mean that in a good way). On the "dice roll combat", imo the combat is actually pretty good (no, seriously) the main problem is again that the game doesnt explain anything that is happening. What the game's combat really needs is obviously a better tutorial and also a fucking combat log!! Imagine playing something like baldurs gate but the genius devs decided to remove every ui element that communicates how attack rolls and damage rolls work, thats morrowind.
I love this game. It's the best xbox game especially if you have the game of the year edition which adds the northern island, Solstheim, and the city, Mournhold.
The game was sic. It had SPEARS ! So sad that the other elder scrolls games dont have them !. My speedy argonian on skooma so fast and just out reatch / kytle guards
Morrowind has RPG noir characteristic both in its challenging moral dilemma and its settings. It has such atmosphere which later iterations did not try to replica. Those who have used the TES Construction set know how much could be done with lighting and weather effects to create a mood in Morrowind and how much the world building team did with light. Characters with torches and paper lanterns created so much atmosphere. Yet in Oblivion this feeling is all gone. Idiotic NPCs and guards walk at night by no lighting (they don't have torches too) and despite all the hustle and bustle the cities lack anything visually compelling.
Morrowind taught me English because with its 900.000 words of translation it took more than half a year before it was released in Germany in actual German. I was 15 and had a computer that would let me play it for about 20min before everything turned into a diashow or would just crash on exteriors which why I had to be a lot indoors for the first 1,5 years I play. Which led to the fact that I just read everything and tried every dialogue option. I played it until I was 20 years old. There is no other RPG and no other game but CIvilization that caught me as much as this game and it has become a part of my identity. Forever House Hlalu!
That's fucking awesome dude lmao
@@everettzarnick2323 his not alone, My English grade went up by 3 levels in the year i discovered Morrowind, and i give that improvement solely due to Morrowind.
The great House of Telvanni is better 😂
kinda same. I was 14 when my older sister's bf showed me this game and played it for 2-ish years on sub 640 resolution, and then I moved on to manuals and howto's in linux for english. I did another play-through in 2016 and yet another one in 2019, lasting about 40 hours each. I name my computers after cities in that game :) Btw you're filthy politician, Telvanni is the true seat of power!
Yeah, just go Telvanni and be happy. The sooner you can mod over that shithole stronghold they give you, the sooner you have expanded quests and actually feel like you're interacting with a faction and then getting rewarded for it with an appropriate HQ with appropriate storage and appropriate convenience for having done all their crappy vanilla quests. Not really sure why they made them the "evil ones" when every house sucks in it's own way. Dunmer are more or less a trash race that brings about their own near extinction by the end of the game, so no one way of "doing business" is any more stupid than the last other than the first rule of Telvanni Club is "stay the fuck away from me, and I don't care who you are or what you do". They do have a lot of inept members with high eccentricity factor, making them highly useless such as the the all-female town that only exists as a boat ride destination to get to Ayron's tower. But for the most part their crazy is kept in bubbles without spreading, and the same can't be said for any other house that vies for power and expansion as the only way to do that is to efficiently abuse and take advantage of the weaknesses of other societies currently untouched by your stench.
Morrowind "in my opinion" is one of the best RPGs ever!!!!! It doesn't hold your hand and tell you where to go and exactly what to do thus making it great and punishing all at the same time. If you figure out what you are supposed to do you are greatly rewarded.
I agree.
I agree with everything except saying one of the best. It IS the best 😁
@@walker4322 Except you didn't tried Gothic I&II
@@chinezut1942 beat gothic 1. Been having issues getting gothic 2 to run. Played gothic 3 and it's alright. I know I need to play gothic 2 still
It's a playable 80's fantasy novel. It's amazing.
I remember the little trap the developers set at the start of the game with looting the guy with the levitation jump. Players will dress up like a clown, get tossed high in the air, and die like a clown.
you can catch and save that guy, if you are a real wizard.
"like a clown"? Are you insulting the most stylish piece of headwear to exist in the Elder Scrolls universe, the colovian fur helm?
If you have the aim, you can end up in the middle of the ocean. Still alive, but maybe not quite better off.
I used to only use the scroll for getting to the Telvanni guy with the 4 wives until I learned he had levitation potions right next to his entrance 🤦♀️ I've never died to that scroll and was kinda shocked to find so many people online who had
The real main quest of morrowind is saving tarheel with a slowfall spell
I bought this at a pawn shop around 2010. I remember the employee there telling me I was about to have one heck of an experience.
Boy was that and understatement. This game changed my life and inspired me to become a digital illustrator. I've now been a career artist and worked on dozens of my own video games.
That's an awesome story. Thanks for the comment, mate.
I remember trying out Skyrim for the first time, which was also my first experience with an elder scrolls game. I could see why many people loved it, but I lost interest halfway.
I thought about it and came to the realisation that for me, it was the immersion breaking. I was the legendary dragon born, and everyone praised me from day 1, even though the only thing I could was push people lightly over with my voice. This in a world where mages also existed; it seemed unrealistic to me.
I played as a redguard carrying a big axe around, bothering with neither finesse or stealth, but I could join the thieves guild regardless. This apparently is an ancient organisation consisting of only the most trusted thieves. Despite this, three missions later, I found myself being the thief king while not in any way having a thief profile or having a clear idea who any of the thieves were.
I know what the design idea behind this decision was: dont punish players for creating their own playstyle and just give them access to everything. But I felt like the game was essentially throwing participation awards at me: I could be the leader of the mages despite not knowing how to cast magic. I wanted the game to tell me: "No, you can't do this quest yet. Come back when you have appropriate magic/stealth/whatever skill."
Turns out the game that I wanted existed: morrowind. After googling the reason why I couldn't hit anything and how levelling worked, it sucked me straight in, and I kept playing weeks on end. I love the world, the story, the creatures, the villain, the quests, the politics, the politics in the quests.
I like how powerless you are at the start, and that slowly starts changing with every level, I like how the main quest giver just gives you some pocket change at the start and tells you to start freelancing before he gives you the quest because you are in no way ready yet. I like the absence of questmarkers: I have to frequently check my journal and go explore to find places without mindlessly following an objective on the map. I have to actually engage and think. All in all it's a very unique experience, and it kind of makes me sad that a lot of games nowadays streamline a lot of this quest design because you don't get to feel this very often.
Brilliant comment. Thank you.
Totally agree with this comment, only game I have played in the past decade that feels like it has the same freedom and depth if you choose to look for it is kenshi
Yeah, I held off on Skyrim (my first playthrough was this year lol) but ended up uninstalling without finishing most of it for similar reasons.
I'm not much of a role player but I still want the world to have consequences for player decisions.
- Guild membership should lock you out of other guilds.
- Being a thane should lock you out of being a thane in other holds.
- If there was more factional tension like in Fallout New Vegas so that you had to manage just who you're doing what for so that you don't accidentally (or do intentionally) antagonise one faction or another, that would be cool.
You can kinda go on and on with this stuff but as you say, Bethesda very clearly designed this to be extremely accessible. I just kinda wish they'd been brave enough to design in the opposite direction. I'll probably have a go with Morrowind at some point (if I can get over the dice roll mechanic).
That is one of the things that Live Another Life brings. I can avoid being the Dragon Born until very late in the game.
You looking for realism in a game with magic spells. You people are delusional. It is a game, not real life. No lifers.
In a guard tower in balmora, sitting on top of a cabinet, is Sword of White Woe. How you retrieve it is up to you.
I first played the game around 2003-04, when the GOTY Edition came out. I was absolutely blown away. Wandering into Balmora for the first time felt like nothing I had experienced in a game before. I have replayed it many times since, and still feel like I have barely scratched the surface.
I freaked out when i first saw Vivec. I was like WHAAAT .. this is CRAZY
I'll never forget the feeling of being a kid and finding the Sword of White Woe and becoming instantly rich, or realizing Ra'viir's Katana casts bound weapon which chews through the early game, or that scrolls are a genuine get out of jail free card with the guaranteed damage they put out, not to mention stuff like the Boots of Blinding Speed and Creeper. It made you really feel like a resourceful adventurer, and everyone who played long enough got their wink from the designers of "I won't tell that this is totally overpowered if you won't". Any single player game with level-scaling or balance between playstyles is sucking a huge amount of joy out of their game, half the fun of RPGs is coming back and clobbering the bandits that kicked your ass 10 levels ago.
@@Kukaahi It's a shame that people write off the combat in Morrowind because you can beat people you're not really "supposed" to if you're clever. Stuff like getting Lord's Mail early, or fighting Gothren or Umbra at any point force you to prepare and strategize in a way that you really don't do in real time RPGs any more
I loved finding things in this game. The later games are kind of like, "Come over here to this map marker and you'll get the stuff." This game is like, "Who knows what you'll find?" Those speed boots were a godsend. I enchanted a shirt and pants with a permanent a night eye enchantment, so I get the speed with no drawback.
My favorite game of all time. I got lost, in Morrowind, in a way I didn't know was possible. After several builds I was still discovering things. Looking back...each of my characters are distinct and memorable.
Honestly I liked the dice roll combat mechanic of Morrowind. That first hit to connect on an annoying cliff racer right out of Seyda Neen was always a dopamine hit, and each skill level you could feel in real time your character improving as the success % went up gradually and the game could avoid saturating every mob as an hp sponge.
Have played morrowind since it was released. Best game of any genre of all time. I'm still finding new mini quests and tie-ins. The story and world is the most immersive thing around.
I play it once a year and it wasn't till my last playthrough I learned you could meet Talos.
@@nickcampbell5626 Wait what? I had no idea! Case in point lol!
@@Tokey_The_Bear If on your way to kill Dagoth Ur you decide to search Ghost Gate for any new NPCs (he'll disappear when you beat Dagoth) you can meet a friendly guy named Wulf who will give you a coin for luck. Then if you mention the coin to a specific priest in Ebonheart she'll say, "A weird tale. And you say you have been marked by good fortune -- by 'the luck of the emperor' -- since you received the coin from the old veteran? Tell me -- did the face of the old veteran resemble the face on the coin? Did anyone else ever see this old man? I hesitate to suggest it. But I think you have been visited by an aspect of Tiber Septim. Surely this is a sign of a great doom laid upon you by the gods."
@matthewowen8065 Nope, best game ever is Severance: Blade of Darkness. But Morrowind is pretty close tbh.
So true, the more you dive in is so rewarding. You'll find unbelievable surprises exploring. I went off once and got lost in a library and just picked out Dances In The Fire and ended up traveling across the whole map looking to finish reading a complete set. Then, robbed the Vaults in Vivec City Legit and locked all the Guards in the Vault 😂
12:36 that is how I like to play Skyrim. I play it basically like a walking simulator, where every quest is like a guided tour on my walk 😊 we go through a lot of haunted house theme parks 😅
To each their own. If you're having fun, then you're doing it right.
I love the depth of all the stories within Morrowind. Even very minor NPCs have fascinating things to tell you. It is my favourite TES game by far.
Each new dialogue option is a potential adventure in and of itself. The stories in Morrowind are my favorite part, too.
The greatest.The few initial notes of music from the intro was enough to give me the shiver 🙂…..
"the magic is absolutly banana nut fucking muffins fun as shit" instant subscribe after hearing such an articulate expression about the magic gameplay
Great video, finally pushed me over the edge to play morrowind. Hope you keep up making quality videos!
Awesome. Enjoy the journey, and thanks for the comment, Dylan.
yeah, thanks dylan.
It's pretty good I've owned it since the week it came out but I've never completed it. My issue is the interface sucks imo and I struggled to find a mod that makes it tolerable for me.
Yeah, thanks a fucking lot Dylan
Enjoy, C: openmw is a great project if u want a modernized and stable version of it! Also adding mods is easy to get into if you ever want. :D
Give me Morrowind melee combat over Oblivion’s or Slyrim’s any day
Hit chance is a much better way to balance combat than enemies being damage sponges.
I loved having no "X marks the spot", just some vague words describing the path to get there. The joy of exploring and get lost, to eventualy reach the destination.... Diving far from shore to get to the sunken Daedra shrine... And, of course, flying (levitating)!
I got my first og xbox way back in the day from my uncle, i forget if it was a gift or if he just wanted to pass it on. Had all the classics you could ask for, kotor, star wars battlefront, halo...and this intriguing looking game called Morrowind. Never touched it for the longest time, until I decided to read the manual one day.
Booted it up as soon as I was finished and it was over for me. Still one of the best (and most horrifyingly broken) games I've ever played.
I love it.
Morrowind is pretty much the only game that made me read its in-game books with excitement. I tried reading them in Oblivion and Skyrim afterwards, but there just wasn't much reason to.
Playing Morrowind feels like uncovering an ancient conspiracy. You sneak around, talk to people and read ancient books. Not because the game told you to, but because you as a player invested in it.
"You move too slow in this game"
"No *you* move too slow"
*hoptoads away*
The funny thing is, it feels really slow. But if you actually imagine yourself in that world, walking along... you'd be slower
Real wisdom here, i always hear about the boots of bs but hoptoad is the seasoned travelers best friend
My best gaming experience so far. Probably played about 200 hours. I bounced of the game 2 or 3 times. That combat was horrible. But one day, I decided, I'm just going to break that 30-minute barrier and I got hooked. I think it was when I realized I could go anywhere and do anything.
I remember playing this back in 2003.
To this day I have not experienced the joy and satisfaction that Morrowind provided. I loved leveling up the character and the story in this game is the best one of all the Elder Scroll games.
As an old timer, it is gratifying to know that people are still playing this game 22 years after its initial release. A colleague at work turned me on to this game, loaning me his XBox disc, which he had gotten from his older brother, along with a story worth telling. My colleague's brother had turned him on to the the game while still living at his parents' house, telling me he plugged the game in while lying in a hammock in the basement, and then did nothing for the next 12 hours except play Morrowind, only getting out of his hammock to urinate into a jar on the floor! Oh my God... I about bust a gut cracking up over this! My friend also loaned me his copy of Bloodrayne... great game.
Morrowind is truly a work of art. I still have the XBox game booklet and map.
Great comment. Always cool to read stuff like this.
@@everettzarnick2323 Thanks man! Great review of the game. ✌️
Your videos are so well made i didn't realize how small your channel was, you deserve at least a few thousand subs
I appreciate that.
Wow, this was an amazing video. One of my favorite parts is how you described the growth a character can take in Morrowind by choosing to focus on new skills rather than grind the same skill tree like is necessary to keep up in Skyrim. I thought it was interesting and I feel like I haven't seen anyone mention it before.
Man i love Morrowind.. it was perfect.. i wasfacinayedfrom the start, the ambience, music, lore.. the animals, the chaging stars on the sky, the weird tombs, i was so confused.. so i started reading, started colecting books about the imperium, the religion, the story, the wars.. and started advancing.. i found the shrines of the pilgrimage described on the books about the tribunal and vivec and then.. after getting a potion and a master pick i was able to sneak on vivec's temple on the capital, i just wanted to know what was there.. imagine my surprise when i see Vivic in the flesh.. floating and meditating.. i was blown away, the tribunal gods are real? So many great moments, like finding the first sleepers and uncovering wtf these crazies were doing, or going out the ghost fence and face your first ash storm..
This was my first open world game back in the day. I played it back in 03 when I was eighteen having grown up on JRPGs this game first completely overwhelmed me then totally blew my mind. I still believe Morrowind was a masterpiece.
Was and is, James. Not without faults, Morrowind manages to really capture that lightning in a bottle that Bethesda seems chase after to varying levels of success. Here's to yet another decade of enjoyment with this game.
@@everettzarnick2323 I remember my first time playing New Vegas and Thinking this is like Morrowind in the desert with guns.
"wake up, you were dreaming. What's your name?"
immortal opening
Thanks for this. I subbed and liked. Hope your channel grows!
my gf is a big Elder Scrolls nerd, knows all the theories and lore and stuff. I had played skyrim on my ps3 back in the day and I think one of my brothers had Oblivion but I never beat it.
she talked about Morrowind all the time and would make references that would go over my head. when i told her I wanted to play it to see what the big deal was, she had so many tips and things I should know going in like about agility making your attacks hit and you can totally fuck a save if you're not careful. When I DID finally start playing I really only stuck with it because A: it meant a lot to her, and B: she had given me enough info that I wouldn't fuck myself right out the gate, and by the time I got to Balmora I was actually getting the hang of things.
beat the game a few weeks ago, and now on my replay of skyrim I literally did the fuckin Leo-pointing-at-the-screen meme when I went up north and that weird scroll wizard is TRYING TO GET INTO THE HEART CHAMBER AND HE'S TALKING ABOUT THE NEREVARINE, THAT'S ME WHAT THE HEELLLLLLL
10/10, play Morrowind N'wa
Great video!
Scaling is the single biggest problem TES 4 and 5 have.
Starting out the game and just deciding a direction and then coming across a mega sword that actually kills everything feels SO good.
I don't know if it's just me having a god complex but if you can build towards being OP just works.
Unlike with scaling every item you come across has the change to be great which feels like finding an actual treasure.
Goldbrand is a beast.
Daggerfall too
I think people overlook how problematic this element is in daggerfall since even shops scale to your level
I still play it daily on my phone. The game is so euphoric/relaxing, IMO.
Phone? Wait... How?!?!
@@marktrudeau8512 Look up OMW Nightly. If you have a high end phone you're in for a treat. 😎
For me, Oblivion was the best stock game experience. I thought it was the best blend of story (IMHO better than Skyrim) and game mechanics (IMHO better than Morrowind). I hope the remastered Oblivion comes into being. I am still playing a heavily modded Skyrim today.
I love how Broken Enchanting is in this game... you can Make crazy gear XD
Played over 1000 hours on PC and more on xbox before that... still havent fought the end boss
All these years later, I'm still replaying it. My current character is an Alter historian who was studying the Velothi exodus, became enthralled by Velothi ideology, spurned Summerset, and renamed himself with a Chimeri variant of his birth name. He Champions Ashlander theology and is a reformer of the temple.
Enjoying the Tamriel Rebuilt mod alongside it
I like to use the joy of painting mod and just go around painting landscapes and portraits to make money. My current character is a orc traveling artist and not the neverarine
@@JimmyThree-Balls Never heard of this, but I love the idea. I like anything that makes more mundane approaches to life in Tamriel viable
@@DMIwriteryou should try i believe its called ashfall the survival mod
@@twelvevoltage I really want to, but unfortunately it's not compatible with OpenMW, which is how I prefer to play
@@DMIwriter if you complete your current character I highly recommend giving the code Patch/mgexe a shot. It has all game patches, comes with shaders and graphic enhancements like openmw and distant land generations I've never had a problem with it and I use an awful laptop lol
The title music always hits.
Forgotten deep game design from the good old days
From a time when the visuals took far less time to develop than the actual gameplay. Not too common now, unfortunately.
This is actually a very different point of view from many other Morrowind fans! Great to hear some more thought provoking opinions!
The algorithmic mechanics give devs the ability to make late game enemies that are more than just damage sponges high luck or agility characters/enemies can just "dodge" all your attacks
"more than just damage sponges"
they're not entirely unlike sponges in that they ignore that damage entirely instead of just having a shitload of health, making for a more frustrating encounter. would be better if there was some indication of the miss, that would make it a lot easier to understand what's going on
@@vlim5601 There is an indication of misses, it's the "whoosh" sound effect. Also, you get a different hit sound depending on whether you hit flesh or different kinds of armor.
They should have mass effect 3 like option for playthrough next elder scroll.
Like play game as action-adventure, modern rpg and traditional rpg. The traditional rog being an experience like morrowind.
As good as an idea as this is, balancing the game around all three options would probably keep the game in development for another 2 years. Or and additional two years, I mean.
Damn are you really going to make me play Morrowind for the millionth time?!
A new build awaits.
Cyberpunk's script and combat were great, even the example you give is funny. Are you okay?
you really gaslit the hell out of me. when you said dawnbreaker is leveled i thought "yeah that really is bummer... wait. no it isnt. am i crazy?" and yep, theres only one version of dawnbreaker. skyrim only has a handful of leveled rewards, and dawnbreaker's not one of them.
Holy fuck you're right.
My point regarding leveled content as a whole still stands in reference to Dawnbreaker being out paced by leveled content, but I should have done better research there.
@@everettzarnick2323 yeah youre still right. skyrim has a real problem with underwhelming artifacts.
still, great video.
"I hate famous things so I'm special" this kid
But I hate unknown things, too. :(
Great video bro! 😎
Great script! I wholly agree with your review. The story is the best part of the game and so many things prevent so many people from getting to experience it.
I feel like the biggest problem with TES games that followed Morrowind is the fact that Bethesda picked the most generic, boring and bland lands for setting. Think about it - Vvardenfell is one of the most interesting settings in games. On the other hand, Cyrodill or Skyrim are pretty much just another high fantasy setting which we already have a lot of.
I also agree that Morrowind weird scaling (or lack thereof) is a cool feature. If you're bold or lucky enough, you can get the best items in game at level 1. In Skyrim you can do the same, but then you'll be stuck with a shitty version of the item
I understand the disdain towards the medieval English setting, but I actually enjoy it when its done right. The sounds alone; horses grazing, farm hoes digging into the earth, rain on cobblestone, clanging of swords, etc. The setting can be amazing when explored fully purely from an aesthetic standpoint. Oblivy n' Sky didn't really put many chips into that pot, instead opting to focus on gameplay, story, etc.
Whether or not that's something that I should hold against them, I'm unsure. But there's a reason so many people reach out for sound and weather mods, right?
I still need to play the mages guild, cult, temple and telvanni, hopefully sooner than later
agreed. 20+ years later, courtesy of several wonderful, WONDERFUL modders; the game is still entirely enjoyable...play wise, and visually.
video feels like it needs way more views
They were almost going bust so they had to put their all into what could've saved their company, a shame they seemed to have let that success get to their heads and have been making terrible decisions years afterwards.
I don't blame them for putting money first, but you're right. The soul has been slowly dwindeling away from their games for a while now.
Man i remember playing this for the first time and it was so fukin good, if i found something i really disliked a mod would fix it like the dice roll accuracy, the magic system world building was so good, love the biomes morrowind has and the dunmer culture, the fact they still have slaves was cool since it gave you a moral dilemma of the world and it was all so alien, its why oblivion and skyrim to me has a underwhelming world since it was fair more basic, especially when you figure out the lore in ES is wacky af too
Runescape music in the background is a great touch :)
I'm glad you agree :)
The reason morrowind can afford to not tell the player about core mechanics in a slog of a tutorial in the same way modern games do, is simple.
It's in the game-guide that came with the disc.
Back in the day, installing a game took a lot of time, and in the meantime you would read through the pamphlet that came with the game, explaining mechanics, character-creation, major background-information or otherwise all the things needed to just get going.
This means that when it became time to open the game, you could just go. Because the game had already explained all you needed to know in the pamphlet. And if you were experienced with the type of pen-and-paper systems Morrowind borrows from, then you didn't even need the pamphlet to go.
This game was made with patient methodical pen-and-paper systems in mind, and expected the player to read and inform themselves.
The pamphlet is available on the steam-page for Morrowind.
I took the time to read through it quickly while it downloaded and installed as I hadn't played in a while, and it struck me as a very elegant solution in general.
This is a hugely important thing that everyone besides CIB retro game collectors overlook except when talking about the really obvious edge cases with stuff like adventure games (Monkey Island, Leisure Suit Larry, etc) where you could essentially softlock the game if you didn't read the manual, or games with antiquated oddball copy protection schemes where you could very literally softlock the game or erase your save if you didn't read the manual. I remember Morrowind GOTY edition came with a pretty thorough manual that explained a lot of the stats and various mechanics, and a pretty sweet map of Morrowind that I held onto for years.
@@shelltoe_soul Glad to hear I was not alone when it came to the map!
I long for the time games go back to having in game repositories of information, like the Age-of games or the civilization games.
That way, interested parties get lore-information, as well as mechanical explanations.
And uninterested parties get a more streamlined experience.
It's the same thing with the original Zelda. People accuse it of being unintuitive and impossible to play, but it came with a map and a manual.
Most of Bethesda's games you are the chosen one. In Morrowind, are you the chosen one? In Oblivion, you are not the chosen one.
yeah in oblivion you're basically the chosen ones delivery boy lol
In Daggerfall you are just a dude.
The music is haunting, I used to dream about it when I played 12 hours a day. I didn't even know you could pickpocket in Morrowind, I had never tried.
Nice! Keep making comfy videos and you're channel will probably get big someday!
Excellent video. I wish everyone would give it a shot or give it another shot if they've tried before. I'll admit it took me a few attempts to get into, but now it may very well be my favorite game of all time. I was able to beat and make several more characters to roleplay and have fun. This game changed my life forever
It has a unique blend of otherworldlyness about it kind of bizarre and haunting, as well as, at the time, interesting creatures and architecture.
Morrowind was the first hard "easy RPG" made. By comparassions, Baldurs Gate is very easy. Just because you can save and heal anytime anywhere. One could try 90s RPGs, then 80s RPGs like Pool of Radiance, Ultima series or Wizardry
If you're bad at CRPGs and know nothing about D&D, BG is hard. Very hard.
@@chrisnichols9014 True, that is true. I remember my little brother disintegrate the black dragon and bragged about it. Then I mentioned that he just lost the loot and a dragonscale armor. :) He played no more.
Playing games most of my 40 years. Have played thousands, and Morrrowind is in my top ten favourites. Magical game.
Weird thing I liked, the movement in morrowind felt a lot less floaty than oblivion and skyrim. oblivion was particularly bad. it felt like you barely weighed anything, sent flying by running over a particularly protruding part of the terrain. and the corpse rag dolls... so immersion breaking
I think skyrim introduced deceleration into the mechanics and oblivion combat and movement in general felt like fights with paper swords / hikes in a dream.
Morrowind has a dated movement system but it does appeal to player by avoiding the downsides of these two other systems, so it's give n' take imo
Great video!
I'd love to see your take on Daggerfall.
Great game! I used to take out loans from banks lol.
Undercooked as hell
Really missing the interactions between the guilds in the newer games. Becoming leader of Fighters and Thieves is very hard, if not impossible as one hsa you kill the leader of the other. Also the different houses, so much depth, and you can only join one or the other (even if you become speaker of all during the main quest). I also really like the requirements to get higher levels in Morrowind, that makes it more believable to become a high rank, you gotta have the proper skills! Meanwhile in Skyrim you can become the Archmage by casting no spell whatsoever.
But I don't like the actual game play of Morrowind, I much prefer the more streamlined play of Skyrim. Gimme Skyrim's gameplay and Morrowind's roleplay and world building, that'd be awesome!
I'll never forget making a ring that had levitate, feather, and speed gain............. lmfao fly everywhere!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Morrowind mobility go nyoooom
need to analise daggerfall too, my favorite one.
I'll consider it, since daggerfall is one of a kind. Thanks for the comment.
You didn't have to shit on Cyberpunk. It has many flaws, but still has nothing to even be compared to since Witcher 3, and is overall one of the best games of last years.
And Morrowind is just magic. I am shocked that Skyrim is so popular and talked about, when it lost so much comparing to Morrowind.
CyP is a game that deserves its own review and has much to praise. It might be a tad rude to talk about it like I did, but I think it was important to reference CyP to explain the "frustration playthrough" concept without taking 10 extra minutes to do so.
Perhaps ill have videos on both in the future to give them their due. Thanks for the comment.
🤦♂️ Jesus christ it is not rude. The internet is a fake digital world. Who is this psychopath who told you not to have an opinion? Who gives a shit. Jesus
Im happy that you can join the east empire company and can liberate all the slave plantations AND destroy all houses !
I love this kind of freedom
this is a fantastic video, very much considering playing it now
No need for motivation. Been playing this game for over 20 years, and it never gets old, no matter how many times I come back to it.
great video!! wish you had more so i could binge watch em ;3;
I'm really glad to see more younger gamers (zoomers) getting into Morrowind in recent months and years, even though some of them weren't even born when it came out. I was only a few years out of college when it came out, and you have to remember that even though the game looks archaic now, it was advertised as having quite impressive graphics and world design for the time. The back of the box even advertised it as the most detailed game world ever created, with amazing locations and dungeons. Thousands of hours later, it's one of my comfort games I turn to when times are hard, and I've beaten it dozens of times.
there is now an AI voice acting mod on nexus, easy to install and nearly every line is voiced. It sounds so good you would think it was voice acting, each race has its own voice and the AI speaks with proper inflection and emphasis, it honestly sound better than oblivion voice acting imo😂. I think it adds so much ease of access to this game, now you just relax your eyes and listen to the dialog!
voices of vvardenfell is the mod name I believe.
I can't hear that opening theme without just smiling and thinking back to like 6th grade playing on original xbox. The nostalgia is real and powerful.
I can say with confidence i figured out the cuirass of saviors hide and boots of blinding speed trick that let you see 40% on your own.
sadly this is one of my favorite and greatest achievements in gaming.
It blew my mind as it should everyones who experienced it first hand subtle yet powerful complexities and nuance like this.
Why did you show Ald'ruhn-under-Skar when describing House Hlaalu?
laziness.
That one House Redoran Quest that depends on finding some random shack in the Ashlands where the quest giver just gives you wrong directions is sort of a problem with House Redoran. Along with them frowning on you fighting and killing people and giving garbage rewards, this is one more reason not to play House Redoran.
Definitely my favorite as well. It just feels so alien and familiar at the same time, yet it all feels like a real world with a long history. It all
Adds up to a very immersive game and that ultimately is the number one requirement IMHO for a big Bethesda game.
I do want to add that the original vanilla game is buggy and flawed in many ways, and I recommend that new players (and old ones as well) use OpenMW, and open source modern engine for Morrowind. It is amazing, efficient and stable. Also has tons of improvements like a far view distance that makes it so much more amazing. Especially cool if you have the mod Tamriel Rebuilt installed as you can see the outlying lands and mountains in the distance, really cool even if you are not
Going there to play it’s worth it for the vistas.
Also the combat system is messed up as even the biggest fans like me will concede though the miss issue can be fixed with mods. I would highly recommend the mod Morrowind Rebirth, it adds tons of stuff but stays true to the original game feel and intent, as well as some much needed rebalancing and fixes. If you are going for just one mod I would recommend that one. I played the latest version on OpenMW 0.47 and it is amazing, also very stable (zero crashes in 80 hours playing).
I still play Morrowind like once a year. When I do I play it for 60-100 hours at least, usually in a single month. Then I am fed up with it for another year. So be warned - this thing is addictive, not at first but once it grows on you it won’t let go. It will probably stay with me the rest of my life. Caveat emptor!
oblivion was my favorite rpg ever, i know all the exploits and 100% the game 3 times in my life. skyrim was good, in its own way, but i never felt the need to do every single quest line present in the game. then i played morrowind. lightly modded (code patch, mgexe, patch for purists, etc.) morrowind made me question what kind of elder scrolls fan i really am...it ruined elder scrolls for me lol, cant even play oblivion or skyrim cuz i just hate it now. arguably the REAL value of a bethesda game is the mods anyways. thanks morrowind, thanks for opening my eyes to the garbage that is bethesda. morrowind creation club update when?? X D
This was my first es game and it still hasnt been beaten. Absolutly amazong game.
It's a true masterpiece, I'd say. Thanks for the comment.
I actually think a lot of people sleep on the dice roll system. It becomes magical when you go at it with the mentality that you are a character in the world, not a person playing a game.
As someone whose childhood is basically Morrowind, I can literally fire up Morrowind and create a gamebreaking character at level 1-2. But the only reason I can do that, is because I have 5000-6000 hours in the game and know where all of it is. What a great childhood I had. Never before has a game encouraged me to explore, discover and engage with the world like Morrowind did. ^^
I bought morrowind in around 2004 and I’ve played it ever since. I love it. I begged my sister for years to give it a go. She would always give up after a short time. By around 2010 I convinced her to at least persevere till level 10. She’s been hooked ever since. We both agree it’s the best game ever made. We love oblivion and Skyrim but they don’t come close to morrowind.
That's awesome. Best game ever is high praise, but morrowind has more than earned that kind of reputation.
This was and is still one of my favourite games of all time.
I completely fell in love with this game and is a 'Must Play' for those that love D&D RPG's.
I was a little sad when the Elder Scrolls broke away from this classic role playing style with Oblivion and Skyrim.
not waiting to play cyberpunk was unfortunate. 2.0 feels so great in comparison
Video on it in the works. Hopefully will be finished within the next decade.
and you didn't even mention the incredible DLC of bloodmoon (and yes, mournhold exists too)
I bought this game before any of the DLC were even developed, right at the beginning. It's been one of my top 3 games (along with the original deus ex and the civ series) of all time. When the DLCs came out, they offered so much more, aside from the extra quest content and adding an entire 4th of the map to the game, it also patched up a lot of bugs, which made the game even less buggy (it is a bethesda game still). But the best part about this game is the freedom you have to play it the way you like, no handholding, no immortal NPCs, and gamebreaking spellcombo's, I never understand why they removed the magical aspect of the later games, because that was what made this game so incredible!
My first RPG and I still play it on pc and xbox. A True Classic.
Look... I know for a lot of you out there 20 years ago is well, your life time.. but i was 21 when I got this game on the Xbox in 2004. That seems like a long time ago, but it really isn't.... and if you live in Florida and the majority of people you interact with on a daily basis are 65+, 20 years is nothing... Once you're out of high school and have a steady job and steady relationship time speeds up drastically,. that being said...
It was an amazing looking game, and a deep rpg that made you feel like you were truly exploring an alternate world. It will always have a special place in my heart and my memories.
"Start off with questionable graphics?" Sorry, I don't agree at all. For 2002, after exiting the boat, you could breath Vvardenfell just looking at the (incredible for the time) water and the small settlement that was Seyda Neen. When I went out the boat, I was immediately captured by the atmospherical graphic of the game.
That comment is in regards to how people play NOW, not at all a comment on Bethesda's work for the time.
I think the game is 8/10 if it was releases today, not just for the time.
Vvardenfel has a great art style, but the graphical fidelity was fairly poor for its time.
Ehhh honestly morrowind was pretty behind in terms of graphics, in terms of 3d models & characters at least (no complaints on the world itself, looked great). They still built the characters with separated limbs which was kinda obsolete even at that point. Maybe they needed to for the armor customizability to work well.
When considering games like Final Fantasy 10/11, MOH: Allied Assault, Mafia 1, Unreal Tournament 2003, BG Dark Alliance, and arguably Gothic 1-2 as well, it was pretty behind, in my eyes at least.
Morrowinds art direction is incredible though. And the skyboxes. Damn, those skyboxes are better than most new AAA ones.
I started with skyrim and worked my way backwards and after a few attempts over the years i managed to get into morrowind. Morrowind kind of has the reputation of being a "hardcore rpg" that is "not accessible to *casual* gamers", but from my experience thats completely wrong, I believe morrowind to be a easily enjoyable game that really doesnt expect the player to invest that much more mental energy than other games.
The problem with morrowind that the game frontloads all of its worst qualities without explaining how 99% of the systems work or how the player can overcome difficulties or what the player "should" do to "make progress". The start was kept me from enjoying the game and by the time my character started becoming moderately powerful and spent time looking up how mechanics like leveling up, combat, skills, attributes etc actually worked it just felt like i was playing a more sandboxy version of skyrim (i mean that in a good way).
On the "dice roll combat", imo the combat is actually pretty good (no, seriously) the main problem is again that the game doesnt explain anything that is happening. What the game's combat really needs is obviously a better tutorial and also a fucking combat log!! Imagine playing something like baldurs gate but the genius devs decided to remove every ui element that communicates how attack rolls and damage rolls work, thats morrowind.
I love this game. It's the best xbox game especially if you have the game of the year edition which adds the northern island, Solstheim, and the city, Mournhold.
Great vid, always loved Morrowind the most, too!
What is the name of the song that is played at around 17:00 tho? :)
"Summoned by the Jarl" by DragonFather.
just subbed, cool channel
You're a genuine chad.
You shouldn't bash the game's graphics. Back when it was released, it was the best looking game I had ever seen.
How? Silent hill 2 was released before it and looked like a freaking holywood production in comparison
What a grand and intoxicating commentary.
Come, Sagadellic. Friend or traitor, come.
The game was sic. It had SPEARS ! So sad that the other elder scrolls games dont have them !. My speedy argonian on skooma so fast and just out reatch / kytle guards
Yeah the weapon variety is the best in Morrowind. I hope TES6 brings them all back, along with the extremely utility-based magic system.
Couldn't agree more I've been replaying this game for ever when the others, I fell out of.
Morrowind has RPG noir characteristic both in its challenging moral dilemma and its settings. It has such atmosphere which later iterations did not try to replica. Those who have used the TES Construction set know how much could be done with lighting and weather effects to create a mood in Morrowind and how much the world building team did with light. Characters with torches and paper lanterns created so much atmosphere. Yet in Oblivion this feeling is all gone. Idiotic NPCs and guards walk at night by no lighting (they don't have torches too) and despite all the hustle and bustle the cities lack anything visually compelling.