The worst part about it is a lot of modern games give you nothing to tell you where to go next because they expect you to just use the UI that tells you exactly where to go.
Diegetic in-game directions are slowly becoming a dead art. And yeah, they say "just disable hints/markers in the options" doesn't help when you designed your game explicitly with those things enabled, and playing without them is thus miserable.
The worst part of that is everything you do just feels like you're ticking boxes on a grocery list. I couldn't tell you 95% of the quests I've done in Skyrim because it all just felt like busy work, being led by a marker, get the thing, talk to the person, go here, go there. Done. In Morrowind, the quests stick with me even after all these years because they're so involved and you end up immersed in them. You have to pay attention to your surroundings, you have to know the map to some degree, you have to follow written directions. The experience is wholly different from just "Follow marker, fast travel, do the thing"
Exactly my experience with Oblivion. I didn't want to listen to their talk, I just clicked through it and thought I'll read it up in the journal. But you couldn't really get any info out of it.
Morrowind truly feels like a real adventure just like the Gothic series of games. The system of a journal were your character basically notes down what people told him and what to do for a quest is so much better than quest markers, it makes everything more immersive and makes you think and ask NPC's where to find the person you are looking for or actually doing detective work to find more clues to get to your goal, you are truly living in that world and the world is alive. Morrowinds mechanics like acrobatics, athletics, levitation, jump spells etc. combined with item weight that effects your jump height and running speed etc. are so amazing and are the cherry on top, truly something amazingly unique and something I haven't seen in any other games so far except Oblivion in a downgraded verison. The Sandbox feel combined with the mechanics and character development alone are absolutely incredible and never done this well ever again in any other game.
Grew up playing this game. I spent hours trying to find specific locations, tracking quests, finding towns and just living in this world. Every quest I finished felt like an achievement.
I played the game when it came out, I was 11y/o and boy was it insanely difficult. Spent dozens of hours aimlessly wandering around, not understanding anything and trying to do things way out of my character ability. But it remains my favourite Elder Scrolls game and I've sunk thousands of hours into it and played it almost every way you can think of. Best first/third person solo RPG ever made
Morrowind is one of my favorite games of all time. I was 12 when it launched, and I still love it just as much today at 34. I generally tell gen Zers that gaming was at its golden era in the late 90s to mid-2000s, and they just scoff at it and retort with " BUT gRaPhIcs"; but I do mean it, in every sense of the way, that gaming today is by large a far cry from how it used to be.
Its combat mechanics are products of its era, sure, but everything else is pretty much timeless including Dagoth Ur which is arguably the most intriguing if not the best TES antagonist so far. And not gonna lie Morrowind's music reminds me of the simpler time. It feels nostalgic.
I think the freedom, true exploration, direction taking, etc was the BEST part of Morrowind. There truly is nothing more immersive than having to navigate your way around the world manually, when playing modded Skyrim I always try to go for compassless/ fast travel-less playthroughs because having that experience in a world as graphically impressive as Skyrim (especially with mods and shaders) is incredible. So much of the game is lost by fast travelling everywhere and lining up your quest marker on your compass and pressing W. I REALLY hope TES6 finds a way to properly implement these features or at least have them be optional, but knowing Bethesda, especially after playing Starfield, I suspect that they'll just g the easiest/ fastest/ most market friendly route. If they dont find a way to implement those kinds of features I will literally wait till mods make it possible before even touching that game. Great video.
You'll actually be surprised how much more of the game you see without a hud, you can toggle it on and off in the witcher 3 on pc. When i turned the opacity of the hud down to 0 on skyrim it was like looking at the game with fresh eyes for the first time, i did it as a joke to see if i could complete the game without the hud but now i almost never have it on.
I played Morrowind for the first time when I was 9 or 10 years old and it seemed so alien and weird compared to anything I played before. I still play it now, 16 years later with the mods and the game giving you something more and something new every time. The magic system is awesome, very powerful but not gamebreaking.
Morrowind is one of the few games I played until I birned a ring into the disc during my childhood. One thing you will not really experience playing the game now is taking the world map that game with the game and using that to navigate the world, as the drawings on the map with all the ruins was accurate to the game and you could use that to figure out where things were. The game came with a paper fold out map poster of vvardenfel. Oblivion's map was far less detailed if I recall, and there was no need to even have it for skyrim.
Very Glad to See you've made the wonderful discovery that is Morrowind. If you're on PC may suggest giving Tamriel Rebuilt a try. I would also suggest OpenMW. Also to improve the ui further 2 additional mods: OpenHUD and MorroUI.
Still the greatest open world RPG imho. Even Bethesda’s own Oblivion & Skyrim can’t match its RP & progression complexity. I understand a lot of newer players players might be turned off by the dice-roll-based combat/stealth & fatigue systems but the freedom in spell crafting + alchemy & enchanting is unmatched. & the world itself & it’s lore is chef’s kiss, my dear Nerevar 😙👌
I don't need a 7 hour retrospective, because there are a lot of hours long reviews for this game already, but if its done well enough, you've got a new viewer in me.
Young players must be told that in Morrowind and Oblivion Agility is what makes you hit things. Strength adds to the damage only. In D&D games yes, Strength adds to your melee "to hit ratio". Once that is understood another great tip is that Speed is what allows you to flee from combat. Not Agility. Sounds silly but must be said. Trust me.
Once you play Morrowind you can't go back... Those of us who played this in 2001 when it came out... At the time this was breathtaking graphically, but more importantly its just a great game. The world feels so alien, but it also feels grounded, as if it could be a real place. The game doesn't exposition dump all over you like the diarrhea that is modern gaming, if you want to know what's going on in Morrowind you have to talk to people and you know the most brilliant part of Morrowind... When you ask 1 different people you get 10 different answers... NPC's lie, or maybe they tell partial truths, or maybe they tell you something from a certain point of view, in many cases there is no way to be sure who is lying and who is telling the truth, the world isn't black and white, you have to look at the situation and judge for yourself, kind of like the real world... Morrowind doesn't give you a quest marker, it says, go to Vivec and it leave you to figure out how to get there, on your own, and maybe when you figure out the location of the cave your looking for, where this one guys magic ring is located you still have to search the cave to find this ring, maybe it's on an enemy, maybe it's in a drawer or chest, maybe it's under his bed, YOU HAVE TO FIND IT, not search for the quest marker... Morrowind doesn't treat you like a brain damaged 3 year old, it expects you to figure things out for yourself. This was Bethesda's magnum opus, their crowning glory and they have never equaled it, and neither has anyone else. Is it perfect? No of course not, but when you compare it to Skyrim (which I do love...) you can't help but see just how bad Skyrim really is... It is the dumbed down ADHD 3-year-old's version of Morrowind. Morrowind for dummies, I hate the "streamlining" and removal of complexity to appeal to the ADHD crowd.
I bought Morrowind in 2005 for only $10, it was on the shovelware/bargain shelf. Even 3 years after its release it wasn't the iconic game it is now. People think Oblivion made Bethesda but it was Morrowind. I haven't been immersed in a game since Morrowind. I felt like I was living in that world and I eagerly await when the Skywind project will be done. Morrowind is one of the best RPGs and is Bethesda's best game, because the Elder Scrolls games have only gone downhill with less content and freedom since then.
I only have single complaint aboit Morrowind's minimap which the 'Find' spells which uses the minimap to highlight things. But also I was only having that problem because I was looking for an item I read about in a in-game book that lead me to a few other great magic items
Ah, unlike Skyrim, Morrowind was an unlevelled world. You could go where ever you liked, whenever you liked. But if you went to the wrong place at the wrong time at too low a level, you could come up against a Daedric Prince, an Ascended Twilight or a Golden Saint. Because you were choosing to step on THEIR lawn, and that's where they live, and that's how they do. And when you died, you had to load a save yourself! And there were no essential characters, so you could kill anyone and every one. But if you killed someone essential to completing the main quest, you'd get a message something like: _"With this character's death the thread of prophecy has been severed. Restore a saved game to repair the weave of fate, or wander forever in the broken world you have created."_ Vanilla Morrowind is stupendous enough, but (as always) even better with mods. {:o:O:}
I totally agree with your opinion on minimaps and them being bad for immersion. I played a lot of Ark Survival Evolved, and even though it has several issues, the fact that you need to craft a compass, a GPS that give's you coordinates, and look at a paper map is great
I am an elder millennial, so this came out when I was 12, and I loved the everloving fuck out of it. I didn't really master it though, I mostly just wandered around doing sidequests and exploring, reading books and lore. I genuinely love Morrowind's world, it's so immersive and weird and different (at least it was back then) so I keep coming back to it.
“Elder Millennial” sounds like some kind of elite JRPG mob. One of those “was a boss midway through disc 2 but can be farmed in the overworld during the endgame” type deals. As a fellow Elder Millennial, this pleases me.
Glad you are enjoying this awesome game! I don't play Skyrim, FO3 or FO4 anymore, never played FO76 or Midfield. Morrowind is where it's at. I've been playing it since I was 11 when it came out. Also, try Tamriel Rebuilt mod and Open MW (even if you don't particularly like mods, it's worth it). Open MW improves frame rate and other performance things with the engine, and the Tamriel Rebuilt mod adds most of the Morrowind mainland (with the rest to come in the future, they had another expansion at the end of 2023) with hundreds of hours of quests and exploration.
You can also play Project Tamriel wich is made by mostly the same guys behind TR. Currently you can go to Reach in Skyrim Home of the Nords, and island of Stirk in Cyrodiil. This year they will be releasing Anvil expansion with most of the Gold Coast, and after that they are planning to release Markarth. They are also developiong a Hammerfel and High Rock mods but those are early in development. Cheers!
Amen. Just the background music triggers me. I'm older. After Oblivion came out, my RPG friends agreed we'd prefer they just updated Morrowind. After Skyrim came out, we just wanted them to make a real open world. (The writing was also better because Mike Kirkbride, and the exotic locale and... I digress).
For instance: explain ALMSIVI, Amaranth (not the streamer, but rather the state of being where you become THE dreamer and create your own universe), CHIM, dragon breaks, sload or dreugh kalpas, the disappearance of the dwemer, the psijic endeavor... and that's if you assume the Kajiit have their own origin story wrong.
IMHO, Never knock a game till you actually play it yourself. I've said so many bad things about games I never even played only to play them, and STILL play them to this day. I've also never played Morrowwind even though it's in my Steam Library (really need to sit down and play it fully). This era of games doesn't look great but it makes up for in awesome immersion and gameplay. Looking at you Jedi Knight: Dark Forces, 2, and Mysteries of the Sith.
They truly don't make them like they used to. Not being as immersive is the price games have paid to become more accessible, sadly, which is why most older games that don't have HUD taking up 50%(and sometimes even more) of the screen space tend to feel more immersive. And disabling hud in most modern games doesn't help either, because, well, they're pretty much designed in a way where player has to use the map/minimap a lot.
I played Morrowind on XBox - the game came with a thick booklet and a large map - I should probably have the map framed and hang it on my wall. The only "flaws" I was aware of were the glitches the disc generated on the XBox - despite this, Morrowind remains an absolute masterpiece. The "clunky" combat and magic followed the rules of tabletop fantasy games which meant you were not always successful in landing a hit or casting a spell. You could become a vampire in Morrowind and join vampire covenants or join up with the Dark Elf "mafia." You could fuck up questlines by killing essential characters, even the main questline. The journal was the "quest guide," but you had to pay attention and look through the journal to figure things out. I could go on and on about Morrowind, but I'll keep to one story. It was a story in several books that you could pick up in the world - I eventually got all the books and learned the whole story. It was about an Imperial who got a trade commission that eventually took him to the mobile capital of the Wood Elves. Oh man! The twists and turns in this mad tale! This story alone could deserve its own game or movie. Not to mention of all the other stories and histories of Tamriel in multiple volumes scattered across Vvardenfell. Bethesda hit it out of the park with Morrowind - a masterpiece and a work of art.
I started playing my self recently and I still am enjoying it but I came across several items which added up to like 100k worth of gold, and that's enough for two game breaking enchantments, and I kinda lack restraint and wish the game either had limitations on enchantments xD, it doesn't even really need that, just reduce the price of some items, A glass set of armor shouldn't be worth hundreds of thousands of gold. Either way, gonna write some stuff down so I can mod the game to try get rid of the game breaking stuff.
Morrowind is truly a magical game that's incredibly captivating. The setting, atmosphere, and music are top tier. My fav elder scrolls by far. I'm playing Daggerfall right now and the immersion is great there too. It's very clear to see that immersion and RPG elements were dumbed down continuously with the elder scrolls.
I've always been bad at directions. So, recently I have been getting very frustrated trying to find quest locations. But I still love this game very much. I suppose I will keep trying...
and to top everything up, the open world itself is interesting and full of rich lore and history. the scale in which morrowind is done is in my opinion perfect for an elder scrolls, not as massive as daggerfall but much more concise than later games. and the combat, though i hated when i first played the game, is actually quite thrilling once you get the grip of it, and expresses very well that its your character's ability and not yours what's being tested. also, the modding community is unbelievably active, and hosts some of the greater mods of our time, like tamriel rebuilt or skyrim home of the nords. if anyone out there isn't sure about trying morrowind, try it.
My first gaming PC was build to play Morrowind. I have always missed the way the world was leveled from the start, and how they game directions rather than a quest marker. Its something i miss in games. The only other game i can think of that did the "same" was Dishonoured - though you need to toggle quest markers off... but if you do. The world open up. You focus on guards dialog etc. To piece things together.
I love this game to bits and it still dtands as my favourite of all time. When i was younger and had the time to dedicate to games i loved this layout of "you'll work it out". But now that gaming is a luxury i dont mind having a little help. Personally a synthesis of modern games and Morrowind would be best navigationally. I hate that markers go directly to the chest you're looking for in Skyrim. Just a marker on my map would be fine. No compass markers or floating arrows. Just a dot point or highlighted area (if its a search quest for instance). Glad to hear someone agree about the Witcher 3. Im playing it now and i couldnt tell you where anything is without a mini map Great little write-up about a stellar game. I love hearing another young person has discovered this classic
I hope i don't spoil this for you, thou i suspect that you will miss it the first time playing the game... I think this is Morrowind in... not a nutshell, but close to it. How do you make the the most powerful item in the game? What is your end goal as your character rises in power? The answer, is to get a Deadric Tower Shield, and enchant it with the soul of Vivec, which can only be captured by Azuras Star. This will allow you to make the most powerful enchantment. Now; A) There are only 1 Daedric Tower Shield in the game, and there are NO QUEST to find it. You have to find it on you own, hidden away in a cave. To find a full daedric armor, you have to explore all of Morrowind. B) Getting Azuras star requires you find Azuras shrine, which is a challenge on its own. The you have to complete a quest, which it is possible to FAIL. C) No one tells you to kill Vivec, or that only Azuras Star will capture his soul. You have to figure this out yourself by realizing that Vivec, a god, probably has the greatest soul, and that Azuras star, the most powerful soulgem, is the only fit. D) You will have to get your Enchant skill to 100, which will almost certainly require a trainer. And... wait?... Where the fuck is there a trainer for Enchant 100??? Here is where Morrowinds truly sets itself apart, by having the balls to do this! There are no quest to find the Master Enchant trainer. You have to do this on your own. The trainer, is located in a dungeon, where there are plenty of enemies that will attack you. That includes the Master Trainer himself, and further more, he is standing in a hard to reach spot. So not only is he in a place that is hostile. He will attack you. And this! This is both ballsy move from Morrowind, but it is also brilliant. Because this turns getting him to train you, into it's own quest. A real life quest, because this is not the game that has presented you with a quest. No, this is one you can make yourself. The reward? Getting to 100 Enchant, which you need to make you broken ass Daedric Tower Shield fueled by the soul of a god. And there are a few ways to complete this "quest", but it boils down to; A) get past the enemies, either by sneaking, or killing. But preferably killing B) get to the Trainers spot without him detecting you. C) cast a either a calm spell, or boost your own personality stat, so much that he will not attack you. D) get the training, and be able to calm him after every training. This means, that not only is each ingredient to make the item a quest on it's own. No, the part which is about getting the training, requires that you master a series of other skills, making it a proper late game content. And it does this without even giving you an entry in your quest log. And i think this is a big part of Morrowind in a nutshell. Because the best bits, the real journey of discovery and truly master this game, is the quests you make yourself. And no game today has the balls to do this. Now I will say this! There is 1 quest in the game that leads you to the dungeon where the trainer is, and it is easy to kill him by accident this way. So I will critique Morrowind for not have this dungeon by a questless area! But the rest about it. I love. And to add on. I think that reading up on where to find him on the wiki is an additional part of your quest. It is no different than when a game tells you to get a book. Here you get the book IRL, and do reasearch. And you absolutely can fail this quest. Several parts you can fail. You can fail getting Azuras Star. You can fail capturing Vivecs soul. You may never find find the Daedric Tower Shield. And that is classical Morrowind, because Morrowinds let you fail quests. Also the once that appear in your journal. And that makes Morrowind so much more its own world. Because Morrowind does not feel like a game, that exist for the player. It feel like a place the player visits. And THAT, is what sets Morrowind apart. How the developers didn't make a game that was for the player, but rather build a world that the player could visit. Morrowind is not a playground. It is a destination.
Sadly with how Bethesda is handling the failure of Starfield I have zero hope for the Elder Scrolls 6. I just hope that some indie studio will take on this task. Some are trying. Tainted Grail: The Fall Of Avalon is one example of an early access title trying to capture that TES magic. With game engines like Unreal Engine 5 and AI voices getting better and better the day we'll have a worthy successor to Morrowind isn't too far off. I'd rather have a smaller well designed game with handcrafted quests and locations with internal consistency, rather than a large procedurally generated map filled with boring and repetitive "content".
Yes, this is how games should be. The constant hand holding, mini maps, and quest markers in modern games are the end result of focus groups targeting the lowest common denominator. Something like Spider-Man, for instance, bored me to tears and I never finished it, because it felt like I was being led by the nose through a series of checkbox items that the developers wanted me to see. I didn't feel like I was on an adventure or in control of my journey, even if those feelings are often an illusion. The illusion wasn't there at all. It was pretty, but boring. Compare that to one of my new favorite games of all time, Outer Wilds. Outer Wilds simply cuts you loose to explore a highly detailed, large, and complicated world, gives you no directions or goals besides some minor background lore, and lets you discover the meaning of the journey along the way. It was one of the most deeply moving experiences I've ever had while gaming.
Have you ever tried Kingdom Come Deliverance? It's normal mode is immersive character wise because you're a peasant with no skills and actually have to learn how to use a sword, bow and even read. Hardcore takes away the compass, hp/stamina bars and even the map marker which makes the world immersive as well. It forces you to learn how to live in the world and you have to navigate using the sun, cities and pathways to know where you're going. You ARE a medieval peasant with your only advantage having an inventory, teleporting horse and the ability to save and reload. Which is also limited to sleeping or an in game item that fairly easy to make or acquire.
I have been playing this game for over twenty years. Every year. Even if it's just a little. I'm playing it right now. It's not perfect, but it's one of the greatest games of all time. I hate Skyrim. I have thousands of hours in Skyrim, and it's not a bad game, but when I see "The Elder Scrolls" in front of the name I feel so unimaginably disappointed, because that isn't the game I was promised.
I've played it on Xbox when I was 12 maybe. I didn't like the fighting since it was a bit lame and buggy. I also found the game very difficult. Still I have played it for months. However the best Elder Scrolls game and to me the best game ever, is and always will be Oblivion.
I love Morrowind, but I disagree with having to find everything yourself. Maybe YOU have all the time in the world to play games, but with my job, kids, wife, and everything else that's going on in my life, I have a limited amount of time to play games. Showing where the quests are located is essential to me, since I usually only have 6 -8 hours of gaming time a week. I want spend my time playing the game. I don't want to immerse myself in the game for hours to find the location of the quest - that for me is a waste of time; show me where the quest is so I can go do it.
I played Morrowind when it came out on PC, it was really something else. No other bethesda game came even close to capturing the feeling of freedom in a completely alien world.
The worst part about it is a lot of modern games give you nothing to tell you where to go next because they expect you to just use the UI that tells you exactly where to go.
Diegetic in-game directions are slowly becoming a dead art. And yeah, they say "just disable hints/markers in the options" doesn't help when you designed your game explicitly with those things enabled, and playing without them is thus miserable.
The worst part of that is everything you do just feels like you're ticking boxes on a grocery list. I couldn't tell you 95% of the quests I've done in Skyrim because it all just felt like busy work, being led by a marker, get the thing, talk to the person, go here, go there. Done. In Morrowind, the quests stick with me even after all these years because they're so involved and you end up immersed in them. You have to pay attention to your surroundings, you have to know the map to some degree, you have to follow written directions. The experience is wholly different from just "Follow marker, fast travel, do the thing"
Exactly my experience with Oblivion. I didn't want to listen to their talk, I just clicked through it and thought I'll read it up in the journal. But you couldn't really get any info out of it.
Morrowind truly feels like a real adventure just like the Gothic series of games. The system of a journal were your character basically notes down what people told him and what to do for a quest is so much better than quest markers, it makes everything more immersive and makes you think and ask NPC's where to find the person you are looking for or actually doing detective work to find more clues to get to your goal, you are truly living in that world and the world is alive. Morrowinds mechanics like acrobatics, athletics, levitation, jump spells etc. combined with item weight that effects your jump height and running speed etc. are so amazing and are the cherry on top, truly something amazingly unique and something I haven't seen in any other games so far except Oblivion in a downgraded verison. The Sandbox feel combined with the mechanics and character development alone are absolutely incredible and never done this well ever again in any other game.
This makes Uncle Crassius happy Dumpling.
Grew up playing this game. I spent hours trying to find specific locations, tracking quests, finding towns and just living in this world. Every quest I finished felt like an achievement.
I played the game when it came out, I was 11y/o and boy was it insanely difficult. Spent dozens of hours aimlessly wandering around, not understanding anything and trying to do things way out of my character ability.
But it remains my favourite Elder Scrolls game and I've sunk thousands of hours into it and played it almost every way you can think of.
Best first/third person solo RPG ever made
Played Morrowind in 2002, and here 22 years later, i have yet to find a better single player RPG.
this game is old enough to drink, drive, smoke, and own a gun and it is still leagues ahead of slopfield
I've been saying it for as long as I've been playing Morrowind:
I don't want Elder Scrolls 6; I want Morrowind 2.
Check out Tamriel Rebuilt!
You would be very disappointed. Modern Bethesda is not the same Bethesda that made this game.
Morrowind is one of my favorite games of all time. I was 12 when it launched, and I still love it just as much today at 34. I generally tell gen Zers that gaming was at its golden era in the late 90s to mid-2000s, and they just scoff at it and retort with " BUT gRaPhIcs"; but I do mean it, in every sense of the way, that gaming today is by large a far cry from how it used to be.
honestly as long as the graphics doesnt affect playing i don’t really care
@@tinnitusintensifies yeah same. Tinnitus sucks btw.
I think their are games released by indie companies mostly that can be better than a lot of older games
Its combat mechanics are products of its era, sure, but everything else is pretty much timeless including Dagoth Ur which is arguably the most intriguing if not the best TES antagonist so far.
And not gonna lie Morrowind's music reminds me of the simpler time. It feels nostalgic.
I think the freedom, true exploration, direction taking, etc was the BEST part of Morrowind. There truly is nothing more immersive than having to navigate your way around the world manually, when playing modded Skyrim I always try to go for compassless/ fast travel-less playthroughs because having that experience in a world as graphically impressive as Skyrim (especially with mods and shaders) is incredible. So much of the game is lost by fast travelling everywhere and lining up your quest marker on your compass and pressing W. I REALLY hope TES6 finds a way to properly implement these features or at least have them be optional, but knowing Bethesda, especially after playing Starfield, I suspect that they'll just g the easiest/ fastest/ most market friendly route. If they dont find a way to implement those kinds of features I will literally wait till mods make it possible before even touching that game. Great video.
You'll actually be surprised how much more of the game you see without a hud, you can toggle it on and off in the witcher 3 on pc.
When i turned the opacity of the hud down to 0 on skyrim it was like looking at the game with fresh eyes for the first time, i did it as a joke to see if i could complete the game without the hud but now i almost never have it on.
I played Morrowind for the first time when I was 9 or 10 years old and it seemed so alien and weird compared to anything I played before. I still play it now, 16 years later with the mods and the game giving you something more and something new every time. The magic system is awesome, very powerful but not gamebreaking.
Morrowind is one of the few games I played until I birned a ring into the disc during my childhood. One thing you will not really experience playing the game now is taking the world map that game with the game and using that to navigate the world, as the drawings on the map with all the ruins was accurate to the game and you could use that to figure out where things were. The game came with a paper fold out map poster of vvardenfel. Oblivion's map was far less detailed if I recall, and there was no need to even have it for skyrim.
honestly if I had the resources I would want to make a game that's like morrowind, something that focuses on emulating its immersive elements
Man, you really should try Gothic 1 and Gothic 2. I think you'd really enjoy those games.
Seems like a promising channel. Like the writing and the tone of your videos. Think I'll stick around. Keep it up
Very Glad to See you've made the wonderful discovery that is Morrowind.
If you're on PC may suggest giving Tamriel Rebuilt a try.
I would also suggest OpenMW.
Also to improve the ui further 2 additional mods: OpenHUD and MorroUI.
Still the greatest open world RPG imho. Even Bethesda’s own Oblivion & Skyrim can’t match its RP & progression complexity. I understand a lot of newer players players might be turned off by the dice-roll-based combat/stealth & fatigue systems but the freedom in spell crafting + alchemy & enchanting is unmatched. & the world itself & it’s lore is chef’s kiss, my dear Nerevar 😙👌
I don't need a 7 hour retrospective, because there are a lot of hours long reviews for this game already, but if its done well enough, you've got a new viewer in me.
Young players must be told that in Morrowind and Oblivion Agility is what makes you hit things. Strength adds to the damage only. In D&D games yes, Strength adds to your melee "to hit ratio".
Once that is understood another great tip is that Speed is what allows you to flee from combat. Not Agility.
Sounds silly but must be said. Trust me.
Once you play Morrowind you can't go back... Those of us who played this in 2001 when it came out... At the time this was breathtaking graphically, but more importantly its just a great game. The world feels so alien, but it also feels grounded, as if it could be a real place. The game doesn't exposition dump all over you like the diarrhea that is modern gaming, if you want to know what's going on in Morrowind you have to talk to people and you know the most brilliant part of Morrowind... When you ask 1 different people you get 10 different answers... NPC's lie, or maybe they tell partial truths, or maybe they tell you something from a certain point of view, in many cases there is no way to be sure who is lying and who is telling the truth, the world isn't black and white, you have to look at the situation and judge for yourself, kind of like the real world... Morrowind doesn't give you a quest marker, it says, go to Vivec and it leave you to figure out how to get there, on your own, and maybe when you figure out the location of the cave your looking for, where this one guys magic ring is located you still have to search the cave to find this ring, maybe it's on an enemy, maybe it's in a drawer or chest, maybe it's under his bed, YOU HAVE TO FIND IT, not search for the quest marker... Morrowind doesn't treat you like a brain damaged 3 year old, it expects you to figure things out for yourself. This was Bethesda's magnum opus, their crowning glory and they have never equaled it, and neither has anyone else. Is it perfect? No of course not, but when you compare it to Skyrim (which I do love...) you can't help but see just how bad Skyrim really is... It is the dumbed down ADHD 3-year-old's version of Morrowind. Morrowind for dummies, I hate the "streamlining" and removal of complexity to appeal to the ADHD crowd.
I bought Morrowind in 2005 for only $10, it was on the shovelware/bargain shelf. Even 3 years after its release it wasn't the iconic game it is now. People think Oblivion made Bethesda but it was Morrowind. I haven't been immersed in a game since Morrowind. I felt like I was living in that world and I eagerly await when the Skywind project will be done. Morrowind is one of the best RPGs and is Bethesda's best game, because the Elder Scrolls games have only gone downhill with less content and freedom since then.
I only have single complaint aboit Morrowind's minimap which the 'Find' spells which uses the minimap to highlight things.
But also I was only having that problem because I was looking for an item I read about in a in-game book that lead me to a few other great magic items
Ah, unlike Skyrim, Morrowind was an unlevelled world. You could go where ever you liked, whenever you liked. But if you went to the wrong place at the wrong time at too low a level, you could come up against a Daedric Prince, an Ascended Twilight or a Golden Saint. Because you were choosing to step on THEIR lawn, and that's where they live, and that's how they do.
And when you died, you had to load a save yourself! And there were no essential characters, so you could kill anyone and every one. But if you killed someone essential to completing the main quest, you'd get a message something like:
_"With this character's death the thread of prophecy has been severed. Restore a saved game to repair the weave of fate, or wander forever in the broken world you have created."_
Vanilla Morrowind is stupendous enough, but (as always) even better with mods.
{:o:O:}
I totally agree with your opinion on minimaps and them being bad for immersion. I played a lot of Ark Survival Evolved, and even though it has several issues, the fact that you need to craft a compass, a GPS that give's you coordinates, and look at a paper map is great
I am an elder millennial, so this came out when I was 12, and I loved the everloving fuck out of it. I didn't really master it though, I mostly just wandered around doing sidequests and exploring, reading books and lore. I genuinely love Morrowind's world, it's so immersive and weird and different (at least it was back then) so I keep coming back to it.
“Elder Millennial” sounds like some kind of elite JRPG mob. One of those “was a boss midway through disc 2 but can be farmed in the overworld during the endgame” type deals. As a fellow Elder Millennial, this pleases me.
Glad you are enjoying this awesome game! I don't play Skyrim, FO3 or FO4 anymore, never played FO76 or Midfield. Morrowind is where it's at. I've been playing it since I was 11 when it came out. Also, try Tamriel Rebuilt mod and Open MW (even if you don't particularly like mods, it's worth it). Open MW improves frame rate and other performance things with the engine, and the Tamriel Rebuilt mod adds most of the Morrowind mainland (with the rest to come in the future, they had another expansion at the end of 2023) with hundreds of hours of quests and exploration.
You can also play Project Tamriel wich is made by mostly the same guys behind TR. Currently you can go to Reach in Skyrim Home of the Nords, and island of Stirk in Cyrodiil. This year they will be releasing Anvil expansion with most of the Gold Coast, and after that they are planning to release Markarth. They are also developiong a Hammerfel and High Rock mods but those are early in development. Cheers!
Amen. Just the background music triggers me. I'm older. After Oblivion came out, my RPG friends agreed we'd prefer they just updated Morrowind. After Skyrim came out, we just wanted them to make a real open world. (The writing was also better because Mike Kirkbride, and the exotic locale and... I digress).
For instance: explain ALMSIVI, Amaranth (not the streamer, but rather the state of being where you become THE dreamer and create your own universe), CHIM, dragon breaks, sload or dreugh kalpas, the disappearance of the dwemer, the psijic endeavor... and that's if you assume the Kajiit have their own origin story wrong.
IMHO, Never knock a game till you actually play it yourself. I've said so many bad things about games I never even played only to play them, and STILL play them to this day. I've also never played Morrowwind even though it's in my Steam Library (really need to sit down and play it fully). This era of games doesn't look great but it makes up for in awesome immersion and gameplay. Looking at you Jedi Knight: Dark Forces, 2, and Mysteries of the Sith.
They truly don't make them like they used to. Not being as immersive is the price games have paid to become more accessible, sadly, which is why most older games that don't have HUD taking up 50%(and sometimes even more) of the screen space tend to feel more immersive.
And disabling hud in most modern games doesn't help either, because, well, they're pretty much designed in a way where player has to use the map/minimap a lot.
I played Morrowind on XBox - the game came with a thick booklet and a large map - I should probably have the map framed and hang it on my wall. The only "flaws" I was aware of were the glitches the disc generated on the XBox - despite this, Morrowind remains an absolute masterpiece. The "clunky" combat and magic followed the rules of tabletop fantasy games which meant you were not always successful in landing a hit or casting a spell.
You could become a vampire in Morrowind and join vampire covenants or join up with the Dark Elf "mafia." You could fuck up questlines by killing essential characters, even the main questline. The journal was the "quest guide," but you had to pay attention and look through the journal to figure things out. I could go on and on about Morrowind, but I'll keep to one story.
It was a story in several books that you could pick up in the world - I eventually got all the books and learned the whole story. It was about an Imperial who got a trade commission that eventually took him to the mobile capital of the Wood Elves. Oh man! The twists and turns in this mad tale! This story alone could deserve its own game or movie. Not to mention of all the other stories and histories of Tamriel in multiple volumes scattered across Vvardenfell.
Bethesda hit it out of the park with Morrowind - a masterpiece and a work of art.
I started playing my self recently and I still am enjoying it but I came across several items which added up to like 100k worth of gold, and that's enough for two game breaking enchantments, and I kinda lack restraint and wish the game either had limitations on enchantments xD, it doesn't even really need that, just reduce the price of some items, A glass set of armor shouldn't be worth hundreds of thousands of gold. Either way, gonna write some stuff down so I can mod the game to try get rid of the game breaking stuff.
Morrowind is truly a magical game that's incredibly captivating. The setting, atmosphere, and music are top tier. My fav elder scrolls by far. I'm playing Daggerfall right now and the immersion is great there too. It's very clear to see that immersion and RPG elements were dumbed down continuously with the elder scrolls.
I've always been bad at directions. So, recently I have been getting very frustrated trying to find quest locations. But I still love this game very much. I suppose I will keep trying...
This game was sooooo good
Thanks for giving me a reason to reinstall Morrowind again. Just kidding. I keep it installed.
and to top everything up, the open world itself is interesting and full of rich lore and history. the scale in which morrowind is done is in my opinion perfect for an elder scrolls, not as massive as daggerfall but much more concise than later games. and the combat, though i hated when i first played the game, is actually quite thrilling once you get the grip of it, and expresses very well that its your character's ability and not yours what's being tested. also, the modding community is unbelievably active, and hosts some of the greater mods of our time, like tamriel rebuilt or skyrim home of the nords. if anyone out there isn't sure about trying morrowind, try it.
My first gaming PC was build to play Morrowind.
I have always missed the way the world was leveled from the start, and how they game directions rather than a quest marker.
Its something i miss in games. The only other game i can think of that did the "same" was Dishonoured - though you need to toggle quest markers off... but if you do. The world open up. You focus on guards dialog etc. To piece things together.
I love this game to bits and it still dtands as my favourite of all time. When i was younger and had the time to dedicate to games i loved this layout of "you'll work it out". But now that gaming is a luxury i dont mind having a little help. Personally a synthesis of modern games and Morrowind would be best navigationally. I hate that markers go directly to the chest you're looking for in Skyrim. Just a marker on my map would be fine. No compass markers or floating arrows. Just a dot point or highlighted area (if its a search quest for instance). Glad to hear someone agree about the Witcher 3. Im playing it now and i couldnt tell you where anything is without a mini map
Great little write-up about a stellar game. I love hearing another young person has discovered this classic
I hope i don't spoil this for you, thou i suspect that you will miss it the first time playing the game...
I think this is Morrowind in... not a nutshell, but close to it.
How do you make the the most powerful item in the game? What is your end goal as your character rises in power?
The answer, is to get a Deadric Tower Shield, and enchant it with the soul of Vivec, which can only be captured by Azuras Star. This will allow you to make the most powerful enchantment.
Now;
A) There are only 1 Daedric Tower Shield in the game, and there are NO QUEST to find it. You have to find it on you own, hidden away in a cave. To find a full daedric armor, you have to explore all of Morrowind.
B) Getting Azuras star requires you find Azuras shrine, which is a challenge on its own. The you have to complete a quest, which it is possible to FAIL.
C) No one tells you to kill Vivec, or that only Azuras Star will capture his soul. You have to figure this out yourself by realizing that Vivec, a god, probably has the greatest soul, and that Azuras star, the most powerful soulgem, is the only fit.
D) You will have to get your Enchant skill to 100, which will almost certainly require a trainer. And... wait?... Where the fuck is there a trainer for Enchant 100???
Here is where Morrowinds truly sets itself apart, by having the balls to do this!
There are no quest to find the Master Enchant trainer. You have to do this on your own.
The trainer, is located in a dungeon, where there are plenty of enemies that will attack you. That includes the Master Trainer himself, and further more, he is standing in a hard to reach spot. So not only is he in a place that is hostile. He will attack you.
And this! This is both ballsy move from Morrowind, but it is also brilliant. Because this turns getting him to train you, into it's own quest. A real life quest, because this is not the game that has presented you with a quest. No, this is one you can make yourself. The reward? Getting to 100 Enchant, which you need to make you broken ass Daedric Tower Shield fueled by the soul of a god.
And there are a few ways to complete this "quest", but it boils down to;
A) get past the enemies, either by sneaking, or killing. But preferably killing
B) get to the Trainers spot without him detecting you.
C) cast a either a calm spell, or boost your own personality stat, so much that he will not attack you.
D) get the training, and be able to calm him after every training.
This means, that not only is each ingredient to make the item a quest on it's own. No, the part which is about getting the training, requires that you master a series of other skills, making it a proper late game content. And it does this without even giving you an entry in your quest log.
And i think this is a big part of Morrowind in a nutshell. Because the best bits, the real journey of discovery and truly master this game, is the quests you make yourself. And no game today has the balls to do this.
Now I will say this! There is 1 quest in the game that leads you to the dungeon where the trainer is, and it is easy to kill him by accident this way. So I will critique Morrowind for not have this dungeon by a questless area!
But the rest about it. I love.
And to add on. I think that reading up on where to find him on the wiki is an additional part of your quest. It is no different than when a game tells you to get a book. Here you get the book IRL, and do reasearch.
And you absolutely can fail this quest. Several parts you can fail. You can fail getting Azuras Star. You can fail capturing Vivecs soul. You may never find find the Daedric Tower Shield. And that is classical Morrowind, because Morrowinds let you fail quests. Also the once that appear in your journal.
And that makes Morrowind so much more its own world. Because Morrowind does not feel like a game, that exist for the player. It feel like a place the player visits. And THAT, is what sets Morrowind apart. How the developers didn't make a game that was for the player, but rather build a world that the player could visit. Morrowind is not a playground. It is a destination.
Sadly with how Bethesda is handling the failure of Starfield I have zero hope for the Elder Scrolls 6.
I just hope that some indie studio will take on this task. Some are trying. Tainted Grail: The Fall Of Avalon is one example of an early access title trying to capture that TES magic. With game engines like Unreal Engine 5 and AI voices getting better and better the day we'll have a worthy successor to Morrowind isn't too far off.
I'd rather have a smaller well designed game with handcrafted quests and locations with internal consistency, rather than a large procedurally generated map filled with boring and repetitive "content".
I’ve always said that about mini maps I hate staring at it instead of the world. Witcher looked great but I played the game on a minimap…
Yes, this is how games should be. The constant hand holding, mini maps, and quest markers in modern games are the end result of focus groups targeting the lowest common denominator. Something like Spider-Man, for instance, bored me to tears and I never finished it, because it felt like I was being led by the nose through a series of checkbox items that the developers wanted me to see. I didn't feel like I was on an adventure or in control of my journey, even if those feelings are often an illusion. The illusion wasn't there at all. It was pretty, but boring.
Compare that to one of my new favorite games of all time, Outer Wilds. Outer Wilds simply cuts you loose to explore a highly detailed, large, and complicated world, gives you no directions or goals besides some minor background lore, and lets you discover the meaning of the journey along the way. It was one of the most deeply moving experiences I've ever had while gaming.
Have you ever tried Kingdom Come Deliverance? It's normal mode is immersive character wise because you're a peasant with no skills and actually have to learn how to use a sword, bow and even read. Hardcore takes away the compass, hp/stamina bars and even the map marker which makes the world immersive as well. It forces you to learn how to live in the world and you have to navigate using the sun, cities and pathways to know where you're going. You ARE a medieval peasant with your only advantage having an inventory, teleporting horse and the ability to save and reload. Which is also limited to sleeping or an in game item that fairly easy to make or acquire.
Ah, you need to get into Starfield. You simply won’t believe how immersive it is.
I have been playing this game for over twenty years. Every year. Even if it's just a little. I'm playing it right now. It's not perfect, but it's one of the greatest games of all time. I hate Skyrim. I have thousands of hours in Skyrim, and it's not a bad game, but when I see "The Elder Scrolls" in front of the name I feel so unimaginably disappointed, because that isn't the game I was promised.
Great Video !
Then check out outward you will love it
I've played it on Xbox when I was 12 maybe. I didn't like the fighting since it was a bit lame and buggy. I also found the game very difficult. Still I have played it for months. However the best Elder Scrolls game and to me the best game ever, is and always will be Oblivion.
Subbed! ready for the full review!
quest markers would ruin the game imo
40 sec in and you have my sub hehe
I love Morrowind, but I disagree with having to find everything yourself. Maybe YOU have all the time in the world to play games, but with my job, kids, wife, and everything else that's going on in my life, I have a limited amount of time to play games. Showing where the quests are located is essential to me, since I usually only have 6 -8 hours of gaming time a week. I want spend my time playing the game. I don't want to immerse myself in the game for hours to find the location of the quest - that for me is a waste of time; show me where the quest is so I can go do it.
I played Morrowind when it came out on PC, it was really something else.
No other bethesda game came even close to capturing the feeling of freedom in a completely alien world.