25 replies to this topic

[Yovaneth]

After about twenty hours I totally lost interest in the game. The graphics are wonderful - add Morrowind Optimiser and they're even better - but the utter lack of population and the moronic, zombie-like behaviour of the rest coupled with everyone of a given race/class/gender wearing the same face blew it out of the water for me. I could suspend disbelief when out in the countryside but as soon as I hit a town or village, RealWorld just came crashing in around me. I added a couple of population modules but they just served to emphasise the remaining spaces.

I also found the journal interface very clumsy to use. If you didn't know exactly what you were looking for, you could spend too much time clicking on the Alphabet page trying to identify a quest or information. A Baldur's Gate style journal with Quest/Info/User tags each leading to a TOC would have been much better and much more intuitive.

Finally (for now? !) I thought the Take Damage system badly implemented. I could take down three or four cliff racers/kagouti/netch/whatever at long range with a bow (Marksman), go to the nearest armourer and be told my armour needed repairing. Hold on - I haven't been touched!

Regretfully, this is one GOTY that will be on eBay in a couple of days. It cost me £30 off the shelf but sometimes you have to pay the money to find the candy has a sour centre.

-Y-

[Tom]

When the game fails, turn to the mods xD There are any number of mods around which address some of the problems you mentioned - the Better Heads one is a good example. I think the aim of the mod was to make no two people have the same head, and they suceeded from what I could see. The lack of actual characterisation of even the main NPCs was something I didnt like about the game, but this is much better in the expansions (did you check out Solstheim and Mournhold?)
Yes, the journal system is clumsy and Bethesda acknowlege this, and made some effort to fix it (you shouldve seen it pre-tribunal!) but I found myself hardly using it. There will be a much improved one in TES4
As for the take damage system, are you sure this isnt a bug? It doesnt happen to me.
Your opinion is fair enough, and after 20 hours I got slightly bored with the game. Then I started again and followed the story closely and it was great - it has a really good story. By the time I had completed the story I was about level 45, at which point I went off and did Solstheim and Mournhold, both of which have some very interesting quirks. Then I started trying out various gameplay-altering mods, I made my character a vampire etc - what Im trying to say is that you should give the game a second chance, try out some mods and even play around with the CS.
It up to you of course, and I realise the game isnt for everyone, but it'd be your loss in my opinion

Oh and Quiet Lurker, why not just change your name to IdontlikeNWN, and save yourself the trouble of typing it out so often

Edited by Tom, 07 August 2005 - 09:55 PM.

[Yovaneth]

Yes, the similar looking faces are a turnoff, but better than the faceless NPCs in other RPGs or the cardboard cutouts like Neverwinter Nights, is it not? I have yet to find an RPG in which most of the NPCs don't shamble around aimlessly. 

The Better Heads mod should address to your "all look same" complaint though. 

I have both Better Heads and Better Bodies installed - a great improvement but I'm still sure that the Imperial Forces have gotten hold of Jon Irenicus' cloning bottles from somewhere.

Ah, such is the difference between a linear and free-exploration world [......] It's quite unfortunate that they got rid Daggerfall's quick travel map for Morrowind.

Or a BG2 style one. I wouldn't have objected to having to explore all routes if once I'd connected Point A to Point B, I could have had a quick-travel option afterwards. Then I guess that shoots out part of the raision d'etre of ships, silt-striders and mages.

Realism is another thing mentioned in the Dragon Age Forum, you just can't trust your equipment anymore to hold out indefinitely like in Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale or Neverwinter Nights (where you can beat off a horde of fire elementals with a wooden staff).

If it was implemented better, yes. From someone who has removed quite enough skin from his wrist with an English Longbow in the past, I think I can state that the fletching and string are not going to damage armour. It's also a very painful reminder to put the bracer back on too..... trust me.

The lack of actual characterisation of even the main NPCs was something I didnt like about the game, but this is much better in the expansions (did you check out Solstheim and Mournhold?)

I didn't get past Vivec I'd gotten to level 12 and picked up two addon companions (Laura Craft and a wolf), lost the wolf and buried that damn silly naked barbarian in a rockfall somewhere.

it has a really good story

I have no complaints about the story; it's simply that I'm finding it very difficult to suspend RealLife while playing it, for the reasons stated.

-Y-

[Rastor]

I bet I am the only person that does not mind all the long walks.

Yes, the journal system is clumsy and Bethesda acknowlege this, and made some effort to fix it (you shouldve seen it pre-tribunal!) but I found myself hardly using it.

I've only seen the one in V1.61.x and had no problems at all with it.

[oralpain]

I'm rather disaponted that the walks are not longer. I like to explore and I find the scale to be far too compacted. Daggerfall, while it had less diversity/uniqureness had literally a few hundred times the land mass.

I see no need for a quick travel. Early on you need to run alot to get athletics up, and once its up you can run across the entire game world in a few minutes. Only took me 5 minutes to run from castle krystaag (sp?) to vivec (with a water walking spell). If thats too much time, there are silt striders, boats, and mages guilds all over.

I also find morrowind hard to get into. I have a single save game that I have played for about 400 hours over 3 years (trying to do everything in the main game and all the expansions and i'm not far fromt hat goal) and I'd like to make a new game, but I find combat less than great in morrowind and the time it takes to build up a good runnign speed is even worse.

I also have several annoying journal bugs. I'm not using any mods but some new heads and better bodies and I have the game of the year edition wich comes with the newest patches. Actually the journal itself sucks. I have 600 pages of journal entries in my main save and its not really easy to find the right stuff even with the higlighted key words. Text is way too big.

My only other real complaint is the fact that the weights of many of the items are absurd. I was swinging an 81 pound sword and wearing 300 pounds of armor (and I still floated..).

[Tom]

I see no need for a quick travel. Early on you need to run alot to get athletics up, and once its up you can run across the entire game world in a few minutes. Only took me 5 minutes to run from castle krystaag (sp?) to vivec (with a water walking spell). If thats too much time, there are silt striders, boats, and mages guilds all over.

How on earth did you manage that? Athletics doesnt even determine how fast you run, speed does, and even with 100 speed it takes about 5-10 minutes just to run from Castle Karstaag to Fort Frostmoth, let alone to Vivec.

[oralpain]

Athletics and speed determine running (hold down shift to run if you haven't noticed) speed. Walking is speed only. Also, this characters speed is 140 or some thing.

I may have been using some potions, I don't remember. I can't check right now, sold my computer and still waiting for parts on my new one.

I think this is my latest save game. If not, it's close. Try it. You might have to cast recall and get some stuff I left behind in the balmora mages guild, if the speed is only 100 or 105. Shoulda became a quarra vampire for the athletics/speed boost...

http://home.rocheste...ORCALAV0020.ess

It should work fine with just the latest patch, only mods I had where faces and bodies, nothign the affected game play.

You can allso see my ultimate folly. I wasted vivec's soul on glass tower sheild on the floor. It fortifies enchant on other... ment to hit self, but didn't notice till too late. Thats ok though I still have Almalexia's soul in Azura's Star.

Regardless you should beable to clearly see that althetics has a very big impact on running speed.

Edited by oralpain, 21 August 2005 - 06:26 AM.

[Tom]

Yes my apologies, it would seem it does. I guess I've always raised my athletics with my speed, so I never noticed. Either way, I conducted some experiments, with your 140 speed/100 athletics it took me 2 minutes 30 to run from the Moesring Mountains to Fort Frostmoth, jumping the whole way (this is faster than running.) From Castle Karstaag it wouldve been another 20-30 seconds, so I'll say 3 minutes. I find it hard to believe that you made it from there to Vivec in 2 minutes, but perhaps with the right items, spells etc it would be possible, I dont know. Either way its besides the point, the fact of the matter is that for the majority of the game you dont move that fast (as you said), and you cant always travel in a dead straight line like I did from Moesring to Frostmoth, and when youre crawling along with 20 athletics and 30 speed I'm sure even you must've at some point wished you could've just skipped the journey I do agree with you though, one of the things which I liked most about Morrowind was the exploration, and I did find it to be too compacted in some ways.

Edited by Tom, 22 August 2005 - 01:50 PM.

[oralpain]

Yeah things are rough early on. The game has a seriously screwed up balance/progression.

Most games have a nice curve where it get gradually harder to advance and getting to a useabel but still challanging skill/level is reasonbly easy. As I played morrowind in became obvious that the more powerful my character got, the faster I could get even more powerful.

Took me a few days of playing to go from level 1 to 10. Took me 6 hours to go from level 30 to level 40.

The speed problem, is the very reason Ihave been hesitant to start from the beginning yet again. That character has had speed/athletics above 90 for 90% of the game.

When I start new games I often find myself running laps around syda neen to boost my athletics. It's not exactly fun.

One other thing about exploration: Though there is more variety in dungeons in morrowind, even the largest of them are very small comapaired to some of the ones in daggerfall. I remember playing for a week in daggerfall to get through one dungeon, then find my way out again. Some daggerfall dungerous also had things like elevators, teleporting door ways, vast open halls, and often better secrets.

[Archmage Silver]

Well, heck yes, I'm bored with Morrowind... it's nice with the first play time, but it wears thin after the 18th or so new start. I've been playing around with mods to get some new feeling but it isn't that interesting still. That's why I'm eagerly waiting for Oblivion.

[Ze German]

vell as a hardcore nerd i am afraid i have to say zat i vill probably be playing zis game until oblivion is released. i just love it. of course only vit ze multitudes of mods. one of my favorite games, ja. i just love to be able to beat a complex rpg game vitout talking once. vhich is quite possible in morrovind. ze freedom ze player has in zis game is only equalled in ze fallout series and of course in NWN... just kidding NWN is hack n slash zat doesn't deserve to be called rpg

Edited by Ze German, 01 December 2005 - 09:00 AM.

[Darnoc]

On the German Gothic forums there is a heavy discussion since years, which game is better: Gothic 2 or Morrowind. And everyone, I really mean everyone, brings forth the following arguments against Morrowind and in favor of Gothic:

- MW world is dead, Gothic world is alive (you can not only interact with your world to a great deal in Gothic, the world itself changes; characters do things, animals do things, for example hunt, eat, sleep etc.; characters and animals react to their surroundings; if, for example, you draw your weapon in a public place, this will certainly bring forth a reaction by the population)

- Characters in MW are unreal, they have no life; in Gothic they do (in Gothic all characters, even animals, have a daily routine, which they follow; for humans this could be: stand up, eat breakfast, wash face, go to work, work, chat sometimes, drink a beer and eat dinner, work on, eat supper, go back to house, sit around a little, drink beer, chat, play music, smoke joints, go to bed)

- Voice acting and gestures in Gothic improves the quality of the characters compared to MW (in Gothic all characters have a voice and gestures)

And that is the reason why they think Morrowind is boring and the Gothic-Series is interesting. I do not agree fully with them, since I also think the world of Morrowind has more complexity in it (for example books) and is a lot huger, so there is more to explore and you also have a lot more freedom. But real Gothic freaks always answer to this: Quality comes before quantity. Perhaps they're right.

So, if you are bored by Morrowind, I recommend the Gothic-Series as an alternative. Soon Gothic 3 will appear on the market - somewhen in 2006, date is not clear.

[Jazhara7]

Not yet, no. And so far I have only completed the Morrowind main quest (in less than a month, by the way. 1 1/2 at most. The friend who recommended the game to me was completely baffled, as he has been sitting at the game for a while now, and still hasn't finished it yet.), and have yet to tackle the other main quests. For now I try finishing all guild quests.

Oh, and with different mods and especially the LGNPC project, it's a lot more fun.



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[Bookwyrme]

Yup.

I don't remember how far I got into the game, I do remember getting tired of "dialog" choices that ran "persuade," "threaten," or "bribe" rather than actually having something to say.

And I got tired of getting lost. I do enough of that in the real world, where the scenery is better.

[Tempest]

I enjoyed Morrowind, but it wasn't really my preferred type of game. Wonderful to mess around in, the spellmaker was lots of fun to play with, beautiful graphics, good gameplay for some things, but just doesn't quite click with me. My thief-type character had a ton of fun with the Thieves' Guild, and I generally had an overall positive experience-the Bloodmoon was a fun expansion, though I didn't think highly of Tribunal. Enjoyable, but ultimately, I ended up uninstalling it to make room for NWN2. I'd love to take a crack at Oblivion as well, but it would probably make my computer implode.

Worth playing, but not for everyone.

[Jazhara7]

I enjoyed Morrowind, but it wasn't really my preferred type of game. Wonderful to mess around in, the spellmaker was lots of fun to play with, beautiful graphics, good gameplay for some things, but just doesn't quite click with me. My thief-type character had a ton of fun with the Thieves' Guild, and I generally had an overall positive experience-the Bloodmoon was a fun expansion, though I didn't think highly of Tribunal. Enjoyable, but ultimately, I ended up uninstalling it to make room for NWN2. I'd love to take a crack at Oblivion as well, but it would probably make my computer implode.

Worth playing, but not for everyone.

Have you heard of the Oldblivion modification? As far as I know, it allows people with older and slower computers to run the game with lower graphics and configurations that allow slower computers to run it. As long as you don't mind that, you could probably play it that way.


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Edited by Jazhara7, 06 May 2007 - 11:54 AM.